← ADHD Experts Podcast
ADHD Experts Podcast
581- Roundtable: The Hidden Complexities of Men with ADHD
01:29:12
Five experts — Brendan Mahan, M.Ed., Shane Thrapp, Jesse J. Anderson, Kyrus Keenan “Ky” Westcott, and Marc Almodóvar — discuss ADHD in men, including struggles around expressing emotions, harboring self-doubt, contending with established...
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- [00:00]
Dr. India Woods
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- [01:10]
Carol Fleck
Welcome to the Attention Deficit Disorder Expert Podcast series by Attitude Magazine. I'm Carol Fleck and on behalf of the Attitude team, I'm delighted to bring you a very special event today in honor of ADHD Awareness Month. Today I'm joined by a panel of men who will share their personal journeys with adhd, a conversation that sets the stage for Attitude Magazine's first ever men's issue coming out next summer. Attitude Magazine published its first ever women's issue this summer and I have some very exciting news to report. Last night in New York City, Attitude Magazine won the industry's prestigious Eddie Award winning for our special Women's issue. We're honored to be recognized for our hard work and our commitment to improving the lives of people with adhd. Please support our work by subscribing to Attitude Magazine today. Sign up for yourself or to share with a teacher or a loved one who could benefit from greater ADHD understanding. Now onto today's topic. What do we know about men's experiences living with adhd? Research and treatment have long focused on boys, but have we truly listened to the voices of men to how they mask their symptoms for fear of failure, how they suppress emotions to avoid seeming weak, how Shame creeps in when they lose control or they're forgetful. How they question their worth when they fall short of expectations. We have a distinguished panel today to discuss these sensitive issues. You might recognize a few of these men. They have their own podcasts about navigating life with adhd. My co host today is Brendan Mahan. Many of you may know him as the host of the ADHD Essentials podcast. He is the author of the forthcoming book Overcoming the Wall of Awful, due out in the fall of 2026. Our panelists are Shane Thrapp. He is an executive function and parenting coach and founder of Creating Order from Chaos Consulting. Shane leads the largest ADHD parent support group on Facebook and is the Operations director for the nonprofit Men's ADHD Support Group. Jessie J. Anderson is a creator, writer, speaker and author of Extra, the Quick Start guide to adult ADHD. His YouTube channel provides educational content about ADHD. He is a speaker at many ADHD related events. Kyris Keenan Westcott is the creator and host of the Vibe with Kai, a digital platform reaching people across TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and beyond. Kai blends humor, honesty and personal storytelling to make conversations about ADHD anxiety and being an introvert approachable. He is the author of multiple ADHD digital guidebooks. Mark Almodovar is a social media influencer and a life coach. Mark created the Men's ADHD Support Group on Facebook in 2019 to give men a safe space where they could communicate openly. In today's roundtable, we'll be talking about emotional dysregulation, masking productivity, sex and distraction, shame and fatherhood. By elevating these issues during ADHD Awareness Month, Attitude seeks to improve understanding and support for all people living with adhd. We will leave some time at the end of our discussion for questions from our live audience. I'd like to start by asking each panelist this question. What are the top one or two things that people need to know about men living with adhd? And Mark, if you could start us off, that'd be great.
- [05:05]
Mark Almodovar
Yeah. First of all, thank you so much for having me. This is really cool because when I was diagnosed with ADHD years ago, as I was waiting the diagno for the for the diagnosis and the results of all the testing on the desk, I saw a copy of Attitude magazine and read through it and was like, whoa, that sounds like me. And what a full circle moment, right? So you know, as far as what men with ADHD need, that was the question, right? What do men with ADHD need?
- [05:33]
Carol Fleck
What do they need. Or what do you want us to know about men living with adhd?
- [05:38]
Mark Almodovar
Yeah, so I think that when it comes to the boys and men with adhd, as you mentioned earlier, we are the ones that have been highly diagnosed, right? We are the ones that have had quite a lot of studies done on us. When people think of adhd, they often think of a hyperactive boy. And one of the things that I found when I had started our community years ago is that although we are the ones that are highly diagnosed, there wasn't really, like any support groups or any resources out there for men with adhd. And we often weren't doing much about it because of an ongoing stigma that we are trying to battle to this day, where we look at doing something like getting therapy as something that makes us a little bit weaker or having to take a medication to be a little bit more productive. Right. We think that those things make us less of a man, and it's just not true. So when it talks, when we talk about what we need as men, I think that we need constant education, like, really just letting us men know that getting support for your ADHD is not only not a bad thing, but a really, really good thing that will only support you and platforming other men's mental health advocates to share their journeys and just really let the world know that we're not alone.
- [07:00]
Carol Fleck
How about you, Shane?
- [07:02]
Shane Thrapp
What people need to know is, like, for a long time, and even to this day, men are taught from an early age to hide our struggles. Right? We are supposed to be the stoic, you know, the leaders, the. The protectors, the providers. And what happens is when we get older and we start dealing with a lot of these different issues that whenever people are like, well, you know, this doesn't look like you're trying anymore, right? What's actually happening isn't that we're not trying, it's just that we're burning out in silence because we don't know how to open up about it. And there really isn't a lot of safe spaces for men to be able to talk about things like erectile dysfunction, hypersexuality or asexuality.
- [07:48]
Mark Almodovar
Right?
- [07:48]
Shane Thrapp
We're not supposed to be asexual or men. We're supposed to be feral, you know, you know, when we talk about infidelity and we're trying to explain the struggles that we have with that, and instead of the conversation turning constructive, it often is the men being villainized for their infidelity. And, you know, whenever we are, like, seeking help for These things we get dismissed and that I think another thing that people need to understand that this is a large reason why men with ADHD have 34% more likelihood to deal with suicidal ideation is that isolation where we don't feel supported and don't feel like we can talk about these things. And that isolation is really deadly. And it's why we really need to be having conversations like this, why we really need to be developing the understanding and why we need to be providing a space for men to talk about the struggles that they have without feeling the guilt and shame that comes around from not just women, but men, other men in our spaces that ridicule and, you know, tear down other men who are trying to get support and trying to get help.
- [09:07]
Carol Fleck
Jesse, how about you?
- [09:10]
Jesse J. Anderson
Yeah, a lot of what Mark and Shane had mentioned, just the societal expectations because, yeah, we always hear that the hyperactive boy is the one that gets diagnosed. And I wasn't super hyperactive, but I was probably hyperactive enough that someone should have said, hey, maybe this kid has ADHD and no one did. And so even that scenario isn't the, you know, doesn't mean you're going to get diagnosed. But yeah, the really big thing, I think as men with adhd, when you, you know, grow up and you kind of enter maybe the corporate world or whatever, there's all of these societal expectations that really strongly just conflict with a lot of the symptoms. The experience of living with adhd, for example, the emotional aspect, having the emotional dysregulation that is not accepted for a man in society to have emotional responses to things. And there's a lot of these just sort of expectations, which makes it really difficult. I remember I've had several bosses that basically told me, something's weird about you and I don't know how to manage you, I don't know how to deal with you. And I don't know what the problem is because I've never had any problem managing anybody else. And it's really hard to hear when you're like, well, I don't know what to tell you, I'm trying to do the best I can. But the reality is like, what was happening were these things with adhd, my time management, my memory difficulties, like with prospective memory and the emotional stuff, all of that was adding up, or the difficulties with productivity and motivation, all of these really add up to where my daily lived experience of trying to be having the good intentions isn't lining up with what society expects me as a man to have, which makes it which makes it really difficult, especially before diagnosis, when you have literally no idea. You're just like, I know there's this mark, and everyone is expecting me to fit that or that everyone's got this rulebook of the way I should act. And I don't know what that book is. I don't know what those rules are. All I know is that people keep telling me I'm not enough, that I'm not hitting that mark. Yeah.
- [11:14]
Carol Fleck
You were older when you were diagnosed.
- [11:17]
Jesse J. Anderson
Yeah, I was 36 when I got diagnosed.
- [11:20]
Carol Fleck
Wow. Kai, what do you say? Kai?
- [11:25]
Kyris Keenan Westcott
I have nothing to add. Thank you for this time, though. I'm kidding. No, I appreciate. I appreciate you letting me be a part of this. Honestly, it's obviously a topic that hits very close to home for me. I wasn't diagnosed until I was 35, so I'm just like Jesse, you know, I'm a late diagnosis. And it truly did flip my world upside down because for years, I thought that I was just bad at being consistent.
- [11:53]
Jesse J. Anderson
Right.
- [11:53]
Kyris Keenan Westcott
I was bad at focusing and bad at keeping things together, keeping it, as in life together. But once I got that diagnosis, everything finally started to make sense. And I realized that it wasn't. It wasn't a character flaw. It was a wiring difference. And that's the thing. A lot of men like me, we spent our lives believing that our struggles were more like these moral failings. That if we tried harder and we got more disciplined or stopped procrastinating, we would get it together. But that constant self blame, it chips away at you. And it turns every single mistake that a man makes into shame. And so what. I think what men with ADHD need isn't someone telling us to push harder because we've been doing that our entire lives. I think what men need right now is understanding not only from ourselves, but the people around us as well. We need space to learn how our brains work without judgment, without pressure, to perform without feeling like we're behind. So getting diagnosed late forced me to rebuild how I see myself. And it taught me that I don't have to fight my brain. I just have to learn its language. And once I did, I stopped surviving and I started living my life. So, yeah, men with adhd, we don't need fixing. We just, I think, need a little grace. We need a little curiosity, and we need to know that it's not too late to start understanding ourselves for the very first time.
- [13:26]
Shane Thrapp
Wow.
- [13:26]
Brendan Mahan
And I. Can I just jump in and say what I'm hearing? So I.
- [13:32]
Kyris Keenan Westcott
The.
- [13:32]
Brendan Mahan
The kind of underlying thread here that I really want to call out is isolation, right? Like, we talk about male loneliness. That comes up and people are kind of flipping about it, right? ADHD turns up the volume on that, right?
- [13:46]
Shane Thrapp
Shane.
- [13:47]
Brendan Mahan
I'm sorry, Mark. Mark ended with we're not alone. Like, that was his button, right? We're not alone. Shane talked about hiding struggles, being dismissed, overlooked. Jesse talked about not being allowed to have emotions. And his manager saying, I don't know how to manage you. Like, what's more isolating than being at work and trying to figure it out, knowing you're not doing it? And then your manager's like, I don't even know how to do that thing that you need. I don't know how to do that.
- [14:14]
Kyris Keenan Westcott
I've.
- [14:14]
Brendan Mahan
I've had that same experience. Like, it's. You're just like, then I can't win, right? Like, and I don't belong here. And then. And then Kai talked. I love that you said that it's not a moral failing, right?
- [14:26]
Mark Almodovar
That it's.
- [14:26]
Brendan Mahan
It wasn't a character flaw, it's not a moral failing. But also the thought that you were just bad at keeping life together, right? Like those. That stuff is so. All of that is. Is just screaming the way that ADHD can cause men to feel isolated and cause them. Cause us to turn in on ourselves, right? People are like, how come you never talk about what's going on with me? And it's like, well, because the message I keep getting is that if I share that stuff, then people don't know how to manage me. And that, like, there's no book, right? So I just. I just want people to have that in mind as we kind of move forward through the rest of this conversation.
- [15:08]
Shane Thrapp
It.
- [15:09]
Brendan Mahan
It matters to me. It's significant to me that we kind of started with that as the. As the through line of what people are saying.
- [15:16]
Carol Fleck
Yeah, excellent point.
- [15:19]
Jesse J. Anderson
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- [15:51]
Carol Fleck
A few of you had talked about the societal expectations about around being a man appearing stoic and strong, unemotional. I know that can be daunting, particularly for men who have adhd, because there's a lot of emotions at play in different scenarios. So I wanted to ask Shane, what do these expectations around masculinity mean to you and how do they play into your ADHD related challenges and beliefs?
- [16:29]
Shane Thrapp
I think one of the things that was unique about me was When I was 25 I learned about project management and I deal with, also I deal with a lot of autistic tendencies as well. And what was so confusing for me is I was able to walk into these corporate worlds and develop these systems and processes and programs and budgets and all of these different things for other people. Yet in my own life I couldn't do any of that for myself. And there was this confusion because here I am being told by all these other people that you just need discipline, you just need to be organized, you just need to do all these different things to maintain a life. And here's what you're supposed to be as a man. And especially with my ex wife and her expectations of being a provider and different things like that. And I was working at like 100 hour weeks and getting two to three hours of sleep a night just to make sure I was being a provider. And I was able to do all of this stuff for all these other companies because I found them interesting. But I never seemed to be able to do it for myself. And that, that, that, that, that break was, there was so much shame and guilt around that. I'm working for multi billion dollar companies and I can't get my own stuff together. You know, I can't get my own life together. I'm, I'm, personally, I'm struggling with emotional dysregulation constantly. I'm being abusive to my children and it hurt, hurts so bad. And whenever I was dealing with that, I didn't have a place because I got isolated. I didn't have a space, I didn't have people to talk to because I was living in an emotionally abusive relationship. And my wife, my ex wife had isolated me and she encouraged my isolation by telling me that I wasn't worthy of love or support from other people because I was too needy or I was too much or I was not a good enough man. I couldn't perform into various ways of being a man. And it hurt. And I just, there was nowhere for me to take that, there was nowhere for me to. And this is, this is before Facebook really launched and all that stuff and online communities really got big and I didn't have anything. And that, that's what really played into those ADHD challenges was that isolation. And now we, we still have, now we have these Communities. Now we are seeing the need for this stuff and we can change those expectations, which is why this, this conversation is so important at this point is we have to change those expectations to be realistic, to be based on reality and really expand our understanding of what masculinity actually even is.
- [19:47]
Carol Fleck
Mark, do you want to talk about masculinity in your life?
- [19:56]
Mark Almodovar
In my life, yeah, definitely. And it's fascinating speaking after what Shane just said, right, Because I feel like I have a whole bar to meet right now. But that was really wonderfully sad, Shane. And with, with my life it has consisted of a lot of ma. A lot of masking, right? We have a someone that's in our community that says like mask in all caps and then ulanity right afterwards because we're just constantly in that state. Throw ADHD on top of that. And in my life it has consisted of just feeling exhausted after 60 to 70 hour work weeks, of just feeling that I need to put on this professional, stoic, non stop, workaholic mindset impression in front of everybody. I had found myself just constantly being in a state of just exerting energy and giving energy away, but never putting that energy back into me. And I'm being direct with you here. We're around a bunch of professionals in this meeting right here. And I've definitely helped a lot of people with ADHD and don't want to undermine myself, but I'm still working on this to this day. I do not have this figured out. There are bags under my eyes, right? Like I am growing here. And I think that a large part of what I've started to do and what I want to encourage men to do is to normalize having a space where you're just free, right? Where you, where you are able to unmask, where you are able to talk about your problems. Because I've most certainly bottled up my emotions for years and years and years and really just put ourselves in a place where we can give energy into the world. But we're recharging that phone a little bit as opposed to letting ourselves be at 2%. Funny enough, I looked at my phone at 2% right at that moment when I said that, which is what made me think of that metaphor. It's really, really important that we put that time back into ourselves. And that's not a thing that is taught to us. We have that stigma that we're still battling to this day. And it's just counterproductive because when you don't rest, when you don't recharge when you don't take time to unmask, you are setting yourself out to be. You're setting yourself up to be at a place of total burnout that many of us experience, and it's really, really hard to recover from that place. We can change that.
- [22:37]
Carol Fleck
Do you feel safe unmasking? I mean, this would go for each of you, really? Like, is it. Is it okay to unmask?
- [22:46]
Mark Almodovar
I put myself in a position where I do feel safe, and I befriended people like Brendan and Shane and whatn, and Jesse and Kai are also great, you know, But I can't say that I still feel safe everywhere doing that. A lot of corporations will look at you and see that you have an ADHD diagnosis and think you're not as good of an employee because of that. There are a lot of partners out there who hold that stigma and don't want to be with somebody with ADHD or, you know, that thinks that they have all these problems. You know, like, there's. There's still a lot of unsafe spaces with that. So to answer your question, it depends on the room that I'm in, and I try to put myself in the room where I do feel safe.
- [23:34]
Shane Thrapp
Mm.
- [23:35]
Brendan Mahan
Can I hop in, please?
- [23:37]
Mark Almodovar
Okay.
- [23:38]
Brendan Mahan
I think it also mattered, like, as I was listening to you, right? Like, you sort of talked about unmasking and use the word freedom, right. Or that you're free. And it occurred to me that there's sort of two kinds of unmasking, right? There's healthy unmasking, and there's significantly less healthy unmasking, right? Like, sometimes. Sometimes we take the mask off and it's cool, right? It's like, I'm just gonna be tired today or spacey or whatever. And other times when we've been pushed too far in whatever that looks like, then the. Then the unmasking is different, right? Then if we're overwhelmed, it might mean I'm shutting down and not doing anything. It might mean that I'm useless, Right? And it also might mean that I'm yelling and screaming and angry and more aggressive with my unmasking. So even the question, is it safe to unmask? Has two layers, right? Like, am I safe? Is it safe for me to unmask? But also, is it safe for other people for me to unmask? So just a thought.
- [24:43]
Shane Thrapp
Mm.
- [24:44]
Carol Fleck
I guess when I asked it, I was thinking, is it safe? Do you feel safe unmasking? But I can see.
- [24:50]
Jesse J. Anderson
Yeah.
- [24:50]
Carol Fleck
Its effects on others.
- [24:53]
Brendan Mahan
And I can tell you if my unmasking.
- [24:54]
Shane Thrapp
Sorry.
- [24:55]
Brendan Mahan
Just if My unmasking leads to other people feeling safe, then I don't feel safe either.
- [24:59]
Mark Almodovar
Right.
- [24:59]
Brendan Mahan
Like I'm doing it wrong. Sorry, Kyrus.
- [25:01]
Jesse J. Anderson
Go ahead.
- [25:01]
Kyris Keenan Westcott
No, no, no, no, you're good.
- [25:02]
Jesse J. Anderson
You're good.
- [25:03]
Kyris Keenan Westcott
I actually want to double down on what you're saying because. And correct me if I'm wrong, what you're alluding to is that as a man, unmasking can come with consequences.
- [25:15]
Jesse J. Anderson
Right.
- [25:15]
Kyris Keenan Westcott
When. When I show my emotions is sometimes read as anger. When I lose my focus, it's sometimes seen as carelessness. So a lot of us learn to edit ourselves just to feel safe in rooms that weren't built for our brain. So what I've learned, though, is that safety doesn't always mean comfort. It means surrounding yourself with people who get it. Like in situations like this, our friends or colleagues, communities, whatever it may be. So do I feel safe unmasking in the right places? Yes. But I also think the bigger mission is creating a world where I don't have to think about whether it's safe, whether being myself isn't a risk, it's just being normal.
- [25:58]
Carol Fleck
Right?
- [25:59]
Brendan Mahan
Yeah.
- [26:01]
Shane Thrapp
If I can jump in real quick.
- [26:02]
Jesse J. Anderson
I think one of the things for me with kind of this topic was, as I said before, like, growing up, I didn't know I had adhd. I didn't know these things about me were from adhd. And so I just felt broken and different and didn't know why. And so I was learning to mask without knowing what that was, because I was just learning these parts about me aren't safe around anybody. Like, I don't know anyone in my life where I can be this way. And so I have to kind of compartmentalize that within me. And then when I finally, when I got diagnosed in my mid-30s, that was like this amazing moment of, like, I'm not alone. There's other people that have this feature, in this feature, in this feature that are having these same struggles or these same thought patterns or whatever it is. And then that was really freeing for me to kind of figure that out. But that still didn't mean I was safe to be that way everywhere. I think that's one of the really. One of the things I've really found amazing in the past few years is events that I can go to in person and meet. Like, I've met most of the people on this panel in person because we've been at the international ADHD conference or neurodivergen conferences like that, where a lot of people with ADHD are there in person. And that maybe was the first time in my life, the very first time I attended the International ADHD conference, that was maybe the first time in my life where I was like, I can be completely unmasked with these people. I can be fully myself because everyone here gets it. And when people get it, like, I don't have to. I don't have to pick and choose which parts of me I can show. I can just be fully myself. And I think another thing related with that that I've really leaned into kind of in the past few years is this concept of radical acceptance, of just sort of accepting there's parts of me that other people aren't going to get, but I am going to lean into that because I know that that is how my brain works. So I'm going to do this weird thing that other people aren't going to understand or that's going to feel like, why would you do it that way? That's way more work. That doesn't make any sense. But I know for my brain, it does make sense. And I am fully accepting that my weird way, if it works, it works and I'm not going to feel bad about it. So. Yeah, but I. Anybody, anybody that's watching this, if you have any opportunity to, if there's like meetups or local groups or things like that, highly, highly recommend any experience you can get meeting with other people and ADHD in person, because there's just something magic about that in person experience with somebody else that gets it, that's had that same lifelong, you know, dealing with the things of hiding the ADHD and learning how to cope with it and learning why your actions don't line up with your intentions and what that means and everything. Yeah. So I love all the things that everyone said here. This has been amazing so far. So thanks again for having me as part of it.
- [28:50]
Carol Fleck
So it's like you connect on this deeper level than when you're first meeting other people.
- [28:57]
Jesse J. Anderson
Yeah, 100%.
- [28:58]
Carol Fleck
It's almost like you've known each other for years even though you just met.
- [29:02]
Jesse J. Anderson
Yeah. And I'll even say when mentioning again, the first time I went to the ADHD International Conference and met a lot of people that I had known on Instagram or whatever through the ADHD community, but met them in person. And then really quickly, one of the people in the group did one of those kind of classical ADHD moments where they were ready to. They admitted something that they had just done and they were ready to be embarrassed about it. And instead we were like high Fiving and laughing because we all knew that we could have done that same thing. It was what they, prior to that probably their life experience was like this is a thing to be ashamed about. And, and instead we really embraced it as like this is what makes us similar. This is actually like a camaraderie moment where we can celebrate how we have these different kind of funny brains that do things in a different way. And we were kind of on the same page about it, which made it just. It was such a great way to really embrace the way our brain is different.
- [30:00]
Shane Thrapp
So I want to jump in real quick on this one because one of the things that I found in a very similar situation was I didn't have to deal with small talk like from the, like the, the, from the get go. As soon as I'm sitting down with a group of people, you know, at various places I've gone to, the conversation was like, hey, I'm Shane and so forth and so on. Just kind of quick introduction. But then it was just immediately into some sort of esoteric con like concept that everybody wanted to discuss. There was no how's the weather? Like what, what, what, what did you do last week? No, no, no. We were talking about astrophysics and how Neil Degrasse Tyson just happened to sit here and post a thing about this. And everybody was just all on board with this because we apparently were all into physics for some reason. It may have just been in a hyper fixation in the past, I don't know, six years or something. And like we just went off on that and then like when a tangent would happen, like the tangent and every would just go off on a tangent too and like let's just go on this journey together. And I loved that. And I, and I saw this at the conference as well where we just kind of sit down and there was never, there was very little of like what the weather was like or what did you eat? Unless it happened to be like, hey, did y' all check out that pho place right down the street? Because that was amazing. And like, and it was so experiential and so just like in the moment and nobody felt weird about it and nobody felt like uncomfortable. Even the neurotypical people were like, oh, this is how y' all roll. And we were like, yes, this is how we roll. And let's have fun with it. Join us on this journey.
- [31:35]
Mark Almodovar
Can I, can I, sorry, can I say one thing and I'll segue to like a point, I promise. But you know, Jesse talked about unmasking I've gotten to see Jesse unmask and rap 2 legit hit to quit by MC Hammer. It was amazing. And, and there's such good points to what, what everybody is saying. It's one of the reasons why and I'm biased here. As the president and founder of the men's ADHD support support group, please check out our website. You know when we have, when we put ourselves in peer support positions or just hanging around people that are like us, it's amazing because it's like the, we feel like we're crazy and we're alone our whole lives. We've always felt like the odd ones out. I was always the one person with the disorganized desks who, who would daydream all day about Batman that I was watching and not pay attention to the history teacher whatsoever. And I always felt like the odd one out with that. When I'm in a position where I'm around other community members and when I hear them talk about the things that they're going through, whether it's their struggle with time blindness or being disorganized or having issues with chores at home and our wife is annoyed with us like that for me is such an essential step in healing. I'm not alone. I'm not as crazy as I thought it, I thought I was. And the cool thing is I don't have to go through the struggle of getting better alone. There's other people who can tag along with me. It's a beautiful thing. And peer support, I cannot emphasize what they were saying enough. There's a meetup nearby you, there's a peer support group for your type of adhd. Do it.
- [33:18]
Carol Fleck
Mark, can you talk about the stigma in Hispanic cultures of an ADHD diagnosis and what happens when people don't get the treatment they need?
- [33:28]
Mark Almodovar
That could be a whole talk on that. But I think within Hispanic communities when I was first diagnosed with adhd the first reaction was what even is that it was seen as something where I had a lack of discipline and I just needed to apply myself more. And I know that's a triggering sense of for the ADHD community as a whole. But I think in the Hispanic communities the subject of ADHD there's really a lot of lack of education within that that needs to change. But also in my experience it's also there needs what I encourage and what we encourage in our Latinx support groups is, is to have some open mindedness. Right. Like I like to share my story because I, I, I get to be an example like in my family, for example, when I was first diagnosed, everybody doubted it, like, what is adhd? He's just lazy. He needs to get his act together, yada, yada yada. My mom, I try not to get emotional talking about this, but my, my mother was able to, to push past that and, and believe what I was saying and get me the support that I needed with the psychiatrist and therapy. And I mean, my life changed as a result, right? My, I, I understood, I understand who I am now because of that. I, I know the treatment that I need right for my adhd and I've been able to not be perfect, but be pretty dang successful in what I do as a result of me understanding myself and my adhd. That storytelling and that process was extremely eye opening for a lot of the close minded people within my Hispanic family. And that's why I highly, highly encourage welcoming, you know, members of the Latinx community, whether you're Puerto Rican or Dominican, to share your story a little bit more often and, you know, just really open ourselves to how understanding this condition can really, really do wonders for a lot of people in our community.
- [35:47]
Carol Fleck
Kai, I wanted to ask you, have you dealt with stigma and the dismissal of ADHD growing up? What has been your experience in your community?
- [36:04]
Kyris Keenan Westcott
Oh, yeah, sure. I mean, I, I think that, I think that it's, it's more intense in, in some cultures than others, right? Because societal expectations don't exist in a vacuum, right? So they, they show up differently depending on your culture and your race and all that. As a black man raised in a working class family in New Jersey, in my world growing up, there were, there were these unspoken rules about what it meant to be a man. You work hard, you don't complain, you hold together, period. So when you start dealing with things like burnout and emotional exhaustion and time blindness, executive dysfunction, all that kind of stuff, none of that looked acceptable from where I came from. Vulnerability was seen as weakness. Needing help was seen as failure. Even now, as an adult, I still feel that tension today. That little voice inside you that says, man up or don't let them see you struggling. And I know it's conditioning, but it's so freaking loud. And so for a lot of men, especially in the black and brown community, there's this, I think, extra layer of pressure that we've had to deal with because you're not just representing yourself, you're often representing your people. And you're taught to be twice as good, to work twice as hard, and to never let anybody see you crack so when ADHD and anxiety and depression and all that stuff enters the picture, it doesn't fit the story that you've been told about who you're supposed to be. So like Mark was saying earlier, what do we do? That's when we start masking, right? We push through, we over perform, we hustle ourselves straight into burnout, thinking that that's what strength looks like. But I'll tell you what I've learned. Silence isn't strength. Overcompensation isn't healing. And pretending that you're fine doesn't make the pain inside go away, it just hides it. And it hides it long enough to just grow louder later. So I think the expectation has been a lot, a little bit more heavy. Not, not to dismiss anybody else's experience, but I feel like sometimes in, especially in some cultures it's a little heavier. But that only means that the work we're doing here, having these conversations out loud, is even more critical because every time a man steps up, steps up and says, I'm struggling but I'm still worthy, that's when we start to chip away at that shame and we make it easier for the next group of men to stand up, especially black and brown men to show up as their full, messy, emotional, hot mess human self that we are. Because I know I'm a hot mess, right? And we don't need to. We don't heal by pretending that we're not hurting. We heal by being seen. And I think that's where it starts for us.
- [39:12]
Carol Fleck
Does the pain ever go away?
- [39:15]
Kyris Keenan Westcott
Yes, if you take Tylenol. No. I think, I think, I think.
- [39:28]
Mark Almodovar
I.
- [39:28]
Kyris Keenan Westcott
Don'T think the pain ever like goes away. I think that you just learn how to manage it, right? Because like sometimes people will ask, well, how do you cure adhd? And in my personal opinion, I don't think you can cure adhd. It's always going to be there. It's just about how you manage it. It's like saying, how do you prevent yourself from crying? Well, if your body is telling you.
- [39:54]
Brendan Mahan
To cry, then cry.
- [39:56]
Kyris Keenan Westcott
It's not a bad thing. You just learn how to manage it in a healthy way. So I don't think the pain necessarily goes away, but I think the perspective surrounding it and how it affects you, I think that shifts and you can live a little healthier, a little bit healthier of a life, mentally and emotionally.
- [40:12]
Jesse J. Anderson
And I think to add on that just really briefly, I think part of it too is when you are gaining that understanding and that knowing you don't make it worse, which I think is so much of the problem, is that you're making it worse. You get in those negative shame spirals. And so that that bit of pain you do feel, it compounds because you're beating yourself up. Even every time it happens, every single time that whatever situation happens where you feel that pain, it gets worse and worse and worse because you're tearing yourself down. And so I think that is a really big part of it, too. Not that the pain doesn't go away, but you stop making it worse and compounding it when you recognize it for what it really is.
- [40:55]
Shane Thrapp
Yeah.
- [40:57]
Brendan Mahan
Some of what we're talking about, we're sort of like, there's like a layer below what we're talking about that we're not really directing, directing the light at. And I want to do that so that it's there. And that's. That traditional masculinity based on the dominant culture, at least in the United States, where we all live, is pretty confining.
- [41:17]
Mark Almodovar
Like, it.
- [41:17]
Brendan Mahan
It's pretty. Like, you can only be this. Like, you. You can be. You can overwork yourself. You can be aggressive. Like, there's a limit to what you. What you're allowed to be. And a lot of ADHD exists outside of that. That boundary.
- [41:33]
Mark Almodovar
Right.
- [41:33]
Brendan Mahan
Like, men are not supposed to cry and be emotionally overwhelmed, but, like, ADHD sends us in that direction a fair amount. And in, with regard to Mark and Kairos, like, when you then bring in, like, you've got the dominant culture and then you've got another culture, right? Hispanic culture, black culture, and there's extra confining because of that.
- [41:53]
Kyris Keenan Westcott
Right.
- [41:53]
Brendan Mahan
Because the dominant culture is saying, you have to fit the mold we made for you. That may or may not be correct and may or may not be appropriate. And now you're trying to exist in this even more confining culture or potentially in two different cultures.
- [42:06]
Mark Almodovar
Right.
- [42:06]
Brendan Mahan
Sometimes you're hanging out with the white people, sometimes you're hanging around with your people, and you have to transition from one to the other. And that is incredibly difficult. It's hard to manage that. And so what I want to say, I want to just note that on behalf of white men in general, I guess that, like, we're doing it wrong for people who aren't white. And also, like, one of the things that keeps coming up is authenticity and the importance of authenticity and how that's healing and helpful. But you can't be authentic if you don't know who you are. And that's come up here a lot too, right? Like, we get the diagnosis, and then suddenly we're like, oh, this stuff that happens to me. I have permission kind of. I have permission to be overwhelmed sometimes, because now I know that I have a reason. And this is sort of like a man thing in general. And it's one of the places, I think, where ADHD gives us a little bit of a bonus where we actually get permission to have some of these flaws. And men who don't have ADHD don't get this permission. Right. So they're stuck in that box still. And whereas we get a little bit of wiggle room, it's not great, because we need way more wiggle room than we actually get, but it's. We get a little bit of wiggle room. And so I just wanted to throw that out there because it's what I was hearing as everyone was talking, those, like, sort of thematically, I want to.
- [43:27]
Carol Fleck
Talk about what the expectations around what a man should be and how that might keep you from real intimacy with your partners. Does it keep you from real intimacy with your partners? Is it more difficult to have a successful relationship? Do you have more, or can you be authentic with your partners? Shane, do you want to start us off?
- [43:53]
Shane Thrapp
Yeah. So I kind of touched on this earlier. Like, I was in an abusive relationship for a few years, and, like, there was a lot of. Of me being torn down, Ryan, and reduced to just being a. A functional robot. And when I got out of that, and I didn't know anything about ADHD like the others, I wasn't diagnosed until I was 35. You know, I. I just needed to be me. And I had no clue what that meant. And this kind of touches on what Brendan was talking about, like, that. That need for authenticity. I said, like, okay, I have no clue. I know I'm different. And I just decided to accept that. I. I know I'm different. I don't know what this means. And I made a dating profile, and I overshared constantly because that's just what my dating profile needed to look like, because I wanted to just, like, let people know who the heck I was. And ironically enough, that's how I met my current wife. And like, a few years later, when I was, like, trying to really, like. Like try to figure out what was going on, my oldest son had been diagnosed with adhd. So I'd looked into it, and I started. As I read into it, I was like, oh, wow, a lot of this is really resonating. And I went to my wife and I said, I think I have adhd and she was like, you didn't know? And I'm like, no, I. I didn't know. When did you know? And she's like, I knew when I read your dating profile. My wife is a special education teacher and she's been one for 20 years. And I was like, why didn't you say anything? She's like, I just thought you were being a dude about it. But her acceptance, right? And this is kind of like post dating, the acceptance. Like, she knew from the get go. And this was a couple years into our relationship. So I was just like, oh, what does this mean? And she's like, well, it means you need therapy. I'm like, okay. That's given. We already like, okay. And she's like, it doesn't mean anything. It just means you think differently. That's it. She said, this is what I tell my kids all the time. You think differently. That's all. And that dichotomy between what I had been, what I had seen in the former relationships and a lot of the relationships I was in led to a level of me being able to have that conversation with her about a lot of the things I struggled with. We got into some really deep conversations about intimacy. When it comes to, you know, affection, I'm very affectionate, but that doesn't always lead to sex. I'm one of those different peoples when it comes to that kind of stuff. Right. For me, sex is a fun thing to do every now and then, especially if it's a new person that I really enjoy things with. And the hyper fixation is there, but after that, sex doesn't mean a lot to me. What's more important to me as a. As a man is the rubbing her feet on the sofa and watching a movie together. And just our love languages are different. Penguin pebbling. I love this one as a neurodivergent love language. Giving people a. A gift, whether that's a tick tock video or Instagram reel or something like that. That made me think of them at the time. Sweet. Nothing. I think about adhd. Thank you, Kai. By the way, a lot of yours get shared a. An article I read, a podcast. I heard these are just little moments of, of love languages. Mark gets like a half dozen, like tick tock videos for me all the time. And he says he's my. He's my brother and I want him to think about it. I sent him one about a cape the other day, right. And so my intimacy is different and it's. That's okay. And my, my current Wife, she taught me that, like, from the get go, that I could talk to her about those things. I could talk to her about sex not being a big deal for me until it is a big deal for me, which is cyclical.
- [48:10]
Jesse J. Anderson
Right.
- [48:11]
Shane Thrapp
And it may be like, where I go a whole month where it's just like, hey, that's all I think about. And then there may be a whole six months where it's not even on my mind. Has nothing to do with her. I'm very attracted to my wife. She's beautiful, but she's the person who made me feel safe enough to talk about that thing. And a lot of men don't have that. We see this a lot in the men's group. They can't talk to their wives about their erectile dysfunction. Like, medication gave them, you know, strattera is an issue with this, a couple other medications. They can't talk to their wives about that. They, they. They need something that's different. Maybe they have a kink that's a.
- [48:50]
Brendan Mahan
Little bit off the wall.
- [48:52]
Shane Thrapp
Right. They can't talk to their wives about that kind of stuff because, like, it's not okay. It's not safe. And a lot of people need to understand that. Men need to be able to feel that way to have a better communication style with their spouses, male or female alike. And we don't have that. A lot of times those expectations of what a man is supposed to be are instilled, and we. We have to break that mold. We have to give men the. Be the ability to have those conversations. Because when we give men those ability to have those conversations, then they are more open to hearing those conversations from other people around them, especially their own spouse, who may have her own is, you know, issues with sexuality or kinks or things like that. But it's hard. I'm lucky. I'm one of the lucky few out there, Right. A lot of men don't have that. That ability to have that conversation. And my wife has taught me to be horrifyingly grateful of having her in my life.
- [50:03]
Jesse J. Anderson
Yeah.
- [50:04]
Kyris Keenan Westcott
I would like, actually, if I may, Carol, to talk about, like, the opposite side of it.
- [50:08]
Shane Thrapp
Right.
- [50:08]
Kyris Keenan Westcott
Because I know, and I appreciate your vulnerability there, especially, like, as we talk about intimacy and sex, because for me, sex is. Is actually is a big thing for me that, like, not just the act, but what it represents. So as somebody with adhd, like, intimacy is one of the few places where my brain goes quiet, right. It's. It's like one of those rare times that I, I Feel fully present, fully connected, and I'm not bouncing between thoughts and stuff. And there's something grounding about it that, you know, that that closes that. That physical connection. And it just kind of quiets the noise for a while. But the catch, I've learned, is that same intensity can also make it very complicated, because with adhd, I, like, we tend to crave dopamine, and sex is full of it.
- [51:00]
Jesse J. Anderson
Right.
- [51:01]
Kyris Keenan Westcott
So that means that. And again, I'm just going to be vulnerable here. It means that I can get hooked on the excitement, the novelty, the rush. And sometimes it's easy for me to confuse that for connection. So I've had to learn the difference between feeling alive and feeling loved. I am 38, unmarried, no kids, two cats. So this is something that I have reflected on a lot because I realized that for me, sex isn't just physical. It's emotional regulation. It's communication, it's presence. It's where I feel seen and safe. But I've also learned that. That real intimacy starts before that kind of like what Shane was talking about. It's in the conversations, the trust, the safety that you build long before you even touch somebody. So, yeah, sex is big for me, but it's not about numbers or performance. It's about the connection. Because when my brain finally slows down and I can just be there in the moment, that's when it feels right, and that's when it feels real for me.
- [52:05]
Carol Fleck
Is it addictive? Like, does it become addictive? So how do you. How do you. How do you manage that? And how do you stay. Not only how do you manage that, but how do you stay monogamous if that's your intention in a relationship?
- [52:20]
Kyris Keenan Westcott
Yeah. So I. I mean, I. I'll start off by saying that I. I and poly. I identify as poly. So that's. That's one thing for. And for anybody that's curious what polyamory is. It's not like I'm going to go.
- [52:33]
Brendan Mahan
Cheat on my partner or whatever I want.
- [52:34]
Kyris Keenan Westcott
Like, it's not. That's not how it works. And I actually, I did a whole presentation on how neurodivergence affects polyamory and so on and so forth. So that's the first thing, because I just had to be honest with myself. And I think it comes down honestly to just communication with your partner, with the people that you're with, so on and so forth. So is it addicting? Yes. But there's like, this. You have to learn what your triggers are for that. Like, I know what My triggers are when it comes to that. So I try to avoid putting myself in situations or opening the door up to an opportunity in which I know that it's going to be really difficult for me to withhold, if that makes sense.
- [53:18]
Carol Fleck
What are your triggers? Like, what's an example?
- [53:22]
Jesse J. Anderson
Now we're getting rated R, Carol.
- [53:24]
Kyris Keenan Westcott
No, I'm kidding. Honestly. It could be something as simple as attention sometimes, right? Like, if. If somebody is, you know, say there's somebody that is texting me, and they're just giving me, like, some really genuine, sweet connection. That and an attention that is a step more than friendship, right? That's. That's really attractive to me, you know, especially if they're going out of their way to do it, and it's consistent, and it's like, oh, I think this person actually likes me. Like, I. I know that that's a trigger for me, and I will latch on to that and I'll roll with that. So from a surface level standpoint, that's. That's definitely one of my triggers, for sure.
- [54:04]
Carol Fleck
Okay, interesting. So how does that play into love bombing? Like, does it play into love bombing?
- [54:10]
Shane Thrapp
Ooh. Oh, hi. Can I have this one?
- [54:14]
Kyris Keenan Westcott
Yes, please, go ahead. That's a great question.
- [54:16]
Jesse J. Anderson
I love that.
- [54:16]
Shane Thrapp
Oh, okay. We're gonna. Okay. So the whole point of me actually changing my, like, dating profile to just be more me, right. Was to stop love bombing. Because for the longest time, my assumption was that if I was interested in a girl, I needed to be what that girl's dating profile said she wanted in a dude. And I had no clue that you shouldn't change your dating profile to match another person's preferences.
- [54:53]
Carol Fleck
Wow.
- [54:54]
Shane Thrapp
If a girl would sit here and say that she was, like, into fishing and stuff like that, and I was really attracted to her and I thought she was hot, I'd go in here and just drop a little comment in my thing that, you know. You know, went on a fishing trip or anything like that. Can't stand fishing, by the way. It's one of the biggest things I loathe. I don't even understand it. I grew up doing it, but. And I know everything about it because that's what my dad taught me, what I was supposed to do. But, you know, to use that as an example, I didn't even realize this was a thing, right? Until I started reading articles about relationships and. And found out about love bombing. And I'm going, oh, dear God, this is an abuse tactic. And I'm like, oh, no. And I had to learn. I Was like, okay, what does this mean? And this is a social thing. And my autistic side was just like, what is this thing? Oh, no, here's a rule you're not supposed to be doing. And I was doing this constantly because I wanted to be accepted by these women that I was interested in, and I thought I was just supposed to be that guy they were interested in. And it goes into masking and all those different things. And I was so desperate for that connection with that person that I would just become the thing that they were looking for. Not in. In some. Some attempt to entrap them or anything like that, because I just thought that was what you were supposed to do. In fact, there's a lot of guys would sit here and say, hey, just, like, make sure that you are what the girl wants you to be. We see a lot of those, like, dating trap dudes and stuff like that, and the really toxic masculinity. YouTube's a lot, you know, of what you're supposed to be. And I was like, I had no clue. And I did this so often when I was growing as I was a teenager and my younger, you know, 20s, and it was just like. But it wasn't even intentional. And so many guys out there, especially us on the autism spectrum as well, where we just want to be accepted, and the only way we can be accepted is if we become the person that. That they want us to be. And that. That's that.
- [56:58]
Brendan Mahan
But.
- [56:58]
Carol Fleck
But there's also that, like, the love bond, like, the attention, you know, giving the relentless attention and the.
- [57:04]
Shane Thrapp
Oh, yeah.
- [57:05]
Carol Fleck
And the. And the praise and not giving them space and 100.
- [57:10]
Shane Thrapp
Yeah, yeah. That's all part of it. Like, I'm going to connect with you. I'm going to message you every day. I'm going to sit here and send you sweet nothings. In the morning. I'm going to sit here, and you're going to have 140 messages, you know, before noon. Because I thought that that's what it was supposed to be.
- [57:27]
Carol Fleck
Wow.
- [57:30]
Brendan Mahan
It's interesting how. Yeah, it's interesting how ADHD and neurodiversity in general plays into that. Right? Because, like, when you're in the beginning of a relationship, and I'm married for over two decades, so I have to work to remember this. But when you're in the beginning of a relationship, Right. There's a lot of intensity that comes with that. It's part of. Part of how the brain works. So you end up becoming really tuned in and attentive and Obsessed. And it becomes like, this is my, my hyper fixation is you. Right? Like now I'm into whoever that person is. And then you add in the emotional dysregulation that comes with ADHD and the, and the, the impulsivity and all that stuff and the inability to like, keep myself from doing the thing, and now all of a sudden I'm love bombing. And not necessarily in a manipulative way, like more in just like a. I'm cognitively overwhelmed by this person.
- [58:22]
Mark Almodovar
Right.
- [58:23]
Brendan Mahan
Even in a marriage that's been going on for over two decades, I probably love bomb my wife. I tell my wife that I love her so many times a day and am very affectionate and very like, I love her to death.
- [58:35]
Mark Almodovar
Right.
- [58:37]
Brendan Mahan
When I learned about love bombing, I was like, oh man. I think I did that not manipulatively just because, like, I don't want to have my wife think I don't love her. I don't want that to be the case when I eventually kick the bucket. Like, so I almost over communicate that in an effort to be clearly communicating. So like that. I think that plays a role in here too. Is that the neurodiversity of it and the, some of it comes from a place of insecurity and all that stuff, which is from adhd, right?
- [59:05]
Shane Thrapp
Sure.
- [59:06]
Carol Fleck
Wow, you brought up emotional dysregulation. It's like really common and Attitude has done studies about, or surveys rather about this. And so many people say it's like the most impairing feature of adhd. So I, I wanted to ask what that feels like for each of you in your brain. I know, Shane, when we talked earlier, you had talked about like punching holes in walls and that that was some, if I remember correctly, and that that was something your dad had done or you had learned from your dad or that had some part to play in you growing up. And so, I mean, that's just one example. But can, can you, each of you talk about emotional dysregulation and how it. And the role it plays in your lives and how you've learned to manage it better?
- [60:07]
Mark Almodovar
I can go on that one. Okay. I think we all have a good thing on that. But it's, it's safe to say that we all feel things at a very, very high level. From excitement to when I make a win, I feel like I can run a million laps and brag about it and, you know, make my whole life about it. Whereas, you know, where I am when I'm met with rejection or, or have a Disagreement with somebody. I really tend to internalize that. You know, Shane and I always joke because we both run the men's ADHD support group, and it's a nonprofit that's. It's a board where every single one of us have adhd. It is the most fascinating thing. Right. And we don't always agree with each other. And when we have a disagreement, we kind of, you know, we can really feel our RSD and think that, oh, this person doesn't like me. They think I'm the worst and everything like that. And. And it's. It's a fascinating journey. But for me, a key thing is this kind of goes to points that we were making earlier, but it's worth saying again. But the key thing is when. Whenever I'm experiencing those heightened emotions, especially if it's anger or sadness, I have to have a space where I'm letting that. Letting that out. Right. Like, for me, journaling goes a long way. I'm a huge believer in therapy. And, you know, especially when we're experiencing that anger, I'm. I'm a big believer in if something is really triggering us that largely, whether it's a disagreement with a partner or something at the workspace, that's the thing that probably needs to get addressed. But that is after you've done what you've needed to, whether it's going for a walk or letting that out with a safe space, maybe a friend or somebody you call up. And that's really. I hope I'm answering your question, but that's at least my relationship with it. And what I find myself needing to do is just not. It's just letting that bottle not. Not fill up so much, if that makes sense.
- [62:17]
Jesse J. Anderson
Yeah, I'll jump in on this as well. Yeah, I. Every single report card growing up said Jesse is too emotional, like, nonstop. Every single one. Which, as a kid you read that, I'm like, what do I do with that? I don't know. I don't understand how I'm supposed to respond to hearing that I'm too emotional because that, like, emotions are how I feel. Like, I don't know what that even means. And yeah, Mark, you mentioned rsd, which, for those that don't know, it's the concept that William Dodson has really popularized called rejection sensitive dysphoria, which is the idea that where people with adhd, we feel rejection extremely strongly, almost like pain in the chest. That's kind of where I feel it. And before I knew about this idea, whenever I, as an adult, whenever something would kind of trigger that and trigger kind of that anger in me. In the moment, it always felt justified. Like, it didn't feel like I was flying off the handle or blowing up at a small thing or any of that sort of stuff that maybe in retrospect I could see, but in the moment, it felt that whoever I'm talking with or whatever said something and in my response to be really like a big angry response felt justified. It felt like that's what the moment was. And only once I learned about rsd that it can be even false rejection, that maybe it's not even rejection, it's a perceived rejection. Only once I learned about that and read more about other people's experience with that was I able to recognize that in myself. Where I had done some research about rsd, watched some videos and read. Read articles and things like that. And then I had a moment with my wife. I've been married for 18 years. We don't agree every single time we talk, and so occasionally we'll have a disagreement. And we were having some. I don't know, it's probably about bills or something like that, because money is so often one of those trigger points. And then she had said something that I'm sure wasn't a big deal, but I felt the thing. I felt the wanting to like it. I felt justified to get really mad. But then there was like some little thing in my brain that was like, oh, is this that RSD thing you were reading about? Something in my brain, like, popped up and said, this might be that thing. And so I.
- [64:36]
Shane Thrapp
It.
- [64:36]
Jesse J. Anderson
It was such a weird experience because it didn't make any of that. The pain in my chest, it didn't make any of that go away. The feeling of, you know, when you get really angry and you can almost feel, I don't know, like you're. You just like the adrenaline's flowing, all of that, sort of like your. Your fight or flight. Like, I felt all of that. None of that went away when I had the thought, like, this might be rsd. But because that little thing was able to tell me that, I was able to basically say, kind of through gritted teeth, like, I think I might be feeling that RSD thing. We were just learning about, can we take a break? And then we did. We took that break.
- [65:11]
Shane Thrapp
And.
- [65:12]
Jesse J. Anderson
And then for me, it quickly faded. And that was like, this recognition of the emotional dysregulation is going to cause me to want to respond really quickly. I think that's one of the biggest difficulties with adhd, is when Those emotional things happen. You want to respond immediately to it because that's like what you've done your whole life. You feel the things, and so then you respond in kind. You kind of learn that, oh, when I feel this, that's because I'm sad. And so this is how I respond to that, or when I feel this, that's because I'm angry, and this is how I respond to that. And so it's kind of been, for me in the last eight years or so since I've been diagnosed, is kind of unlearning a little bit how. How I should respond to things now that I know that what I feel from emotions aren't always going to be 100% accurate, because I'm not. I need to learn the. I've done some, like, adhd. I'm not an ADHD coach now, but I've done some training in the past that really leaned into learning the power of the pause. And that has been something I've really tried to, like whenever I'm feeling a strong emotional response, something to something pause, like, really try to think about it. Like, another thing that I had a therapist before that told me in those moments where I feel like, oh, we're.
- [66:29]
Shane Thrapp
It's.
- [66:30]
Jesse J. Anderson
It's time to fight in this. In this relationship, we're going to, like, we're going to throw down and start yelling or whatever. Whenever I have that feeling that it's that I should be angry or I feel that rejection is to consider my history with that person and basically say, like, logically, does it make sense that right now, after 18 years of marriage, that my wife would suddenly want to. Want to betray me? And obviously there's like, toxic relationships. But for me, with my marriage, it's really easy to have that logical process and be like, no, that doesn't make any sense. The way I feel doesn't logically add up with my history with my wife. And once I can recognize that that helps with that power of the pause, that helps me realize that the response that I want to have in this moment right now logically doesn't actually add up, and that can. I'm sure there's like, people that like psychologists or whatever can say, like, yeah, there's. When you're triggering this logical part of your brain that's doing some smart things in your brain. I don't have the college knowledge to verify that, but I've heard that sort of thing in the past. And so that's something I really recommend a lot to people when that have ADHD is really trying to pause in those moments because if you're like me for most of your life, you respond to it because it feels justified, it feels real. Like when you're feeling it, it feels like I'm having this response because I should in this moment. And so kind of unlearning that and learning to recognize when those signals are false. I think it has been really powerful for me.
- [68:03]
Shane Thrapp
I want to tag in on that one because my brain wants to sit here and go into the brain. And Mark will tell you right now, I know all these things. Oh my gosh. But this is actually one of the things I have to teach a lot of my parents and a lot of my support groups in that realm is that pause that Jesse is talking about. One of the things that's helped me so much is my wife learning to recognize when I'm getting to that point. Right. And I have to teach a lot of the parents. You have to recognize this in your children when they're starting to get dysregulated. You need to pause everything and you need to co regulate with them or you need to give them the ability to, to, you know, hey, maybe do you need to go in your room and calm down just for a little bit? You're not in trouble. You just need to calm down. Do you need a hug? Do you need your space? Like, and the same thing applies to your spouses. If you, if you've recognized when your spouse is starting to get dysregulated, if you're neurotypical, you've got the basal ganglia thing that kicks in and says impulsivity, stop for a second, go ahead and help with the pause and say, okay, hold on a second. We're getting really worked up. Let's just take a step back, breathe, you know, and, and I have to teach a lot of people about this stuff is because, you know, when we are in that mode, we may not have the self awareness to be able to pause. And as children, no, they don't. And so what we have to do as adults who get this stuff and understand the stuff is to instigate the pause ourselves. Even if we are able to do that and that teaching other people, our friends, our family members, our loved ones, our. The people we're in a relationship with, this probably needs to be a conversation, needs to happen fairly early on in the dating thing, you know, like, hey, sometimes I get really worked up about stuff. If you happen to see me just like getting clinched up, like, identify what your, your body language may look like, if you see me like that, go ahead and just. Let's pause the conversation, you know, because I get dysregulated sometimes. And when that happens, I may say something, I may do something that I'm, that I'm not going to be happy about, you're not going to be happy about. Help me with this, you know, use it as a green flag indicator. A person who cares about you will actually do this with you. Right. And it's. This is why psycho education about ADHD is so important. This is why the work that Attitude magazine does is so important, is people without these issues need to learn and understand this stuff so that they are able to actually co regulate with their partners and their children. And that's a huge part of this, is being the executive function and the emotional regulation that our partners and children need, especially if we have the capability to do so, you know.
- [71:08]
Jesse J. Anderson
Yeah. Briefly, just want to say real quick a couple of quick tips that also can really help with that pausing in the moment. These are from Russell Barkley's book, I believe, where just literally putting your hand over your mouth when you're having that feeling or saying like, instead of what you want to say, just like that little bit of pause between the feeling and the reacting can really make a huge difference for your brain to almost like catch up with what is happening. Because the instinct is just to blurt out the thing. You're like, well, you just blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, just like get really emotional, respond really angry. But just like giving yourself that break of putting your hand over your mouth, whatever it is to give just even a few seconds, in my experience, can really make a huge difference.
- [71:58]
Brendan Mahan
I just, I'm going to be really quick, but as long as we're doing tips a lot, I want to throw out a thing that helps reframe the pause. A lot of people think the pause has to come first, like in between the thing and then I respond or I don't respond. The pause often comes in the middle of us responding and after we respond, right? So like if I respond poorly and then I'm like, oh man, what did I do? That's the pause. It just came late, right. And sometimes we're in the middle of something and we realize, like, I'm doing this wrong, but then our ego gets in the way and we double down like a moron. Um, that's the pause too. And that in the middle of stuff, pause is the hardest one to do anything with because you have to like get your ego out of the way. And just be like, I am doing this wrong and this isn't who I want to be. So like, can we just take a break for a minute? So I just wanted to throw that out there and then I'm going to shut up.
- [72:47]
Jesse J. Anderson
Yeah, it's like that, it's like that out of body experience where you're suddenly, you're like, what am I saying right now? What am I doing? Jesse, stop. But actually learning to listen when you're saying, just, just abandon what you're doing right now. It's okay to interrupt yourself and realize like, this is not what I want to be saying or doing right now.
- [73:07]
Carol Fleck
Jesse. It's really interesting that, that you, that that voice in your head comes at, at the right time that you're able to be self aware enough to, to, to say like, is this rsd? What am I doing? You know that you're thinking about it as you're reacting and it seems like it enables you to change your behavior in that moment or at least give yourself a break. Like you're, you're, you're asking, you're thinking, you're asking yourself the question, is this, is this right? Am I, am I viewing this correctly? Is this, is my perception accurate?
- [73:45]
Jesse J. Anderson
Yeah, I definitely don't want to say I'm amazing at this.
- [73:49]
Shane Thrapp
It's.
- [73:49]
Jesse J. Anderson
It's a constant learning thing. But really that's like what we've done our whole lives. When you're a kid and you, you might be happy about something and then it makes you cry and it's really confusing. You don't even know what that emotion is. Like, what, how do I. And you're really so growing up, you're always kind of figuring out, you're labeling like, oh, I'm feeling a weird way. And then I learn what that label is. I learn what this feeling means. And, and so that's why I kind of say I'm unlearning.
- [74:15]
Mark Almodovar
I'm.
- [74:15]
Jesse J. Anderson
Now when I feel that rsd, it's like I'm trying to retrain myself of what that means. That, oh, this isn't a big thing that I am justified to respond angrily to because somebody like betrayed, like for me, RSD often feels like betrayal. And so that's like where my head goes. See, I even said it without thinking. It's like I jumped to. Betrayal is the label in my head that I think of for that feeling. And so it's just sort of like really thinking about it and reading about it and learning about it when I'm not feeling it. So that when I feel betrayal, it kind of. It's like, oh, that's a word that maybe this is not the. Maybe it's not what it appears to be. And it's definitely not like a, oh, now I never have RSD ever again. It's solved forever. But it's just sort of like learning to try and recognize those things when it happens. And the big question that I mentioned, that my therapist mentioned just like, does this make sense? Because that for me really was like a trigger point of, like, I want things to make sense. I, like, I do things that seem weird because it makes sense to me. And so that's really become sort of something I'm able to come up with in the moment. And it's going to be different for different people. But I really think it's about relearning the label to apply to the ways that we feel. Because when you're, you know, after you, you know, you're an adult, you've. You probably have hundreds of these different labels that you've applied to different ways that your body feels. You don't even really think about it. It's just when you feel that certain way, your brain's like, oh, that's this, this. And this is. This is what's happening right now.
- [75:51]
Carol Fleck
My last question before I go to the audience is for Brandon. I wanted to ask you about being a dad with ADHD of sons with adhd. I know your kids are teens. Can you talk a little about the challenges and how you manage your triggers?
- [76:10]
Kyris Keenan Westcott
Yeah.
- [76:10]
Brendan Mahan
I think that this comes back to masking in a lot of ways. One of the things I was thinking about when we were talking about masking is it's really easy to unmask when all the power dynamics are equal. When we're among our peers at a conference, it's easy to unmask when we are in a leadership position, even if it's just being the leader of a family, it's a lot harder to unmask.
- [76:34]
Mark Almodovar
Right?
- [76:35]
Brendan Mahan
Like, it's a lot harder because I have to have my stuff together. I have to model appropriate behavior for my kids. I have to be emotionally regulated so that everybody in the family feels safe. Not just not as, like, dad is a threat and dangerous, but more like, if this situation is overwhelming dad, how could I possibly handle it? Says, thanks, the kid, right? When I become an adult, how am I ever going to handle something like this if my dad can't handle something like this? And potentially the same for my wife. Right. Like, if I'm going through Something. And my wife, like, is like, oh, my. Oh, no, he can't handle it. Like, what, are the wheels about to come off the cart kind of a thing. So. And unfortunately, as long as we live in a society where men are supposed to be the, like, head of the family, which is not exactly how my marriage works. We're very, like, gender flipped in my house. Um, my wife is a scientist. I'm the care worker. You know, like, a lot of gender flip stuff, but still, the outside pressure of culture means that I feel like I can't fall apart, be overwhelmed. Da, da, da. When stuff is happening. Years ago, years ago, I broke like, my kid was. For those of you who are listening that don't know, I have identical twin sons who are 16 years old. They were in, like, fifth grade maybe at the time. One of them has obsessive compulsive disorder. It got so bad, he ended up being hospitalized for it. He's better now. He's doing great. Both of them are doing great. But this is when we were on the ramp, ramp up to that, and I cried. Like, I was overwhelmed by how much he was struggling and not knowing what to do and pride in the kitchen. And that affected his brother pretty significantly and kind of him like, we can't let dad know that stuff is hard because dad can't handle it. Was basically the message they took from that, which wasn't true. I just was so lost and supposed to be the parenting expert in the struggle of my own kid. I've learned a lot since then, and. But that I learned that lesson right, I was like, I can't get overwhelmed.
- [78:25]
Mark Almodovar
It doesn't matter.
- [78:26]
Brendan Mahan
It doesn't matter how hard everything is. Things got way harder after that. And that's part of the challenge of being a man, is we're not. All of that stuff about being in a box that I talked about and everyone has talked about, about emotions, and we can't show our emotions. And Jesse very eloquently saying that his manager doesn't know how to manage him because he's too emotional. And all this stuff, like, that's real. And that happens when we're in a family. It happens if you're the owner of a company. Like, if you're in a leadership position, the more power you have, unless you're really powerful, the less emotions you can have.
- [78:58]
Mark Almodovar
Right?
- [78:59]
Brendan Mahan
Like, if you're sort of the God emperor, you can kind of do what you want, but the more power you have up until a certain point, the less emotion you can show because you're everyone's looking to you, right? Like, and if you have power and responsibility, I should say, if you've got that sense of responsibility to those that you're leading, you've got to manage yourself so you can manage them and help them manage themselves and all that stuff. And it's, it's not easy. It's a lot of pressure, but. And especially with adhd, right? It makes it harder. And I just do my best. Like, I kind of haven't cracked really since then. Went through a phase where I yelled and ate a lot during the OCD stuff. But even that, I stopped because I realized I was doing it and was like. And then I just said to him, like, look, I am, I'm not doing it.
- [79:43]
Mark Almodovar
Right?
- [79:44]
Brendan Mahan
Like, you're doing the best you can. You want to do well. You're not meeting those, you're not doing stuff you used to be able to do. I know enough to know that this is because you're not able to access your executive functions. So I'm going to change my expectations. We're going to be fine. And that's what happened. And it, like, I was burned out for like a year after he got better. And. But it, it, in this, in the time since, I've been able to manage myself better and learn the skills I needed and, and learn when to be overwhelmed, right? Like, I can. I work from home and everyone leaves. The kids go to school, my wife goes to work. And sometimes I'm just like. And that's okay. Like, then, yeah, that's, that's part of parenting is leadership.
- [80:26]
Carol Fleck
So we got lots of questions from our audience. So I'm going to ask and you can decide who answers. Someone asks what male ADHD characteristics and emotions are distinct for men versus women with adhd? How are men with ADHD different from women with adhd? Are there characteristics or traits that are different and maybe impairing or not?
- [81:00]
Shane Thrapp
I can go for it.
- [81:02]
Mark Almodovar
Yeah.
- [81:03]
Kyris Keenan Westcott
Obviously it shows up differently in men and women. Not because our brains are from different planets, but it's because we're taught to handle what's happening inside them, right? So for men, ADHD symptoms are a little bit more externalized. So that means things like impulsivity, restlessness, risk taking, emotional outbursts are more visible. So that's often why we're labeled as disruptive or lazy. Because our symptoms stand out and because masculinity tells us to, to push through, we often turn that energy into overworking and perfectionism and burnout. For women, on the other hand, it's often said that women internalize it a little bit more so their ADHD can show up as anxiety, people pleasing, emotional exhaustion. Not saying that men don't experience that, but women are more likely to be misdiagnosed or not diagnosed at all. But they're often misdiagnosed with depression before anyone even talks or brings up the conversation surrounding adhd. I think what's wild is that both genders experience all of these things. They just get judged differently for it. A man may get called immature and a woman may get called overly emotional. Neither of those labels help. So when we talk about ADHD and men versus women, it's not about who has it worse. I think it's about how differently the world reacts to it. So men get punished for showing it. Women, women get dismissed for hiding it. And both deserve understanding and not stereotypes. And if I may actually going into that, there was somebody that actually asked a question in here about beards. I want to read this question because I thought it was really interesting because it goes into this. Somebody had wrote, why do most men on this panel conform to beards? I view that as a sign of mass of toxic masculinity.
- [82:45]
Carol Fleck
Wow.
- [82:46]
Kyris Keenan Westcott
It's an interesting observation and kind of. If I may, I wouldn't personally connect having a beard to toxic masculinity. For a lot of men, including myself, it's not, it's not projecting anything. It's just how we feel comfortable showing up in the world. I think what's important here is remembering that masculinity itself is not toxic. It's the expectations that can be. So whether a man grows a beard or keeps his face clean shaven or wears pink or lifts weights, none of that defines his values, his empathy, or his emotional awareness. What this panel represents, bearded or not, are men trying to show up with honesty and vulnerability and self awareness. And that's exactly. That's the exact opposite of toxic masculinity. So, yeah, the beards are just hair, but the work that we're doing here, that's challenges, stereotype. Sorry, I just want to make sure I.
- [83:35]
Carol Fleck
Awesome. One question.
- [83:37]
Shane Thrapp
My beard is beautiful and I love my beard.
- [83:40]
Carol Fleck
You're beautiful, Shane. You guys are all beautiful.
- [83:42]
Brendan Mahan
I hate shaving. It's such an ADHD accommodation to not have to shave my whole face.
- [83:48]
Shane Thrapp
For real.
- [83:49]
Jesse J. Anderson
Do you want to every single day?
- [83:51]
Shane Thrapp
I don't think so.
- [83:52]
Jesse J. Anderson
I'm not doing that.
- [83:55]
Carol Fleck
Okay. Another question is, what is your advice to men who self medicate and to manage the overwhelming exhaustion of ADHD with alcohol or Other unhealthy bad habits. What are practical, healthy daily habits that work for men with ADHD?
- [84:12]
Shane Thrapp
Oh, I know this one. Okay. 15 years as a pothead, y'.
- [84:17]
Kyris Keenan Westcott
All.
- [84:17]
Shane Thrapp
I'm gonna be honest about it. I'm just gonna sit here and say it. Look, there's, there's a lot of stuff out there. I'll try to keep it as brief as possible. THC makes all of the ADHD symptoms worse, Right? They also interfere with medications. They affect the same sections of the brain. They damage the same parts of the brain. I am not telling anyone not to smoke or anything like that. The problem is you need to understand that you just like alcohol and stuff like that. You are self medicating and it's causing harm to yourself. If you choose as an adult to do that, that's your responsibility, so forth and so on. But you do need to be, you do need to understand that the, like the THC that's in the. Oh, we still on. Sorry.
- [85:06]
Carol Fleck
Oh, yeah, yeah.
- [85:08]
Shane Thrapp
Okay. But like the THC that is, that's out there right now is not the same stuff as when we were kids, right? Especially when you're looking at vape pens and things of that nature. That stuff can have 80 to 90 concentration in it and it is not doing your brain any good. So you just have to, you have to be realistic about that. The things that you really need to be doing, honestly, and I'm not, I should be, I probably should be the spokesperson for this one is exercise is amazing, but it doesn't mean like going out and running or anything like that. But if you like sword fighting, go through sword fighting. I actually do martial arts and sword fighting. I enjoy it. It's a nerd thing. But you know, those are things that really do benefit and are helpful and are going to give you a lot of the dopamine and stuff like that, you need thc, alcohol, all that's doing is masking the symptoms or making them worse. To be completely truthful, and I say this as a person who drinks every now and then and who has smoked weed for a long time.
- [86:12]
Carol Fleck
A mental health provider who treats children wants to know what are critical steps you guys recommend to build up young boys and teen boys.
- [86:26]
Mark Almodovar
So I mean, you mentioned medical. I don't know if I could speak on the medication process so much. But just as far as just necessary steps for young children, I think that an important message is to like, I think about my younger self, right? Like how great it would be to have taught my younger self to have confidence within my ADHD and learn what I call healthy self accountability. Right? So what we'll do is as ADHD years, we'll do this thing where we'll take on a 30 day exercise challenge and be really excited in the beginning. But then day nine, we forget about it, right? And then day ten comes, comes around and we're like, shoot, I didn't do day nine. I'm terrible. I said I was going to do something, I didn't do it again. I'm the worst person ever. And we're just like in this negative thought spiral when we need to be reminding ourselves that day 11 is a thing and we're not defined by that. Right? So when we, when we can teach those behaviors of healthy self accountability and really just influencing self confidence and you know, showing people with ADHD that it's okay to have many of these faults and there's things that we can do about it, that's a really wonderful thing. I'm a huge believer in self confidence with adhd. We spend most of our time beating ourselves up and if we can change that, we're setting ourselves up to win.
- [87:45]
Jesse J. Anderson
Just really quickly on that. I've got two boys and one of the things I, when trying to raise them that I really, really, really try to remind myself to do constantly, excuse me, is just positive reinforcement, encouragement, like celebrating the things that they do well. And it's, it's such a little thing. But that's so I just know that, that as a kid that grew up with adhd, that is the fuel, that's, that's what really lets me thrive, is when people tell me that they see what I'm doing and they're celebrating it and they want me to kind of keep going. I know that, that it's so when I was growing up, I was missing a lot of that. I wasn't feeling encouraged, I was feeling isolated. And so that positive kind of reinforcement I just think is super important. I know we're running low, so I'll just cut it off right there.
- [88:29]
Brendan Mahan
Three things. Meet them where they are so you can set appropriate expectations. Give them responsibilities that they can pull off and encourage them to create more than they consume.
- [88:41]
Carol Fleck
What do you mean by that?
- [88:44]
Brendan Mahan
Create more than they consume?
- [88:45]
Carol Fleck
Yeah, yeah.
- [88:48]
Brendan Mahan
Make stuff right? It might be you're exercising so you're making a stronger you. It might be you're writing a story. It might be you're painting a picture, building a Lego set.
- [88:55]
Mark Almodovar
Doesn't matter.
- [88:56]
Brendan Mahan
That's just make something right. Create friendships. That counts. Consuming is mostly on a screen, right? If my kids are looking at YouTube or playing video games, that's mostly consumption. So we work really hard in my house to make sure we're balancing those two things and creating more than we're consuming.
- [89:13]
Carol Fleck
Okay, well, that has to be the last question because we're out of time. This has been amazing. I'd like to thank each of you for spending time with us and for helping to bring more awareness and understanding about what it's like to live with adhd. The Attitude team is grateful for your participation today. Thank you so much. Each of you.
- [89:41]
Jesse J. Anderson
Been great.
- [89:42]
Mark Almodovar
Thank you.
- [89:43]
Brendan Mahan
Thank you guys. This was phenomenal.
- [89:45]
Shane Thrapp
Thank you so much.
- [89:45]
Brendan Mahan
You guys are awesome.
- [89:47]
Carol Fleck
You guys are awesome. And thank you to today's listeners. If you would like to access the event resources, visit attitudemag.com and search podcast 581. The slides and recording are posted a few hours after each live webinar. If you're listening in replay mode, simply click on the episode description. Please know that our full library of Attitude webinars is available as a podcast. It's called the ADHD Experts Podcast and it's available on most streaming platforms. So that's it for us today. Thanks everyone. Really appreciate you guys. Thank you. For more Attitude Podcast and information on living well with attention deficit, visit attitudemag.com.
- [90:35]
Brendan Mahan
That'S a D D I T U.
- [90:37]
Carol Fleck
D e m a g.com.
- [90:47]
Shane Thrapp
Morning, Zoe. Got donuts.
- [90:49]
Jesse J. Anderson
Jeff Bridges, why are you still living above our garage?
- [90:52]
Shane Thrapp
Well, I dig the mattress and I want to be in a T mobile commercial like you teach me. So Dana.
- [90:59]
Brendan Mahan
Oh no, I'm not really prepared. I couldn't possibly at T Mobile get.
- [91:04]
Kyris Keenan Westcott
The new iPhone 17 Pro on them.
- [91:06]
Brendan Mahan
It's designed to be the most powerful.
- [91:07]
Kyris Keenan Westcott
Iphone yet and has the ultimate pro camera system.
- [91:10]
Shane Thrapp
Wow, impressive. Let me try. T mobile is the best place to get iPhone 17 Pro because they've got the best network. Nice.
- [91:18]
Carol Fleck
Jeffrey, you heard them.
- [91:20]
Kyris Keenan Westcott
T mobile is the best place to.
- [91:22]
Brendan Mahan
To get the new iPhone 17 Pro on us with eligible traded in any condition.
- [91:27]
Shane Thrapp
So what are we having for launch?
- [91:28]
Brendan Mahan
Dude, my work here is done. The 24 month credit is on experience beyond for well qualified customers plus tax and $35 device connection charge credit send and balance due if you pay off earlier Cancel Finance Agreement. IPhone 17 Pro 256 gigs $1099.99 and new line minimum $100 plus a month plan with auto pay plus taxes and fees required. Best mobile network in the US based on analysis by O Speed Test Intelligence data 1 8, 2025 Visit T mobile dot com.