Handling a Big Move with ADHD: 5 Themes That Keep Coming Up

In this special episode, the host shares her ongoing journey of moving across the country with her neurodivergent family. She candidly discusses the chaos and emotional whirlwind associated with the move, touching upon the unique challenges posed by ADHD. Topics include the disorder's impact on organization, the emotional rollercoaster of moving, and practical tips for managing clutter and overwhelm. The host also highlights the importance of self-regulation and self-care, offering a glimpse into her personal methods for maintaining balance during this hectic time. The episode wraps up with an invitation to join her community, designed to support other women in organizing their lives while managing ADHD.

05:12 Emotional Rollercoaster
07:40 Managing Working Memory
10:22 Decluttering Tips for Movers
12:49 The Importance of Regulation
17:13 Community and Support

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Transcript

0:42

Hey, beautiful people. Welcome back to a very special episode of me in my closet, because I don't have a recording studio right now. I haven't really opened up about what's going on with the move we are about to close on our house on July 14th, and we're gonna begin a trek across the country to land on the East Coast, and it's been, shall we say, hectic, exhausting. Full of excitement, tears. I go through periods of being happy, sad. There's all kinds of emotions that are coming up for me right now and for my family, and it's been an interesting turn of events. So this week I wanna talk to you about moving with A DHD because. It's not just me, it is my entire family. We are a neurodivergent family, which means that organization can be a challenge for us. the first thing I wanna talk about is the chaos. Chaos is normal. Chaos is expected in our lives and because we're often so chaotic in our heads and we're so hyperactively thinking about one thing versus the other thing, versus the next thing, versus the thing that happened previously, that chaos can manifest in our world around us. which is why a lot of us have clutter. All around us because we can't quite manage everything that's going on in our head and we can't quite manage everything that is physically manifested around us as well. So through A lot of decision making and through a lot of trying to understand my own brain, getting an A DHD diagnosis, learning how to sell on Facebook marketplace, reading every single book that's out there on learning how to let go and declutter and organize in a way that works for me. I am at the point where my life feels so incredibly chaotic and I thought. Oh, I'm gonna get to the point with this move that it's gonna just feel normal. It'll just feel like I'm in control of things. It's a cute thought and also not very realistic because we have kids who have a lot of feelings about everything that's going on. We've got a lot of people that we wanna see as we're trying to leave Colorado. We had to buy a new car, which we did last week. We're also purchasing a trailer so that we can. Bring just a few items with us, and as furniture is leaving our house, the places that we would normally go to look for things, because we trust ourselves to put things back where they go, that's not the reality any longer. So not only are things leaving and we're changing things, but we're creating chaos because we are not used to living where things don't go back, where they go. Just this morning I was looking for the Q-tips and we had a garage sale this weekend and I sold our Q-tip holder along with the rest of the decor in the bathroom but I'm standing there looking on the bathroom counter for our Q-tip holder. But it's not there anymore because I put the Q-Tips in a traveling case right behind me, so it's not very far away. I was standing there for about 45 seconds when I realized. What the hell am I looking for? I was looking for I had this picture in my mind of what I was looking for, but wasn't actively in my brain saying, oh, I need a Q-tip. Let me look for this. I was looking for the container that it was in. And this should show you the state of things because I'm crying a little bit right now at about the Q-Tips. And this leads me into the second thing is that while you might start to get a handle on things, if you are moving, you are not gonna know where things are. And that's part of just making peace with it I think looking back on it, I could have done things a little bit differently and I'm doing a great job. Ultimately when it comes to, we have one room up front where, which is all the things that we're bringing with us. The garage is where we're selling things and we're having another garage sale next weekend. We have some things that we still have to go through and we're still making decisions on. I do have Doom piles everywhere. Yep. Professional organizer here, and I've got doom piles. one of them is all the stuff we need to do, some minor fix ups before we leave. Another is a pile of toys that, the girls haven't decided if they wanna take or go yet, I share this because it reminds me of when I first started. When I first thought there was absolutely no hope for me that I wouldn't be able to get anything under control, it just reminded me how much trust I had to build with myself in order to start creating homes for things. And I started to create homes for things by using the phrase, where would I go to look for this if I were trying to find it? Where would future me go to look for it if I were trying to find it? And that's worked for years, except that now that we're moving the places that I would go to look for things, to find them aren't there anymore. And the habits that I've created for myself, I'm having to break because we are shaking things up. We are really shaking things up. I'd say number three. I'll share the emotions. And with a DHD, we feel emotions with everything that we do. There's so much emotion. Sometimes it's immense joy or happiness. Sometimes it's immense sadness, there's a lot going into every decision that we're making now. Because it defines our future. There's a lot of happiness. Like we're excited, we're very excited about this next chapter of our lives, but we're really sad. It's very sad to leave behind the life that we've created here and the friends that we've had. And that we've met and that we've built relationships with. The dogs are saying hi. They're like, what are you doing in the closet, mom, thanks. Thanks for the lick. Okay guys, I'm recording a podcast. Yeah. Can I have a minute? Can I have a minute? Thanks for the love. Okay. Alright. Go see Dad. Go see Dad. Go on. On Friday night, we got a bunch of the neighbors together. We all brought our camping chairs out to one of my friend's houses. All the kids came with their bikes and they all rode around the cul-de-sac until it was dark outside. We brought water balloons and me and the other moms filled them up and we had all of the kids stand out on the sidewalk until I yelled Crocodile and as soon as I yelled they were able to come up and get water balloons as the adults were pegging them. It's really pretty hilarious. I'm sad to say goodbye to that moment, and I'm not saying goodbye to that'cause that's a memory. I'm sad to say goodbye to this neighborhood. And because I flex so much in this space of what it's like to say goodbye and knowing. That it's just going to make me stronger and reminding myself that I trust myself to make the right decisions, and my husband and I trust each other to lead us in the right direction. I'm okay with the sadness. I'm okay with the letting go, and it's because I flex that muzzle. Now what I suggest start with moving and selling everything. No. This is an evolutionary process, but the emotions are big ones. What I'm remembering as we go through this is to feel them. I was just mopping my kitchen floor that no longer has a kitchen table in it, and I started crying and I am allowed to, so I'm gonna do it. I think the fourth thing I'll talk about here is my working memory and how I always say on the podcast when everything is important, nothing is important, and the reason why I say that is because when we're thinking about so many things. About being the best mom about, having the best body or being in the best shape, or, trying to sign up our kids for everything or having a capsule wardrobe and redoing our floors or maybe doing another project or decluttering or wanting to do this and that, and this and that, and this and that. When we're thinking about all of those things, none of them is important because. They're all important, but if we have our brain in all of these different compartments, it doesn't allow anything to take precedence or priority, and this happens with A DHD, it's very hard to set priorities because we get excited about so many things we want to do so many things. We wanna say yes to all of the events. We want to do all the things with all the people. But when we do that, we forget to take care of ourselves and the things that are the most important without us truly realizing it. But knowing that about ourselves gives us the opportunity to think about it and notice it more. Which means that when we've done the noticing, we start to say, wow, how could I do this differently? How could I figure this out? And just because we're approaching it from a different perspective, because we know what our brain does. Doesn't mean that we always see it in the moment. Right now I am seeing that everything feels like it's important and as we're planning our trip back to the east coast, I know that I am going to need to pack for the trip and figure out which clothes we're gonna wear while we're traveling back to the East coast. Will we need stuff for the beach? Will we need stuff for hiking? Things like that. But that is not. What's most important tomorrow? I've got to break it down and say, what are three things that I could do tomorrow that's gonna get us closer to being able to leave this house on July 14th? The working memory, the best way I've heard it described it's as if we have, four slots up here in our front brain where we're doing most of our thinking and our decision making, but when emotions come into play, that takes up one of the slots. And when you're running a business that's gonna take up another slot, especially when there's so much going on there. When you're trying to manage other people's emotions, things could just keep getting bumped and it's so much easier to forget what could be the most important thing. Number five, and I'm gonna say this for the people who might be moving now, you found this podcast, and you're like, oh, I'm moving and I wanna sell everything. This sounds like a great idea. Here's what I will say about that. If you're a couple weeks away from moving, a month away from moving, two months away from moving, if you have not been working on decluttering your home for a very long time. This is a very long process and as we're selling stuff, as we're having garage sales, posting things on Facebook marketplace, it is another full-time job. It is a lot of work. It's a lot of time, it's a lot of exhaustion and if it's something that you're trying for the first time, it's gonna cause some stress, actually, a lot of stress. I remember moving, I've moved across the country. I've moved from apartment to apartment, and when it gets down to the wire like this, it's so easy to just throw things in a box and say, I'll deal with it when I get there. And I'm not doing that this time The only reason why I'm not doing that this time is because it's taken me years to get to this point where I know what fills up my life. I've made very strategic decisions, and I've stopped myself from being able to impulsively shop or impulsively do this or that. It doesn't mean that I don't still have those impulses. I just now am able to think things through a little bit so if you're at the point where you'd really like to sell things you don't wanna take as much with you, I truly encourage you to take a ton to Goodwill. Take a box to Goodwill every single day. I say Goodwill because it's easy. They take everything and they have the best hours. If you're used to going somewhere else, and you know what? Their limits and their rules are amazing, but there's a lot of limits and rules for a lot of the places that you donate to and that's another barrier to you getting stuff out of your house. So if that's one of the barriers, eliminate that barrier by taking it to the easiest place, the place that'll be closest to you. And just being realistic with yourself, being realistic about what you're able to accomplish, what you're able to do as you're going through such a stressful time. Because I don't know that there is a way to truly slow down. With that being said, number six is reminding yourself that you are in no rush. I've talked just a little bit about regulation on the podcast, and I will continue to talk about this as we go through the summer and into this fall. Regulation I have found is one of the most important things to recognize when you have a DHD. We are in a constant fight or flight mode and we handle so many of the situations we're in fight, flight, freeze, or fawn mode. This includes but is not limited to the way that you approach your clutter. It's when we're in our prefrontal cortex, when we take some deep breaths, we get back to that front brain to make conscious decisions that we can make decisions that support us a little bit more. So something I have been noticing as we're exhausted, as we're pushing ourselves, as we're losing our minds, setting things down and not knowing where they are, because we don't have our normal surfaces anymore. I've noticed more and more when I'm tired. For example, last Friday I was exhausted and when I noticed normally I would push through. I would try to ignore it, which works. I'm very good at ignoring when my body is telling me something, but because I'm noticing how exhausted I am, I took myself outside and sat in my favorite egg chair and did the 5 4, 3, 2, 1 regulation method. I just recorded a video For my community on this, we have a regulation station in the community and it's just different ideas on how to get yourself back to the front of your brain so you can make conscious decisions. you noticed five things around you look at them with your eyes, you feel four things around you. So feel them and you can even say, oh, I feel this dress and it feels soft. Three things that you can hear. Two things that you can smell and one thing that you can taste and one thing that you're grateful for. Gratitude is so important in our lives. Just being grateful for the things that we have around us. You can always find something else to be grateful for, even if life feels like it's coming down around you. But as I sat there, I really started to notice how much I love my backyard. And how calm I felt in that moment. Just being peaceful with the breeze and the way the trees were moving. Or even just noticing the dogs and them sitting. And I love when they put their face in the air and smell the air. It's very peaceful. I wasn't out there for really more than five minutes, but taking that rest was so amazing. Just like we handle so many things with this all or nothing attitude. Sometimes we feel like we need to do that when we're taking a rest or giving ourselves some quote unquote self care. But it only takes a minute or five minutes or however much time you can truly spare instead of pushing through. How could you take a moment for yourself? And I've noticed that a lot more lately. We actually planned massages for today. My husband and I knew we were gonna need to get outta the house after having so much chaos. So I had a massage first, and my husband took the girls out to eat and then they went puck putt golfing. Then my husband had a massage next and I took the girls to a park in downtown Colorado Springs and they also played on the splash pad. And it was amazing. But as we were driving home, we had some other plans or some other things that we wanted to do, and I noticed how tired I was and I said, no we've gotta go home. I'm feeling exhausted right now, and if I don't take a rest, I'm going to burn myself out. And I just don't wanna do it anymore. I don't want everything to take precedence because as I've said so many times, again, our to-do list is never gonna get any shorter. In fact, this house, there's so many things I'd like to do before I leave, just to get it ready for the new owners. And guess what? I'm not gonna be able to get everything done. And the to-do list is never going to get any shorter. But what I can do is I can get in front of it and I can take time to pause. I can practice taking time to pause. I can create a habit of taking time to pause of disconnecting from my phone of remembering that it's okay to be bored. It's okay that I'm not in a rush and reminding myself that even when I feel like I'm in a rush sometimes I'm just doing that to myself. So in the end, I just wanna remind you that a DHD doesn't go away. While it doesn't go away, there are ways to manage A DHD in a way that makes sense for you. And part of that comes with awareness and comes with the fact that we were never meant to be this busy. There's so much information, there's so much technology, there's so much advancement happening every single day. We couldn't possibly keep up with everything. But that doesn't mean that's not a reason to start. I am so excited. so for the rest of the summer, I've got some really amazing interviews coming up. I'm gonna do one more solo episode before we leave, and I am no longer taking one-on-one clients this summer. If you're listening to this today on Monday, June 30th, this is the last day to join the organizing and a DHD Brain community. I really wanna take some time to nurture the people that are there so that we can get to know each other, get to know what's going on, and really figure out how to get started so that we can find the momentum to continue to understand that we're not alone. That you might be embarrassed about the crap that you have everywhere, but guess what? So many other people are too. And knowing that you're not alone is part of that ridiculous battle. Just knowing that, oh my gosh if I feel shame and she feels shame, we could feel shame together, but we could also feel empowered together to get one thing done, to do the little stuff and to feel celebrated because Megs has done it too. And now she's on a totally other side of things. I've evolved. I've been where you're at. I know what it's like to feel overwhelmed by your clutter, and let me tell you, I know what it's like again right now, in this moment as our freaking life is getting turned upside down and I don't feel like I'm in control of anything. And that's why I created the community because I wanted women to know. That just because you feel like your world is upside down and you can't ever get unburied, if you will, from the stuff around you. I'm here as living proof to tell you that you can, and there are so many other women who are also in my community that will tell you the same. One of my favorite things was when one of my coaching clients that I had been working with for. Oh gosh. About six months came into the community and we were having one of our very first group coaching sessions, and she told me in our session that week, she was listening to the way someone else was describing their clutter and she realized how far she had come. It just gave her the perspective she needed to realize how much work she'd done to get where she is now. There was still so much she was working on and. She saw and gave herself credit for the fact that she had gotten to where she is. That's part of it. We're all gonna be on different levels. We're all gonna be at different points, but I created this community for you and for me so that we could have each other because it's about A DHD, but it's also about figuring out what lights us up now, not the past, not the future. What lights us up in this moment and how can we truly uncover that in our lives? so that we can uncover that stuff and it's not hidden by our past or our future. It's right out there in the open for us to see. So I invite you in organizing an A DHD brain community. It's$37 a month or$33 a month if you purchase by the quarter. And then you can do the math. There's a yearly membership too. So go check it out. Regardless, thank you so much for being a part of this podcast. I'm honored that you're here listening. if this podcast has resonated with you at all, I would be honored. If you take a moment to go, leave me a review and tell me what you've thought or even just send me a message. I hope you're having an incredible summer, and I will see you next week.