← ADHD for Smart Ass Women with Tracy Otsuka
ADHD for Smart Ass Women with Tracy Otsuka
EP. 317: ADHD, Addiction, and Advocacy: Jennifer’s Inspiring Story
00:50:50
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- [00:06]
A
Richard Branson, Michael Phelps, Justin Timberlake, James Carville. Wait a minute. Where are the women? Greta Gerwig, Lisa Ling, Audra McDonald, Simone files. That sounds like a list of highly successful titans in a variety of industries. They all have adhd, but you don't hear hear much about that now, do you? You know what else you don't hear about are the 43% of people with ADHD who are in excellent mental health. Why aren't we talking about them and what they're doing right? I'm your host, Tracy Otsuka, and that's exactly what we do here. I'm a lawyer, not a doctor, a lifelong student, and now the author of my new book, ADHD for Smartass Women. I'm also a certified ADHD coach and the creator of youf ADHD Brain is okay. A patented system that helps ADHD women just like you get unstuck and fall in love with their brilliant brains. Here we embrace our too muchness and we focus on our strengths. My guests and I credit our ADHD for some of our greatest gifts. And to those who still think they're too much, too impulsive, too scattered, too disorganized, I say no one ever made a difference by being too little. Hello, hello, hello. I am your host, Tracy Outsuka. Thank you so much for joining me here for another episode of ADHD for Smartass Women. You know that my purpose is to show you who you are and then inspire you to be it. And in the thousands of ADHD women that I've had the privilege of meeting, I've never met a one that wasn't truly brilliant at something. Not one. And so, of course, I am just delighted to introduce you to Jennifer Nicole Schmitz. Jennifer originally sent me an email that I'd like to share with you because it was so heartfelt, important, and open, and I just thought it warranted reading. So I've been listening to your podcast for a couple of months now, starting at episode one. I haven't made it through all of them yet, but it just hit me. Have you had a guest on your show that fell into addiction as a teenager because of a misdiagnosis or a misdiagnosis we actually have. I would love to talk to you about my mother's story and mine. She died from Wet brain in 2022, about a year before her diagnosis. Is this alcohol induced dementia? I am positive she had ADHD and could be alive right now if she was ever diagnosed correctly. I'm pursuing a psychology degree. This is my first time in College at age 37. Congratulations. My mission is to try and help other girls and young women not have to go through what my mother and I went through. For every little girl who has ever made themselves and struggled silently stuck inside their head in a culture that didn't pay attention to them, I felt compelled to write to you because ADHD took me to some very dark places. My experiences at the time and how I see them now could help other women see themselves and not have to go through the same. I'll tell you now, this is hilarious. I have a flat affect and my brain is the squirrel farm. But I'm witty and a lot of fun and I can keep the dark stuff lighter if you prefer. Thank you so much for your time. Anyway, I just loved that email because it was so genuine and I think the subject matter is so important. So I am delighted to welcome Jennifer. Jennifer, thank you so much for joining us. How are you doing?
- [03:52]
B
Thank you so much. I really appreciate your time.
- [03:55]
A
Oh, my gosh, absolutely. Can we talk, which is what we always do about your diagnoses first, so we can kind of get some of the backstory. Okay.
- [04:05]
B
Yeah. A couple of years ago, I started taking a nutrition coaching course. I was having the same difficulty that I remember having for most of my life where if I get to a particular part of even something that I am interested in, but that part's not particularly stimulating. I go over the same line over and over again, and I was just like, I was so stuck on this one part. And I was talking to my sister, and my sister has presented as, you know, hyper little boy type ADHD like, all her life. And so I was talking to her about it, and I'm like, the same thing came out of my mouth that has come out of my mouth all my life is what's wrong with me. And I talked to her about it and she was like, well, you know, and she. We started putting things together. Like, when I was a kid, I would obsess about certain foods at certain times and get really stuck on one thing in particular until I'd burnt myself out on it. I was always fidgety. People were always, can't you just sit down and bit my fingernails to bloody nubs? Like, all my life and stuff. And so just the little things we were talking about and putting it together, coupled with some stuff I had listened to on different podcasts in your podcast, really just kind of brought it together for me that there's definitely something going on here. And. And at that time, I just needed to figure out what it was so that I could try to get through that course that I was taking.
- [05:34]
A
So do you present More as in a 10 of ADHD, even though you fidget a lot? Are you more in your head than physically and externally hyperactive?
- [05:43]
B
I would say it's both. Whenever I was younger, I. I was the hyperactive kid that would scream and run around. I remember being in kindergarten and I couldn't sleep during nap time because naps are boring. And so I would be the one that was like, looking around for who else was awake and like, army crawling across the room to try to get other kids. I mean, you know, just all over the place. And there were some things that happened, caused me to kind of go more into my head and into myself. And then I think that that's kind of where it ended up being both.
- [06:15]
A
We know what you were like when you were in, what, preschool, kindergarten. What were you like as you got older? So in grade school, like, how did you do in school, all of that?
- [06:27]
B
It was. By the time I was in about third grade, we had moved from Mississippi, where I grew up, to West Texas. And my mother got into a car accident that was really bad, and she was in the hospital for a while.
- [06:43]
A
How old would you have been then?
- [06:44]
B
I was eight.
- [06:45]
A
Eight, okay.
- [06:46]
B
And she got in a car accident and extensive brain damage. It completely changed her life. And I went from just doing whatever I wanted and just being a kid to seeing what was going on. And just. That's when, like, my performance started to increase a little bit for a while, even though I was struggling, like, I still making a or ab honor rolls and stuff, because I was just trying so hard because I thought if I could do well enough, like, my mom could still be okay. And she. I didn't know that it wasn't on me to take that on. And so even though I looked like I was doing well, I really wasn't. There was a lot of it. That stuff that was being stuffed down and then it just really exploded. Around the time I was 12 to 14, and 12 years old is the first time that I drank alcohol. And then was after that was when I started dabbling into marijuana and alcohol and other drugs and stuff. So.
- [07:47]
A
So. And your reason for doing that was you were just trying to regulate your own nervous system. You were just trying to cope. Do you remember what you were thinking? You were trying to escape, basically that.
- [07:59]
B
Yeah, that's kind of the way that I was taught. There's a lot to it. But I was raised in a bar. My Parents owned a bar before they split up whenever I was younger. And that's what you did. If there was something to celebrate, you use substances. If there was something to mourn, you use substances. If I'm bored, boredom was like. I figured out that that was a huge one for me, is if I can't regulate my boredom or find something that. That I will quickly go to substances and alcohol.
- [08:29]
A
Okay. And so was. Was your dad in the house, or was it just your mom and your mom who now has brain damage?
- [08:36]
B
My dad. They split up before we ever moved from Mississippi, and that they still had a. You know, they talked to each other. They were, like, really good friends after that. I mean, they still maintained a decent relationship. And my father left whenever I was about 10. He moved away to do offshore drilling. And so I think I was like 9 or 10 when that happened. And so, I mean, he was back and forth and in and out, but it was mostly just me and my mother and. And we lived next door to my grandparents who helped with the situation, but it was just kind of a lot. My grandmother was actually involved in the accident as well, but it. The car was struck on my mother's side, so it wasn't as detrimental for her.
- [09:18]
A
Gosh, I'm so sorry about that. And so your mother, who you suspect had ADHD to begin with, then is struck with a TBI or traumatic brain injury, which I'm sure just makes everything worse, Right?
- [09:35]
B
Yeah. See, the thing with my mother, she grew up and she. She was abused by her real parents when she was younger, and she had a lot of terrible things happen. And I remember being. Whenever I was a little kid, my dad would say stuff to her when she was taking longer than he preferred. He also had ADHD of the hurry up, you're in my way kind of variety. And so if she was taking five seconds longer than he wanted, he literally called her a dingbat and stuff like that and would tell her not to worry about it, you know, implying that she's stupid. And she actually got diagnosed with low IQ in her early 20s, before I was ever born. And I didn't even know, like, understand how that was related until I. I believe it was on your show that I heard you speaking to somebody about that and that women are often misdiagnosed as low iq. And I was just like, oh, my God, like, nobody. That's low iq. My mom was on disability and all kinds of stuff, and she had this meager income from that, and she was able to budget it. And we always. I Mean what we needed and even some of the stuff that we wanted. How can you be low IQ and stupid or whatever and get all that done? I just don't believe it.
- [10:48]
A
Well, and that's. To me, what is so faulty about these IQ tests is if there is an area of your brain that works differently or you struggle in one area, that doesn't mean that you're stupid in all areas or even that you're stupid in that area. It might just mean that you learn in that area using that part of the brain differently. Right, right. So I just like, how do you even take an IQ test? And I mean, this was the problem with my son where, you know, really super brilliant in math, but then he was dyslexic. So of course, you know, his IQ scores are going to reflect his dyslexia. Even though they didn't see, they didn't say it was dyslexia, you know.
- [11:30]
B
Right.
- [11:31]
A
So. And you can imagine how then learned helplessness kicks in. Well, if all these experts are telling me this, it must be true, when in fact, deep inside, I mean, your mother must have known, I am not stupid. I don't have, you know, low IQ yet. That's what I'm being told. And so then you're limited. Right, By.
- [11:51]
B
I never even thought of it that way with the learned helplessness, because there was a lot of times like it was the stuff she was saying to herself.
- [11:58]
A
Yes.
- [11:59]
B
Coupled with it, that was so limiting. And I didn't. I didn't realize that part of that for me is, you know, my stuff. But also learned behaviors. We passed down these. You know, I saw how my mother was treating herself and, and how my father was treating her, and I thought that these things were acceptable. And then to cover the pain, it went from just partying and having a good time to her being alone in her bedroom and sometimes sleeping for three or four days at a time.
- [12:23]
A
And I really believe that women, this is what happens when they're angry and in emotional pain. It's how they cope. Not all of us, but if you don't know what else to do and you don't have the skills because no one has taught you otherwise. And I hate to say it, but I can imagine, you know, growing up in Mississippi too, where there's probably still. It's everywhere, you know, the gender discrimination, gender roles, what women are supposed to do. And really, your mom was probably meant for a lot more than, you know, being a homemaker and staying at home.
- [13:03]
B
Not that that's not great. I know that that's not what she was exclusively wanting. It was something she was taught to want and told she should want. And I just know that of all this abuse and all the, everything that she went through and then put me through because of that, that like she was desperately trying to give me something that she didn't even have. She did.
- [13:25]
A
I mean, I hear you. I like I'm listening to you speak and thinking, there's no way this woman wasn't brilliant. Right?
- [13:32]
B
That's why I wanted to come and talk to you, really. My mom died on 22 22. I woke up that morning because I'm like a numbers person and so is my sister. And so I called her and I was like, hey, it's 2222. What good thing do you think is going to happen today? And then we get a call at like in the early afternoon that our mother had died and I was just like, now, honestly, I mean, she had wet brain, which is alcohol induced dementia. It's a vitamin B1 deficiency, thiamine deficiency. And sometimes you can come back from that. I've had vitamin B1 deficiency caused by DTS and withdrawals from alcohol, but once it gets to a certain point, your brain is not able to repair itself. That coupled with brain damage, she just, she never stood a chance. But she was so lovely and like, I just, this is why I wanted to be here, was just really to talk to people about how bad this can get. I spent so much of my teenage years and my young adult life. I got married whenever I was a teenager because I was just chasing that love. I just needed to find the one. You know, a man is a plan. And, well.
- [14:44]
A
And you didn't get married as a teen. I mean, teenager, I think. Okay, maybe you could be 19, right?
- [14:50]
B
Oh, no, I was 15.
- [14:52]
A
How is that even allowed? What 15 year old can make that decision for themselves? What the hell?
- [14:58]
B
I know everybody was doing the best that they could at the time, but there were some people who weren't making the best decisions. And my mom had the extensive brain damage. My grandmother had legal custody of me while my father was overseas, off and on and everything because of my mother's situation. But I wasn't allowed to live with my grandmother because she already had custody of too many of her grandkids living in the home. And that's why we lived next door. And once my mother's illness progressed, I mean, she was out of her mind. I don't believe it was her to any degree, but she just became really violent and with that, my grandmother didn't know. She didn't know what to do. And so she had the lovely talk that you have, you know, how do you feel about your boyfriend? Do you understand marriage? And the only thing I understood is that guy had methamphetamines, and I wanted methamphetamines. Just to be perfectly blunt and honest about it. It's. And so I ended up marrying him and moving to far west Odessa, Texas.
- [16:01]
A
And so how old was he?
- [16:04]
B
19.
- [16:05]
A
And so your grandmother just thought that, okay, you would then be taken care of.
- [16:11]
B
There was physical abuse going on. And of course, my being an addict, active addict at the time, I was lying to everyone about everything. And that coupled with her trying to manage everything she could. I think it was easier to not look at the pain point over there when you've already got so many other ones right in front of your face. I don't blame her at all, but it was not the best decision.
- [16:34]
A
No, of course not. And I mean, you're 15 years old. You don't even know. You don't have an inkling of who the hell you even are.
- [16:41]
B
Yeah, I had no idea. I didn't know anything about how life worked. I thought everybody was doing it to me, and I didn't have any control.
- [16:50]
A
I know your mother loved you. I know your grandmother loved you. There were people in your life that loved you, but they also had. Had so much trauma. Right. So they were doing the best they could do with this generational trauma.
- [17:04]
B
Exactly.
- [17:05]
A
And still somehow you were able to come out of it. What did you do?
- [17:12]
B
Almost died.
- [17:13]
A
But you know what? Sometimes that's what it takes, right?
- [17:16]
B
Yeah, I. I basically after I left my. My husband, I was 22, 23, and I started working. I started working for the first time. I'd never worked, had a job or anything like that. And. And I started really getting into. Just trying to seek mail validation, really, any kind of validation.
- [17:33]
A
But were you still actively using at this point?
- [17:36]
B
Yes.
- [17:36]
A
Okay.
- [17:37]
B
That progressed on. And I moved from West Texas to Dallas. I live in Dallas, DFW area, Texas. And things calmed down for a little bit, honestly. But it's because everything was big and new and fun, and so the. The addiction asp. Of died down because I wasn't as bored all the time.
- [17:58]
A
Isn't that interesting?
- [17:59]
B
Yep. I. I put this all together from just the last couple of years. Like, I didn't even realize that. It's like when the new wears off, it's back to the same thing and equally as bored. But that lasted for a little while, and then I just did what I do and went online and met the wrong people and started going around, and next thing you know, I basically live at bars. And then next thing you know, I'm getting drunk at work. And then next thing you know, it's in the morning, and then I can't hold down a job. I can't do anything. It all came to a head. There were some things that happened in between, but we don't really got to get into. But it all came to a head. I actually caught an assault charge. I assaulted my best friend, my sister. That's.
- [18:45]
A
Wait, did you say your sister? And so is your sister older than you or younger?
- [18:49]
B
Older. By eight years.
- [18:51]
A
By eight years. So she was kind of almost like a second mom, too.
- [18:54]
B
Yeah. She rescued me for pretty every chance she could throughout my teenage years because she lived with her father and stepmother and in a different town nearby. And so we. We didn't see each other frequently. Once she got a car, I was plucked out of that as as much as possible. So she really did end up being kind of like a second mom.
- [19:14]
A
Yeah.
- [19:15]
B
That all basically came to a head when I got blackout drunk and assaulted her in our living room, and she called the. The police, and I was taken away, and I got in a car accident. I spent a couple days in jail, I think, and got out and went to some person that I. A guy that I was using, because that's what I did is I found people to use for drugs and alcohol. And I went to his house, and he. I was a train wreck. He didn't want to have anything to do with me, and he let me stay there so I would be safe, but he left me there, and I ransacked his house and found what alcohol I could, and then I got blackout drunk and left and ended up getting in a car accident, almost dying. Spent a long time in the hospital and in a wheelchair. That was in 2015. I just celebrated four years of sobriety not too long ago. So that's to tell you, just because you hit your bottom doesn't mean that that's always enough. But I still consider that to be my bottom. Yeah, for sure.
- [20:20]
A
And so. So congratulations. First of all, this is never easy, but, man, when you literally grow up and again, you know your family did the best they can do, I. I absolutely believe that. But if you don't have the guidance as a child, you've got to figure this out on your own. And so I really believe, because I know your goal now is to go into. Is counseling and psychology. Right. And so I really believe that our best purposes give meaning to our past and it allows us to understand why these things actually happened and how we can make. Turn them all around. Right?
- [21:00]
B
Yeah, exactly.
- [21:02]
A
Yeah. Make it something that. But for this happening, you are just going to be such a good coach. You are going to be such a good psychologist, whatever your goal is, because you have had these experiences firsthand, like, you know, what these people are actually going through. And so they're just going to trust you more. Right. Versus if I would try to tell people, okay, well, have you considered this, you know, you know, in this situation, I haven't been through it personally. So you understand that though, right?
- [21:35]
B
Yeah. That's one of the things that I'm really glad for too, is. And that's why I, like, I don't mind sharing some of the uglies is because people. I mean, that's not ultimately what's going to change somebody is them hearing my ugly stories. It's if they see themselves in any part of it and then they can. If I. The more, I mean, I don't want to get too much, but the more of it that I'm, you know, able to share with people, the more that they can see themselves and hopefully not have to go through the same thing or see their mother or see that, you know, daughter or whatever. Because, I mean, just because somebody. Just. Just because a kid. I went from being the one that the teacher knew I went to a vocational high school. He knew I was going to be something. He was telling me all the time how smart I was in 10th grade. And then by the time 12th grade hits, I'm nothing but a drug addict and a waste of time. What happened in between there? Why are we not asking these questions?
- [22:31]
A
Yeah, exactly. Well, and also for children, right. That you can. I don't know what you're planning on doing, but whatever you're going to do is actually going to save lives and change lives. So, you know, I just, I just have so much respect for how far you've come. Thank you. And what you've decided to do. And I also think that the more you talk about it, well, then there's no shame. Right? There is a reason for it. It has nothing to do with your character or, you know, a moral failing. It is the circumstances. And in truth, this could happen to anyone in your circumstances. There's nothing special about you. I mean, there is, but you know what I mean.
- [23:17]
B
Not at all. I'm unique, just like everybody Else.
- [23:19]
A
Yeah. Yeah. And I believe. And I'm curious what you think about this. I believe it's the shame that causes people to drink.
- [23:30]
B
Yeah. That's what causes people to not. I feel like for me, once it became a physical component, like, first it was like, man, this is all great and fun. And then it's like, man, everything sucks, so I'll just keep drinking. And then the one day that I was like, I got up and I said, you know what? I'm not gonna drink today. And then by 10am I'm feeling physically ill. Yeah. Then I'm like, what's wrong with me? How did I let it get to this point? And then there's shame in that. So I don't want to talk to somebody about, hey, I'm physically addicted to alcohol. I screwed up. Then there's still stigma around that, even though it's getting better.
- [24:08]
A
Yeah, it absolutely is. So what did you do? Did you learn how? Because I'm assuming that part of what was going on with you is you were just constantly tamping down your feelings.
- [24:24]
B
Yeah. Yes.
- [24:25]
A
And this allowed you alcohol, drugs, whatever allowed you to get through life without having to feel something that's so painful.
- [24:34]
B
Either to forget the feelings entirely, to not have to feel them, or to be able to change them temporarily because, you know, I want to. Like, it would make me feel happier or make me not, you know, if I'm not thinking about that awful thing, then. Even if it's for 15 minutes. But what I didn't realize is that I was just, like, delaying the pain. And then in the end, it all just piled up into one huge, huge ball of pain.
- [24:59]
A
At what point did you understand? Because I'm assuming that at this point, you have done a lot of. You've learned how to do the work, to manage your own thoughts and manage your own emotions. And you're probably not perfect at it yet, but you're working every day. I don't know if we can ever be perfect at it. So how did you get there? How did you learn how to understand that? And what happened this last time where you didn't say, okay, now I'm going to stop. This is not serving me. It doesn't make me feel better. It ultimately makes me feel worse, even though I think it's going to make me feel better from that first drink. But then it just gets worse and worse. So at what point were you able to say, okay, this time it's for real?
- [25:47]
B
It's kind of a lot of things. I'm in a Recovery community. I think that was the first big ticket item was for just me to be around people who had been through, shared those shared experiences and are currently still feeling the way that I am. And you have all kinds of examples of it from a few days, months, all the way to years, you know, and those people in that community and then also joining a coaching community just, just to get to work on my, my thought processes. And there was a lady that I joined her community for just as long as I could pay for it because it was like $300 a month. But you did, I mean it was great. You did. Had once a week sessions with a coach and there was the modules and everything and, and working on the thought model that she created so that I could break it down and realize this is the circumstance, this is the thought that I'm having about it. Let's see if those are really in alignment. And then being okay with my own feelings too, like I'm allowed to feel stuff, you know.
- [26:53]
A
What is your biggest go to? So when you feel like your nervous system is getting overstimulated, what is the thing? Where do you go? Do you have a plan? Like, just talk to us about that? Because I know there are women listening who can completely relate to at least parts of your story, if not the whole story. And so what is it that you do? Like, I'd love to be able to give some like, tangible, like strategy.
- [27:22]
B
One of the biggest ones, especially if I is my big number one, is talking out loud to somebody else that I trust to say that whatever it is, even if I think it sounds crazy or whatever is going on in my head in its entirety and just get it out. Even if we're not working to solve something or whatever, literally, sometimes just expelling it is enough for me to be like, okay. And then if I can't with a person, a lot of times I'll do like a brain dump onto a piece of paper and just kind of get that out. And if it's, if, if it's more of a physical anxiety and sometimes it's a mental anxiety that then causes a physical sensation, and sometimes it's a physical anxiety that then, then causes me to be like, what's wrong? What's going on? Why is my body all weird? And then I get the mental anxiety. And so if I can start to become more aware of myself and how my mind and my body are relating, then if it is physical first, then I can do something like some type of exercise and go for a brisk walk or something. Like even just 10 jumping jacks sometimes if I don't have a lot of time, you know, just to kind of shake it off off, do a mini dance party for, you know, 15, 20 seconds, whatever. You know, just to re. It's kind of a way for me in my mind to show my body respect. Like I'm not ignoring you anymore, you know, because sometimes I think like my body will keep going because I've put it through so much that it's like, hey, you know, you're not listening still. And it's like, no, I'm really here this time, I promise.
- [29:01]
A
So it sounds, Jennifer, like you are being really kind to yourself. In those instances instead of before, would you have been talking to yourself really horribly?
- [29:13]
B
First thing is, what's wrong with me? Why am I such an idiot? Why can't I just be normal? You know, things like that. Just all the things we tell ourselves.
- [29:32]
A
Before we dive back in. A quick reminder, your brain is not disordered. The problem is no one ever gave you its manual. But I can and I will. Your ADHD brain is a. Ok. Academy is my step by step patented program to help you figure it all out. Click the link in the first line of this episode's description to learn more or book a discovery call. Now let's get back to the show. And so you are starting with the thoughts, right? So instead of having those thoughts, what are thoughts that you have chosen to have? Instead of what's wrong with you?
- [30:16]
B
Oh, is there's nothing wrong here. That's my big one. Or of course, of course I'm having anxiety, of course I'm feeling this way or whatever. And then if I can say of course even if I don't know, obviously of course I am. But why am I Sometimes if I say of course I'm feeling this way, then it's like my brain goes into figuring out, well, of course I am. So let's see why. Oh, it's because I'm. I haven't eaten in seven hours or like, you know, I chugged too much coffee in a one hour time period.
- [30:49]
A
Yeah. And so much of this, you know, we have this poor interoception. It's just part of ADHD where our body, like we know there's something wrong but we don't pay attention to it often until it's too late. And then when we're trying to figure out, okay, well why am I stressed, why am I anxious? It almost takes calming everything down, which is hard for us, right, to really figure out. Okay, oh, I'M not. What I'm upset about is, oh, I don't know, this thing that happened with a friend or this thing that happened with my boss. Like sometimes. And I don't know if this is you, but it sounds like it is based on what you've said so far. Sometimes I don't even know why I'm upset. And it really takes me pulling everything back, slowing down and just sitting with it to remember, oh yeah, that's why I was upset. Now this is a good thing too, because I'm never mad at anyone because I can't remember what I was mad about. But I'm curious if you have any thoughts around this.
- [31:53]
B
Sometimes, like, it's really just about being okay with not being able to figure it out. Because part of that perfection thing is, is I have to figure it out. Like I have to know all the answers or whatever, which is great because that's made me, you know, well rounded in bit a little lot of areas with my hyperfocus and everything else. But then it's like sometimes there's not a mystery to be super solved and that can give me more anxiety if I'm like trying to figure that out in a more positive direction instead of the what's wrong with me thing. It's like, how can we fine tune this to make it optimal? Well, no, it can just be happening and go away. I'm probably not going to be thinking about it in two hours anyway because like you said, I probably won't remember.
- [32:35]
A
Yeah, exactly. So I'm curious. When you were using, did you know that what you were thinking wasn't necessarily true and you were separate from your thoughts, or did you think this was all true and that was part of the problem?
- [32:53]
B
I thought everything was 100%, everything in my head was 100% true. I was never really, I never was taught and I had never come across any ideas that suggested that I should challenge what I was thinking, like in any way. And so I. A lot of that I feel like is part of the ADHD squirrel brainness, but also coupled with some of the learned behavior from my mother. She had a lot of that internal dialogue that she would share with me, which wasn't always appropriate of her negativity towards herself and her automatic assumptions about other people based on their actions and inactions. And man, if you're judging people based on everything they do and don't do, you're gonna be pretty, you know.
- [33:37]
A
Absolutely, absolutely. So you've mentioned your squirrel brain a couple times. Can you describe for me what that actually means and how this metaphor captures your experience with adhd. And I tend to, I just love squirrels.
- [33:54]
B
I love squirrels too. I've always have since I was a kid. And I think it's just because they're like all over the place, you know, that's how my brain feels. Like I can actually visualize it. Like my thoughts sometimes if there, there's a lot of them, like sometimes it'll be a few. And so you imagine like a free range situation and there's just some squirrels delicately hopping and then sometimes it's like a free for all and they're just scrambling everywhere. And so like I just say it vacillates between being caged in free range. As to the squirrel situation, it depends on, you know, different things. How much I've eaten that day, how hydrated I am and everything else, you know, so. And I also imagine it as just being like emptying just a thousands of ping pong balls into the top of a four sided. Like we're just. And then putting the lid on it. That's how it feels sometimes.
- [34:49]
A
So do you struggle with working memory? I kind of get the sense you do.
- [34:53]
B
Yeah. Sometimes. Yeah.
- [34:55]
A
What were the things you were really good at in school when you actually tried because you cared? You weren't bored?
- [35:02]
B
Anything science related really. And I was, I was actually pretty decent at math until I got to geometry. I don't. I think the teacher was really boring. Honestly, I'm not really sure what happened with that.
- [35:14]
A
Do you have visual spatial issues?
- [35:16]
B
I'm good with like, I'm good at like counting how many things might possibly be in a jar. But I'm terrible at cutting something into thirds, if that makes sense.
- [35:28]
A
Yeah. So maybe, you know, maybe that's part of it with geometry. I know I, I struggle. I still haven't figured it out, but I struggle with some visual spatial stuff and then other things like putting together a puzzle. I am friggin brilliant.
- [35:40]
B
Yeah.
- [35:41]
A
So it's always. And that's kind of, I think what's part of what we go through. Right. This. Okay, well I'm so good at this part. Like you just said, I'm so good at math, but you know geometry. And you're probably right. It was probably a combination of maybe there's something going on where the visual spatial part is a little bit more difficult. And if you have a crappy teacher, we're so checked out. Like we are the barometers of good teaching.
- [36:05]
B
Right? Yeah, for sure. But yeah. And I think that. So between anything That I could get my hands dirty. So, like digging outside, you know, Recess was always my favorite high energy. And then I struggled with English and history. I always thought history was a snooze fest.
- [36:24]
A
Well, and history is the one, right, that requires you to like, who the hell cares? The dates of all these battles, the names, like, it's so much memorization.
- [36:33]
B
That's my thing. Yeah. But if it was something I was interested in, like whenever I took music history, she. For our final project, she had us do. She said to pick a band and do our final project on the band. So I picked all the bands and Woodstock, all the bands covering Woodstock. And I was like, I'll just do a whole presentation on Woodstock and every band there. Wow. So that's kind of, you know, hyper focus. It depends on what you're interested in.
- [37:00]
A
Yeah, absolutely. I know that one of the things that you did struggle with and may still be struggling a little bit with is rejection sensitive dysphoria or rsd.
- [37:10]
B
Oh yeah. I didn't even know that that was a saying. I wondered why I thought. Thought I got misdiagnosed with major depressive disorder at the age of 10 when my dad left to go do the offshore drilling. Because I was sad that my dad was like gonna be gone. I was only gonna be able to communicate with them by fax machine. That's pretty big for a kid, you know.
- [37:31]
A
And did they put you on medication for that?
- [37:34]
B
They put me on depression medication for that. They put me on boost bar and I don't remember the other one.
- [37:40]
A
I mean, think about this, Jennifer. What child wouldn't be sad? And it might look like depression? That was a normal reaction, a normal emotion.
- [37:51]
B
It is a normal emotion. But I think that the level of. Because of the sensitive. I've always been sensitive. I've been called sensitive all my life. So I cry a lot. I mean, I just do, you know, and. And so I think the level of crying that was going on, that. And people expect everybody to just. Just get over something in like a certain timeline. And not everybody has the same timeline, especially a 10 year old kid when you're trying to compare them to an adult or whatever, like that's not. Doesn't even make sense. And so, yeah, definitely rejection sensitivity there. And then I got misdiagnosed with bipolar at around the age of 26 because of, again, a lot of big emotions that I was going through in relation to a job that I had. And one of the things that hit me too was one day I was listening to your Podcast. And it reminded me was I was at a job one time, and I remember the, the guy, he was having to explain something to me multiple times because it was just super tedious and boring little back office thing. And. And he looks at me and he goes, goes, are you slow or something? And I literally don't even know what happened. I. It, like, I had the perfect response. I was so impressed with myself. I said, no, this is just not very stimulating and you're not the best presenter. And then he just looked at me like I had three heads. And I was just like, now I think about stuff like that. I'm like, oh, man. But, like, forget that I'm not slow. You're just boring. Boring.
- [39:28]
A
Oh, that's just obnoxious. Why would you say that to anyone, even if it was true, you know, if they were intellectually disabled?
- [39:35]
B
What? But that's the kind of stuff that makes. It was having me just those little interactions like that were having me make myself smaller and smaller.
- [39:44]
A
Right. And they do that to women. Right. Regardless of adhd, regardless of addiction, regardless. With trauma. Yeah. We're just supposed to stay small and quiet and do what we're told. So, Jennifer, you've drawn a clear connection between adhd, addiction, trauma. What do you wish more medical professionals understood about how all of this is linked?
- [40:12]
B
About how all of it is linked?
- [40:14]
A
Yeah.
- [40:17]
B
I don't really know that I have an answer to that specific question yet.
- [40:24]
A
Okay.
- [40:25]
B
I, I'm still trying to make those connections myself, but I think that I wish that medical professionals would not just immediately go to bipolar. Like, that seems to be the. Like they're. And I don't know. I don't know how I could get that message across to anybody in particular other than just doing what I can to take the steps towards that now. But let's get off of the. It's just bipolar, like. Or this it that. Because that kind of goes with that whole we're just hysterical thing. And it's like, we're not just hysterical. We're not just bipolar, where we have real problems here.
- [41:07]
A
Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. And what if we get off the labels and ask what has happened to this human that might cause them to act and behave, you know, to exhibit these behaviors that they're. That they're behaving, that they're exhibiting. Yes, yeah, exactly.
- [41:31]
B
And people don't stop to think that they. They want everybody to be doing. And if you're not doing and you're just being, then that's a problem.
- [41:39]
A
So then I guess the follow up question would be, what would you, what message would you share with women who are struggling with both addiction and untreated.
- [41:52]
B
ADHD to work on your self efficacy? The reason I say that specifically is because nothing changed for me. I've had, I've always known I'm a good person. Self esteem. I was part of the big self esteem movement back in the day, you know, but I couldn't figure out why I couldn't do anything or why I felt like I could never accomplish anything or whatever. And until I started breaking down the messaging, you know, the, the things that I was telling myself and where that came from and actually develop some real self efficacy and not just thinking I'm a good person, but knowing that I'm capable of handling difficult situations, of handling big emotions and not. I'm not just hysterical and all this, but actually working on my, my belief in my own capabilities is where it really all came together. And not expecting myself to be perfect and to have it all figured out. Like it's a. Some of the happiest people I know that have a adhd, their house is a train wreck. People still come over there, they host things. They're all. And I sit there and I'm perfectly fine and I'm like, this is great because everybody loves each other. And then there are some others of us that are, are so perfectionist and so that we spend so much of our time that we could be really helping and evolving ourself and others keeping a tidy home. That's like HG magazine or whatever, you know, and there's always a happy medium and really figuring out if is this what I want or is this what. Yes, I've been told that I want or should want or whatever.
- [43:29]
A
Absolutely. And I think that's the key because for some of us with adhd, our brain's such a mess that we're like, if my surroundings are a mess, I just can't cope. Right. And so it is easier for us because we have probably more kind of OCD type tendencies. I'm not saying this is ocd, but we get anxious right. When things aren't at least put away. And so it's easy for us versus is if you don't care, if it makes no difference to you, why are you spending time speaking poorly to yourself about something that society says you should do but you don't really care about?
- [44:09]
B
Exactly. Determine if it, what if it's important to you, determine what's important to you. I guess is the message there because like I didn't realize that a lot of stuff that I thought was important to me was actually important to somebody that I grew up with.
- [44:22]
A
Yeah, yeah. So you were able to separate and understand. And this is. Yeah, my thing.
- [44:28]
B
Right. I still don't even know who I really am a third of the time, because I'm trying to figure it out, you know, But I mean, I'm fixing to be 38, and I think that.
- [44:38]
A
We'Re late bloomers, Jennifer. And I'm telling you, in ADHD years, 38 is infanthood.
- [44:45]
B
Yeah.
- [44:46]
A
And the thing is, once we figure out that it's adhd, everything else happens so quickly for us because, like, you're now in an area that you are really interested in. You are committed to figuring this whole thing out. So I'm curious. You're studying psychology. What have you. What are your thoughts? Like, why. Why psychology? What are you planning on doing?
- [45:09]
B
So I had several different things that I. I basically want. I first I thought I wanted to be like, maybe a psychologist to do some talk therapies and, like, actually get people skills that, you know, work on consistently. But then I thought, well, because I know I'm also tired of people just shoving pills down our people's throats and expecting everything. Great. And so, yeah, it's like. And then I thought about, I'll be a psychiatrist. That a way I can not just shove pills down people's throats. And I could do something different. But I think really what I'm doing right now is I'm getting into the program and then I'm going to see where it takes me from there. Like, I know that once I keep going that it's going to evolve into what it needs to be. So for now, what I'm going to do to get started with helping people more quickly is to design a coaching program. Make the approach coaching. Because in a recovery community, they talk about making the approach to spirituality, and I want to start talking to people about making the approach to, like, pain points in their life life. Like, you know, I don't need to help you with your recovery program. You know, you can do that with your recovery network. But I would like to help in other ways. And. And I am from that environment, so I think it could be complementary.
- [46:28]
A
Yeah, absolutely. So, Jennifer, do you have a number one ADHD workaround?
- [46:34]
B
Mine is manipulating the tools when they get stale. So sometimes I don't even have to, like, straight up chunk an entire tool away. I can just kind of make it look different or feel different and becomes, like, fresher and New again. Like, I realized I was overwhelmed by my calendar. And before, when I didn't have a lot of things going on, different categories of things, I would look at my calendar and I'm like, I'm not doing anything. This is so dull. And so I started color coding it. And then after I started having more to do, the color coding became overwhelming and there was so many colors and I was like, oh my God, I feel like I don't ever have time to myself. And so what I started doing was just, just make the whole week great. And then each morning, you know, as I'm doing my little prep, I will change what I need to work around. Yeah, don't expect your tools to get, not get still. And then when they do, just kind of try to tweak them around a little bit or ask somebody else for help.
- [47:31]
A
Absolutely. That's a great one. So Jennifer, if people want to know more about you, where can they find you?
- [47:38]
B
I'm predominantly on Facebook at facebook.com forward/jennifer.in. schmitz Most likely I'll be using Facebook and YouTube predominantly whenever I do start my coaching thing. But anything that's posted about that will be put on my Facebook page first.
- [47:56]
A
If anybody's interested in reaching out to you, is that okay that they reach out to you on Facebook? Yeah, of course.
- [48:02]
B
And anybody that if you have any kind of, if you're ever struggling, if you're bored, if you're lonely, it literally like, and especially if, if any of those reasons are going to push you to do something that you don't want to do like drugs, alcohol, calling your ex boyfriend, whatever, like a dating, you know, whatever. Like I'm, I'm just, I love people and I love making friends and I love getting to know different brains and so I really look forward to. I'm so glad I got to talk to you though. Whenever this came on and you said ADHD for smart ass women, my throat I felt like went bloop and then back up and I was like, it's really happening. So.
- [48:42]
A
Oh no. It's been such a pleasure to get to know you better. So Jennifer, thank you so much for spending time with us here today. I really appreciated getting to talk to you. I think your story is really important and I hope every single day you wake up and you are just so proud of yourself.
- [49:06]
B
Thank you. I appreciate it, it and I really hope that you have an excellent day.
- [49:10]
A
Yeah, thanks. So that's what I have for you for this week. If you like this episode with Jennifer please let us know by leaving a review. Our goal, you know, it's to change the conversation around adhd, helping as many women as we possibly can learn how their ADHD brains work so that they too may discover their amazing strengths. Just like Jennifer. Thank you so much for listening and I'll see you here next week. You've been listening to the ADHD for Smartass Women podcast. I'm your host, Tracy Otsuka. Join us at adhd for smart women.com where you can find more information on my new book, ADHD for Smartass Women and my patented you'd ADHD Brain is a okay system to help you get unstuck and fall in love with your brilliant brain. ADHD is not the problem. The way we've been told to manage it is. If you're tired of feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or like you're not living up to your potential, I want to help my youy ADHD Brain is a okay is a step by step patented program that actually works for ADHD brains like ours. No more forcing yourself into ordinary brain systems that just don't fit. If you're ready to thrive, find the link in the first line of this episode's description. Your brain is brilliant. Let me prove it to you.