That time we had a crazy relationship

Leti and Kelly discuss the complexities of relationships for individuals with ADHD, highlighting their different experiences. Kelly, type I ADHD, is cautious in relationships, while Leti, type C ADHD, is impulsive and hyperfocused. They share personal anecdotes, including Kelly's large high school friend group and Leti's traumatic experiences with bullying. Both discuss the impact of ADHD on their social dynamics, relationships, and emotional regulation. They emphasize the importance of understanding ADHD patterns, communication, and the need for safe spaces. They also stress the role of medication and cognitive strategies in managing ADHD and improving relationships.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Relationships and ADHD: Initial Thoughts
• 3:10 Childhood Experiences and Bullying
• 3:35 Forming Friendships and Social Dynamics
• 17:39 Challenges in Relationships and Coping Mechanisms
• 26:04 Impulsivity and Time Management in Relationships
• 32:00 Emotional Dysregulation and Masking
• 35:44 Communication and Relationship Dynamics
• 43:31 Learning and Growth in Relationships
• 45:51 Conclusion and Future Plans

Transcript

Speaker 1  0:00  
Hey, Letty, yeah, Kelly, remember that time you had that crazy relationship.

Speaker 1  0:22  
You Good morning. Good morning. Hi, how are you?

Speaker 2  0:38  
I'm all right. Um, slept six hours and six minutes. Oh, Hi puppy.

Speaker 1  0:46  
I didn't sleep good last night either. But you know, menopause,

Unknown Speaker  0:51  
I slept all right, I don't remember waking up as much as I usually

Unknown Speaker  0:53  
do. Yeah, good for you.

Speaker 1  0:57  
Good for me. Ladida, that's not my MO at night, but, you know, I did

Speaker 2  1:02  
drag myself out of bed, but I'm, I'm pretty good. I got a full coffee in, got my medications going, and let's do this. I'm feeling super unfocused, focused, perfect

Speaker 1  1:14  
relationships when, when I was asking you, you know, in the in the intro, about what was, you know, remember when you had that crazy relationship? I mean, I think we're seeing relationships as in love, relationships, but also friendships, friendships as well. Welcome to wth ADHD, right. There's that. I'm Letty and I'm Kelly, cuz. Wth ADHD, that's

Unknown Speaker  1:41  
what you're listening to,

Speaker 2  1:44  
relationships. So relationships are definitely a different ball game for people who have ADHD. And I think really that undiagnosed ADHD can really complicate whether you're recognizing the things that are contributing to that, versus having the ADHD complicating a relationship when it's not recognized that those are some of the things that can impact it, such as the impulsivity, the hyper focus, time, blindness, all these executive function components impact how we behave in relationships, how we respond to others and how we maintain relationships too, stuff, yeah, and we talked a little bit about how you and I operate very differently in relationships, where, you know, I'm a ADHD type C, so I'm I'm both a little bit inattentive and also hyper, and those present in different ways, where your type I, which is an attentive and you have more anxiety comes into your relationships. And so while, you know, I ran through just so many hyper focused, impulsive relationships that were quick, huge bursts in friendships and romance, you tend to be very cautious in your relationship. I

Speaker 1  3:20  
didn't have my first relationship till I was in college, and boy, I loved boys. But

Unknown Speaker  3:30  
how did you get your dopamine if you weren't

Speaker 2  3:35  
I was No. Was really scared. Did you have really, like, close friends, or how tons

Speaker 1  3:41  
of close friends? 10s, how many friends? I mean, in in high school, there was once I finally found my group in high school, which was probably 10th grade, there was, I want to say, the girls were seven, seven girls. And then there was probably like five guys that group. It was a big group, so I didn't I was in love with every boy on the earth. But I didn't necessarily have to to do anything about it, because I had all I did. I definitely I was too scared. I was too scared, too scared every every almost relationship I ever had, I freaked out and

Speaker 2  4:24  
didn't do it. I was the sparkly and new, oh, I want that. What about middle school? Let's rewind a little bit. How about friendships in middle school? Did you have no master? Was horrible. I was horribly. Were you alone or did you have a person that kind of Jew? I was

Speaker 1  4:40  
bullied and didn't have I had friends in sixth grade than those friends bullied me in seventh grade all through seventh grade, so I didn't have anybody, and then in eighth grade, I found a new set of friends in eighth grade that I was hor. Bullied. So that really just kind of fucked me up.

Speaker 2  5:05  
Basically, I had a really close friend in first grade through third grade, and then, you know, we escaped communism, went to Germany, like, dropped to zero friends. I didn't speak German or anything like that. I didn't know what I was doing. I think I had like a neighbor boy who was, like, four years younger than me, and I was nine, so, you know, that was about it, who had occasionally built things with because he, I think he was Polish, that we certainly didn't speak common language together. And then when I came here, my first introduction to people was rather cruel because I didn't speak English. And then there's this group of girls I met on the block. They're like, oh, we'll teach you English. And they'd be like, All right, here's the alphabet. Say it. And then every time I get it wrong, they punch me really hard. Or this one goes like, you know, like, pantomime. They want to see my earring. So I gave them my earring, and they ran into the bathroom and they threw it in the bathtub. So I go to, like, get it, and they poured orange juice on my head, and they're like, that's too poor.

Unknown Speaker  6:17  
Holy shit. I

Speaker 2  6:19  
learned English so fast. Kelly, I learned English really fast, but that was definitely like, I couldn't really make friendships while partly because the communication and I really wanted friendships, right? Like, yeah, I'm very outgoing. Yes, I am the room, right? I am the party. Let's make the parties wherever we are. I made friends with this Chilean guide that we would walk to school with in sixth grade for a minute. You know, like nothing close neighbor who now I look back, her family was a hoarder because they had, like, one path through the entire house, and there was news workers up, and then I transferred schools, and then transferred schools. I got into the magnet, and then I went into eighth grade, and there I met like a total Outcast person, honestly, that's unique, reserved and quiet, and you know, yin and yang, but great sense of humor, and humor has always been a huge draw for me. And we became, you know, really close friends, and then we added one more, and it was like the four of us who kind of became friends through that ninth grade, going into 10th grade, and that we went to different schools, some of us, but two of us kind of stayed together, and then we keep coming together for friendship things, and that was great, but all my friends were quiet introverts, so not you reading book. Milan, like not making eye contact. One of my best friends, like, couldn't even laugh at life. She'd laugh through her nose, I like, taught her to laugh her mouth crazy, but I was the driver, right? And I was the fun. And it gave me such thrill to make people laugh that class clown, right? And you'll see that with boys with ADHD, right? There'll be that class clown that just like, do all these crazy things. And in classrooms, I was pretty, pretty chill, because there my inattentiveness came out, and I just like drift off. I

Speaker 1  8:26  
was too scared, and in class, yeah, I would never do anything bad.

Speaker 2  8:31  
Can I tell you my inattentive moment in class where I almost got the

Speaker 1  8:38  
crap beat out of me? What happened? So

Speaker 2  8:41  
my math class in seventh grade was held in like a shop room, so there were tables put out in long rows, and you know, you face forward in the chair and you're looking at the teacher me, I'm turned backwards, leaning on the table behind me and staring out at the shop machinery. I'm looking at the machinery because it's way more interesting than the math. So I'm sitting in this classroom, and the tables are long, and instead of facing forward, I'm facing backwards, and I'm leaning on the table behind me and I'm looking at all the machinery because that's way more interesting than the math that I had already taken, like years ago in Hungary, like whatever. And I wasn't interested, and I was leaning on my my palm, staring with my mouth slightly open, I guess. And there was this girl who had been like the school bully, and someone had told her, as she's talking through class, shot up and she made eye contact with me and thought that I had said it because I was staring through her, and looked at me, and she masked I'm gonna kick your ass, and pointed at me. Like, she's like, after class, it was, like, a classic 80s movie. So I'm like, oh no, oh no. Now I'm like, sweating through the entire hole, right? I'm watching the teacher, and I'm petrified. I'm turned forward and I like, turn back. I'm like, I didn't say anything. She's like, I'm gonna kill you. Holy. She had like, two friends with her in that class too. So I was like, oh my god, so class is over. I'm like, Okay, I'm gonna leave with the teacher, right? I'm gonna do

Speaker 1  10:31  
like, I'm like, or I'm just gonna stay with the teacher, just,

Speaker 2  10:35  
and the problem with that class is that there was a door going back through the shop, and then went into the hallway, and I'm watching people leave, and I'm watching the teacher, and I turned and then the teacher was gone. He didn't know which door they went through. So I'm like, Okay, I'm just gonna go the hallway route, because there's probably kids there. You know, instead of like, on the quad, when you're like, right? And your butt kicked on the quad, wonk, there were no kids in the hallway except her and her two friends. Oh no. She's

Unknown Speaker  11:05  
like, why? You gotta tell me to shut up.

Speaker 2  11:09  
And she's shoving me into the lockers and all. Oh my gosh, she beat my ass. I mean, I finally got out of there, but that's like the trouble you can get into being inattentive, too. It's not just about being hyper and

Speaker 1  11:22  
crazy, and when you have like, shitty kids in your school that are bullies and deep internet

Speaker 2  11:26  
and hopefully aren't. You know, I wore a pants when I was past that. I had an accent. I'm like, who cares, right? But once I started making these friendships, you know, I felt a little better, but I was definitely a crazy, bouncy friend leading these adventures, and we go hiking and get lost and do all these stupid things, and that impulsivity just drove me right, like it was full dopamine seeking, constantly, lot of laughs, but also like not thinking about consequences or anything like that, or whether I was pulling those poor friends of mine into spaces that made them feel really uncomfortable so and your ginormous group of friends, what do you Guess? Were you this venue?

Speaker 1  12:21  
Because we were all theater kids. So it was all my it was all the theater friends. We all just hung out. That was our thing.

Speaker 2  12:29  
I went to a theater fine arts magnet, and I hung out with the math magnet people.

Speaker 1  12:35  
It was a big group. It definitely wasn't a great functioning group, I will definitely see that why some girls had issues with each other's, but I think we were so young that most of us just look past it that, you know, the sad thing is, is I don't talk to any of them now. I'm friends with them on Facebook, and I get to see things, but that's okay, like that doesn't bother me, that that part doesn't bother me at all. When I went to college, that was really hard because I didn't have any friends at first, because all my friends left, all my friends went away to college, and I stayed here and went to a local college and had a really, really, really rough first year upset, you know? Yada yada. So second year, I joined a sorority, oh my God, to meet friends. That's a problem for someone with ADHD. There's way too many cooks in the kitchen, and I had a huge now that I'm we're actually talking about it, and I can look back on it,

Speaker 2  13:39  
like, how do you see it now, for the lens of ADHD, so hard. What was hard about it? Because

Speaker 1  13:44  
there's so many girls and you had to try so hard to be this person, to be accepted into this group. Isn't

Speaker 2  13:54  
that, like a general sorority problem, though? Like, not. But

Speaker 1  13:58  
I think for someone who has ADHD you over do it may come like you. And then when you have to do all this shit after, like, go to meetings and stuff

Speaker 2  14:10  
like, what did you like the meetings? Oh, my God, you have

Speaker 1  14:14  
to go dress up for meetings on campus. It and it became a chore to me. To other people, they freaking loved it. See,

Speaker 2  14:26  
I get that I loved it, but I do know that they're, if you're more introverted, yes, and I've, I've heard people with ADHD talk about how social situations are really difficult, so hard because they're so over stimulating. Yes, it's too hard for me. It's like a dopamine draw. It's like, I just sip it up. It's so delicious. But I know for some people, all that noise and planning, even just the plan for it, yeah, you have a lot make that decision of what you're gonna wear, what. That's gonna look like, and you're measuring all these things in your mind, and that planning becomes so overwhelming that executive function kicks in and your brain's just like, Nope, that's gonna go

Speaker 1  15:10  
that's the problem. I mean, well, how I solved it for a little bit was I got a boyfriend, my friends stop everything with so I caught a boyfriend, my first boyfriend, and I had one friend who was crazy like me, like I'm an independent crazy if I'm one on one, two on two, or, you know what I mean, like in a small group, I can be bananas, right? So Buffy and I would be bananas, and she was the yin to my Yang, and we would be crazy together. So I had one person who I could really just be me with, and then everybody else around us would think we were so funny and but we were just enjoying each other. Were you

Speaker 2  15:52  
vibing like ADHD vibe? Do you think they were also

Speaker 1  15:56  
I don't know if you're divergent. I don't know she is it? Because

Speaker 2  16:00  
when I look back at my relationships with my friends, one of them was on meds. Yeah,

Speaker 1  16:05  
we were seeking it from each other. I think for a moment,

Speaker 2  16:10  
I think we we were able to forgive each other and understood that need and didn't think it was so crazy. We didn't think we were crazy. Everyone else on the outside thought we were bananas, yeah?

Speaker 1  16:25  
But if I was in, if I had one other person, or two other people, I became that person that you are all the time, and people loved it, yeah, you do. And I would get just like, so exhausted from it, I'd need like, two weeks off, you know? Yeah, you do,

Speaker 2  16:43  
like, draw on that energy, and then you have this drop off where you just out and and you can't anymore.

Unknown Speaker  16:51  
And that doesn't work well with sororities.

Speaker 1  16:56  
Doesn't work well. And then, and then, also, thankfully or not, thankfully. Well, the earthquake happened, and sucked. Man, that was, it was bad, but I basically stopped going to the sorority, and Buffy actually stopped going to the sorority too. And we got kicked out. We got, you know, a fine of $1,500 for not showing up. Because if you were late to a meeting, it was a $5 fine. If you're 10 minutes late, it's $10.15 $15 so I racked up a bill, and they finally you

Speaker 2  17:30  
didn't pay it, and then they went to collections. No, thankfully, they didn't go to collections, but I got kicked out. So for me, sororities were such a far off thing that I, you know, I saw them in the 80s, in the movies. That's kind of what I thought sororities were. I never thought I

Speaker 1  17:47  
was a sorority person, just so, just to get that out there in the thing, I wasn't a sorority person. I thought I

Speaker 2  17:53  
would be better in a fraternity, because I'm such a like, impulsive thing, and I didn't think I could function in a group of women who kind of had it together. They had their looks together. They didn't have the planners. They to me, it looks like cohesive group that worked together. And I just didn't think that was a place for me, or that there was a place for me to be in there. I thought it'd be just too hard, and that they would see right through me, I'd be this imposter. You know, totally

Speaker 1  18:27  
I feel. I felt that way. I felt that way for sure. I just wasn't so weird. It wasn't I

Speaker 2  18:33  
wasn't think I could get in. I couldn't get in. I didn't think I could. I

Speaker 1  18:38  
just like, that's, it's so shitty to try to get in, but whatever. I digress. But

Speaker 2  18:42  
that part of that is that low self esteem I had through all the self hate and negative feelings and negative self talk for the little failings I constantly experienced because I was so reactive and out of control and seeking to kind of fill that dopamine need crazy I get so bored so quick. And then, you know, I brought to this ADHD table some of that lovely trauma of, you know, not having had a father right in relationships, to kind of see what that looks like, what a normative relationship can be. For me, a normal relationship is, you know, the guy leaves, right? And so I try to leave before the guy left.

Unknown Speaker  19:34  
I mean, it makes so much sense. Honestly, I

Speaker 2  19:37  
wanted all the attention from males. But I also wanted to be with someone who ignored me. Fucked up. It's so fucked up I had no idea, right? Like this nun all over the surface, didn't know the reasoning behind my behaviors at all. And so what it looked like. Is I'd get interested in someone who first showed some interest, maybe they just looked at me, or something talked to me. That was enough, and then I'd get massively hyper focused on that individual. And that's definitely that ADHD trait. And I would think about them. I'd obsess about them. Any movie I saw that has some kind of romance in it, I'd imagine in my head that that's what would happen, or that's the high I was feeling. Oh, good, right? It was completely not reality, never, never. And those would influence me to seek more. And then I would completely change who I was to mold what I thought that individual would like. So if they were into building cars, I'd learned to build cars or whatever it was,

Speaker 1  20:59  
and for you, all you had to do was read one line, and you knew how to rebuild a car, because you have a photograph memory. And that's what makes me even crazier, because you can remember you, you're you have the most amazing memory and I've ever seen

Speaker 2  21:18  
Thank you. I appreciate that, but that's also a super 80s thing. Yes, it is. If I'm hyper focused on it, if I want to remember because I'm interested, I will remember the page and everything. But if I'm trying to, like, study and I'm not interested in the thing, Oh yeah, totally good. Any I know not remember, of course, I will read pages and pages and have no idea what I just read,

Unknown Speaker  21:46  
but if you were doing it to get a guy,

Unknown Speaker  21:48  
or if I'm just interested in the craft or whatever, oh,

Unknown Speaker  21:52  
every word, you're fucking brilliant. Yeah,

Speaker 2  21:55  
you're brilliant. So then this transformation would occur, right? I would become the Cinderella or whatever to get the prince, and they would be this really intense high feeling of that engagement of the relationship. And I thought that was love. God, so crazy. And then it fades right because you're biologically my brain is seeking dopamine, but it needs difference for it to be able to pick up that dopamine. And once something is consistent and the same, it no longer receives that reward mechanism. And then the dopamine drops off, and I'm seeing this as the fading of love or fading of interest, rather than my brain responding to to this leveling off to this normal level, correct, which is very low for me, right? And then there was this also counter part to it, where I really was driving all my relationships because I am the outgoing and the push and the goal. Let's go do this. This will be fun, and it would be fun. It'd be great, right, right, but then when I stopped doing those things because I'm leveling off of the dopamine, I would be thinking that they're not interested anymore, either they're not doing all these things. And sometimes I would pick people who didn't do anything, and I would just do all the relationship work. And then sometimes there'd be great people that I would think they're not doing anything

Speaker 1  23:34  
and still get out of it. Yeah, because

Speaker 2  23:38  
I wasn't recognizing what my role, what my part was in it. I just I couldn't see it, and I would end it right, it's over, and then I go to the next thing, because I would get excited about it. Isn't

Speaker 1  23:55  
that weird. I've only had two relationships in my life, so I felt that feeling for sure twice, and then I think maybe once, like twice in the twice a day, no, twice in my life, like twice in my life. And I did feel it again for but I didn't date that person, but I really like had the feels for them, I guess. So I haven't had that feeling a lot. I just haven't. It's just not something. I'm okay with it too, because it's an exhausting feeling. Oh, but my first relationship was so guarded and so based on keeping that person happy? 24/7 yes, there's definitely in it, and it lasted, God, right, right? It's such a facade. And I, I wanted to make him happy. 24/7 Yeah, that he literally had to like this, right? And we live together and we, you. And, and all of this. And he literally had to go and and, like, cheat on me to get out of the relationship.

Speaker 2  25:07  
Could you maintain that level of doing things for them, like, whatever you were doing to make them happy? You could maintain that for a long period? Oh, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1  25:20  
And he and, and he just got, I mean, he's, he was his own issue. Do I have ADHD, oh, I'm like, yeah, he was his own issue, and he had his own issues. Me, I can see why he did what he did. It was literally, like so accommodating, but that's how I was raised to be accommodating, and if anything went wrong, you'd get this fear that they were going to leave, and you did whatever you could to make them stay so

Speaker 2  25:53  
in your relationship. Let's talk about some hallmarks of ADHD, for example, attention and memory, like remembering important dates, remembering special things, always you are good with

Speaker 1  26:06  
on top of it. Before it everything was done, celebrations were thought out, planned way ahead of time. Yes.

Speaker 2  26:15  
So for me, same and I'm also hyper vigilant in terms of observation and things, some like noticing everything. So for me, that wasn't that big of a deal. I think sometimes with men that attention when they have ADHD, remembering things, planning for those things, can be a really big problem. But I think, I mean, I'm over generalizing, and this is just my, my thoughts based on very small experiences. We tend to overcompensate for that by over planning to make sure that we don't right, because how's that gonna make me look

Speaker 1  26:55  
right? I always just for some reason, and I can't quite I don't remember birthdays in my childhood or anything, but I always at least for my immediate family, be it my husband and my daughter, make a celebration for them all the time, for for special occasions, whether or not they do that. For me, I sometimes, for me, I always want to make a celebration. I can't help it. I want to. That's a wonderful thing. Kelly, but I'm really bad with cards.

Speaker 2  27:36  
Yeah, I I'll buy them, like, four months ahead of time. Forget where I put them, and then I have to buy like, new ones, because you forgot where you put them, or I didn't, and I'm buying it, like, on the way to the thing. And I always say, like, I'm gonna have like a stock of like five cards, and then I'll just be able to pull out and write it happy. Never do, no. But I did find, like, a giant box of thank you card, like, 800 thank you cards. When I was cleaning out my space, I'm like, I don't even send thank you cards. I think that's like the wannabe Martha Stewart in me, like, yeah, I never send thank you. I'm gonna send thank you cards for all these kind of why? No, I just threw them out. I'm just not doing that anymore. No, not gonna do it. Then cards and then, did impulsivity play a role in your relationships?

Speaker 1  28:27  
I would do things to please people when I didn't want to do them. I so I did a lot of things that I didn't want to do.

Unknown Speaker  28:38  
Is that impulsive? Um,

Speaker 2  28:42  
I guess it depends on what trope that decision was an anxiety of losing them. Yes, right? So that might be from a different space, whereas I was impulsive in that I'd make these split decisions to all of a sudden go see them and knock on their door like never dies or not. Think about the consequence of actions in the relationship. Move too fast, really impulsive, right? Super fast on set, and not really give the relationship time to build, to see if it is something that can be sustained with, like, a friendship added on, right? And that, that's that impulsivity, and then impulsive in, impulsive out, even the day, everything is just, nothing's planned. It's all impulsive,

Speaker 1  29:32  
right? No, and I see that. I see that I I'm definitely more impulsive when I'm alone, if that makes sense, how interesting. You know what I mean, I don't I, I'm not. But I can't say that because I used to go out and party all the time. You know what I mean? We would just say, Hey, let's go and, yeah, well, that's just the next thing, you know, it's yeah, hey, let's go

Speaker 2  29:57  
in the in the 30s. So where are we going? No. In the 40s. I don't know if I want to go in 50s. Yeah, I'm not going. What about like time management in relationships? Well,

Speaker 1  30:09  
you know this girl right here, and I'm pointing to me, I have no problems with time management

Speaker 2  30:16  
in my head. I will respond to texts, and I never do

Speaker 1  30:19  
that. I do a lot now, because I

Speaker 2  30:22  
I don't know the time between reading the text and

Speaker 1  30:26  
not having time to respond then, but in your head, you did, and

Speaker 2  30:30  
then I'm distracted by something else, and then I'm like, Oh no. And if it's been too long now I have to pretend that I didn't get it. Texting sucks.

Unknown Speaker  30:41  
I mean, the friends who get me, hopefully I

Speaker 1  30:44  
and I get it and I and I hope all my friends get it too. Because, man, texting is hard. It is

Unknown Speaker  30:50  
I'm either like texting 300 things

Speaker 2  30:55  
or I just don't respond, because maybe I'm not even like in that head space to like be with a friend. Yes, don't like phone calls. Hate phone calls. Hate phone calls. I'd rather come and talk to you in person. Agreed, agreed. Being like with people who like the phone, who like talking on the phone, is just so exhausting.

Speaker 1  31:15  
Talking on the phone. My mom wants to talk all the time, and I was so bad at it. I'm so bad at it. I just hate it.

Speaker 2  31:24  
I don't know how people can be like, on the phone, like it a lot, like all day. I don't I don't understand that.

Speaker 1  31:33  
It's not my thing. What about one of the things that I I definitely noticed once I was diagnosed, was mood swings, right? And I, I am. My whole life. I have been one way, and that is, if you say anything wrong to me, what way are you? Kelly, for for 30 years, I was this way, if you say, like, the wrong thing to me, I will literally burst into tears. Yeah, so there's like, literally burst in to tears.

Speaker 2  32:13  
There's a thing called, I think it's like rejection, fear, something, yes, that ADHD has where you take criticism, no matter how minute and it's enormous. You're crushed. You feel like the world has ended. I mean,

Speaker 1  32:30  
cry my eyes out, and I can't, I couldn't control it. And back then, people saw that as weak. And it's

Speaker 2  32:38  
also like the part that forces you to try to like, look your best, talk your best, present your best self, which you at all? It's what you think a person wants to see or hear, whether that's with friends or relationships or family members, right? You're presenting. So that's called masking. Boy, oh boy. A lot of masking, which is exhausting, and that can lead to emotional dysregulation too, because you're constantly trying to ignore all those feelings you're having, pushing them aside because you can't express them. Nope, you can't be seen to experience them. So that underlier creates those those chemicals are still real. Your feelings are still real. You're just not giving them a space to be acknowledged, and then you become dysregulated, right?

Speaker 1  33:30  
And it's so weird for me to see how people are so strong. To me, it seemed like they were so strong. How do they not fall apart when something happens. It was, it's, it was such a I had no clue.

Speaker 2  33:46  
Yeah, I used to cry really, really easily and and I'd be just so impressed with people who who could hold it and hate who just didn't cry at things. And I don't know if it's because I perceive things to be so much bigger. And I think that that's part of that emotional dysregulation with ADHD is you're you're perceiving things to be bigger than they are. So you have this really large release of stress hormones, cortisone, adrenaline, your amygdala is on. You've got anxiety going, amygdala, amygdala, amygdala, amygdala,

Speaker 1  34:26  
whatever, ginormous, ginormous amygdala.

Speaker 2  34:33  
And so you have all these things coursing through your system, which then is your fight or flight, right? And you can't flight, you can't fight, because you're with friends.

Unknown Speaker  34:46  
Want to go

Speaker 2  34:49  
and cry, and then you you stuff it, cry, you burst out, right? So you people have different ways of dealing with that. Dysregulation, and the more you know that system is underdeveloped or just developed in a particular way it can't handle that Max, the more you're going to have this big reaction, and that can cause either you to explode, or for you to avoid these kind of potential situations altogether?

Unknown Speaker  35:27  
Yeah, I would cry.

Speaker 1  35:31  
Can I just be perceived as this girl who cried all the time? Yeah,

Speaker 2  35:34  
I cried a lot. Or I would just be dead faced like I'd stuff it deep,

Speaker 1  35:39  
deep, deep. I can't be dead. Unfortunately, my face doesn't do that, not

Speaker 2  35:43  
and then that would be disassociative, right? Because I'm feeling all these huge emotions, right? Um, but I'm stuffing them down so I can't experience them. So now I'm I can't be in my body either, so I would disassociate from the moment, and I really recall having several instances where it felt out of body, like I was observing someone else having a fight, like if someone's yelling at me and coming at me, I would definitely go into the space that would be so disconnected as a coping mechanism to feel Safe or I mean, I don't think I could even process everything in the moment. No, and, and that was a practice I got really used to using as a coping mechanism. And I think resolving that being able to kind of recognize my feelings and voicing them, and not being afraid to say if I felt hurt or things like that, because I would think like they'd leave if I tell them I was hurt. Communication

Speaker 1  36:47  
is very difficult for I think somebody with ADHD and very hard

Speaker 2  36:55  
part of it is because you're not recognizing what's going on inside you.

Speaker 1  36:59  
Well, you don't know what the heck is going on inside you. You don't know what that is, no.

Unknown Speaker  37:04  
And you think you're so weird, right? Like, why not my body normal?

Speaker 2  37:09  
And that what you perceive that normal people do, but you're not, because that's what you're thinking. You just don't even know what to do, what to say, and everything feels wrong, and then comes out and it is wrong,

Unknown Speaker  37:26  
and most of the time, yeah, and

Speaker 2  37:28  
I guess you know being with a person who can give you that safe space to allow you to experience those things and to let it out and not necessarily feel that it's coming at them, right? Never

Speaker 1  37:46  
learned that as a child. That's not how my family was no and I can definitely see in the relationship that I had in college, that's exactly there was no communication because of the fear if I said something, they would leave.

Speaker 2  38:02  
Yeah, and those little white lies when you say You're fine, you're not really big lies to yourself and to the other, and then there's no honesty in that relationship anymore, because you kind of have to maintain that now, right? Yeah, was great. It's all gone. The sex was great. Yes, of course, you're awesome, and then you're stuck with this person. It's just really not good for you, but now you don't know how to get out, because if it's great, why are you getting out? Right? And

Speaker 1  38:29  
and then they for me, they had to go and cheat on me to get out of the relationship. That

Speaker 2  38:35  
was me. I would I couldn't transition out of relationships. I didn't know how. Like, I've never seen it. I've never seen it either leaves. But if the guy's not leaving, how do you get him to leave? You just act horribly, and then you're like, huh, see, they do leave, right? You totally justify that cycle to yourself. So there was a lot of come to Jesus for me in terms of recognizing big time my behaviors, my patterns, the traumas that cause those behaviors. And then, of course, once the ADHD was diagnosed, and I could really take a look at these executive function components, and one, forgive myself for those behaviors. And two, enter a relationship with someone who I can work through these things within a safe space, do therapy for this and grow from this. I think it's I'm in a really good place, amazing. Yeah, right, like for the first time, really am, and maintaining a long term relationship for me had always been so difficult, and now, now it seems like this is this, is it? This is the right way to do it right the communicate

Speaker 1  39:55  
like for me and my husband even just. This weekend, we had a little a little moment, and he kind of lashed out for a minute, and I just kind of looked at him and shut down, because he's having his moment. And then we stop. And then we came inside and he apologized and told me why he lashed out, and then I actually understood why he lashed out. So I could say, I can totally understand where you're coming from. I hear you. I understand what that is. And we had it was like, there's no fighting. Yeah, he was having a moment. He needed his moment. He needed to express his moment. And it and actually helped me and pop me back into a, you know, more of a clear and present space for him. I would never have done that before.

Speaker 2  40:51  
Yeah, I have these like intrusive thoughts sometimes, and they're quite impulsive, and then they'll come outside my body. They'll, I'll say it, and I don't think about the hurtfulness or whether that's even a process, thought like it might not even be like a real thing, right? And then I'm hurting the individual's feelings. So I really have to kind of monitor more my

Speaker 1  41:18  
output, which I never used to think about your output and and make sure it's coming from a safe space, not a fight or flight space,

Speaker 2  41:27  
not even that, just this random thought that, right, that is not even a real thought. I don't think you're whatever, but I said that because it just popped out of my mouth completely. Just random squirrel nuts, whatever. It just comes out. And I definitely don't do that. Have to be really cautious with, you know, not allowing something that's just this random feed come out. I don't have that problem. Oh, and I used to cut off people talking. Well, I cut much. No, it was cut people.

Speaker 1  42:03  
But now I know it's because I'm not going to remember the thought, and if I don't get it out, now I'm going to forget it,

Speaker 2  42:08  
but I don't have to be careful, because they're impulsive thoughts, and there might not be a reality. They're just something that, sorry me. So that's something I worked really hard on for like, two, three years, because professionally, you can't cut people off all the time. That's really rude, right?

Speaker 1  42:25  
But don't you find it's easier in a professional than with your friends like no, because I

Speaker 2  42:32  
want to contribute. I want to I want to get those thoughts out that are coming in, because I have read so many things, and I want to, like, share them and make it better, right? Yeah,

Unknown Speaker  42:43  
no, I get that. But, yeah, I get that.

Speaker 1  42:47  
It's a process. Kelly, my God, it is such a process. It is such a process. But I think what's so great, why are we here, right? What's so great about the process is learning all this fantastic stuff. So I'm 51 and I'm going to make the second half of my life be really productive and less well, you know, I'm going to try to be, you know, use these tools that we're going to talk about every week, and get to know what's going on with our bodies and cues and signals and flags and all that kind of stuff, and that's going to just help us, and hopefully help everybody else too, to just start to recognize these things about ourselves and that we're not really bad people

Speaker 2  43:35  
now. So the takeaways, I think, for me, have been that recognizing your patterns and motivations for doing things and understanding that my brain is seeking it needs a level of dopamine that I'm unable to re uptake or manufacture, which medication does help with? But that's not an answer.

Speaker 1  43:59  
It's not the answer, but good God, it

Speaker 2  44:03  
helps a lot, but I have to also cognitive, cognitively and behaviorally, put in mechanisms in place. Should I not have access to medication Correct? Understand that there's other ways to fill that dopamine need, and that could be a walk in nature petting a cat. It could be doing a favorite craft, or right, right, or being with someone who is a known safe person to operate with, so that I'm not seeking the new necessarily, exactly, getting good partner, yeah, a good partner, good friendships, whatever that is. But you have to find out what those things are for you that can help you achieve those states of regulation, right? And that's a big takeaway, and then really understanding that you can't just, you know, roll through people's lives, and not expect that you might hurt them or that there's con. Sequences to these things, because you're not planning anything inside your head. So while you can't plan for everything, you can certainly help inhibit yourself from acting in the moment. Just take a second, take a beat on to five and think about what you're doing and putting something in place for yourself, to understand that if you want to do something, maybe talk about a little bit. Let's see if that helps you figure out whether you really need to do that thing exactly. It's yeah, definitely, big growth areas, agreed,

Speaker 1  45:38  
huge and well, we can dive into it more later.

Speaker 2  45:43  
This is not a one episode thing now, and I really look forward to hearing other people's stories and looking at how people manage relationships and what are some of the obstacles and how we can put things in place.

Speaker 1  45:58  
Let's put a call out there. Let us know to you know, send us your craziest relationship story, put it into a one liner and let us. Let us figure out what the heck happened. You became a big Rick trucker just to impress that guy, right? Let's What did the craziest things you've ever done.

Speaker 2  46:18  
You know them. They whoever you are trying to impress, uh huh, because and

Speaker 1  46:22  
put, send it, put it on our Instagram. Put, put all your funny stories on our Instagram. Wth, underscore, ADHD, and we would love to hear it.

Speaker 2  46:32  
We would love to hear it so that we don't feel so no, we'd love to hear it because this is how we can. I everybody realizes, yeah, we're all the same. We're all okay.

Speaker 1  46:45  
So send us your stories. Thank you for listening to us, and this has been w, T, H, ADHD with our honey and Lenny, and we will see you next time. Bye. You

Unknown Speaker  47:19  
This has been a hiats, me ADHD production.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai