← Hacking Your ADHD
Hacking Your ADHD
Research Recap with Skye: How ADHDers Succeed and Why It's Complicated
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- [00:00]
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William Curb
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Skye Waterson
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William Curb
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Skye Waterson
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Skye Waterson
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Skye Waterson
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William Curb
Welcome to Hacking youg ADHD. I'm your host, William Curb, and I have ADHD. On this podcast, I dig in the tools, tactics and best practices to help you work with your ADHD brain. Today I'm joined by Sky Waterson for our Research Recap series. In this series, we typically take a look at a single research paper, although today we're going to be looking at two, and we dive into what those papers say and how they're conducted and try and find out any practical takeaways. In this episode, we're going to be discussing two papers dealing with ADHD strengths. So the first of which is Strength and Challenges to Embrace Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in Employment, A Systematic Review, and then also Paradoxical Career Strengths and Successes of adhd An Evolving Narrative. I do have to say I love an evolving narrative and also the way that papers are named. Now, before we get started, I just wanted to mention that I'd love to hear what you all think of these research recaps. So if you have any thoughts, head on over to hackingyouradhd.com contact and let us know also if there's a particular paper or topic that you want to know about or have us review. Just go on over, let us know about it. New episodes of Research Recap will be coming out every other Friday. All right, let's get into it. So what can you tell me about this first paper? Unfortunately, not our Evolving narrative.
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Skye Waterson
No, we're keeping that one. That's the, that's the fun, qualitative, and we're Going to start with the. With the systematic review. It's good to kind of go in that order. So basically what they said, you know, ADHD has a significant impact on psychosocial and occupational functioning. It's a big impact at work. And they wanted to perform a systematic review from last year. So this was quite a recent one. To understand the experience of ADHD specifically in the workplace, they ended up using getting 79 studies which were included from a total that they searched of 68,000. And they ended up developing a model which we'll talk about, of the challenges, the strengths, the adaptations, and this idea of essentially person environment fit, which comes up later in the next paper as well. And I think for a lot of us, we'll be instantly recognizable as. Oh, yes, thing that I wish I had more of.
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William Curb
Yeah. So the results were, they put it into four different categories. We had the challenges, the strengths, the adaptations. And then they also had something about sex differences. Although that later in the paper, they did acknowledge that because of how ADHD research is conducted, especially in the workplace, most of the participants ended up being male. So it was. While there were some things that they could take out, they were like, in the future, we need to have more women in these studies because it's.
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Skye Waterson
That'll help us figure it out. Yeah. Before we get into what they said, it was interesting. They said, and this was more in the introduction, even though even when adult 80, even when ADHD doesn't persist into adulthood, they still have worse employment outcomes. That was just a sentence.
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William Curb
Yeah, I have that highlighted in my notes as well, because that's a. My hot take is that we don't actually grow out of adhd. Something where people either they get. They either learn enough coping strategies to mask the symptoms or they just mask in general, where they're like, hey, I'm not going to let anyone know that I'm struggling and it's gonna burn me.
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Skye Waterson
Yeah, pretty much. I was curious about that because my hunch, similar to yours was that ADHD symptoms that are disruptive to other people might not be persisting into adulthood, but ADHD symptoms in general might be persisting. And, you know, there is conversation in academia about subclinical versus clinical symptoms and that kind of thing, but the worst employment outcome, still continuing, indicates that if you spoke to somebody who had ADHD and you were like, hey, how's it going? They wouldn't be like, it's amazing. I just completely sorted.
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William Curb
Yeah. And I should say definitely was a hot take. It is not something that's Supported by research that ADHD is in.
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Skye Waterson
No, you'll see our previous paper about the previous podcast we just did about.
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William Curb
I just want to make sure I mentioned that because it is very important to say. That is my personal belief. It's not actually supported by research yet. So I just think it's something that in the next 20 years, we might change our opinion on.
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Skye Waterson
Yeah. So in terms of the challenges, then, obviously they said ADHD symptoms themselves are a challenge. Poor workplace performance, low job satisfaction, maladaptive thoughts and behaviors. And we've gone through this before, and then interpersonal difficulties. So all of the different challenges were present when it came to. When it came to ADHD in the workplace.
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William Curb
Yeah. And I did think it was interesting that ADHD symptoms were, like, separated out as they, like inattention, hyperactivity. But I'm like, these other things are because of those ADHD symptoms with the interpersonal relationships, like with being inattentive to people and not remembering to call them back and do all. Yeah, that's part of that inattention in the symptoms. So it is important to separate them out and be like, hey, this is a symptom, and this is just a repercussion of a symptom.
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Skye Waterson
Yeah. And I think that's often the conversation that we find ourselves having. It happens more in kids than in adults. It's interesting to see it here in terms of do you have ADHD struggles and do you have ADHD struggles that are affecting people?
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William Curb
Yeah, I think that is also another key in that what we were just talking about, of growing out, outgrowing adhd a lot of times, that is the. Your struggles that are affecting other people are the ones that you're most likely to learn to cover for.
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Skye Waterson
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Those are the ones that kind of come up most. They also identified strengths, which was interesting as well. So they had determination, resilience, creativity, hyper focus.
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William Curb
You skipped my favorite one that they had there, multitasking.
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Skye Waterson
Which one did I skip? That was the very next one on the list. Multitasking, embracing ADHD and emotional intelligence. Why was multitasking your favorite?
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William Curb
Because I don't think we can do it very well. I think it's something. It's my research. What I've read about in research and multitasking is that people that think they're good at multitasking are the worst. Not as people, but as at multitasking. It is something that mentally, we just think we're a lot better at it than we are. And I think everything I've seen Suggests that ADHD should be worse at multitasking.
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Skye Waterson
Yeah, multitasking is an interesting conversation because when we talk about it, one thing that sometimes people will think about is will people with ADHD are better at working with music on. If you consider that to be multitasking, then okay, maybe we're better at multitasking. But what we're actually doing is we're having, trying to increase our stimulation in order to focus better. It's not exactly how academia, this neuroscience behind it. I'm probably not explaining it perfectly in terms of that idea. If you're saying, oh, they tend to be in busy coffee shops with music on writing, they're multitasking, then sure. But if they're doing two things at once, then I don't think so either.
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William Curb
Yeah, it's one of those things that it can seem like it's easier if we're switching between back and forth between tasks. We're doing two things at once, we're getting a bunch done and then at the end of the hour like, oh, if I had just done one of these things, I would have finished it.
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Skye Waterson
Yeah. If multitasking is trying to work and then checking your email, then yes, I'm great at multitasking. I'm trying to be less great at it. But also it was very weird because they put multitasking and hyper focus right next to each other. Those things are 100% different.
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William Curb
And again, hyperfocus I find is one of those things that's often lifted, listed as a strength. But I don't know if it's necessarily when we get into the next paper. Well, I think we could get better get.
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Skye Waterson
I agree with you. So let's look at some of the mediating factors. What was mediating? Having increasing job satisfaction, longer job tenure, improved workplace performance. Based on this study, they found person environment fit. So having a stimulating workplace environment, communal and quiet workspace. So having that flexibility, which I love that they mentioned, it's so important. Challenging and novel work tasks, fast paced work activities, active learning, personal autonomy. They did mention, by the way, personal autonomy. One of the things that you could benefit from was being a solopreneur. And as somebody who works with business owners and solopreneurs, I was like, yes, this is so.
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William Curb
Yeah, it's one of those things that I've seen is important for your own like sense of self and your overall job satisfaction. And I think that is one of the things that really, if you don't have autonomy over what you do, regardless of the job you're doing, it's going to make it worse. And it's even more true for people with adhd.
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Skye Waterson
Yeah, it's very difficult because your energy levels are shifting, your stimulation levels are shifting. Basically what they were saying here was if you could work in a world where you had personal autonomy and you also had challenging and novel activities and a stimulating environment with lots of active learning and that makes sense. There's lots of things going on. I would have added, and this isn't really referenced here, things like clear deadlines and sub deadlines that are actually real so that people know when things need to be done and when they need to be done by. But those kinds of spaces can really work. And that's why you'll find a lot of people who struggle with ADHD end up in academia, they end up in entrepreneurship. They end up in. One of the groups that I worked with was the New Zealand government's Security Intelligence groups, because everyone was running around with a hunch. And a lot of those people, as it turned out, had adhd, which is why they wanted me to help them.
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William Curb
I also see it lots of like emergency room workers, police officers, like first responder kind of things. Those are like where there is a high energy and you need to be making decisions very quickly.
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Skye Waterson
Yeah. And sometimes this is an interesting conversation because people will say, oh, we should totally go and we should go and find a job based solely on our interests. But sometimes the person environment fit could be even more important than your interest because if your interest leads you to a bureaucratic job with very little autonomy, it's not going to be very great.
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William Curb
Yeah. And I do think there is an over emphasis on finding your job interesting because often more what we need is to have. Yeah. Have that fit, have that autonomy, have that job needs to be interesting enough, but it doesn't. I don't like the idea of everyone having to monetize their hobbies.
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Skye Waterson
Yeah. Finding my passion was how I burned out in university. I don't, I don't recommend it.
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William Curb
Yeah, it's. We will find if we do other stuff where we're like, hey, this, I find this satisfying and fulfilling. That is a more important aspect to finding your work than just something that, hey, I'm passionate about this because also with adhd my passion changes and that's bad.
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Skye Waterson
It does. It really does. And so, yeah, this is the thing. The other thing they had as mediating factors was workplace accommodations. They had workplace policies, obviously, assistive devices, ADHD medication. They did reference that there was some like feelings about ADHD medication. Being a workplace accommodation which I thought was interesting. They said that the use of medication to improve workplace performance was met with ambivalence. Many acknowledged the benefits, but they were also. They talked about side effects and feeling. I think sometimes there might be a resentment about having to take medication for the implant because maybe the fit isn't good enough.
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William Curb
Yeah, I think there is a lot of people that have fairly negative ideas of what medica taking medication means either because they've had bad experiences, people don't like the idea of taking things that are going to make them different or and I want to encourage people that there are a ton of different medications for adhd. It is. Sometimes it takes some time to figure out what medication is the right one for you. The big factor here is finding a doctor that's willing to try things with you. That can be not the easiest task. But for some people the medication makes all the difference in the world. If they can find the right medication at the right dosage and a doctor that's willing to work with them to help them find it.
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Skye Waterson
Yeah, it's a journey. That's what everyone's. It's not necessarily a one stop shop although for some people it is which is awesome. For a lot of people it's a journey and that's. That's how it works as well. And then they talk about social support systems. So having technical support as workers, having moral support as individuals. So just being generally supported in their workplace was a mediating factor between these challenges and these strengths. Having those better outcomes. Awesome. Was there anything you wanted to add to this before we move on to the next paper?
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William Curb
No, I think adding the. We'll get more context with the. Our next paper. The paradoxical Career strengths and successes of adhd. An evolving narrative. I don't know why I like that phrase so much.
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Skye Waterson
They're leaving space.
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William Curb
So this was an interesting study because it was done. It's not this systematic review. It is this very qualitative looking at a much smaller data set and analyzing these interviews that were done with people based on positive psychology. It was ended up with only 17 adults. And I gotta say one of the most interesting thing I saw in this was that three of the participants were self diagnosed.
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Skye Waterson
Yeah, I was like I couldn't believe.
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William Curb
That blew my mind that that was in a research paper. I like not. I don't know how I feel about that same.
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Skye Waterson
I was. I will say this is a thematic analysis and shout out to my old professor Braun and Clark who are from New Zealand and I took Their paper. And that's where this comes from, the methodology anyway. But they, this, there is a difference when you go into qualitative research.
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William Curb
Yeah.
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Skye Waterson
The can the. You're going in with the understanding that this is not generalizable, this is experience, this is people's stories. And what you're trying to do is you're trying to pull up out people's stories to get information and then maybe that information stands alone or maybe that information then helps you prompt future quantitative studies. So it has a purpose. But even there was the word ADHD ish in this paper that I pulled up things that I've just never seen before either.
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William Curb
Yeah. And I was also really loved when I had my screen reader doing the paper and I was like listening and it's like ATH dish because it added the is ed at the end and I was like, that's amazing.
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Skye Waterson
Yeah. And look, I have a soft spot for qualitative research. I did my master's. It was a qualitative research paper. It does draw out a lot of depth that you will not find in another paper. It's one of the reasons that looking at these two together I think is quite helpful because we can have the quantitative analysis and now we can go into people's stories. And what they really wanted to look at here in terms of the research questions is how do ADHD is construct self identified strengths to explain their career success stories using the strength focused interview process. They were very big on the fact this is a strength focused interview process, the whole thing. And to what extent do they articulate career success achieved in spite of their ADHD or because of it? Because it can be.
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William Curb
Yeah. And they, they found very similar like ideas of what was core ADHD strengths with like spontaneity idea linking, which I think is one of the, that's one of the ones that I very strongly resonate with the idea that I can have ideas here and link them in ways that oh yeah, other people would never see. Because that has happened to me frequently in my life where I'm just like, this is the classic ADHD conversation where someone's talking, you're talking about one thing and you like oh yeah. And then there was these bees and that I wanted to mention and the people like, where did that connection come from? Oh yeah, three minutes ago we talked about this and they're like, oh, what?
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Skye Waterson
Yeah, it's great for business ideas as well. People are like, I don't know what to do, I don't know how to deal with this business. And I'm just like, this plus this equals Z. So there you go, we're done. So much of that can be helpful. But yeah, they said somebody, a journalist talked about taking opportunities, taking advantage of opportunities. Said a lot of the time you're walking around in a slight fog. You don't really have a structure. But the advantage is that when something happens, when you have an idea, you aren't boxed in like other people. So that idea of action, being able to spring into action a little bit faster has kind of a paradoxical core strength for him of adhd.
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William Curb
Yeah. And then these strengths being these adaptive strategies that the, you know, because one of the things that, one of the strengths that we lost our track on there, I don't know how that could happen, was humor. And that was something where they're like, oh, a lot of people with ADHD use humor as a coping strategy to help deal with the fact that ADHD can be very frustrating. And. But if we view it through a lens of humor, man, I've lost my keys in the five seconds I got into my house. That is objectively hilarious. Frustrating, but hilarious that I don't know how that could be possible.
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Skye Waterson
And yeah, there were these core strengths and there's a visual that we'll go over in a second. But they also talked about this idea of adaptive strategies and I really resonated with this personally. So I want to talk about it. This idea of active altruism, being willing to help others by giving them the care that people looked for themselves or had missed out on earlier in life. Talking about that being something that was a adaptive strength of ADHD sounds quite intense. But I personally, one of the reasons I do what I do is because I struggled with financial freedom and having autonomy growing up with ADHD symptoms and being able to help other people to do that now is literally what gets me up in the morning and makes me super excited to do this job. Which is interesting. We come back to the previous one about adaptive formats and things like that, and I think it's a really lovely thing that they mentioned it.
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William Curb
Yeah. Although there was the. The one I think was a teacher who mentioned that it was also very self serving of them that they're like, also, this is helping me heal my inner child doing this. And it is, it's very great for me.
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Skye Waterson
I know it feels very fat. Feels very like mood to say that out loud. Because it is. You're like, yeah, it's great because you're like, I did. I literally had a client on the podcast who Got tenure in academia, which is something I'd previously gone for and hadn't decided to pursue. And so helping her do it was cool and also selfish.
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William Curb
One of the places that I thought was very interesting that this paper too went is that it didn't just look at it as these are strengths. They'd also had this idea that the strengths can also be part of this circle of issues that we have with our adhd that we overplay to our strengths. That's things that can lead to burnout and that over commitment, being too into what we're doing. And I think that plays right into what hyperfocus is and why. I think I often have that, hey, hyperfocus is not a superpower for adhd. It is borrowing from our future selves. It is ignoring other things that also might need to get done at the time. I remember reading something about this mother who was like, I start doing work and I'm hyper focusing too much. I can't hear my baby crying next to me. That's a problem.
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Skye Waterson
Oh, wow.
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William Curb
And she's like, what can I do? And it was like, yeah, you just need to find ways to not slip into hyperfocus so that you're can be attentive to more than one thing. And it's. That was detrimental to how she worked in her situation. The, like, ideal idea here was like, yeah, when you work, you don't have to do two things at once. But her situation was like, yeah, I just, I can't allow that to be something where I just like, oh, I'm just too tuned in and I'm not hearing things. It's. It is weird when the. You have someone like, saying your name and you like, like finally hear them shout, what? And you're like, they're like, I've tried to get your attention for three minutes here and you're just not paying attention.
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Skye Waterson
Yeah.
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William Curb
Oh, and it's. It feels so weird when you're like, oh, I didn't even realize I was doing.
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Skye Waterson
Yeah, 100%. And this was the kind of complexity that they were able to go into in this paper. This is actually a paper and we'll have the show notes, but this is a paper. I highly recommend you guys read it. It's a, it's quite fun read. It's got a lot more quotes than we possibly have. They also talked about things like hard won success before the diagnosis. So that complicated thing that we all feel around the tough life of having to figure out that you have ADHD and going back and saying like, well, if I'd known, what would I have done differently? But also I did succeed, even though I didn't know. And that's pretty cool. But it's also hard. And it's like all the complexity of that.
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William Curb
Yeah, it's the. Was the success because of ADHD or in spite of adhd? It's very much trying to focus on this self acceptance, reframing your strengths and finding this very meaningful definition of success. Because it can be often be hard for people with ADHD to even view anything they do as successful sometimes.
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Skye Waterson
Yep, 100%. We know from the research we're more likely to experience self criticism because we did things differently growing up and criticized nicely or not nicely for those things.
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William Curb
I did a. I did the quote they ended their paper with too, which was from the research with this. I do think the biggest difference came when I accepted my strengths and found strategies for my weaknesses. That's the point where I really felt most like me. And when I felt most like me, that's the point where I started to achieve what I stopped trying to fit into boxes I wasn't going to fit into. I don't really understand why, but it's working for me. So it's what I'm going to go with.
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Skye Waterson
I love. I thought that could just be a thesis statement for all of us.
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William Curb
Yeah.
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Skye Waterson
Hello. So you were just listening to a research recap. I'm Skye Waterson of Unconventional Organization. If you like that, there's lots more information about ADHD and some support for you@unconventional organization.com you can go ahead and check that out. Lots of free resources, lots of strategies, and if you want to join our programs, you can do that as well. And we'll see you there.
- [25:52]
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