A Storied Table
Life is a lot, and (God love ‘em) kids add an extra level of crazy. You never stop, and every ding from your phone tends to induce some level of anxiety, whether it’s another negative notification from the news, or a text from the groomer that you forgot to pick up the dog… again.
Goodness gracious! It's like you're juggling more than actually living, and you’re left wondering where the heck all your joy went.
As much as you want to some days, you know you can’t throw in the towel.
Come sit, take a break, and hang out. Let’s get you in a better headspace and re-light that fire in your soul.
Let’s have some fun and help you find the joy in everyday life again.
Welcome to a storied table. I’m so glad you’re here.
A Storied Table
At the Table | Danielle Elliot (Climbing the Walls)
Text me! Tell me something good!
When you hear “ADHD,” do you picture a little boy who can’t sit still in class—or maybe an adult who keeps forgetting their keys? That’s the story we’ve been told, but it’s not the whole truth. This week I’m visiting with documentarian and journalist Danielle Elliott, who created the podcast series Climbing the Walls. She’s digging into what ADHD really looks like for women—the messy, complicated, real-life version that doesn’t fit the stereotypes.
We talk about everything from the winding road of diagnosis to treatment options that go way beyond just medication, and how shame sneaks in when women hold themselves to impossible standards. Danielle also shares why hormones might be one of the most important missing pieces in ADHD research and how hearing other women’s stories can be such a lifeline.
If you’ve ever wondered what’s actually behind the headlines about ADHD—or if you’ve quietly asked yourself, “Could this be me?”—you’re going to want to hear this one. And when you’re done, go check out Danielle’s series Climbing the Walls—it’s packed with powerful stories and perspectives that every woman should hear.
If this episode speaks to you, I’d love to hear your story—click the “Tell Me Something Good” button or send me a DM over on Instagram @astoriedtable.
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Hosts:
Amy Kathleen Smith | Insta @astoriedtable | www.astoriedtable.com
Edited by:
Ben Hill | http://benhillsound.com/ | https://www.linkedin.com/in/benhillsound/
References:
Danielle Elliot | danielleelliot.com
Understood.org | Climbing The Walls Podcast Series
Hosts: Amy Kathleen Smith | Insta @astoriedtable | www.astoriedtable.com
Edited by: Ben Hill* | http://benhillsound.com/ | https://www.linkedin.com/in/benhillsound/
*starting with episode 60
Think about the times when you're around a table, maybe at a coffee shop or dinner with friends, or one of those rare nights where you can actually get your whole family to the table for dinner. Tables are where life happens, and usually the good side of life too. It's where the stories are told and the memories are made. So, since life can get crazy and those table moments don't happen as much as we'd like, what if you let this listen be that recharge that you need, where you can switch out of survival mode and have a little fun, even if it's just for a little bit? Sometimes it's going to be me and you here, and then sometimes we might have a friend join us. But here's what I'm hoping for you that this is the place where you get to hit pause, give your brain the break that it needs and have some life finally poured back into you. I'm Amy Kathleen. Welcome to A Story Table. I'm so glad you're here. Hey, this week I'm so excited I'm going to release the interview that I had with Danielle Elliott.
Speaker 1:Danielle is the host of the Misunderstood podcast series called Climbing the Walls and, if you've missed out the past couple episodes, ADHD has been kind of a thing. It's been the topic we've been talking about here lately, but I wanted to give you just a little bit of insight on who Danielle is, what her background is, before we dive into the interview we had with her today. On who Danielle is, what her background is, before we dive into the interview we had with her today. So Danielle is a documentarian and a writer and she focuses on character-driven narratives that seek to explain cultural phenomena. Her films and features and series have appeared on HBO, ESPN, FX, iHeart, Audible, NBC and a lot more.
Speaker 1:So this was such a cool opportunity to be able to speak with her and kind of dive into some extra thoughts that she had about this series and what it looked like kind of behind the scenes. So I really hope you enjoy this interview and this visit that I got to have with Danielle. It was so much fun. Danielle, thanks so much for responding and deciding to be on the podcast. I'm so excited for all the work that you've done, and everyone that's listened to the podcast so far has just heard me rave and rave over climbing the walls and just the job that you did. I thought you did a phenomenal job.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much. It's really nice to hear and, yeah, I'm really happy to be here today, so thank you for reaching out.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, absolutely. So I was kind of curious earlier and I was like you know what? I want to know how climbing the walls is going Like, how's it being received. And so I decided to do a search on Instagram and I just I put in climbing the walls and then I clicked like the part where you can look at hashtags and I was like man, there's like 18,000 hashtags and so look, and I start cracking up laughing. But it's a mix. I mean, cause you think about it? Climbing the walls fantastic name for the podcast Um, but it was a mix of rock climbing and ADHD and boys literally climbing walls. And I laughed because, like, I could relate personally to every bit of that, because my oldest rock climbs, all of my boys and my husband and I even sometimes enjoy like rock climbing and, of course, adhd. And then the boys of the pictures of them actually climbing walls, like doorways where they use hands and feet and they climb up.
Speaker 1:That was some of the pictures and I'm like that happens in my house and has always for the past however many years, on a regular basis, so that's just funny.
Speaker 2:I haven't thought to. Yeah, that's amazing and I love, I love hearing that I hadn't searched that hashtag, so I'm going to have to after we talk, because, um, yeah, it makes sense. It makes a lot of sense that there would be a mix, but but, yeah, it's been. The reception has been pretty amazing, honestly. I'm hearing from a lot of people directly on Instagram. I'm seeing comments on Apple podcasts and you know there's been some funny pod. There's funny comments, but even the cause.
Speaker 2:You know there's always going to be good and bad, but even one or two negative comments. There's always going to be good and bad, but even one or two negative comments. There's one that just says is this, even for men? And I'm thinking, well, that isn't my audience, like, that's not at all. And then, if you scroll through the reviews, the next one says even as a man, this is interesting and like it's from a man, and I forget exactly what it says, but it's essentially like this is balanced enough to be interesting to anyone. So it was really nice to see that. But yeah, I've had the full spectrum of responses, I think, which has been fun.
Speaker 1:That's really good to hear and you know I thought about it from the guy's perspective. I'm like, well, yeah, it kind of is, if you want to like understand your wife or partner better.
Speaker 2:Exactly, or your mom or your sister, right? Like there's just a coworker, like it's just always, like stories about women aren't only for women, right, there's stories for everyone. Yeah, so it's been fun to see all those reviews.
Speaker 1:That's so great. Well, so you did all this work for Climbing the Walls, the whole series with understoodorg, and so I dug around a little bit because I'd never actually heard of it before, and I did. I wrote down here what their website says, and it says that they are the leading nonprofit empowering the 70 million people with learning and thinking differences in the US. So 70 million people in the US alone. I thought that was really interesting, but I was really impressed with the amount of resources that they had on there and it looks like they cover ADD, dyslexia, dyscalculia, you know, but I love this. I think it's dyscalculia. That's it, sorry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's dyscalculia.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it's got the supports for parents and for women and then educators as well, so I thought that was great. But how did you get connected with them? How did this come about?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so someone I knew through work, who I'd worked with previously, uh, is now full-time at understoodorg. So when they were interested and he was the editor of this podcast, so editor meaning that sort of think of it in terms of a magazine editor, like as in the story editor Um, so he knew that one of his first series that he wanted to work on there was going to be about this question and he knew that I had been talking about it a lot and, um, I had been reporting on it somewhat and then understoodorg wanted to make it. He said that they were going to start looking for, they were going to start putting together the podcast and it kind of just came together perfectly, like the timing was so perfect. Um, funny enough, I had actually been pitching, I'd been working with a literary agent and pitching a book and we had a publisher interested. But then ultimately they kind of said you know, I think this moment has passed and I was able to take all of that research and turn it into the seeds of the podcast.
Speaker 2:I would say a lot more research went into the actual podcast but, yeah, the seeds of that book proposal or that book proposal became the seeds of the podcast, so I got connected. The short answer to your question is that I got connected through a friend who's the editor of the show and he's, I would say, a huge part of the reason why the show is produced, as well as as well as as well as it is, yeah yeah, uh, that's so interesting I'm, I'm all about connections.
Speaker 1:I mean, I laugh that um, you, my career, all the different things I've done have very little to do with my academic ability but have everything to do with the connections I've made through life. 100%.
Speaker 2:I completely agree with that and I think, as people with ADHD, it's like that's maybe one of my things. Where ADHD is a strength for me is like it keeps me. I'm interested in everyone I meet and there are very few people who I don't want to connect with, so, um, so yeah, it's all about the connections, I think.
Speaker 1:It really is. So, after all of this, has there been any more revisiting of a potential book for you? Because clearly the moment hasn't passed. I think that was the funniest statement.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the moment has not passed at all and that statement was over a year ago, so it's funny, but I haven't revisited it because I'm sort of very you know again, speaking to my ADHD, I'm extremely interested in topics for a while and then I'm sort of ready to move on and books take a really long time. So I don't know if I want to spend more years on the same subject matter, but if there was an opportunity I would definitely consider it and look at how even the proposal would change, based on everything I learned by working with understoodorg. You know like I definitely think my understanding of the rise in diagnosis has evolved in the making of the podcast and and my understanding of where we need to go from here. You know, I think the conversation on is the diagnosis rate accurate? I think we've answered that, you know, and I think we've shown how we need to move on from that into what do we do for all of the women who are seeking help.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I think you're. I think you're right. I'm flipping back and forth in my head about the two, two of the things I wanted to ask you about, but the first one is going to be really just based around skepticism and I have done an episode prior to us getting together here, just about what aha moments I had after listening to climbing the walls with you and and also after I thought the entire series was out, I started playing and I got through the second episode and then it was like, okay, the next one will come out soon. I was like heartbroken, and it was. It was such a moment for me because of this skepticism I've had for years and I'll give you just like a little bit of backstory there.
Speaker 1:I was diagnosed at 13 years old like ADD and dyslexia and by the time I had gotten through college I was just over it. I didn't, I didn't. I was like, no, I'm not going to play this game anymore, I'm done, I'm just going to figure it out on my own. I was like, no, I'm not going to play this game anymore, I'm done, I'm just going to figure it out on my own. And then our youngest I mean, I'm sorry, our oldest of our three boys. I call him our out-of-the-box boy. You know there is no particular diagnosis or reason, rhyme or reason anything about him and his life and his neurodiversity or his neurocapability, however you want to look at it. And so I have found, like through our journey with him, I'm really particular about what I will look into, what I will read, what I will pursue and what I want.
Speaker 1:And really it came down to the director of the program that he's in and then, kind of like my key person there, I finally got to a point where I'm like I love and appreciate these women so much that, unless it comes from them, I'm just blocking it all out. And that all rooted back to like just the skepticism I had of my own personal experiences and just not knowing what you can or can't trust out there. And so I was just curious, you know, with the work that you've done, with the work that you have done, adhd at this point obviously, is wildly known, so much more than it was back when I was 13. And I'm wondering, like with this growing number of diagnoses, has the skepticism that you've come across? Has that been related more to like ADHD itself, like is this a thing or is this just the world that we live in, kind of argument, or is it more about the doubt because of this potential over diagnosis, and are those numbers real or not?
Speaker 2:I think it's sort of a combination of the two, honestly Like. I think that the skepticism primarily. I think anytime, like if you look back over the last 30 years, I think any time, like if you look back over the last 30 years, most of the time that we saw a rise in diagnosis it had more to do with children or you know subpopulations. Think anytime you say, oh, actually a significant portion, meaning you know, in my head significant is 10% or something, but you know a significant or even any percent because our population is so big. But there's been skepticism Anytime you suddenly say a significant portion of the population has something and we've never known how to identify it before. People don't always like to hear change. I think that that's. There's always going to be skepticism around that. So that's some of the skepticism. And then I think I mean there's skepticism in the last. There's some very valid skepticism, like if you look at the rates of diagnosis in states, if you look at the rates of diagnosis following the no child left behind laws being passed, you see a rise in diagnosis in certain states that were adhering to the policies more than other states, which means that you potentially see a rise in diagnosis, and I found this kind of buried deep in an article from like 10 years after those regulations had been passed. So it's interesting that I do think some of the skepticism is valid. But I think what I keep coming back to myself is that there is a lot of skepticism around. Is it just the world we live in now? But it's not a skepticism of are people struggling or not. It's just a skepticism of is the validity of it for however long we want, but by arguing over that for the last 30 years we've failed to make any systemic or societal level changes that actually help people, right? So it's like, sure, if I'm telling and my brother in law doesn't doubt that I have it, so he's maybe a bad example, but that's just the example I'm going to pull. If I'm just talking to my brother-in-law at a party and saying I was diagnosed with ADHD and he looks at me and is like, yeah, yeah, everybody has it now. Sure, have that conversation. You know, I don't know why I picked him. He's actually the one who is more willing to talk about it with me than anyone else in my family. But but yeah, I just think that the skepticism is always going to be there, but it's not really helpful anymore, right, because we've got 30 years of this diagnosis being on the rise and if something has changed in the way that we live, that's the thing I think we should be examining. And ADHD is a subjective diagnosis ultimately, right, like there's.
Speaker 2:There was a really interesting article that came out, I want to say, about a month ago in the New York Times magazine that looks at the fact that for the last 30 years it's been treated as a binary Either you have it or you don't and that's not necessarily a helpful way of thinking about ADHD. Like thinking about it on more of a spectrum is probably more helpful. And I think you know, even to go back to your point, that you were diagnosed at 13,. You said, right, yeah, like to be diagnosed at 13, and then by the time you're in your 20s or 30s, you're kind of finding your niche, you've learned how to live with it. Right, because it's something that we can live with If you know the right tools and you know how to process it.
Speaker 2:I think I've started to notice a lot of articles or radio pieces in the last year or so and they all feature men in their forties and they're all talking about how maybe we need to rethink ADHD and rethink the treatment of ADHD, and I think what it actually is is that I'm willing to predict and this might be a little bit outlandish but I think that 10 or 20 years from now, we're going to hear a lot of women who were diagnosed in this particular rise that I cover in Climbing the Walls.
Speaker 2:10 or 20 years from now, a lot of those women are probably going to be able to say, yeah, it's actually pretty livable and we need to rethink how we talk about treatment and it's not a debilitating thing. Because I think what, what those stories are really about and what you're talking about? It's really that once you learn to live with it, you know how to manage your life right. Like there's a, there's an initial phase of diagnosis and treatment and then there's sort of a maintenance phase. That feels like maybe I don't need everyone else's opinions and all of these people telling me what's wrong with me and all of that, and I kind of sort of think it's the 10 or 15 years post-diagnosis effect more so than a. Adhd isn't what we think it is effect, if that makes sense. I just answered three questions in one.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure where you want to go. I was tracking with you the entire time and I was literally just thinking, oh, I love how she just kind of like put all that together in a way and I mean it makes sense to me, it totally makes sense to me and and I love that because you're right Like there are ways that you learn to deal with it, and that's that's where I was, you know. I just kind of felt like, literally, it was a chapter of my life that I'm like yeah, I'm done with you, you know.
Speaker 2:I'm not going to make you you're not going to be an excuse, they're not.
Speaker 1:It's not going to keep me from doing anything, you know.
Speaker 1:It's just I'm wired differently.
Speaker 1:I guess the studies, the research, the conversations that were happening while I had blocked it out, that you reopened my eyes to and I was telling well, actually I did mention this on the podcast that I did before this as well that when something caught my attention I was listening to a friend's podcast and she had an ADHD coach on there and I'd heard of those before, but not that I'm in the market for one.
Speaker 1:But I learned about it and I thought, well, maybe there's something that I need to revisit, maybe there's like something I can shed some light on that kind of helps me understand like a new level of something. So I listened to hers and then I listened to something and I just kind of kept going down a rabbit hole until I came across climbing the walls and this was the one that I could finally like sink my teeth into. And the reason was because it was like it wasn't so much. It was interesting getting the contextual, like background and just the different stories and everything. But it really was learning how differently I'm wired and the ways that it shows up and has showed up over the past 20 years that I was completely ignoring and just looked at it as like, oh, that's me.
Speaker 2:I was just going to say, especially as you went through different phases of life. It's like it's almost like well, two things, like the way we're living our individual lives changes because you become a parent, or you become a parent to a 10 year old, or you become a parent to a 15 year old, like those are all very different. It's not just one identity, right, like the parent of a newborn and the parent of a 15 year old are completely different experiences and um, and then also the world around us, right. So it's like our individual world is changing, but then the world around us is changing and there's tools and there's parts of modern life that didn't exist when you were 13, right. So it's like I sort of think that there are, that there's a lot of value in I'm coming around to this, that there's value in sort of like treatment, tune-ups and meeting with an ADHD coach to maybe say what's different in 2025 than was in 2015. And how might?
Speaker 2:My smartphone and the way that we've had it's not even a personal reliance on it anymore. It's sort of like this required reliance on it, like I don't have any friends who can talk to their daughter's soccer coaches without going through their phone, you know, like it's just, like it's not like you're just, whereas in 2015, even like smartphones were a kind of fun thing, right. So I think that there's all this value in recognizing that the way we treat ADHD changes with the times, or the way that our ADHD impacts us, changes with our personal lives and with the ways the world is changing. Um, so I imagine it was pretty interesting for you to be able to think through, like, how it might show up in your marriage, or how it might show up in parenting or friend relationships in your forties versus in your twenties.
Speaker 1:It shows up everywhere, yeah, it truly shows up everywhere, everywhere it has not. It doesn't have to do just with work, and when I'm trying to sit down, or I mean it's just I realized like, wow, it has literally permeated every part of my life.
Speaker 2:I didn't realize it had a name, so that was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:But I like that you brought up treatments there because I kind of was curious, from what you've seen and learned, you know what is the most common or maybe even uncommon or bizarre treatments that you've seen out there. And I guess I'm really going to hone this in. Not necessarily I'm going to leave the kids out of it, I'm just going to think about, like these adult women and what they're finding, because I mean we know the treatments of like the medication that's out there and we know, like the coaches and stuff.
Speaker 1:But, I'm just kind of curious, like, was there something that you didn't know about that you learned, or Was there something that you didn't know about that, you learned or you were like that's insane.
Speaker 2:I didn't even I would never have imagined that that would be a solution to some of these problems. That's a really good question that I've never gotten before. It's a really delicate conversation to have, because I don't. I am not by any means anti-medication at all. I think that if medication helps people, they should take it. But for me personally, the thing that was the most outrageous was that until I had been on medication for four or five months, I still thought medication was the only approach to ADHD. So I think it's almost like a backwards. Like the thing that was the most ridiculous to me is how little conversation breaks through to the general public that treating and managing ADHD has a lot more to do, has to do with a lot more than medication, cause I've been pretty proactive and I've been able to recognize, like throughout my life, if I do things differently. I never knew to call it ADHD, but I had tried sort of like everything, but I never stuck with them because, like they were all like self-help things that I was trying as opposed to knowing I was actually helping to treat myself for ADHD, and I think so.
Speaker 2:Then, when I sought the diagnosis. A big part of it was like okay, if there's a way to name what's happening with me, I've learned my whole life that there's also a way to treat it, and it's called medication. And so I'm going to get on that medication. And I was on a trip several, a few months after I was diagnosed. I had been vigilant, vigilantly taking the medication I was prescribed, but I was in South America and I ran out of medication and I couldn't get any more of it. And then I hit truly the lowest point I had ever hit, and it was because I had now experienced life with the medication but changed nothing else in my life, and now I didn't have access to the medication. And that was a big wake up call for me that I was like if you don't have access to this medication and nothing else in your life has changed, you now know how chaotic your life is, right? So then I had to, really, I decided then to try and figure things out more. I decided then to try and figure things out more, and so, yeah, the answer I would say to your question is it's almost like.
Speaker 2:To me, the most ridiculous thing was that I thought I had to be on medication or chaotic, and those were the two choices in life. And I think some of the things like I see some advice it's like well, like some of the advice feels like it's just like oh well, now that we've told you to do it, you'll just do it and then your life will be better. Like it is not that easy, like it's not that easy at all. Even some of the emotional regulation stuff like rejection sensitivity no matter how intellectually aware I am of the existence of rejection sensitivity and how it might affect me um, even still, and just having life experience at this point, there's still little things where I can.
Speaker 2:I can recognize that I'm just being sensitive to rejection, but I still can't get myself out of this rumination and like, what am I going to do about it? What am I going to do about it, you know? So some of the most ridiculous things have just been like just recognize it, pause and you'll be fine. And I'm like like I think the power of the pause and all of that language is very real, but it's also not. Some of that has seemed a little bit ridiculous to me, where it's just like well, I still don't have a brain that has that level of self-control. You know, like, like, yes, it's the muscle I can work out, but it doesn't appear overnight and right. Emotional regulation is like I'm still going to get frustrated with things and express it and have emotions and just hopefully I can control them when I need to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm sorry I'm racing through like five thoughts at once here. Okay, but everyone thinks that, like I don't know, I think most things in life you want a quick fix. You know people want to lose weight, they do something, you know, whatever the trending thing is at the moment, they want to get, they want to exercise, they go and do whatever thing is happening. So anyway, everybody wants a quick fix.
Speaker 1:And I was laughing with a friend of mine because the same thing you were talking about it's like the medicine doesn't fix everything. You know the person telling you to just like pause, take a deep breath, you know, figure out, and it's like yes, no, so it's just all these things and it's like no, it's actually just a matter of and I love that you mentioned earlier about how it's really like looking at it more like a spectrum. I totally agree. I've actually had the same thoughts, probably even had the same conversations about it all, and I think that's the way that treatment kind of works too. It's like trying to figure out what works for you in whatever season of life you're in, in that moment too, and that could change within a year or even shorter, like six months. It's just there's not going to be any one big okay, I'm going to start doing this and everything's going to be better. Like nothing in life works that way.
Speaker 2:Nothing in life that works. Nothing works that way and it's like, yeah, no, I just I'm trying to think of other things Like I'm now. I do think one of the best pieces of advice that I've gotten is to just tell people like I don't think the onus should always be on the person with the neurodivergence to say this is how I need to be accommodated. But also, if you're good friends with people and you want to maintain those friendships, but you know you're not going to do things the way other people do, like one of my favorite things is that I have just since really understanding ADHD more. I have said to good friends like if you don't get a response to a text from me, it doesn't mean anything, you know. Like, just please don't and there are, and it's so hard to like keep that in mind and try to show other people the same grace, right Cause. Then sometimes you're like well, why am I not hearing back from you? But the friends who have openly said by the way, I have ADHD, so if you don't hear back from me, just text me again. Please don't take it personally. It just makes it so much easier, so much easier.
Speaker 2:And when you're meeting new people it's hard to want to right up front, be like here's a few things to know about me, but it's almost like I've joked that like, especially with like dating, I would love to just hand someone a guidebook to me because then they can just understand what to not take personally. I'm just like I'm really not trying to be rude. I just you know, and I don't want to have to be hyper vigilant about whether or not I'm coming off as rude. You know what I mean. It's like it comes back to those expectations that we talk about a lot in episode two of climbing the walls and I'm like willing to tell people that I think their expectations, even if their expectations are completely normal societal expectations I'm like sorry, I don't live by your code, so just you know you can accept me or not. Um, yeah.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I love all of those. Now that you know it, you'll do it better. And I'm like, will I? I don't know Like I go through. You know, I live in New York and it's really easy to go through periods of deciding we're not even deciding but realizing I don't feel like cooking. And I've ordered takeout so many nights in a row that I'm like, oh, this is disgusting, I need to actually like. And then I get in a habit. I'm like, oh, cooking's actually fun, and it just takes cooking once or twice. And then my brain's like this is so much fun, let's do this every night until and then you know. So I guess the other great thing that I've learned is like just be nice to yourself and roll with whatever's happening and just get through the day and then get on to the next one.
Speaker 1:That's so funny. It's like you're just setting me up for like the next thing I was going to ask you about and it's probably the biggest just shook me to my core and it was, and I mean I think I have mentioned it so many times Again in that first episode. There's another one that I'm hoping I think might drop today and but it keeps coming up, as the person that you spoke to was talking about the impact it has on women and this level of shame that comes with it, and this internal, just negative dialogue. And to me, I think about, like my, that bar of expectation that I've always had for myself, but then, because I'm having to overcompensate and how I just assume that everyone else's bar for me is just as high, and it's just this constant battle. And but I think that you're right, it ends up like coming down to this point where, like shame plays such a huge role that I did not even realize.
Speaker 1:And there were years like whenever, like Brene Brown's book, like on shame was like the biggest thing out there, I saw that I was like no, I'm good, yeah, I'm good. And it's like, as I have grown up, as I've matured, I'm like, oh. So I thought I was like, oh, I feel so guilty. And then I had a friend go say, but have you done something wrong? I'm like no, but I just feel so guilty. And she's like Amy Kathleen, that's not guilt, that's shame. And I'm like what? And so whenever I heard these episodes, I keep talking about like women and how they kind of process through this and they overcompensate. And did you notice that that was a common theme through all the different women that you spoke with? I mean, is that as common as I think it is?
Speaker 2:I think it's very common. I think, especially among women who choose to become mothers or wives or you know like who make those choices in life. I think it's really common. I think, interestingly, I would say, there were two women who I don't get into this in the podcast, but really didn't feel any shame about things. And well, I would even say my own mom, like she, does not feel shame about anything and the only comparison or the only connection I can draw between her and other women who express no shame is growing up in a household with parents who just absolutely never shamed and you know, I knew her parents very, very well, so I know that she's telling me the truth when she says that it's sort of like what Emily Mitchell describes in episode one Her father, there was no shame, especially it seems to really come from. There's no shaming from their dads, and I don't know what that is or what's behind that, but like, like even to the point that I, yeah, I think my mom's like impervious to being shamed or feeling shame in an interesting way, and so I want to dig deeper into that.
Speaker 2:But I think for the most part, a lot of women do, and I don't think I felt shame really until my twenties and thirties when I was living sort of like.
Speaker 2:Like my mom just doesn't buy into a lot of the societal expectations on women, so I think I wasn't really raised with them and uh. But then it was like in your twenties and thirties when you're not living at home anymore and you're like outside of this bubble and you're like, oh, I don't do things the way anyone else does them at all and like, oh, dating's not working out, and then I started to feel a lot more shame. But so maybe some women feel it as a delayed shame, maybe some women feel it younger, based on how things go at home. But I do think the shame is a feeling of not being enough. Among women with ADHD, especially women who weren't aware of their ADHD, like, yeah, enough. There were points when, yeah, I'm always like enough is enough, as in like I'm enough, you know like this is. But that's kind of like a constant mantra that I've had for years, cause I'm like I don't need to meet your expectations, I'm enough how I am you know like as I am, but I think that is a pretty pervasive pervasive.
Speaker 2:And then everyone I spoke with um, and it's interesting because I don't even think it's just shame. This is something I didn't really get into in that episode, but I don't think it's just shame from outside forces. I think we also have really high expectations of ourselves, like you just mentioned, and, like you said, we assume that everyone else holds us to the same bar that we hold ourselves. But we hold ourselves to an impossibly high bar and no one else does.
Speaker 2:And at some point this is before my ADHD diagnosis a therapist had said to me could you ever show yourself? She's like I see how much empathy you show other people, like consider she was like so start pretending that when you're talking to yourself in these negative ways, start speaking on more of the third person and think about how you would respond to a friend if a friend was saying the same things to you. And I do. I listen to the advice I give friends and I'm hard on myself. So yeah, I think, but I think shame is so pervasive and it's like our self messaging and the rumination. It's all such a big part of ADHD.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is. I love that. It's like that, just that advice of giving yourself the same empathy that you give others, because I had somebody point that out to me probably, I don't know, past several years of just have you ever heard of an empath? I'm like, no, well, this is what that is. And I'm like, oh, then, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Checkbox. Yeah, that's me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, but that feeling of like oh, I think somebody in one of the episodes mentioned like laziness and it was like yes, laziness, like always being one step behind, you know, feeling like you're honestly just fundamentally flawed because you just can't get it together.
Speaker 1:You're honestly just fundamentally flawed because you just can't get it together, or just having a brain that needs a pep talk just to get yourself straight. You know, it's like I don't know. It's all tied up in this huge knot that tries to be a bow and just ends up being a knot. Constantly Hearing all the different stories of the different people. That was what was so interesting. It was just. I love that part of what you did just in this. It was like a blend of, like personal experience and journalistic style. You know, it was just a neat kind of I don't know hybrid there. That was really fun and I think probably I don't know if you've heard that from other people, but probably made it one of the most enjoyable parts of listening to all the episodes. But was there anybody in particular that you came across, or maybe even a group of people that just really impacted you in all of this?
Speaker 2:I think that being at the camp and speaking to women who are at so many different stages of diagnosis made me realize how normal my experience has been Right Because, like I was speaking to the woman, tamsin, and hearing her say all the things I had said a year and a half earlier her say all the things I had said a year and a half earlier and I was like, oh, wow, like, wow, we have such similar reactions to this and we've had such similar approaches to this throughout. Like it was just so interesting. And then to speak to someone else who was maybe like four months ahead of her in the diagnosis, there was someone at the camp who was in slight denial about whether or not she really did have. There was one family who on day two, she said, you know, my husband now thinks he has ADHD and by day four they were questioning if ADHD was a real thing and if their daughter even really had it. And it was interesting to watch them like getting all of this information and processing it in real time.
Speaker 2:And there were other people. Yeah, so I think the group of people that really impacted me was being at that camp and realizing, oh, and the women who are three or four years into their diagnosis, have a very different take that I look forward to having someday, you know, because I'll probably get to where they're at, but I think that's who impacted me the most, and then I will say that Ned Hallowell, doctors Hallowell and Johnell, drs Hollowell and John Rady, Ned.
Speaker 2:Hollowell and John Rady. Um, there are a couple of pages of their book ADHD 2.0, where they list traits, and one of them is exquisite. Empathy is listed as a trait of ADHD, and that really impacted me. Um, so I didn't get to include Dr Rady in the podcast, but I did go and spend a day with him and interviewed him, and his wife also has ADHD and she was there and she reminded me so much of myself and her career path has been so similar to mine, but at a time when the career path of a freelancer could bring more financial stability. So it was really interesting. That impacted me too, because I was like, oh, this is what they're talking about. The way the world has changed is also affecting the ability of people with ADHD driven lifestyles to be okay. So, yeah, there were a lot of. It's tough to choose just one. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I bet so. But I mean that experience at the camp and I just loved how you like kind of this is going to come out wrong, but like chase people around. You're like I was here and then I met this person or heard about this and she's just down the road.
Speaker 2:So I'm going to just go to the air and oh wait, you have a camp.
Speaker 1:I'm just going to come to the this girl, so much. Yeah, I had a. I think it was even last night where I heard this idea that, like, we want clarity. You know, you get like, let's just put it in the context of ADHD. You get the diagnosis and you're really thinking that, oh, now I'm going to understand. You want the clarity of like, okay, here's what it looks like, here's how it applies to me. Now I know what the future is going to look like and it's no Again, never in life does anything ever work that way.
Speaker 1:But the idea that was mentioned to me last night that I think applies so well right now is that, you know, clarity comes when you're actually like through something and you're past it, and then you get to look back and you're like, oh yeah, that's the aha moment that I was looking for, that was the clarity. But the clarity didn't come until like you're past it and you get to look back.
Speaker 2:Yeah, hindsight is 20, 20, right, like you understand it. Yeah, it's clear. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I think that falls in line with what you were saying earlier about these women. Today, like all the women that we know that are getting this diagnosis, you know what happens in 15, 20 years. It's going to be that hindsight, 2020. And it's going to be like you know what, 100% Not that it peaked, I mean, it's just, yes, this was in the rise of uh interest and just you know it's being talked about everywhere. It'll die back down and we're all going to be good. We're just going to be more aware.
Speaker 2:We're going to be more aware and, um, hopefully more informed by better research, right? Like, hopefully this drives an increase in research, but that's the hope is that in 15 or 20 years it's. Oh yeah, this is one way a brain can work and we understand it, and it doesn't have to be a big deal to talk about the fact that women have it, because we believe them when they're diagnosed and then they get treatment and help and they understand their brain and that self-awareness helps them a lot in self-understanding.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, not to open a whole other can of worms, but I do feel like you somewhat left us on a huge cliffhanger, because on the last episode it's really where you kind of dive into the idea of, like this ADHD and then which is, you can't pinpoint it exactly for everyone, there is no cookie cutter for it, but then you also have hormones and you sure as heck can't do that with them either, and so I'm just like I was really hopeful for the research that is happening with making those connections, and I do hope that we hear more about that. I really do. I really do too.
Speaker 2:I really, yeah, I want to understand a lot more about that. And if understanding hormones more leads to a deeper understanding of female brains, that says maybe, who knows, this is completely hypothetical and nothing has supported what I'm about to say. But if it comes out that actually, once we understand hormones now, we can see that for some women it's not ADHD, it's something hormonal that has to do with how their brain works, then we'll understand that and like that's why we need the research, like we just need we need to be studying this and we're kind of grossly behind on studying how hormones impact cognition and just the way our brains work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, hopefully it'll keep unfolding. Like I said, I am hopeful. I am. Danielle. Thank you so much for just taking the time to be here and have this conversation. It's been so much fun. I've really enjoyed it, and I also just want to say thank you again for stepping out there and putting this together. I know it was a tremendous amount of work, but it also seemed like it was kind of a little fun too. So it was a lot of fun, yeah, but thank you for everything that you did and, like I hope to see more of your work in the future too.
Speaker 2:Thank you, and thank you for listening and reaching out, cause I yeah, this was a really fun conversation, so thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Thanks for being here today. I cannot wait to hear back from you, for you to just come tell me something good. I have no doubt that you have so much good stuff to fill me in on, and this season we have a new feature to help you do that. You can now text me by clicking the Tell Me Something Good button that's at the top of our show notes, or, if you're old school, that's totally fine. You can always DM me on Instagram at astorytable. Either way, I'm excited to hear from you, but until then, have a great week and y'all take care.