That time we realized we had ADHD.

Kelly and Leti, both diagnosed with ADHD at midlife, discuss their experiences and the impact of their diagnoses on their lives and their daughters'. They reflect on the privilege of accessing healthcare and the importance of support systems. They share their journey of starting a bakery, highlighting their different approaches to time management and the challenges they faced, including conflict with a kitchen landlord. Despite the bakery's eventual closure due to financial strain, they emphasize the value of learning to say no, letting go of perfectionism, and the importance of having a supportive partner. They conclude by expressing gratitude for the lessons learned and the joy of their shared experience. 

Follow us on Instagram or YouTube @wth_adhd

Chapters

• 0:00 Diagnosis and Initial Reactions to ADHD 0:00
• 3:56 Challenges of Accessing Healthcare and Therapy
• 6:31 Approaching Daily Life with ADHD
• 7:42 Time Blindness and Its Impact
• 18:47 Anxiety and Coping Mechanisms
• 43:23 Starting the Bakery Business
• 45:25 Balancing Work and Family Life
• 53:46 The Decision to Close the Bakery
• 54:53 Reflections on the Bakery Experience

Transcript

Leti  00:00

Hey Kelly. 

Kelly  00:02

Yeah Leti

Leti  00:03

Remember the time we opened a bakery?

Leti  00:30

Hi, Hi. How's it going?

Kelly  00:32

It's good. How are you 

Leti  00:34

I'm good. Hi, everyone. Welcome. 

Kelly  00:36

What are we doing? 

Kelly  00:37

Not quite sure yet, but you know, it's day one. Let's try this.

Leti  00:44

I'm gonna make a really loud pop. Oh, wait. Oh, hi. Welcome to WTH ADHD

Leti  00:59

with Kelly and Leti. We're here to talk to you because I think many of you are either having a sense or have found yourself in a similar situation to what we have been experiencing, this different chapter, different journey that we're embarking on. So we thought we'd just do it with you. Basically,

Kelly  01:21

we both got diagnosed with ADHD. I was 50 years old, and Leti, how old were you? 4949 so a little you know, we're at midlife, and to get diagnosed with ADHD, midlife has been, hmm, shall we say, life changing? Well,

Leti  01:42

I don't know if it changed my life, but I do know that it changed my perspective. It shifted my paradigm about how I treat myself and that little self talk that's a constant about, you know, the shame and how

Kelly  02:04

horrible you are. That was mine. And lot of mean talk, very, very mean talk to myself sometimes, oh, my God, I was the worst person in the world and oh,

Leti  02:20

oh, the things I could have done, right? And then there's, there's the newfound grapple and regret where, oh, my god, the things I could have done had this been diagnosed earlier, and I would have tools and things like that. And I think, you know, that's why, when I recognized with my daughter, the signs I was like, I'm not, I'm not taking that away from her. I'm gonna try and, you know, be not only a really great mom, but be a great mom with ADHD who can support someone who is growing with ADHD to get some tools. I

Kelly  03:02

think we should let people know that the reason why I think we both figured out or got ourselves diagnosed was because our daughters both have ADHD. I was very scared to have my daughter diagnosed with ADHD. Once she was diagnosed, went on medication. It was such a humongous change in her I think that's what made me realize maybe I need to take a look at myself as well.

Leti  03:40

And for me, it was different, because, you know, I grew up in another country, and it wasn't a thing. And certainly my youth, it was not even something that was,

Kelly  03:54

I don't think we ever even, we never thought about it. It was a very bad word, I feel like, but to have something

Leti  03:59

like this, diagnosed and treated was almost like, to me, it felt like a privilege, like it wasn't a right to have access to this kind of care, because it was behavior. It was just like, get your stuff together. You're lazy. Do this, do that. And so it was almost like this magical something that I had access to for her, that that she wouldn't have to, you know, hide all those things, a mask and that kind of stuff. Oh,

Leti  04:33

my God, that we did through our whole entire childhood, right? But there

Leti  04:36

is a privilege element to it, because I think there is this, this thing of access, we didn't have healthcare, or much of my, you know, emgree life, emigre,

Leti  04:49

emigre, well, you know,

Leti  04:52

and, and so just even like going to see the doctor from even still, feels like a luxury, like, mm. Like a Louis Vuitton experience when you go visit the doctor.

Kelly  05:06

So I'm so sorry for you. I hate going to the doctor.

Leti  05:11

I don't love it either, but, but for many people, access is really difficult and and there, there is a privilege to being able to diagnose and get medication and let alone get, like cognitive behavioral therapy and things like that, the tools you need. So I think that's another reason. I want to kind of bring this out into the ears of whoever has access to at least a radio or a podcast, to maybe a radio that's funny. Hey, I love radios. I love me an old timey. Am 540 Charlie Tuna

Leti  05:51

because I'm old. Yeah,

Leti  05:53

we are. It's the best place to get all kinds of classical music with a little

Kelly  05:58

you go to SiriusXM and go to the classical station, a little static. There you go. For authenticity. Well, you know, it's fine.

Leti  06:07

Takes me back to the communist days of Secretary.

Kelly  06:10

Great. That's for a whole other episode. All right.

Leti  06:15

So anyway, we want to bring it to whoever wants to listen who maybe this will help start a conversation with yourself or with someone else who can help you feel better and function better

Kelly  06:31

and just go through everyday life situations and how you used to approach those situations back then and how we approach them now, and revisit all the crazy things we did

Leti  06:47

together. Have you really changed how you approach all your things all that much

Kelly  06:52

now? I Yes, I take more time to think about it, but I do have serious impulse issues. Still,

Leti  07:01

I don't have impulse issues. I gotta take my shoes off.

Kelly  07:05

I have serious impulse issues, but now that I know that it's related to something, I can think about it before I do the purchase.

Leti  07:13

Did I see purchase? I almost filled my coffee so I wasn't paying attention to you because I'm moving. I can't did I say purchase? I don't know. I don't know what to say. I can't sit like this for too long. See, move. I have to move. Okay, scooch, your body. I just can't sit like this. No, in cross legged for a little bit. No, I need to sit weird. And that's the only place that's good, that's all right, that's good for like five minutes, until my legs fall asleep, and then I'll sit a different way. I can't sit normal in chairs. No,

Kelly  07:46

never have. Never will. Chairs are the worst invention. One ground always up. Feet are always up. I

Leti  07:54

like to tuck a foot, tuck a foot,

Leti  07:57

bring a foot up,

Leti  07:58

yeah. Which brings toast, calls to the table, which apparently is frowned upon. Well,

Kelly  08:05

as long as you're amongst friends, that's all that matters, anywho. So,

Leti  08:18

you know, we're gonna get so lost. Yes in every podcast,

Kelly  08:21

yes, we are, but that's okay, because that's the glory of the journey, and we just want to this is our first one. We're just trying to talk it out. Just talk it out when

Leti  08:37

we have been we've been talking to each other a lot about this, and I find it so interesting that although it's a very shared experience to like 10% to 40% the rest of it is so different, even the same problem, right? And our response to the problem, like, talked a little bit about like time and how we respond to being time blind. And so do you want to talk about time blindness for a little bit?

Kelly  09:13

Well, you and I have very different time blindness. My time issue is I am always early. Issue issue my time. Issue is I am always early. I don't care where it is, what time it is, where we're going, I will backtrack to figure out how long my drive is going to be, so that I can get there 10 minutes early and do whatever I can to make sure I'm early. And if I am not early, I will literally lose my mind. You're

Leti  09:49

that person who shows up to that poor 80s dearest house, yes to a party, yes, they're just sweating. And trying to shove the last yes bag of unknowns into the closet that they've gathered from the table. Ellie's here because they're trying to clear flat surfaces. Yes, and you're there, hi, and they haven't like shaved. Yes, they're sweating in there. I

Kelly  10:17

can't live my life sitting there late. I will not be fun at your party.

Leti  10:21

Well, I am the stuff, the things I

Leti  10:25

know so well,

Leti  10:27

because you've always been the first person to my parties.

Kelly  10:34

Seriously, the first time I met Leti, our daughters were friends in school and preschool, 322, and a half, two and a no, this was her 18 months. I paid Roxy and at 18 months, so almost second birthday, the first time you first second birthday, the first time I came to Letiz house. My daughter was two, and I was early, and she shit all over her bathroom floor my daughter, I had to change my daughter's diaper, and my daughter shit all over her floor.

Leti  11:13

So you came to me pale, very pale, and a little climbing, maybe, and in a soft voice, because you didn't want anyone else to hear you're like Leti, so I don't know how attached you are to your bathroom, Matt,

Leti  11:33

my daughter

Leti  11:36

had diarrhea all over it, and I looked at you, I knew that you were thinking that this was it, and that you're just gonna leave now. And I was like, Okay, well, this is just throw it out then. And you're like,

Kelly  11:53

Okay, I think I can get along with this girl. And it's been heaven ever since. And our kids are 15 now,

Leti  12:04

mine's not yours is almost you're very

Kelly  12:13

Oh no, it's coming up, and I was gonna get here faster than you think. It is. It is. So that was Leti and my first meeting, and it has been a love fest ever since

Leti  12:26

you were in production back then. Yes,

Kelly  12:30

I was in television post production, working my ass off,

Leti  12:34

and then I was working

Kelly  12:37

12 hour days, seven days a week speech pathology, and you basically in the same boat. Yeah? We barely had time for our kids, barely had time for anything, but we always made time,

Leti  12:51

yeah, and I think you know that was that part of the Undiagnosed where we kind of do and need to do and go until, like you can't because you're so overstimulated or burned out or whatever, but just very I feel like that time for me, was very reactive to my states and all those other things that come with it. And although I didn't feel out of control, looking back on it, I think I was quite not in control of my day to day. I mean, I was functioning fine, or, you know, I was coping and managing, but I could definitely have done it better and would have been kinder. So time blindness, if I can steer us back. So your time blindness is early, my time blindness is I do the same thing, so I'll count backwards. How long will it take me to get there? And I'm like, I can do it in 10 minutes, because, even though traffic says 24 I know a shortcut. And so I'll count that, and then I can get ready in five minutes, because I already know what I'm gonna wear. And, you know, I have like to do this, this and this, that should only take me in like, 30 minutes, max. So I'm going to start getting ready at exa clock, you know, 230 whatever it is. And then it's 230 and I'm in the middle of something because I was just distracted by something else that needed to to happen. Let's say I was taking out the trash, but then I saw there was a bill on the table that I needed to pay. So I put the bag down, and then I went in line to pay the thing. But then when it because when I opened my laptop, there was a tab open for something I was interested in reading. I was reading that. At, but opened another tap to pay the bill, and then I don't know. So it's like now, 1520 minutes later, I paid the bill. Gonna take the trash out. So now it's like,

Leti  15:15

things just keep chipping and

Leti  15:17

everything that I feel like will take me so long while I'm in it takes me so much longer than I realize. I just don't feel time moving. I don't feel it at all. If there was no sun or moon, I could just stay up for days and not feel tired and not realize that I need to stop. And so, so I'm late, perpetually late, and that's something that I've really worked on, really hard over the last 10 years, where I feel like now, because I understand that this is from ADHD, being timeline. I have a lot of systems in place, and I'm very cognizant about those systems, and pay attention to them, especially when someone else's time is involved. Good.

Kelly  16:11

That's really good. I haven't really changed my earliness at all.

Leti  16:15

I've changed where I'm on time. Now, for things that awesome, need to be on time.

Kelly  16:21

Is it really that bad to be early?

Leti  16:22

I don't think so. If you if that's something that makes you feel

Kelly  16:26

honestly, caused great pain. Now if

Leti  16:30

you're early because you know your appointment is going to be at one and you don't start any other task throughout your day because you're waiting for that one o'clock appointment and you're putting off all these other things because you know that appointments coming up, and that's maybe not functional either.

Kelly  16:52

I say with medication, I'm able to work through that and not do that

Leti  17:02

all the time. The only place I have amazing, impeccable time, non blindness, is ovens. I will walk up to an oven like 30 seconds before

Kelly  17:15

it beeps. Oh, interesting. Oh no, I need to hear that

Leti  17:19

beautiful. It's like, I just know. And so somewhere inside me there's a counter. So what are some strategies, I guess, that you use for yourself, other than being early, because early, being early is something that is an external thing that you're kind of doing. What's the internal talk like? What are you doing to yourself? Are you like,

Kelly  17:42

oh, I literally, well, I would say, most of my life I am in a panic up to leaving and getting there wherever I'm going. It doesn't matter where it is. I am in full on panic mode until I achieve where I need to go. You're anxious, and as long as I get there, it goes away and it's done, and I'm there early and and everything's fine. But for it, for me, it's, it's, it's, and it's definitely gotten much better over the years, and now, since I've been really paying attention to it, but it would put me in states of panic. How many times did I panic with you?

Leti  18:28

Oh, my God. I think seriously, was your time

Kelly  18:32

trigger? You triggered me every time we had to deliver an item. But Leti and I had a business for some time, and we'll get into that at some point. And yeah,

Leti  18:47

so why were you ever late and got scolded? Like, why are you panicky about going late? I

Kelly  18:54

honestly, I couldn't tell you that, because I can't remember my childhood that much. I don't really remember much, but I do remember anxiety in my childhood, severe anxiety, so I do remember that, and it's obviously just taken me. It's just been through my whole entire life. That's just the way it is.

Leti  19:18

I have like this, like burst of anxiety when I realize I'm going to be late, and then, wow, there's nothing I can do about it. And then, and then it just goes away. And

Kelly  19:32

you taught me that. You taught me that there is nothing I can do about it in all of our situations, every time we I felt we were going to be late for something. Even if we were late, it always worked out in the end. And in life, most of the time, everything works out in the end, and I didn't see that for most of my life, like, No, it's not going to work if we're not there on time, and we don't make it there on time, and we don't do exactly what we're supposed to do, there's going to be. Consequences the world will it will end. It will end. It will end. Yeah, and that's how I basically live my whole freaking life.

Leti  20:10

I will say I probably, like, ate all my fingernails, you know, doing that. Well, there's nothing I can do about it. So there's, I probably have more of that latent anxiety where it's pushed down and it's not on my consciousness. So I'm sure I'm experiencing a lot of anxiety, but maybe I'm I'm so used to having to push my emotions down and not exhibit them, that I think even to myself, I'm not recognizing that I am anxious, and maybe I channel it in other ways. Sure, absolutely do I channel it. Kelly,

Kelly  20:47

you pick up a freaking piece of yarn and start making a lanyard out of it. That's how you do it. Knowing you you grab some twigs and some string and build a birdhouse. That's how you channel it. That's true. That's how you that's how Leti does things. Leti grabs some tape and a nail and she will build you a hammock.

Kelly  21:15

Okay, that's what

Leti  21:16

Leti does. Coming to Hobby Lobby, anxiety crafting

Kelly  21:22

we'll be showcasing society crafting this brilliant we'll be

Leti  21:27

showcasing anxiety suppression crafts.

Kelly  21:34

Anxiety crafting. We are very crafty. We're very crafty people, crafty, crafty, craft. Love to craft. We you more so than me, but I definitely we like to be creative. I guess that's more of I guess the way to put it,

Leti  21:53

or as I call it, hoarding,

Leti & Kelly  21:58

that is the truth. She is a hoarder because

Leti  22:00

I hyper focus on a craft, and then naturally, I have to acquire all the things that pertain to that craft as if I were an expert who has been doing it for 20 years after watching a YouTube video. Yeah, and and I will have all the things needed to create a lifetime worth of art or craft and

Unknown Speaker  22:26

never do it again. I'll, no, I'll,

Leti  22:29

I go back. I rotate through crafts and interests, but I'll hyper focus on that, like, like, I'll read 300 books on it and watch things on it, and, you know, explore the techniques and the pitfalls, and then I'll, just like, put out a thing, and then that dopamine fixes in, right? And I'm good for a while. So any craft at any time is available at my house. 24 anything you need. Just, just shoot us an email. We can hook you up. You need yarn. What kind of yarn? What are you making? Let me help you. You need a knitting needle. Oh, well,

Kelly  23:13

I've got every knitting needle under the sun to give to you. Yes, and

Leti  23:18

it doesn't have to be new. So I don't just like buy new things. I'll hyper focus and hunt for these used, loved items. I'll go to estate sales and buy, like that, lot of old great grandma's crochet needles, because I know that you need them, and she was an expert at doing it. That tool by proxy is going to help me, yes, be that expert, and I'll make something so amazing. I don't know for who or what, but that process of making for me is really the thing. It's not even the end result. It's that actual physical, the sound of it, the smell of it, the textures, the way my hands move, it's the whole experience is so engrossing that it's really the process. I don't care about the mistakes or anything, right? I mean, I'll undo it and redo it, of course, of course, until it's perfect, right?

Kelly  24:17

And, and that's it, another thing that's different about you and I, I am so good with not perfect. Everything I do is not

Leti  24:29

perfect. I'm glaring at her right now. I love

Kelly  24:33

to be 75% Oh god. I live at about 50% and go to about 75 that's just the way that I am. I'm not competitive at all. I'm literally have not a competitive bone in my body, but myself though, I'm not even competitive now and I is that an ADHD thing? Like I have no desire to compete with anyone, no desire.

Leti  24:58

I think that's fine. I don't. Think you need to have a desire to compete with anyone at all. I don't know where it comes from. For me, part of it is like how I was raised, so the expectation of how I washed a dish, how I vacuumed, right, like the lines had to, you know, be a specific way on the carpet and those kind of things, because I didn't want to do something over or get scolded. You know, just kind of like over. Generalize that to everything. And, you know, people always like, you know, you're so smart, you could do better, like, all that stuff. Worse. I really tried hard one to do better all the time. Jesus, the worst thing you can say to someone, she's so smart, but she's not getting straight A's, she's not trying hard enough.

Unknown Speaker  25:45

Oh my god, it's just the worst. It's the worst, worst.

Unknown Speaker  25:47

Maybe nobody knows

Kelly  25:49

that, nobody understands that. Nobody understands that. Oh, so hard.

Leti  25:54

Yeah, the first time I heard a teacher utter that about my daughter that? Well, you know, she has so much potential. Her vocabulary, this is, like the second word, yeah, this is her vocabulary. And her expression is so great, but her writing doesn't reflect that. So they were marking her down on her assignments. And I'm like, Well, did she answer the question, yes. Did she use the parameters of the question? And mind is this like three sentences they were supposed to write about fall and leaves or something? Yes, well, then why isn't this an A Wow? Because, you know, she usually uses such good descriptive words, and she wasn't, well, you didn't say that. To do that right? She was wearing the right number of flares. If you get that reference, you're also old.

Leti  26:54

What was that movie? Office space?

Leti  26:59

You're supposed to wear 17 flares, yes, but you're not embracing the spirit so. But that was one of the signs. I was like, hmm, okay, I've heard that before, yeah, that made me retreat and, like, try to, like, write real pretty and really do it. And then I couldn't focus on it, was interesting enough. I don't know there's so many ways to go with

Kelly  27:24

this. Oh, my God, so many. Okay, so

Leti  27:27

let's go to bakery, since we opened with that today, so you were in production, I was a speech path, and then I finished my clinical fellowship, and at that point, I'd been a speech path for three years. I started in a waiver while going to grad school, while having a baby. I started with a large school district, and I finished my clinical fellowship in summer of 2012 I needed a break. It was so much. It was just so so much, and I wasn't managing well because I didn't have the structures and strategies in place. So while I did everything, and I did it well, it cost me so much personal time. You know, I was up early and then writing reports till three, four in the morning every day. So I was sleeping three, four or five hours, maybe at the most. I just needed a break. So that summer, I took a break because school was out and I wasn't sure what I was going to do in the fall. I just knew I didn't want to go back to that district because it was just too much. I needed to do it in a different way. And then you What were you doing? Kelly,

Kelly  28:38

I was working. I had been working for a company almost 10 years in post production, working on television shows. I can't even count how many times I would call Leti crying because I would need her to pick my kid up for me, or I would need her to do this for me, or I would need her to do this for me, because both me and my husband worked and couldn't, and my job was so demanding, you wouldn't believe how much time has to be put into everything. And that summer watching Leti kind of chill out, we

Leti  29:13

I plucked every hair that I wanted to pluck.

Kelly  29:17

And so what does two people with ADHD do when they're miserable and want to try to figure out something else for their life.

Leti  29:26

And can really, really bake a pie. I mean, really bake a pie.

Kelly  29:32

A really good pie. Oh, good. So good. We decided to come up with the next best.

Leti  29:37

Yeah, hey, why don't we just like, make something, make something. It wasn't even open to Baker at that point. It was mixing. It was just like something to sell, like and sell it because we, yeah, we wanted to just, you know, I couldn't sit there after. We wanted

Kelly  29:53

to be baked by Melissa. Okay, that's what we wanted to be. Look her up. That was your hero. I. She's my hero. I freaking love her. No,

Leti  30:01

I think we start baking. People are like, really good, and, you know, it's really good. You should start a business and you like cupcakes. And I was like, Ah, I don't like cupcakes. And I can't do vision everywhere, like, like it was coming in, sprinkles was and everyone had cupcakes, cupcakes. Everything was cupcakes everywhere. I'm not a big fan of them. And then I was like, Well, I don't love them. It's frosting, yeah? And I was like, Well, I want to do something, but I don't want to do it with something that's saturating the market, right?

Kelly  30:34

And then we couldn't remember how we actually came up with the actual tart idea.

Leti  30:39

Well, I thought of Tarts. I thought that'd be a really great thing, because it's, it's like a finer pastry, but it's still small, because I understood that the market was asking for something small, right size, right bite size, that you could just grab and go, you could do variety. And then, you know, tart was kind of making sense. And so we started like figuring it out, but then there was that crumbly shell, which was really irritating me, because it's not perfect, because if you bite it, it crumbles on your nice dress or whatever at a party, and then you get your fishing crumbs out from your your

Kelly  31:15

boob cleavage, your she's showing me, I'm Oh, my,

Leti  31:23

I'm I'm gesturing towards my cleavage. I'm not showing you my cleavage right now. So then we started,

Kelly  31:33

yeah, we went through so we hyper focused. Oh, I read sign books, hyper focused on creating tarts, and we wanted to make shell with the perfect shell. And they were going to be many tarts, you know, bite sized tarts. And once we actually came up with a final product, and we, we, we started to create it. I came up with a really good idea. You did. I did. I was gonna quit my job. I came up with a great idea. I was gonna quit my job to go do this, yeah, my decent paying job.

Leti  32:15

Hey, Kelly, are you an excellent Baker? I have never paid

Kelly  32:20

except from a box so, but I'm gonna quit my well paying job to come up with this. Sounds great. Sounds great. Well, thankfully, my job, at the time, was going through a layoff. Oh,

Leti  32:34

I had to convince I'll take one all

Kelly  32:37

of my I'll say hire to lay me off because I needed to get laid off. I needed to get my severance so that I could actually go and start a new business. You're making

Leti  32:52

this sound really mild and something that was very impulsive, but those phone calls, those real tears of exhaustion and utter stress that you are experiencing because someone, for the umpteenth time, had been screaming at you about a video, a DVD and and the relative reaction to something so small in a workspace that should be, you know, you should be able to operate in a workspace without someone losing their mind and yelling at you, and it was like a constant. And you're, you're such a gentle and loving soul. You have that coming at you so much, and you take it while on the outside. But I think internally, it really degrades at your ability to to do this again and again, and you know, it's coming, and that anxiety and you needed a break,

Kelly  33:49

you know, it was a great job. It was something that made me feel special, and it was something that, because I loved television so much, that I loved doing it, and then I became a parent, and it started to change my whole life. And it just became just this dig after dig after dig, and it just wasn't my life anymore. It just felt like it wasn't my life anymore. And my husband worked night, so I would work all day, 12 hour days, and then be home with a baby at night and never getting sleep. And for me, if I don't get eight hours, forget everyone. What does eight hours look like? Now you don't understand that, but I have to have eight hours. I have to I see what you're saying. It wasn't impulsive, but it was sort of but there was definitely reason.

Leti  34:38

Had enough. I had your body had enough. Holy

Kelly  34:43

crap, I can't do this anymore. The working on really, really great television shows that didn't even help because it I felt honored to work on some of these big TV shows. And if that didn't feel good anymore, then there's a problem,

Leti  34:58

right? Yeah? I mean, I got out of film. In the 90s because I couldn't deal, oh my God, but like I had, and I was still super young at that point, but I just couldn't deal with the instability, because I was on the

Kelly  35:07

we're on the other side. I was always stable. I was definitely stable. And I got to so many parties and meet so many famous people, and I got to do all that stuff, and boy, did that not help. Didn't help anymore, yeah, didn't make me feel worthy anymore.

Leti  35:23

So I perfected the shell. I'm not a like a think of something from nothing, but I am an innovator. So I like to take things that don't quite work well, do something with them, and figure out chemistry, the science, or with the whatever behind it and and fix it. And so we came up with this perfect shell, and then we need to put something in it. And then you came up with the red velvet

Kelly  35:48

cake. I can't it took us a long time to come up with, like, our 12 tell us about your process for

Leti  35:56

making a red velvet filling. Oh, geez,

Kelly  36:00

I came up with, I know, like you don't even want to, it was horrible. It was raw

Leti  36:05

cake batter. It was basically

Kelly  36:07

raw cake batter and Greek yogurt. Remember,

Leti  36:12

so dry, dry cake batter ingredients whipped with Greek yogurt, yogurt

Kelly  36:17

and it created a Liberty cheesecake flavor. It was actually delicious. You know what

Leti  36:23

we could have done? We could have toasted the dry mix in the oven to make the flour not taste so flowery. Now I got it well,

Kelly  36:32

you're a little 10 years too late. Okay? It definitely trial and error, right? We had a lot of trial and error, a lot of horrible deliveries, and

Leti  36:41

then home run, and then we had home runs, and then another home run, then another home run, another and then we had, like, 14 home run flavors. There were unbelievable. They're a great variety, where everyone had something they liked. And we started getting orders from people, from people,

Kelly  36:57

like, just, just, like a lot, it just started, like happening, and we were like, holy crap. And

Leti  37:02

then I would ADHD the kitchen,

Kelly  37:04

and we would go home. I would bake in Leti's kitchen, which,

Kelly  37:08

it wasn't a tiny kitchen, but

Kelly  37:11

you can't she had so much shit in her kitchen.

Leti  37:16

There was just things everywhere. And, like, there was, like, a whole entire day of cleanup that needed to occur. And then this became, like, not just weekends, like it became like deal,

Kelly  37:29

like we were working. We were working and working and working.

Leti  37:33

And then we're like this, we just gotta rent a kitchen. Like you gotta rent cupcake places are renting kitchens. Why can't we rent a kitchen? And we were looking for kitchens, and we found nice kitchen, very nice kitchen that was run by a catering company. And so we weren't renting the whole kitchen. We rented

Kelly  37:56

just a corner, a corner of the kitchen that had a stove, uh

Leti  38:00

huh, and, and we rented space inside a refrigerator that was Health Department certified.

Kelly  38:06

Like, the whole place, like, we wanted to be legit, right? Really wanted to be legit, right?

Leti  38:11

So, so we would, like, bring our stuff in, and then, like, I'd take this pan that I used for caramel, and I'm, I'm very particular, are you? I'm very particular, and I'm very sensitive to smells, sights and sounds, and that's ADHD, by the way, I can't clear a stimulus, so every stimulus has equal weight. So if I take a pan and it smells like onions, that onion is is, like, in my mouth, in my face, I see the onion, like, it's big, and all I can think of is onion. And then I feel like everything else that that pan touches is now going to be onion, right? And that was my caramel pan. It was perfect height. It was like, perfect everything. So I get like, so mad for people using our stuff. Okay, keep going. So it was working well, and it was awesome, because not only could I bake non stop, it was across from my gym. Oh, my God. And I could work out, because I had so much energy so that I could actually, like, throw in a workout in between, like, physically baking and pressing tarts and and then, like, go play with our kids. Like, because we had to go pick up our kids. So we'd like everything had to be done by the time school was out. So we'd run and get kids.

Kelly  39:39

How did we do that? Even know how the hell we did that? My niece and nephew would come and help us at the kitchen and make tarts with us. It was just such a such a weird and then it kept getting better and bigger and then better and bigger. You were gonna stay there for a while the. Goal. That was the goal to stay there and try to get this business going.

Leti  40:04

There was a little bit of a conflict between the guy who ran the kitchen and us. He was trying to, like, intertwine us into his business, so we would bring dessert, because they didn't make dessert, so we were the dessert for them. But then he wanted us to be like he was treating us, like we were working for him, like now he owned us, but we were a separate business, and it wasn't really clear, and they had really no respect for our product. And we would like, find our stuff shoved in places, or it was so hot and his AC was broken, so you can't make things with chocolate in 118 Yeah, that doesn't read kitchen doesn't actually work really well, no, so we would lose product and time. And I'm a very much of a pacifist for conflict, not pacifist, but I shy away from conflict. I try to avoid it at all cost. And, you know, some say that's part of ADHD, where you just avoid conflict at all cost, because it's, it's something that you can't executive function wise, right, mitigate, and I don't, it's too much anyways, that's me, and

Kelly  41:17

I'm generally a non confrontational person, but I

Leti  41:22

stuff it deep down inside. But there was this one incident where, I guess it just came to a head, and we were like, late for something, or whatever it was, because I was probably late, and I was glazing these pecan tarts with apricot glaze, and something was ruined, and Kelly was trying to talk to the owner. And Kelly is not a very tall person. Kelly is a type, six, seven. The owner was six, four, yeah. And at one point I see Kelly get up on her toes and just go like chest to chest and poke her finger at his face and yell at the top of her lungs, how

Speaker 3  42:13

dare you and I just kept glazing, glazing, glazing, glazing, Look away. Glazing, glazing, glazing, glazing, look away.

Kelly  42:22

Well, look two businesses in one place. No, you were in the right house, and then you were in the right us, like complete dog shit. And when you come at me to my thing, I will fight you. I have something inside me that will come out and make me not scared and attack and he came at us.

Leti  42:48

Oh, he came at us like he came up on you, and

Kelly  42:51

I came back. He got so scared. He ran into his office.

Leti  42:56

He was a athlete, very well built, and

Kelly  42:59

he ran into his house, and I ran after him. I ran after him. He told me to get out. The whole staff is like, cooking, cooking, cooking, cooking, I'm not getting out. You cannot treat us like this. It was awful. And in the end, we got ourself, our stuff out that day, right? Or the next day, yeah, the next day

Leti  43:19

we we packed up everything into coolers and and laughed. And that was the time when we needed we we got we needed someplace else to function because and so we thought, Okay, it's time to get a bakery. It's

Kelly  43:33

time to get a bakery. After Yeah, three months of cooking in a kitchen, it was time to get a bakery, an actual bakery on our own. We didn't just get a bakery. Oh no, oh no, no, no, no, we don't. We don't do things like that. We didn't just get a bakery that just to bake in. No, oh, we had to go a little bit further than that.

Leti  43:52

Is this a high end cake shop for sale? Oh, with all

Kelly  43:56

the Encino California, the most expensive place in the world, yes. Oh,

Leti  44:01

right, right off of Ventura Boulevard there. Oh,

Kelly  44:04

right there. Yeah, familiar. You know what we're talking about. That'll be cheap. It'll be really cheap and shrinky, but it's it was turnkey. That was literally turnkey. Had everything we needed. Those floors, we don't talk about that yet. Had everything we needed. This woman was selling her business, not her business, her store. And she had ovens, fridges, space to bait, space to have an office. And then it also had a front space for people to come in

Leti  44:36

that was completely filled with gummy cakes. It had like, fridges, like display, fridges, stuff, beautiful gates, I think she needs to add ADHD tune that I'm looking back at it, because every nook and cranny was stuffed with things, right? I mean, there was not an inch not used in that space, but she knew exactly where everything was. So.

Kelly  44:58

We were going to be a bakery slash coffee shop and coffee shop and wow. So

Leti  45:07

there I am, doing 300,000 things at once, not being able to executive function, things into Priority and and you were like my yin to my Yang, because everything I kept failing at that would just fall through the cracks for me. You, you were cognizant of and those things were actually really important to you, right? And I think that's what allowed our relationship to grow, but it also allowed us to create something together. So I think ADHD gets this really awful rap about these people who space out, who don't pay attention, never pay their bills, and while those things are true to some degree, I think we neglect how important it is to have the right partner with you, Whether that's your friend, your life partner, your family and surrounding yourself with people who can support you. You have superpowers with ADHD weird,

Kelly  46:09

it really is bizarre. Really is

Leti  46:11

but you can't function with neurotypical people around you 100% of the time because that system will fail. You need people around you who are not neurotypical and in a nice balance, and you will thrive. Because I think for a minute there, we were really good. And I think,

Kelly  46:33

God, it was great. Yeah. I mean, we literally started a business from nothing. We both had no clue what to do at all, and we fucking did it, yeah? We opened a business now, made NDAs like everything, yeah. Created all of the permits you need to get everything checked once a year. We had an A rating on our on our front of our store. I mean, like, holy crap. That's really hard to do. We

Leti  47:04

were part of people's celebration, yeah, weddings, birthdays, whatever we we helped, you know, make it really special. And I think that was part of the joy the art of it was obviously the beauty of the science for me and the creation of really beautiful things, but also being a part of something joyful, rather than, you know, yeah, something that just kind of loops

Kelly  47:28

over and over and over and, you know. But the thing is, is that the repetitiveness was great for me. It

Leti  47:35

was a loop, but it was a different kind. So for me, it was enough to keep me interested. It was different enough, because every project had such different elements to it, that for someone like me who needs that newness, it really, really fulfilled me that way. I was always amped up and excited to start this new thing, new challenge. Yeah,

Kelly  47:56

and if I had to come in at five in the morning and make 500 crazy, it literally would, I would be up early, all ready to go and to accomplish making 500 tarts in one day. Is like a mainland

Leti  48:12

and you got there at five, and I had just left at 4am yeah,

Kelly  48:16

yeah, at five. So I could leave by five to go pick up my kid from school, because my husband works nights, and Leti would get there, and eight drop because

Leti  48:29

you would drop, yeah, I drop her off, and then I'd go through until it's time to pick her up. And I'd run off and pick up, or unless you picked up and took her home, or I'd go and then, like, I'd do dinner or whatever, and then I'd come back to the bakery after she was down.

Kelly  48:42

You were bananas, yeah,

Leti  48:44

and then I would just work all night. I don't want to do that anymore,

Kelly  48:51

no. But if we ever got a chunk of change, we know exactly what to do, and we could survive and live off making those tarts. If we ever got a chunk of change to get a kitchen and just do tarts? No, thank you. What a great accomplishment for us, and it was I regret none of it.

Leti  49:19

So here are my big takeaways from the bakery. In relationship to ADHD, I other than a calendar. I didn't have systems that I use now in place, yes. So for example, I currently use a day planner where I map out my whole week at the beginning of the week so I know what's coming. And then I also at that time, I set up alarms on my phone by putting stuff in a digital calendar to give me reminders in ample time. And then I look forward. Route through the next month and set up things ahead of that too, which I wasn't doing back then. And so you know that, that lateness, that late on bills, and all those things that you know, if you weren't there doing it, like those things. You know, looking back, I'm really glad that I have these things in place, and then the time and being on time. But the biggest thing was two things. One, learning how to say no, because even though I don't sleep a lot, and I can do a lot for everyone. Anyone who comes up to me and asks me something, I'll help them with it, like really looking at how much time is possible in a day and saying no and not feeling terrible about it, or saying Not right now, but I can do it at x time. And then the other thing is letting go of the perfectionism that I expect for myself from others, and valuing others input and craft, and not thinking that everyone can do things the way I do them, and not saying I do them correctly because I don't necessarily, but making space for other people's process, because I can learn from that. And I didn't have that going in, and I certainly have it coming out more patient, and it doesn't bother me anymore. I I kind of try to find their process in something and see how I can incorporate that into my thing. So those are my awesome those are my big take a lot good job. You did a good job. Oh, you did an amazing job. I think we both did great jobs. Was your takeaway from the bakery that you can function with someone who's always late.

Kelly  51:55

I wouldn't say a function. I dealt with it, and I learned how to deal with it, and I learned that not everything. The world isn't going to end if we're five minutes late. I got it, and everything always works out in the end. That's the thing I got from you. Everything always works out in the end. So all that stress you put into it prior is just wasted, wasted time. It's just wasted time. I will say this my life now, I don't do any of that. There's no wasted stress. I love that. I or there's no I just, I don't I don't care. I'm not going to do it. It's not worth it. It's not worth it. But I am also 51 years old, and it takes a long time to realize that. And I do feel like people, once they hit 40, start to realize other things. But the bakery taught me that I can do anything really. It really taught me I could do anything because I literally, we literally had no idea what the what the hell to do, and we did it like how we did that. I mean, I know how we did it,

Kelly  53:04

but that's what in tears,

Kelly  53:08

lots of them, lots of them, but what a great time it was. And then the only reason why it had to end was because, unfortunately, I had been out of work for three years at this point, and I couldn't survive. I couldn't survive anymore. Like I went through every ADHD thing you could do to get money. I got rid of all my 401 K's. I did loans, I did lots of things to stay and I, we just couldn't sustain right? And our family, right? And that's out that extra paycheck because we weren't getting paid because we were the owners of a business, right? It's very understandable. But

Leti  53:53

I think that, in itself, is something that, you know, we didn't have a business plan written right going in. So there's a lot that was, I think, impulsive, very I would do it very differently now, knowing those pitfalls, and I think that's an ADHD, or tends to be more of an entrepreneur, and we go out there and we do things and we try things, but we don't plan. Planning is not our thing, and you have to for a business to be successful, you're just setting yourself up to fail with something that could be amazing, amazing. So you need to partner with someone who can do that and love them for it. And I think that's something I would do very differently going into a new endeavor,

Kelly  54:37

for sure. Oh my gosh. So much more knowledge now so w, T,

Leti  54:44

H, ADHD, what the heck should we talk some more about this next time? I think

Kelly  54:53

we can continue on it, the next episode. Okay, absolutely. Would

Leti  54:59

you like to sign us off? 

Kelly  55:01

Thank you for listening to our first episode. This is Kelly and Leti with WTH ADHD. This has been a Hi It’s Me, ADHD production.