← ADHD for Smart Ass Women with Tracy Otsuka
ADHD for Smart Ass Women with Tracy Otsuka
EP. 350: Mental Mindfields: RSD, Overthinking, and the Trap of Feeling Judged
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Richard Branson, Michael Phelps, Justin Timberlake, James Carville. Wait a minute. Where are the women? Greta Gerwig, Lisa Ling, Audra McDonald, Simone Biles. That sounds like a list of highly successful titans in a variety of industries. They all have adhd, but you don't have to 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 Adsuka, 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. Before we dive in, I just want to remind you this podcast is sponsor free and it's been this way for five years. I do it because I love it. So if you're interested in supporting my work and you'd like to learn how to fall in love with your ADHD brain, you can find the link to my youy ADHD Brain is AOK Academy, my patented program in the first line of this episode's description. Look, your brain is not disordered. The problem is no one gave you its manual. But I can and I will. Now let's get on with the show. Hello, I am your host, Tracy Otsuka. Thank you so much for joining me here for another episode of ADHD for Smartass Women. My goal is always to show you who you are and then inspire you to be it. Today we're going to do exactly that through a solo episode that I have been wanting to record for a while. I first shared this information inside my Your ADHD brain is a okay academy, but it applies to anyone and everyone with an ADHD brain. So here's the story. Actually, it's my story. I recently recorded three courses in Santa Barbara. This was a company that had approached me. They create trainings for the likes of LinkedIn, Learning, Google, Salesforce, Meta, Apple, you name it. They've done it. And then they have these big platforms that companies purchased courses from. They asked me to record three trainings for them or three courses. And I have been working on these trainings. The first one was on procrastination. The second one was about making your strengths work for you. And the third was figuring out how to answer that. What do I do with my life quest question. So I had been working with my producers for these trainings since January. So it was for several months. None of this was impromptu. I don't typically do seat of my pants anything. I like to be prepared. I got down there on Wednesday night, and I went in on Thursday to record the first two of the three trainings. I loved this company. They are so professional. I was so impressed with, frankly, every single person that I worked with, my producers and my director. They couldn't say enough nice things about my professionalism and my scripts and how beautifully they were written and the authenticity of my delivery. They literally could not have been more complimentary. And so because they were so complimentary, they also asked me to record a fourth training, an impromptu training. They wanted me to talk about 10 things that I recommend people with ADHD do to make their ADHD work for them. Now, I've written a book about ADHD, right? I've recorded, I don't know, 350 plus or minus podcast episodes. I've worked with thousands of women with adhd. But the minute they asked me to do this impromptu training, I kind of panicked and it made me so anxious. So, of course, I expressed my reservations to my director, and this is what he said to me. Tracie, we have talked for hours about adhd. You know this subject better than anyone. And so this particular director, he actually had ADHD himself, but he didn't understand it. And so in the middle of the different lessons of these trainings, we would talk about adhd. And literally it was probably hours worth of talking about adhd. And so what he said to me is, you have given me hope that maybe there really are some gifts with my ADHD. And so I need to go learn more. So 10 things about ADHD. I mean, how hard could it be, right? These were things that I talk about gladly every single day. ADHD is not a disorder, but a difference. The ADHD is a brain of strength. How there's no such thing as failure, how whatever you focus on just grows, right? The problem was each of these 10 items had to be one to two minutes in length, and there had to be a beginning and a middle and an end. And I could not have any notes and I literally could not do it. I was anxious the night before. I kind of jotted some things down. You know, the 10 things that I would recommend if someone asked me what are the most important things for me to know. But I could not do it their way, their impromptu way. I couldn't remember anything. I could barely remember my name. And the only way that I can understand it or explain it is that my brain needs a Runway to get off the ground. And so what was happening here is every time I got my brain off the ground and I started to speak and it was kind of going at a clip and I was making sense and it was starting to sound good, I'd have to stop again. I also know about myself that I need to over prepare to keep my anxiety at bay. I am great when I can control everything, right? I had spent hours on these scripts. I totally over prepared. I'm really good with a teleprompter, but if you make me wing it, especially wing it around people, my brain is not going to cooperate. Now, if the stakes hadn't been so high, if they weren't recording and we had just been having a casual conversation about this, no problem. But it was the extra anxiety of knowing I was being recorded and I had to get it right. And this started from childhood. I was so good at just speaking impromptu before puberty. But I remember in eighth grade, I was 13 years old and I had to do a book report and I hadn't really read the book and I wasn't prepared and I got up there and again all of a sudden, because I used to be able to do this, but I think it was hormones and ADHD was kicking in and so my brain would not cooperate at all. I could barely remember literally my name again. And I remember my 8th grade teacher writing in the margins of whatever grade she gave me for the book report. And I don't remember what that was, but I remember her writing disturbed speaker, which is such a horrible thing, right, to get on your book report. And then decades later, when I was originally building coretography, I hired this videographer. He was a Stanford graduate, really bright guy, musician, accomplished in every way. And he came to my house to film a video that we were doing about the coretography program. I had a script all ready to go. He would not, not let me use the script. And I don't know why I didn't just tell him we're using it, but I didn't because I kept thinking, well, he's the videographer. He's done all this video. He must know better than I know. And so what he did is he would feed me one line of the script at a time. And this man must have thought, oh my gosh, this woman is the biggest idiot, because I could not repeat one line. Like he would send me a line or, you know, he would say a line, a line that I was supposed to repeat, and I could not even repeat that line. This is exactly why I did not become a criminal lawyer, because I just knew that if things are impromptu, you know, I may be really good at it ultimately once I get super confident. But I just felt like, oh my gosh, you know, there's new evidence that comes up and I'm going to have to, you know, think through all of that really quickly and come up with something that's articulate. I just knew that it would be a struggle. So what happened in Santa Barbara? Well, I failed, right? And as I was failing, I felt judged. I kept thinking that these people were thinking, how could this woman who was so brilliant in these three previous trainings, I mean, they told me that, right? How could she be so bad? I mean, it was more that they told me that they actually wanted me to do a fourth one because I was so good at doing it the other way. And so that's what I kept thinking, right? How could this woman who was so good in these previous trainings be so bad, right? And then, of course, I needed to be understood, so I had to keep explaining why this was so hard for me and I. Why I was so bad at this. So my brain, instead of focusing on delivering this impromptu training, was now overthinking and second guessing and totally perfectionistic, which of course threw my executive functions off even more. And sometimes on some of those 10 items, I literally killed it. But on the other ones, I couldn't have been worse. And I didn't know how to repeat the times that I literally killed it and was so good, I couldn't understand why was I so good at some of them. And I was just able to go and suddenly things came together and I just did it. And then ones that maybe I would think would be even simpler, I couldn't seem to do it. I couldn't seem to give it a beginning, a middle and an end. And that experience in Santa Barbara forced me to confront every ADHD pitfall that I coach other women through. Pitfalls I've seen in executives and best selling authors and top attorneys and eight figure business owners, even in national news anchors. It reminded me that these patterns, they don't disappear with success because they're actually baked into our ADHD experience. And so that's what I want to talk about today. I want to talk about how each of these mental minefields, and I'm going to go through them with you. Acts like a leg holding up a table built on self doubt, shame, a negative emotion. But this is the deal. That table only stands because we keep reinforcing it. So the moment we start kicking out even a few of those legs, the whole thing collapses and with it, the patterns that have kept us stuck. So I'm going to go through these mental minefields and I'm going to show you how they're all connected. I am prepared. I put them all together on a card for myself and. And so what are they? Rsd. You've been told your whole life that your way is the wrong way, that you need to do it their way. And over time, you stop trusting yourself. But here's the truth. You were never the problem. You just have a different brain, which means you need different systems. That's where my six step patented you'd ADHD brain is a okay program comes in. Let me help you reconnect with your intuition, trust yourself again, and build a life that actually works for you. You've had the answers all along. I'll help you see them. 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. Feeling judged, needing to be understood, overthinking, second guessing, perfectionism and what I call their evil cousins. Comparing ourselves to others, feeling disappointed by others, and then of course, feeling critical of others. I worked with a very, very successful woman who was struggling with all of these things and she didn't that they were all interconnected. And again, if we can knock out a couple of those legs, say, letting go of perfectionism or feeling judged, the entire table loses its support and all that unnecessary negativity, it just falls away. So let's start with a quick overview of the mental mindfields and subsequent negative emotions that we can often experience. Okay, you know what number one is right? Rsd Rejection, sensitive dysphoria. This is where we're hypersensitive to any perceived rejection or criticism. And it's so often the result of trauma. Sure, sometimes it's a major trauma like abuse, violence, or serious loss, but for a lot of ADHD women, it's the constant cuts of all these little traumas that Just add up. Trauma is like growing up with ADHD in a school system that basically tells you you're wrong just for being who you are. I'm talking about being a little girl where you're expected to sit still, be quiet, stay organized, turn everything in on time, get along and never take up too much space. And even when you do that because your brain isn't wired that way, you start thinking, what's wrong with me? Not once, but over and over and over again. That's the kind of trauma that rewires your brain to expect rejection before it even happens. So it's no surprise that this often leads us to mental minefield number two, feeling judged. That's when you're constantly worried about how others see you. You don't feel safe, you don't feel understood, you often don't feel heard. And this leads to being in a constant state of hyper awareness looking for who's judging you. Which of course it hinders confidence because you never feel like you're good enough. This is also connected to mental minefield number three, the need to be understood. Look, if others truly understood me, there would be less of a chance that I'd be misjudged and everything would be okay. But often that need is not met. And that just leaves us feeling isolated and misunderstood. So what do we do? We make our case. We over explain everything so we don't feel as rejected. Explaining why my brain doesn't work this way, what I need so the producers, the directors don't think I'm completely stupid, right? When you feel judged again, you also feel as if others are watching you and evaluating you. Which leads to mental minefield number four, overthinking. Overthinking causes you to analyze everything. For some of us, that might include every potential negative outcome that could ever happen. We might play conversations or actions in our head or over and over and over again. There might also be mental minefield number five, second guessing. Both second guessing and overthinking. They trap us in these endless loops. We question our decision, our worth, and even our intentions. Did I make the right decision? I knew I shouldn't have done this impromptu recording. What the hell was I thinking? Was my effort good enough? Look, if you're never happy with the result, nothing is ever going to be good enough. Next, there's the big daddy. Mental minefield number six, perfectionism. That relentless drive to be flawless, to never make a mistake. And it only sets us up for disappointment. Because nothing is ever perfect, right? No one is ever perfect. Perfectionism comes from feeling judged. It is our way to keep from being rejected and or criticized. So it's a way to cope with the rsd. If it's perfect, no one can ever say anything bad about us. Perfectionism is how we manage the fear of being judged, rejected, or criticized. Perfectionism, however, is also what leads us to mental minefield number seven, feeling disappointed by others. Many of us have excellence as one of our deeply held values. I know I do. And we often are good at a lot of things. So our perfectionism brings with it standards that are so high that no one can match them. Others can't do things the way that you want them done. They don't think the way you think, so nothing's ever good enough. So then people constantly disappoint you, and this leads to mental minefield number eight, being critical of others. So what happens is we hold others to these unattainable standards. When we're constantly criticizing others, it can make us difficult to be around. Right, because it creates this tension and this disappointment. Being critical of others can become a mirror for how we feel about ourselves. Feeling judged can also create mental minefield number nine. This is a habit of comparing ourselves to others, asking, am I doing as well? We often measure our worth against someone else's, which of course leads to disappointment. This then becomes our benchmark of what we should be doing or what we think we should be doing. Again, all these ADHD pitfalls are again, like the legs of a table. Each one supports these negative cycles, but they're all interconnected. So when we start destabilizing one of them, especially if it's one of the big ones, it creates space for change in all of the others. For example, if we choose to break the cycle of perfectionism by recognizing that, I don't know, done is actually better than perfect. We take away one leg, one fundamental support for all the overwhelming pressure we feel to be perfect. If we stop constantly comparing ourselves to others and begin focusing on our own journey instead and what's truly important to us, that's another leg that's knocked out. If we can learn to trust ourselves enough to stop guessing every decision, which is exactly what we do in our A OK Academy. And that's another leg that's just poof, it's gone. This table leg analogy means that we don't have to fix everything all at once. Focusing on just one or two areas, well, it has a ripple effect and it makes the other ADHD pitfalls feel less powerful. It's about gradual dismantling, like kicking out the legs of a table and watching everything fall away because it no longer has support. So let's now look a little deeper at three of these intertwined rejection, rsd, perfectionism, and feeling judged. So we know that rejection, it's one of the most painful experiences, especially when we know how wired for sensitivity we are. When you feel rejected, it triggers a defensive mode in your brain. And this is the feeling that can then push you into overthinking, questioning yourself, replaying the moment over and over and over again, Right? And even internalizing that rejection as a personal flaw. Perfectionism often develops as a way to deal with perceived rejection. If you believe that if you can perform perfectly, you'll never be rejected, that becomes your mantra. You set impossibly high standards that inevitably you're going to fall short. You feel more rejected, which fuels the cycle of perfectionism and further overthinking. Feeling judged then magnifies these issues. When we're constantly worried about how everyone else sees us, every mistake becomes bigger. Every imperfection is then magnified. You're not just focused on your work or your decisions. You're stuck in your head. You're constantly wondering if people are picking you apart. Like every move you make is being watched and analyzed and silently criticized. So now that we know what the problem is, what are some of the things that we can do to actually make it better? Well, we can start by asking ourselves, am I striving for perfection because I fear criticism or rejection? And what would happen if I just let go of that fear, even for just a moment? This question. It helps you get real with yourself. You start to see that perfectionism is not about doing your best. There's nothing wrong with doing your best, but perfectionism is about trying to avoid criticism or failure. It's a defense strategy. And maybe it worked for a while, but now it's just exhausting. It's keeping you stuck. It's holding you back from actually finishing things or taking risks that matter. Perfectionism prevents you from even starting because you're constantly waiting for that perfect time, that perfect moment to show up. And it never does. What else? When you find yourself fixated on perfection, remind yourself that done is always better than perfect. Commit to progress instead of perfection. Each step you take matters. And remember that nothing is ever truly perfect. So what about when you're feeling judged? What can you do then? How do you stop that spiral and start to feel better fast? Well, first of all, bravo. Now you're aware of the feeling. You can name it. I am feeling judged right Then you can pause and you can get in your body and feel what that feeling is like of feeling judged. We can pause and get in our body and we can feel the feeling of feeling judged. We can also get curious. We can ask, is this really true? Am I really being judged right now? Could it be something else? And then finally, could I replace I'm being judged that thought with curiosity? And what can I actually learn from this? Okay, so what about overthinking and second guessing? How could we make that better? Well, as usual, we're going to pause and we're going to congratulate ourselves on being aware of what's really going on. Catch yourself. You know what I'm doing right now? I'm overthinking or I'm second guessing. Then you can set a deadline. Limit the time that you're going to allow yourself to overthink or second guess, say to five minutes or a maximum of 15 minutes. And then after that, you take a deep breath and you shift into action. Trust that you have the capability to move forward without needing every answer right now, now. And action always will make you feel better than overthinking and second guessing. Because this way your action, when you get into action, it's giving you real world information. You're not just making stuff up in your head. That's likely not going to happen at all. You have real information and that directs you to what you should actually do next. And that, that is exactly how you start trusting yourself. Now, what about comparing ourselves to others, feeling disappointed in others and being critical of others? Well, comparison is sneaky, right? Initially, it feels harmless, like, you know, I'm just observing. But before you know it, you're measuring your entire life against someone else's highlight reel and you're deciding that you don't stack up. Instead of helping you grow, it makes you feel worse. You start obsessing over your flaws, forgetting all the things that you're actually great at. And what do you know, whatever you focus on just gets bigger, right? So if you're focusing on all these things that bring you negative emotion, you're just going to find more things that bring you more negative emotion. And when you find yourself constantly disappointed in other people or being overly critical of them, that's usually a reflection of the impossible standards that you set for yourself. We expect perfection from others because we're silently demanding it from ourselves. But all that does is create tension in our relationships, but also in all this internal dialogue, right? The way we talk to ourselves. So what can we do? When it comes to comparison. Well, when you catch yourself comparing, pause, and again, bring the focus back to your own journey. Recognize your own strengths and accomplishments, and celebrate even the smallest wins. Then ask yourself, what unique qualities do I bring to the table that others might envy or appreciate? Finally, let's talk about feeling disappointed by others and feeling critical of others. How do we start addressing those issues? Well, ask yourself, does holding myself and others to these impossibly high standards serve me? Or does it create more stress in my life and more disappointment? And then shift the focus to empathy. Try see things from their perspective. I have to tell you, after recording in Santa Barbara, after our second day, I was really tired. It was a lot. And my husband, Rich and I were in a restaurant, and he had been so amazing. He drove down there with me. You know, he went and did his own work, but, you know, he was always there to pick me up and to drop me off. And so we're in this restaurant having dinner, and it's really loud, and. And Rich kept talking. And what I really wanted to say was, please stop talking. I am so exhausted. I just need some quiet. And that's when it hit me. There is going to be a day where I would give anything to be in this loud restaurant talking to my husband, talking to Rich. And what if today, right now, is actually the last time? And you don't even know that. That thought caused me to pause and immediately shift to empathy and then be present with all of myself for my husband, who had been such a trooper and so supportive over these last couple days. So recognize, too, that everyone struggles. You know, we need to see people as what they are, human and fallible. Start praising them. You must have some friends and maybe some family members that they're just not capable of praise. They never offer praise. Everything feels kind of transactional and like a competition. And you just know that they really struggle to be happy for you. But then you probably also have friends and family that are so free with their praise, right? They are the first people to say wonderful things about you. I want you to ask yourself, in which situation do you feel more positive emotion? Do you feel more engaged? Do you feel more connected? And then I want to ask you for the people that never offer praise. Play a game, start praising the hell out of them. And I want you to see what you get, because I promise you, you are going to feel better. And your praise might actually get them to consider offering something positive and kind about you. What I always say is all relationships are about power versus connection. The more you can offer connection, the better the relationship and the more positive emotion that that relationship is going to generate. So what did I take away from this Santa Barbara experience? I finally stopped beating myself up over the impromptu course I was trying to deliver and I focused on how great I was at the ones I actually prepared for because that is my zone of genius. The reason I struggled with the off the cuff stuff is the exact reason I am so good at the scripted trainings. I over prepare, I think things through, I connect best when there's intention behind what I'm doing. That's not a flaw, that's just how my brain works. And when I stopped judging myself for that, I could actually see the win. That's what I want for you too. You don't need to change who you are, you just need to stop holding yourself hostage to who you're not. So that's what I have for you for this week. If you like this episode, please let us know by leaving a review. You know our goal Our goal is to change the conversation around adhd, helping as many women as we possibly can learn how their ADHD brain works so that they too can tap into their amazing strengths. Thank you so much for listening and I will see you here next week. You've been listening to the ADHD for Smartass Women podcast. I'm your host Tracy Outsuka. Join us at ADHD for smartwomen.com where you can find more information on my new book, ADHD for Smartass Women. And my patented you'd ADHD brain is a OK system to help you get unstuck and fall in love with your brilliant brain. If this episode hit home, don't just stop here. ADHD doesn't have to be a struggle. It can actually be your greatest strength when you learn how to work with it. That's exactly what I teach inside our patented your ADHD brain is AOK Academy. So if you're ready to stop fighting your brain and start using it to your advantage, look for the link in the first line of this episode's description. The sooner you start, the sooner life gets easier.