← Navigating Adult ADHD
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Foreign. You are listening to the Navigating Adult ADHD Podcast with your ADHD coach and expert, Xena. Hello, hello, hello my friend. Welcome back. We are Navigating Adult ADHD today. And today we are talking about how those of us with ADHD can be pretty calm in a crisis when shit's hitting the fan. Sometimes that is when we perform at our so last Thursday morning I broke down in the pitch black on a tiny little country road in the middle of nowhere. I'm talking no street lights, there are no lights around, just my hazard lights flashing in the pitch black. I can't see a house or a person in sight, no cars around, and of course every single scary movie that I have ever watched started to play inside my head like I was half expecting some dude with a chainsaw to run out from behind a hedge. So I had set my alarm at 5:30am that morning, left the house at 10 past 6 to head to my Toastmasters meeting that I go to every Thursday morning. And as I accelerated out onto the highway and I was going from 50 to 100 k's, the car started to sort of spread, splutter and basically bunny hop. And when you're in an automatic car it sure as shouldn't be bunny hopping. And I thought oh, oh dear, this is not good. But I've just got out onto a highway, it's not like I can just pull off. So I thought I'll just see if we can ride this out for a second. Anyways, I tried to get up to 100ks, I managed to reach about 80ks, and then the car started to decelerate. As in I was doing 30km an hour on 100k stretch of road. Talk about that being very dangerous. So I got off the first exit I could get off, I got off as soon as I possibly could and it was on this tiny little narrow country road and I soon discovered with all of the flashing lights on the dash that I was not going to be able to make it home or to my meeting. So as soon as it was safe to do so, and there was like a decent stretch of like a strip on the side of the road, I pulled off, put the hazards on and was like, oh shit, I'm broken down. It's 6:20 in the morning, right? Pitch black out. Be barely anybody is awake this time in the morning. Oh crap. But despite all of that, I handled this situation like a fucking boss, alright? Like I said, I safely pulled the car off the road, put my hazard lights on, locked the doors and I Called our roadside assistance company. Now, I also sent my location, like I dropped a pin, sent my location to multiple people I knew, one of which I knew would likely be awake at this time of the morning. And I just stayed in the car, stayed alert, kept my eye on my surroundings, and just waited for help to arrive. To be honest, I was actually kind of like as cool as a cucumber and yet, like, you ask me to make a completely ordinary phone call to book an appointment, let's say, for the dentist, and suddenly I need three to five working days in a fucking pip talk. How does that make sense? How is it that so many of us can handle being stranded alone in the dark on a little tiny country road, but procrastinate calling the dentist for weeks or months? Now, if you have adhd, my friend, you know exactly what I'm talking about. So many of us have this strange ability to become incredibly calm and focused and capable when shit is hitting the F fan. But you give us some boring, everyday, mundane sort of a task with no real deadline, and suddenly our brain decides to leave the building. So, my friend, in this episode, I want us to explore why this happens. What is going on? Why can the ADHD brain work brilliantly in a crisis? What is actually happening in the brain? What's going on? Why can an emergency feel easier to handle than a simple email or a phone call? Household job. And are we sometimes relying on that stress, that pressure, that panic to actually help us get shit done? This was a very interesting one for me to explore. So, first of all, I do want to be clear that being good in a crisis is not officially part of having adhd. Of course it's not, you know, listed in the diagnostic symptoms when you are diagnosed with adhd. Not. And not every single person with ADHD is going to respond really, really well in an emergency. Some people panic, some people freeze, some people become overwhelmed or shut down completely, or perhaps it depends on the situation entirely. You may react completely different in different situations. Maybe you're really calm when someone else is injured, but you completely lose your shit when your child goes missing for 30 seconds in a shopping center. And yet, well, maybe here's another example. Maybe you take charge at work when everything's going wrong, like, you just take over, but you freeze during a conflict with your partner. So this is something that I hear so many adults with ADHD talking about time and time again. We say things like, I'm useless when everything is calm, but when there's an emergency, I know exactly what to do. It's like, I can just take over, or I can organise everybody else during a crisis, but I can't organise myself enough to make a doctor's appointment or a version of, you know, I'm fantastic when the deadline is in one hour, but I can't begin that same task if I have three weeks in which to complete it. Now, there are some very real reasons why this happens, and I want us to explore those, my friend. So, first of all, the ADHD brain. Where am I? What planet am I on? Today? The ADHD brain needs more stimulation. So one of the misunderstandings about ADHD is that we can not pay attention. Like, we just can't focus. And first of all, we know this is total bullshit. We can pay attention. Sometimes we can pay so much attention, like, such intense attention that the rest of the world disappears. Hello, Hyperfocus. I am looking at you. The problem is that we can't always choose what gets our attention, like, where our attention goes. Or we can really struggle to switch our attention between things when we need to. Okay? Our ability to focus and to take action can depend heavily on how interesting, urgent, new, challenging or rewarding something feels. Okay, so a routine task, say, folding the laundry, right? Making a phone call to book an appointment, that might be important, but it's probably not very interesting, it's not very exciting. And often there's not an immediate consequence. If we put that off, nobody's, you know, standing beside us shouting, hey, Xena, make that call right now or your building's going to explode. So our brain says, yeah, we could do that now, but we could also go make another coffee or actually, let me look up that thing online. Oh, actually, maybe I should just reorganise this drawer. Oh, perhaps I should just never do it. Whereas a crisis is totally different. Okay? A crisis is urgent, it is new, it is important, it is happening right now. There are immediate consequences, and it gives us a very clear problem to solve. Okay? A boring task sort of gently taps your brain on the shoulder, whereas a crisis kicks the door down and screams, hey, pay attention to me. And suddenly our brain is awake. So this is where the brain chemicals come into it. This is where dopamine and norepinephrine show up. These are two incredibly important brain chemicals that ADHD brains produce less of. Okay? So first of all, dopamine. Dopamine helps us with things like motivation, with reward and our ability to move towards a goal. So our ability to take action, to achieve something. Now, norepinephrine, that helps with alertness, with attention. And being mentally switched on, like, you know, dialed in, okay? So these two chemicals also help the front part of our brain, the prefrontal cortex, to do its job. Now, that part of our brain is involved with things like planning, remembering, hello, working memory, remembering what we're doing, making decisions, right? Controlling our impulses, working out what needs to happen next. These are our executive functions, my friend. Now, from a science perspective, having ADHD is not as simple as saying that we have no dopamine or norepinephrine or. Or that we don't have enough of them, okay? That's a very oversimplified version, and it is the version that I often use when I refer to these on the podcast. But it is more accurate to say that ADHD involves differences in how these brain systems work and how easily we can access those brain chemicals that we need for things like attention, motivation, action, et cetera, okay? So when an emergency happens, our stress response kicks in. When that kicks in, norepinephrine and dopamine, these two amazing chemicals that feel really good are released, flooded into our system, okay? Now, norepinephrine is a fancy way of saying adrenaline, okay? Sometimes it's also referred to as noradrenaline. But most of the ADHD world talks about norepinephrine because when it's in the brain, it's called norepinephrine. When it's released into your system, it becomes adrenaline. That's what you're using, okay? So if you imagine adrenaline and dopamine, we know that dopamine feels good. Those two things are released into our system in an emergency, in a crisis, when shit is hitting the fan, okay? Our body and our brain, right? They release these chemicals that make us more alert, more ready to act, and happens. Our executive functions come online. They're all working together, right? Our heart might beat a little bit faster, and, you know, our senses become sharper. We become more aware of our. What am I trying to say? We become more aware of our surroundings, what's happening around us, okay? And our brain begins to look for the problems and the fastest way to solve them. It's like all of a sudden, the path becomes really clear to get to the end result that we need to. This burst of chemicals can give the ADHD brain some of what it is struggling to create during an ordinary task. It's almost like the lights have just come on inside of our brain, inside of the building, right? This situation, this crisis has given your brain the urgency, the stimulation, and the very strong reason to focus. So A little pressure can definitely help. However, too much pressure can make things worse. So there is a sweet spot when it comes to pressure, or as I'll often refer to it, as urgency. Okay? So pressure or urgency. Too little pressure, and we will often feel bored or distracted or sort of away with the fairies, foggy, what have you, sort of unable to begin. Okay? If we don't have enough of a deadline or enough pressure on us, a useful amount of pressure can help us to feel focused, to feel switched on, to get shit done. But too much pressure can tip us into panic, overwhelm, shut down. Right? So a little bit of pressure can turn the lights on, but too much pressure can blow the fuse. This is why you might handle one emergency calmly, but completely fall apart during another one. It can depend on how serious that situation feels, how safe you feel, how personal it is to you, whether you know what to do, and how much else your nervous system is already carrying. For example, if you are already exhausted or burned out or really under immense amount of stress, it may take much less to push you over the edge. Okay? And of course, your previous experiences throughout your life can also play a role here. If this crisis reminds you of something frightening from your past, your response could be very different. So I want to be clear. We're not saying that people with ADHD are always amazing in emergencies, okay? We are saying that for some people, in some situations, a crisis creates the exact kind of stimulation and clear focus that our brain has been struggling to find. So, my friend, let's talk about why the crisis can feel easier than making the phone call. And this is the part that I find really interesting, because being stranded alone right on the side of the road in the dark or was clearly more serious than booking an appointment. But in some ways, the emergency was actually much simpler. Okay? When my car broke down on the side of the road, my priorities were very obvious. Get the car safely off the road, put the hazard lights on, make sure the doors are locked, call, you know, roadside assistants to get some help, tell people where I am, wait for help to arrive. I did not have to work out whether or not a task mattered. I did not need to decide when I would do it. I didn't need to sort of think about whether or not I felt ready. The situation had already made all of those decisions for me. Okay? It was very clear. But let's take a look under the hood and consider what could be inside a task like booking an appointment. Okay? Which clinic do I call? When are they open? Where's their phone? Number? Do I need a referral? What am I going to say exactly? What if I get put on hold? What if they ask a question and I don't know the answer? What times am I available? Actually, where is my calendar? What if they offer a time that doesn't work? What if the receptionist sounds annoyed? Should I call today? Or maybe should I just call tomorrow? Would that be better? What if there are no appointments? Could I just book online instead? And suddenly. This supposedly simple task of making an appointment contains 15 smaller steps. Everyday jobs often look easy from the outside whilst sort of secretly containing this huge crowd of decisions. So this can be incredibly difficult for an ADHD brain. Whereas the actual emergency, which may be scary, the next step, is often incredibly clear. The everyday task may be completely safe, but if it feels vague, open ended and full of little decisions, that, my friend, is a different story. So another major difference in that emergency is that it has an immediate consequence. And that consequence is happening right here, right now, right when your car breaks down. You have to deal with it. You cannot. You know, and let me be fair, I was pitch black, middle of nowhere, I couldn't walk, there was no sidewalk, there were no street lights. I wasn't walking home. Like, I couldn't even see houses, people, nothing, okay? And like I said, every horror movie I have ever seen is playing in my head. I'm just waiting for that white van to pull up next to me to break my window and tear me out of the car and steal me. Okay? So when your car breaks down on the side of the road in the dark, you've got to deal with it. You can't just decide, oh, I'll just take a nap in the car and wait until next week, right? You can't just add it to your to do list. You can't tell yourself, oh, I'll probably feel more motivated to tackle this tomorrow. No, you are already in the situation. That shit is happening right now. Action is needed right now. However, that appointment, that appointment could be made today or it could be made tomorrow or maybe next week or after lunch or just later, right? Or maybe, actually I could do it after I've checked that one small thing online that I wanted to look up and now I've just ended up watching a 40 minute video about a woman restoring an abandoned house may or may not have happened. But here's the thing. Our ADHD brains often struggle more when the reward or the consequences is either vague or somewhere in the future. There's this quote I Love from Dr. Russell Barclay. He's an ADHD expert, and he says, too much present, not enough future. It is so us. We are too much in the moment, in the present, and not really concerned enough about the future, about the consequences, about how this will affect us. In a week, a month, a year from now, we might know that the task matters. But the importance, even though it's important, that does not always create enough energy, enough of the brain chemicals that we need to start the task. A faraway consequence can feel almost imaginary or unimportant, whereas an immediate consequence, something happening right now that feels very real, which is why a deadline can suddenly make us able to do two hours of work that we've been avoiding for two months. The deadline has moved the consequence from that future to right here in the room with us, right here, right now. So another reason some people with ADHD can feel calmer during emergencies is that everything else in our world, everything else around us, temporarily stops mattering. So when I was sitting in my car on that dark country road, I was not trying to answer emails. I was not trying to remember the groceries I needed to grab on the way home, or I wasn't thinking about tidying the kitchen or drafting a podcast or, you know, the workout that I needed to fit in that day. There was only one job, and that was stay safe and get help. The crisis had already chosen my priority for me. And one of the hardest parts of having adhd, or, sorry, one of the hardest parts of everyday ADHD life is deciding what deserves our attention. Because everything can feel equally important or equally unimportant, right? Or we know what matters most, but our brain keeps drifting towards something else. Now, in a real crisis, the priorities often become incredibly obvious. Our attention has one very clear place to go and that can actually feel quieter in our brain, especially. Right. That can feel quieter than an ordinary day that has sort of 20 tasks that we're sort of competing with. And there may also be another reason why some ADHD adults are good when shit goes sideways. And that is because we have had a lot of practice. So the reality of living with ADHD as an adult is many of us have spent years forgetting things and having to improvise, running late and finding another solution, missing deadlines and working incredibly fast to recover, losing important items and having to retrace every step, right? Making plans and then having to completely change them. Having to be resourceful or creative, thinking quickly when something doesn't go as we'd expected, ADHD life can actually involve a surprising amount of unofficial crisis training. Yes, we are good in a crisis because our brain becomes more alert. And sometimes we're also good in a crisis because we have completed some unofficial master's degree in shit going completely sideways. As people with adhd, we are usually very good at noticing several things at once. A normally distracted brain can become very useful when the situation requires us to scan, to notice the subtle changes, to remember the small details and think of several possible solutions. And yet that same brain that gets distracted by every noise in a cafe can be very good at noticing something has suddenly changed. These are real skills. They are very valuable skills that so many of us have. But I also want to be very careful about romanticizing them, right? Not every survival skill is a superpower, shall we say? Some people have become. Some of us have become extremely capable in emergencies because we grew up in homes where we had to stay alert, where we had to read other people's moods or be ready for things to change quickly. Okay? Sometimes that calm response is partly adhd, right? Being calm in an emergency, sometimes it's its part personality, and sometimes it comes from lived experience through having lived in a lot of chaos or experienced a lot of trauma. In fact, studies show that up to 82% of adults with ADHD have experienced trauma throughout their lives. Meaning that we often go into a really heightened alert, aware state when that happens around us when we're in that emergency. And this actually brings us to something really important. Being calm does not necessarily mean that your body is calm, okay? You might look completely calm during a crisis. You might be able to organize everybody and, you know, deal with the situation whilst your nervous system inside of you is working incredibly hard. So your brain may temporarily push your emotions to the side or, you know, put them under the rug for now, because there's a job that needs to be done, okay? But once you are safe, once it's all dealt with, your body will begin to process what has just happened. And this is where you might notice that suddenly you feel a little bit shaky, okay? Or you might cry, you might become irritable or exhausted, or you might have a headache, right? A tension headache. You may struggle to sleep even though you are tired, right? That. That tired but wired. You might want to talk about the situation repeatedly, over and over and over again, or you might feel really flat and strangely sort of disconnected from the whole thing. Being calm in the moment does not mean that the event did not affect you, okay? And I think this is something really important for us to talk about because your nervous system may simply have delayed the emotional part until it believed you were safe enough to feel it, right? Our nervous systems are so friggin clever and like they're really trying to look after us, trying to take care of us, but you know, still it's doing its job. It needs that emotion to be felt, it needs to come out, it needs to be processed. So for me, when the tow truck driver drove me home, so he picked me up, put the car on the back, drove me back, dropped me and my car off at home, I unlocked the front door, I went inside. I was actually home alone. Of course, Emmett was away for work this day. So I went home, I stood in my kitchen and, and I stood there and I was like, well, now what? What the fuck do I do now? And I could feel the adrenaline. Remember, that's the norepinephrine. I could feel the adrenaline pumping through my body still I felt on edge, like I was alert, I was activated, I was ready to go. And that's because the stress does not just disappear. Sometimes your body just sends the invoice a little bit later. So after a crisis, even if you handled it like a boss, I want to encourage you, invite you, my friend, to give yourself a little bit of time for the comedown. So for me this looked like I decided to go for a walk in the sun. So I walked, it was roughly a 2K walk in the freezing cold, fresh air to get a coffee. I decided I've earned a goddamn coffee. I got one of my coffee from one of my favorite cafes and so I walked there and then I just walked home and I just walked at a leisurely pace. And then I got home, I made something to eat and I just rearranged my morning. Thankfully I had pretty flexible morning. I rearranged it so that I could actually visit a friend who was close by to sort of debrief with with her. Like I wanted to talk through what had happened, I wanted to share it with somebody. And also she had chocolate cake. She'd been tempting me with chocolate cake. So I went over and had a giant piece of chocolate cake, of course. But that's what it looked like for me to sort of process all of the chemicals pumping through my body and to allow some of the emotion out of me. So sometimes it looks like just drinking some water, eating something, moving your body, gently getting out in nature is always a really good thing to do. If you can talking to someone like one of your safe people, somebody that you can debrief with and if you can rest. And also I just want to say, please do not judge yourself if the emotions and or exhaustion show up later. Like, this is just such a common response for our brains and bodies. Like, you can be 100% capable and still be affected. Both things can be true, my friend. So next up, what I want to do is I'm going to make things a little uncomfortable. Let's be honest. Like, I make shit uncomfortable all the time. Like, this is nothing new, okay? But one of the things I wanted to explore was how we sometimes can use or sort of question, do we use creating urgency or creating pressure to help us function, to help us get shit done? And I see this all of the time. So I thought, you know, this is a really good thing for us to explore because when our brains learn that pressure helps us, it helps us to get shit done. We can get a little bit sneaky, or our brains, rather can get a little bit sneaky and sort of rely on it and use it. So that could look like we wait until a deadline is terrifyingly close before we actually start doing the work. Or we ignore a bill until it is overdue, or we leave the house at the last possible second because that rush, that rush actually helps us to move faster, to find all of our shit, get it together and get out. Or we put off making an appointment until that problem becomes urgent. You know, maybe it's painful even. We avoid cleaning until. Until that mess becomes completely unbearable. We delay. A difficult conversation explodes. Most of us are not consciously creating these situations. Like, we're not doing it on purpose. We're not aware of it happening. We're not sort of sitting here thinking, oh, how could I make my life more stressful this week? Of course not. But our brain, our sneaky little brain has learned that panic works okay. When calm intention does not reliably help us to start, urgency becomes our starter motor, shall we say. The problem is that this can come at a bit of a cost. So we might get that task done, yes. But we also get added stress. We shame ourselves. We beat ourselves up. What's wrong with me? Why didn't I do this earlier? Why can't I do things like other people? We sleep poorly because we're worrying about it, right? We're stressing out. There are arguments, there's burnout. There's that constant feeling that we are behind. So all of this to say that urgency can be very effective. Like it is one of the ADHD brain's motivators, right? Getting us to take action, to get shit done. It can be incredibly effective. But it can also be very Expensive fuel, okay? It can come at a cost and if we use it for everything, we will eventually burn out. So how can we learn from crisis mode? Because the goal is not to create more emergencies in our day to day lives. Okay? We do not need to scare ourselves into functioning. No. But we can actually take a look at and learn from crisis mode and what, you know, what it gives our brain and try to bring some of those things into our ordinary everyday tasks. So I'm going to share with you six things that I have learned from this experience. But also these are six things that are proven to support our ADHD brains. It's kind of like helping our brains to put some guardrails or scaffolding in place. Okay? So number one, the first thing that we can learn from this and take from it is to make the task very fucking clear. Okay? Instead of writing down I need to sort out my health, try I need to call the doctor at 10am to ask for the first available appointment. Or instead of writing down I need to work on my finances or I need to improve my finances, which let's be honest, is very vague. Try open banking app and pay electricity bill. The clearer the task is, the less work your brain has to do before it can begin. Okay? So by making the task that first step very, very clear, we make it much easier for our brain to act on it. Number two is to work out that first physical step. Okay? That first step needs to be something you can actually do. So not air quotes. Organize my life. Organize my life is very vague. Okay, what do you do? What are all of the steps? Oh my God, I'm overwhelmed just thinking about it. But if you were to write down put washing inside machine or hang washing out or open the two envelopes on the kitchen bench, okay, sometimes we stay stuck because we are trying to begin an entire project, a very vague open ended project instead of taking one small action, okay? When we are too vague or too zoomed out, our brain does not know where to start. So it's going to avoid it as long as possible. Okay? So number two is to work out the very first physical step. Number three is remove as many decisions as possible. I am such a fan of this. Like I like to, I remove decisions all of the time, wherever I can. And I totally understand why certain people, I think it's been talked about, like Mark Zuckerberg and you know, other CEOs of big companies will just wear the same outfit every single day. They'll wear the same, you know, brown pants and black T shirt. Because it removes decisions, right? And I totally get that. So removing as many decisions as possible is number three before making the appointment. If you've got a phone to make an appointment, let's say for a dentist, you could write down the phone number, you could open your calendar, you might even write a simple script out. Or you get chatgpt to help you put together a script of what you could say, even make a note of what days and times work for you. When you're available, put all of the information you need in front of you, okay? That helps you to remove all of the decisions. The emergency felt really manageable for me because there was a clear set of steps. I didn't even have to think about it. It was all just like laid out in front of me. We can make everyday tasks easier by creating the steps before we need them. Okay? Another way that I do this, for example, is I will put out the night before what I'm wearing the next day. So when I was driving to Toastmasters that morning, I had already left out the night before a pair of jeans. I had a green jumper and a pink trench coat with bra and undies, all sitting there in my bathroom. So when I got up in the morning, I knew what I had to put on. I didn't have to think about it, I didn't have to make decisions. That shit was all sitting there ready for me to go. And I do this every day. I throw out the clothes I'm wearing the next morning. Now, to be fair, I most mornings it's just my activewear because I get up and I go for a walk before I start anything else. But I always have that sitting there in the bathroom so that I don't have to think about it. I don't have to decide on anything when I get up in the morning. Trust me, it makes my life so much easier. So number three, removing as many decisions as possible. Number four, and I'm a huge fan of this one, use another person, okay? Ask someone to sit with you while you do the task. This is what we call body doubling and it is so good for ADHD brains. So it could be that you tell a friend, hey, I'm making this call at 10am can you check in with me afterwards? Or can I message you afterwards and just, you know, let you know I've done it? So it's that kind of accountability. It could be that you join a body doubling session online. There are loads of them. And if you're in the adulting with ADHD membership, we do them as well. Make sure you come along. It could be that you ask your partner to stay nearby while you're filling in a form or you have another person, like maybe it's your mum comes over for a cup of tea whilst you fold the washing and put it away. Having another person can make the task feel more real and just help create enough stimulation to begin. It is such a useful strategy. Number five, I also really love this one. Number five is to use a short timer. Okay, set a timer for five minutes. Our brains are so quick to discount something, you know, one to two, five minutes and say, oh, it's not enough. But I tell you what, all it takes to get started is that tiny little timer I talk about. 5 minute wins all of the time. It is the only way in which washing gets folded and put away in our house. It's the only way in which I often clean. Cause I'll just be like, I'll just do five minutes in the kitchen, kitchen. And then all of a sudden maybe I'm, you know, 30 minutes later or, or I just did five minutes, but it made such a difference that I'm like, actually I might do some more later or what have you set a timer for five minutes. The goal is not to finish, my friend. The goal is to start. It's to get over that hurdle of starting. Making a tiny little dent, that short time limit can really create some of the flowers focus of a deadline without sending your nervous system into panic mode, into shutdown mode. Right? Five minutes is always a win. And number six is to make the result immediate. Okay? So you could do this by asking yourself a series of questions. So one of the ways, what are the ways in which I will feel better, which once this is done. What's happening to my words today? This is fun. Okay, let's start over. Number six, make the result immediate. Okay? And as I said, you can use questions to do this. So what are the ways I will feel better once this is done? Or how will I, you know, feel better once this is done? So for example, maybe you get to stop thinking about it. Maybe you will then have an answer. You will have information to make the next steps clearer. Maybe it will no longer be hanging over you. You won't be worrying about it. Maybe you'll feel relief or satisfaction. Maybe you can reward yourself with a coffee. Okay, so find out what is on the other side of this. Right? How am I going to feel what's going to be happening once this is done? And showing yourself that can be very, very useful. I Use this tactic. My things, like things that often stay on my list over and over again are things like, you know, make an appointment or email. So and so, like things that are sort of vague or don't, don't have that sort of immediate consequence. Those are the things where I will often do this because I know, well, I'll be really glad it's not on my list and I'm not looking at it going, I should have done that yesterday, right? I will be really glad to have that information, to know when it's, when it's happening or to no longer be thinking about it, or no longer be writing it on my list every single day, transferring it over, right? Our ADHD brains respond better when that reward feels close. So what are you going to gain? How are you going to feel better once this is done? Right now, my friend, this might be the most important message in this whole episode. If you can think clearly during a crisis, but you struggle to send a simple email, that does not mean you are lazy. It does not mean that you don't care. It does not mean that you are not capable. It does not mean that you could do everything easily if you just tried harder. No bullshit. It simply means that your ability to access your skills, your executive functions changes depending on the situation. Your ability to flood your brain with the chemicals it needs, the dopamine, the norepinephrine that it needs to access your executive functions, changes depending on the situation. Your brain may work better when there is urgency, clear and immediate consequences, immediate feedback, and a very obvious next step. That capable version of you who takes charge during an emergency is not a one off unicorn. But neither is the version of you who feels stuck making a routine phone call, okay? They are the same person in two completely different sets of conditions. When I was sitting in the car alone in the dark on this little country road, I had a clear objective, a clear target. I had enough stimulation. There was no debate about what mattered. I could see clearly what I needed to do, right? There was one problem in front of me and I dealt with it, okay? The woman who handled that roadside breakdown like a fucking boss is also the same woman who can avoid making an appointment or sending an email for two weeks. Both are versions of me. Okay? The lesson here is not that we need more pressure, right? Most adults with ADHD are already carrying far too much pressure. The lesson is that sometimes our struggle is not about whether we are capable. It is about whether we can access that capability in the moment. And as I shared with you, we can sort of reverse engineer that we can hack that with the six steps, the six things that I shared with you here today. So the next time you find yourself frozen in front of an ordinary task like folding, washing or cleaning the cab kitchen, or cooking dinner, or sending an email, instead of asking, why can't I just do this? What's wrong with me? Try asking, what does the crisis give my brain that this task is missing? Does this task need to be clearer? Is that first step too big or too vague? Are there too many decisions here? Would another person help right that body doubling, that accountability? Could I just set a five minute timer? Do I need to have an immediate reward or do I need to make that result feel a little more real? Because you should not need to be stranded alone on a tiny, you know, country road in the middle of nowhere to access the capable, focused, resourceful version of yourself. All right? We just need to learn a little more about what helps bring these parts of our brain online and then hack that. Okay? Preferably without some, you know, chainsaw man appearing from behind the hedge and all of the horror movies you've ever watched running through your mind. Let's leave that at home. All right, my friend? Huge, huge love. Take care. I'll speak to you next week. Hey, friend, if you want some more help navigating and thriving with ADHD and some help applying everything that you're learning here on the podcast, then head over to our website, navigating adultadhd.com.