Why Smart Women Podcast
Welcome to the Why Smart Women Podcast, hosted by Annie McCubbin. We explore why women sometimes make the wrong choices and offer insightful guidance for better, informed decisions. Through engaging discussions, interviews, and real-life stories, we empower women to harness their intelligence, question their instincts, and navigate life's complexities with confidence. Join us each week to uncover the secrets of smarter decision-making and celebrate the brilliance of women everywhere.
Why Smart Women Podcast
Is ADHD real or are boys just being boys......
What happens when ADHD meets anxiety? When your brain seems to work against you? When you accidentally leave your child locked in an office because you simply forgot?
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And David walked in the door. I said to David where's Lachlan? He looked at me and then he recognised and we both recognised at the same moment that he had left the office, locked it up and come home and Lachlan was still in there. You are listening to the why Smart Women podcast, the podcast that helps smart women work out why we repeatedly make the wrong decisions and how to make better ones From relationships, career choices, finances, to faux fur, jackets and kale smoothies. Every moment of every day, we're making decisions. Let's make them good ones.
Speaker 1:I'm your host, annie McCubbin, and, as a woman of a certain age, I've made my own share of really bad decisions. Not my husband, I don't mean him, though. I did go through some shockers to find him and I wish this podcast had been around to save me from myself. This podcast will give you insights into the working of your own brain, which will blow your mind. I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land in which I'm recording and you are listening on this day. Always was, always will be, aboriginal land. Well, hello, smart women, and welcome to this week's episode of the why Smart Women podcast. This week I am talking to Adrienne, did you like that?
Speaker 2:Oh, that was a really good attempt, very good.
Speaker 1:Adrienne, Did you like that? Oh, that was a really good attempt. Thank you Very good, Adrienne. Did you like that? David?
Speaker 3:that accent or.
Speaker 1:Adrienne, or in fact, adrienne David, is also here with us. Say hello, David, hello everybody. Yes, don't take up too much time or space. All right, we're talking to Adrienne Hill, who is I'm just getting my notebook out, listeners. She is a high school maths teacher, but there's more. She has worked with Tourette's Canada 2005 to 2018. And from 2018 to the present, she's on the board of Tourette's OCD Alberta Network. Was that right?
Speaker 2:Can you just say it for me? Yeah, the Tourette OCD Alberta Network Was that right? Can you just say it for me?
Speaker 1:Yeah, the Tourette OCD Alberta Network that was good, I wasn't so close and she's also an educational consultant in that area. She is an editor for Guerrilla Skepticism yes, on Wikipedia, of course, which puts you very, very close to the wonderful Susan Gerbeck from the United States. I know you're not from the United States and you don't want to be from the United States currently, do you?
Speaker 2:Currently no. I'd love to go visit my friends. I have lots of American friends, but I yeah, maybe not currently.
Speaker 1:And she's also a Canadian reporter on the Skeptic Zone, which is, of course, the wonderful critical thinking podcast hosted by Richard Saunders, and she has flown all the way from Calgary, alberta, canada, just to see me. Yeah, just to see.
Speaker 2:Annie. Just to see me it's so far, and here you are. And here you are and here we are.
Speaker 1:And here we are broadcasting from the northern beaches of Sydney, new South Wales, australia, and hello to everybody who's listening in all over the world. And I have noted when I looked at the list of cities that I've got a listener in Mongolia, that is wonderful I know, right, we've got listeners everywhere.
Speaker 1:It's awesome, anyway. So today we're going to be talking about Tourette's, adhd, other mental health issues, and I wanted to start by just relating a story. David, as you know who's my wonderful husband, who's a fantastically brilliant human being. Well, you are, you're very, very smart and also has ADHD, and I just wanted to tell you a little story that happened with us. There's been a lot of stories, but I just I picked one out of the archive Yo-yo, keep your head still and this one was that quite a few years ago, we had an office on Old Pitwater Road in Brookvale and we lived maybe 10, I don't know 10 to 15 minutes away, and our child we have two children and at that stage the oldest one was maybe eight, lachlan was maybe eight and anyway, I'm at home cooking.
Speaker 1:I've got the smaller child, the four-year-old Lily, with me, and David walked in the door and I said to David where's Lachlan? And he looked at me and then he recognised, and we both recognised at the same moment that he had left the office, locked it up and come home and Lachlan was still in there.
Speaker 3:Now, for the record, yeah, but get close to the microphone. Yeah, for the record, annie did not at all breathe me that she was going to be sharing this particular story today. It's funny though isn't it yeah? Well, why am I here? Yeah, if you were perfectly capable of telling that story without me.
Speaker 1:Because there's other things we can talk about.
Speaker 3:Really.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then he's the funny part of it, though. So he came home and I said where's Lachlan? And then he got back in the car and went back to get Lachlan, and the funny part of it is that Lachy, who was eight at the time, not only had David not noticed, he'd left him there, but Lachlan hadn't noticed he was alone in the office Because he's also ADHD.
Speaker 2:It was hilarious, yeah, so no harm done, no harm done.
Speaker 1:I was going to get to that no harm done. There was no harm done, but it's pretty funny.
Speaker 3:He had a few moments to himself, some moments of quiet reflection. I think it's terribly important that young boys are given the opportunity to exercise their own independence it was deliberate, right, yes and to be in environments where they can be quiet with their own thought processes and that was good and everyone survived and we are a very happy, cohesive family.
Speaker 1:But there are a number of incidents along the way where I guess David's ADHD hit up against my anxiety, because I'm an anxious person, and so those two things melding together have been very interesting.
Speaker 3:And I'll note that this was a time that was before my diagnosis Pre-diagnosis- yes. So, whenever those things happened, whenever those things happened, the only explanation was that I was, let's see, a lousy parent.
Speaker 1:No, no, we never thought you were a lousy parent.
Speaker 3:That's not true, well, it's a fairly lousy thing to do to leave your kid behind.
Speaker 2:Well, and people will do that, they will judge. I mean, that's part of the issue, right? They don't understand. They just automatically assume you're a bad parent. The same thing happened to me. I have to say, oh, can you please tell?
Speaker 1:us that story. It'll make David feel better.
Speaker 3:I've forgotten about it until you mentioned it. Okay, you can make me feel better now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my oldest was I don't know about four years old.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's even younger, David.
Speaker 2:And I had dropped him off at some kind of a community. You know, fun thing that you sign kids up for, drop them off an hour and a half later or three hours later, whatever it was. You're supposed to go and pick them back up. I forgot I even had a kid yeah, yeah, right it was just not even in the frame of reference and an hour later, after I was supposed to pick him up I remembered I was supposed to pick him up I I was horrified. This is pre-cell phone. I'm old.
Speaker 1:So Come on, adrienne. No, you're, not.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so well before cell phones. And so I rushed into the car, went down to where I had to pick him up. They were waiting for me. They had him in it because it's a community center, so they kind of had a safe place where they could watch him. But people couldn't go home because of my behavior, what I did very unintentionally. I felt terrible and it's a very difficult condition in that respect, because things just leave your head and they're gone.
Speaker 3:Yes, well, you see, I mean, this is why it takes a village to raise a child.
Speaker 1:Exactly, or a community center.
Speaker 2:The community center came through or a community.
Speaker 3:I mean, look, yes, we do make light of it now, but in that moment when you realize that you got it wrong.
Speaker 2:It's horrifying.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and also it's not just a simple transaction of oh I've got that wrong and I've got to fix the problem now. It can commonly trigger off a whole thought process around what is wrong with you and maybe you can't trust yourself.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 3:So you know, this is the fallout that can happen from those situations.
Speaker 1:And I do think, just in terms of the judgment around it is that David I mean, I'm sure you're the same you know David is an extremely warm, loving, giving father and our children are very firmly attached because of it. We have a very, very close family. So he's a really lovely person. Our children are very firmly attached because of it. We have a very, very close family. So he's a really lovely person. And I think that the judgment that comes with that, as we know, with a self-esteem that is already punctured or bruised by the notion of constantly trying to work out why do I keep forgetting things? These judgments really are very, very damaging.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and by the same token, they're actually necessary. I mean, I don't know about your thought process around this, Adrienne, but they are actually necessary because sometimes it does take an emotional event of some magnitude for you to do the work required in order to keep everybody safe and held and to work out what are the rituals or the reminders or the relationships that are going to help you not make those mistakes.
Speaker 2:And that key thing, the relationship. My husband has been my prefrontal cortex for many years. The number of times you know they have these wonderful purses with the straps across the body. Now I remember being young. You know they have these wonderful purses with the straps across the body. Now I remember being young. They didn't really have that. There were probably some out there, but they had a short little handle. That was what you bought. I left my purse every day, everywhere, and we would always spend hours going back to retrieve what I had left behind. So now I have these body strap purses and when I sit down at a restaurant I do not take it off.
Speaker 1:I noticed that last night when you came to dinner. Yes, Because I nearly said to you do you want to put your bag down? I looked at you and I thought I don't think she does want to put that bag down, and I bet I know why.
Speaker 2:Exactly. You find these strategies that work. The best invention to me I don't know about you, david, but has been the Apple Watch.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:Because I lose my phone multiple times per day and I find it very quickly because of the dinging that happens every time I lose it.
Speaker 3:I'm looking across the room and I'm looking at my mental doppelganger. Absolutely, the Apple Watch has been the best thing I have ever, ever, ever, ever, ever bought, because it does exactly that. And, yeah, I now proudly support a man bag. I mean, it's much cooler than that. It's this lovely sort of camel leather pack that I bought, you know, in the markets in Marrakesh, so it looks kind of cool. I think it looks kind of cool, but, yeah, it's literally my handbag.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:And it has my keys, my phone, my wallet, the battery charger, because I can never remember to charge my phone when I'm. Do you recognize that one as well? Does your phone run out of battery?
Speaker 2:Just the other day, I'm outside and I'm like Greg, it's the start of the day, my phone's already dead. Yeah, I'm better with that one, but it's still. Yeah, it's not perfect. And this is one of the things I think people don't understand about. Whether it be ADHD, tourette syndrome, ocd, depression, anything like that is, people will say it's not real. People forget things all the time. So ADHD isn't a real thing. And what people don't understand is for it to be a diagnosis, it has to significantly impact your life. Yep, and if you forget something now and then, and it's devastating for example, a passport, so you lose it on a trip, devastating, but it happens once in your life or maybe twice in your life. For David and I, that's going to be a regular occurrence and it's going to impact our life every day, hours a day sometimes that's right.
Speaker 2:And that's when you have a diagnosis, is when it significantly impacts your life, and that significantly can change per person. Everybody's different, and so some things may be more difficult for other people that we think are simple, even though we have the same disorder. That's another myth.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's right, and I think everyone's is different, and I think so you go and.
Speaker 3:I'll talk about my anxiety.
Speaker 3:And I was just going to say that the improvements that I've experienced from getting the right kind of medication have been tremendous. So, yes, I do sort of go through the thought processes that help me to keep track of the various objects that one needs, but the thing is that the medication doesn't touch the sides of the now. Let me see if I can get the term right rejection, sensitivity, dysphoria, is that right? Right, it's when it's when you are. You get so used to letting people down because you've lost your wallet or lost your keys or lost your way or lost track of time or lost track of time Time blindness Very very much so, and not only the loss of time, but I can do this in five minutes and it's a five hour task or a two day task?
Speaker 2:Yes, it's, it's very difficult.
Speaker 3:It's so disappointing because there's so many things I could do in five minutes.
Speaker 1:You are like the one person, but I've got to just quickly tell you that this is where David's ADHD meets my anxiety. So this is where David's ADHD meets my anxiety. So my daughter and I drove down to Bundanoon, which is in the Southern Highlands, on Saturday night to go to the Scottish Festival and was staying with David's dad, and we're used to going there in the day, but we had to find his sort of country property at night. I have zero sense of direction. I'm like unbelievably useless, aren't I how bad. And not only am I useless, but I'm also opinionated, so I don't know what I'm talking about, but I'm sort of bossy, so I'll go. No, lily, it's that way when I'm wrong and I keep saying to her don't listen to me.
Speaker 1:I sound really like I know what I'm talking about, but I don't anyway, we got hopelessly lost and we're driving around and we're up and down this driveway meaning about like a couple of idiots, looking for some fork in the road, and she kept turning into something that looked like a gate. It was hilarious, and during this I tried to call David's phone a number of times because he's got an unerring sense of direction. He's really, really good at knowing where things are. He's like the antithesis of me.
Speaker 1:Anyway, I couldn't get hold of him and then, even though I know that probably it's that his phone has not been charged, there's still a part of my brain that is honestly on hyper alert, because I'm an anxious person that thinks something's happened to him. Something's happened to him. I can't get hold of him. How am I going to find out if he's okay? We no longer live next to our neighbours. I'll have to ring my neighbour and she'll have to drive from a Lambie Heights to DY to check that he's okay. And that's where my brain goes um, until I talk to lily and she goes mom, honestly, he just hasn't charged his phone, it's fine. And then I sort of but there's still that bit of my brain.
Speaker 1:That's just on, that's just can't quite turn it off.
Speaker 2:Turn it off and catastrophizes.
Speaker 1:I'm shocking catastrophizer and I'm better because I've done so much work on myself and I have worked on that sort of thinking style and used acceptance commitment therapy on it and David's very, very helpful at talking me down, but it's still where I go, isn't it?
Speaker 3:I think I was walking the dogs.
Speaker 1:It's perfectly anodyne. And probably forgot your phone, because that's what I do.
Speaker 2:I just go and walk the dog and I forget my phone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but then my brain, you know, has to entertain. And I've just got to say one more thing. It's what we were talking about last night, about the fact that people think that ADHD is just, you know, just sort of this endlessly scattered thinking, but in fact its capacity to deep dive is astonishing. Yep, and on my 40th birthday, which is very recently it was just not so long ago at all Adrienne Mine neither yeah, that's right. David had somehow organised behind my back to find at that point we were both just actors had managed to put on a show at the theatre that we first met in, and collected people that had been in plays for me for years. They had secretly rehearsed, and he told me we were going to go and see a show, and when we walked into the theatre and I sat down and the lights came up, I realised it wasn't actually a play. It was a play about me, and he had organized that, and that is a rare thing among human beings.
Speaker 1:That is fantastic.
Speaker 2:I know Well, you know.
Speaker 3:That's amazing. You'd had such a lovely career at that point and so many people wanted to show up and celebrate.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but you organized it.
Speaker 2:Your 25 years in show business, my 10 years in show business and that is our superpower is doing those deep dives and hyper, focusing on things, and sometimes it can be really difficult to get us away from that and people don't understand that, especially if it's something you love to do.
Speaker 3:Could I ask Adrienne a question? Sure, I mean the the work that you've been doing with Tourette's OCD that board you are a skeptic, so I imagine that a lot of the work that you would be doing would be righting the wrongs, correct, correcting myths, correcting myths. What are the big ones that you think are the most pernicious?
Speaker 2:For ADHD? Yeah, for ADHD. Well, I think one of them is, or two of them I've already talked about. One is that people think that everybody loses track of time, loses things, and therefore it's not a disorder. I think that the other one Shush yo-yo. Okay, here's ADHD too. I just lost my train of thought because I heard the dog right.
Speaker 1:I think all dogs have ADHD.
Speaker 2:I think so yeah, and so now okay, so the other?
Speaker 3:one. Okay, the first one. Yeah, good, it's not just forgetfulness is one.
Speaker 2:It's not just forgetfulness, and the other one is that you can't pay attention to anything, and I think we just kind of talked about that. You can hyper focus and lose track of time. There have been times I've been working on something and it's all of a sudden three in the morning.
Speaker 1:David works till three or four in the morning. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:But I think it's midnight. I look at the clock and I can't believe it. And then I have an appointment, say at nine the next morning, and I need my sleep. I'm a big sleeper, I sleep really well and it's hard for me to get up and I have a miserable day. I pay for that. So I think that is definitely something people don't understand, like in this situation right there where the dog or a squirrel goes by you know, squirrel.
Speaker 2:That kind of thing, yeah, that does happen, for sure and then we can totally forget what we're doing and hyper-focus on the new thing that does happen. But we also can get so immersed in what we love to do that nothing else is around us. And we have superpowers. I like to think that we all have superpowers of some kind.
Speaker 1:You definitely have superpowers. And what are some of the myths? Because we'll get to Andrew Tate in a minute and Jordan Peterson too. My favorites, oh yes.
Speaker 2:Jordan Peterson. There's a myth right there. He says that it doesn't even exist. So I've heard that from experts who are psychologists, jordan Peterson being one of them, saying that it doesn't even exist, it's not a disorder and that all you have to do is have boys play outside and they will never get it. Young boys the problem is when they're growing up and developing they don't get enough outside play. And you were saying, david, you have lots of outside play.
Speaker 3:I did too, your childhood, oh well you know, I grew up on the Queanbeyan River and every afternoon I was down in the river, I was swinging from trees, I was you trees. I could not have been more active, and I can actually now when I transpose my current thought process to what was happening then. I think a lot of my behavior was very much sort of ADHD kind of inspired. I was looking for adrenaline, I was looking for excitement, I was looking for fantasy and variety, and so I did all of that. Yeah, you know, and and and, and. Getting all of that as I did in that situation did absolutely nothing to support me when I had to go back into this, into into into the schoolroom, into the schoolroom.
Speaker 2:It's because it's hard for us to sit and there's stories of I can't remember the person's name. There's a very famous choreographer and dancer. She lived in England and I think it was in the 50s as a child and she could not sit still in the classroom and her doctor said you need to get the person into dance. So she went into a dance school. So most of the time she wasn't sitting and I think it served her, and we tend to not do that now.
Speaker 2:So we're trying to make these people who have these gifts and talents and strengths do something that is not their strength. So it makes it hard. But another myth there's several of them actually. I don't know if you know Jonathan Steyer's work. He's a psychologist from Calgary. I'm going to promote his work a little bit. He is a psychologist who just wrote a book called Mind the Science, and it's all about mental health and pseudoscience.
Speaker 3:Oh, perfect, isn't that great. Mind the Science, I think, is brilliant yeah.
Speaker 2:And it has a subtitle that I don't remember, of course, and I was just going to look it up and I can look it up in a second but he talks about a study that was done on TikTok about misinformation about ADHD, and over 50% of the videos had bizarre information or incorrect information about what ADHD is.
Speaker 3:Most of those are in my feed at the moment.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, okay, they're fascinating and scary and horrifying, because it's not what ADHD is. It's misinformation and there's billions of views on these videos that they studied and things like if adhd caught is causes nervous shakes, what it includes, tics but that sounds like Tourette syndrome to me, right like this, yeah, yeah but disinformation and misinformation is.
Speaker 1:As you know, I do a lot of work in the everybody, everybody that's listening. Our two dogs have now entered the studio.
Speaker 2:Hello.
Speaker 1:And Yo-Yo is pulling at Ryder's ear Out out dogs, out out. I do a lot of work around wellness, the whole nightmare of wellness and pseudoscience and the fact that influencers are endlessly giving us dietary and scientific and medical advice, which is great. But I was going to say that when, in the far distant past, when I used to be involved in the personal growth industry, I can distinctly remember people saying there's no such thing as ADHD because they don't have it in France, because they eat cheese and have coffee. I was like, okay, okay, so if you had had more coffee and eaten cheese, you would both be fine. Yeah, we'd both be fine.
Speaker 3:I don't think I could possibly eat more cheese.
Speaker 2:Or drink more coffee.
Speaker 3:Those are my two staples, adrienne, how do you address these myths and correct these myths at the systemic level? I mean, you know, we can have a dinner party, we can talk about the nonsense, we can have a laugh about it, but my understanding is that you've made a decision to do more than that Correct, yes, to reach beyond your normal conversational circles.
Speaker 2:How do you do it? Well, and that's where organisations like TREC Canada come into play, and the OCD Alberta Network in my case, because one of the things that we did with TREC Canada and now presently do with this network is to educate people, and we actually do talk about the myths of it. So we educate.
Speaker 1:What is Tourette's? Because there may be people on it. I'm getting ahead, aren't I? Well, people may not know Tourette's and they may not know what OCD is. It would be good to explain what it really is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, most people have heard of Tourette's syndrome and that's thanks to some of our favorite non skeptical people such as Dr Phil and Oprah Winfrey. They've had people with Tourette's syndrome on, but they're very severe. When people with Tourette's syndrome get anxious, their tics get worse. And most people know Tourette's syndrome involves tics. But the big myth is that everybody with Tourette's syndrome swears and makes noise constantly and they're ticking around the clock and they're annoying to be around and they're stupid and all these things. So I've had to combat a lot of that. And what do you mean by tics? And tics are sort of involuntary. Well, we call them, I think, what's the special term? There's a semi-voluntary movements and noises. Like what? Because people may not be familiar.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so imagine yourself getting bitten by a mosquito, uh-huh, and you have this urge to scratch and you scratch without really thinking about it. But it's actually voluntary. You can actually stop it. But think of the incredible cost at not scratching that itch. All you're going to do is think about that. I need to scratch, I need to scratch, I need to scratch. So there's an urge, usually a premenitory urge, before a tick. The most common ticks are eye blinking, so not just normal blinking, but excessive blinkingidening the eyes, rolling the eyes, sometimes a combination of those. So they'll blink a couple times, roll and then open up. Everybody is different. That's another myth that everybody with Tourette syndrome just swears and has a couple other tics.
Speaker 1:And what is with the swearing? So for people that aren't familiar, yeah, we call that coprolalia, the swearing.
Speaker 2:So for people that aren't familiar, yeah, we call that coprolalia and it's about seven to ten percent of people diagnosed with Tourette syndrome actually swear, have a swearing tick. Now the other thing about Tourette syndrome is and what I mean by that like I'm gonna shut up. You know I'm talking to you right now. Shut up so you can see that it doesn't really make sense. Shut up so that would be like a vocal tick. Oh, I see, and they would have a swear word in there. I see, right, but most people who have vocal ticks what's for dinner tonight don't actually say swear words. Now, notice that little what's for dinner tonight? Yeah, I did it. Did. It sort of makes sense, but it doesn't really. So people get really good at kind of hiding it.
Speaker 1:So that would be so what you're saying. It sounds to me, because I know a couple of people that have. Ocd, yep, and there is a compulsion to do something that is almost frightening if they don't do.
Speaker 2:The thing Is that right, yeah, so there's actually a big intertwining between obsessive compulsive disorder and Tourette syndrome and about I think it's less than 40%. Around 40% of people diagnosed with Tourette syndrome will also be diagnosed with full-blown OCD. An obsessive compulsive disorder has multiple components to it. There's the thoughts, so a lot of it is hidden and people will never know they have it until it's so bad they can't move essentially, or so if I have it, I may not know I have it, or my family may not know I have it.
Speaker 2:Yes, your family. You might know there's something odd and off. Quite often they are very aware that they think they're going crazy. They actually have this belief that they're going crazy because they're looking around and nobody else seems to be that anxious. As an example, I have a friend who had Tourette syndrome or has Tourette syndrome, and when she was a kid she was in the top reading group but she started developing obsessive compulsive disorder. So after every third word she had to count to 20. You can understand what would happen to her read uh, parent reading skills. They thought she had a reading disability.
Speaker 2:Suddenly, like people, don't suddenly have a reading disability. But that's what they thought at the time, because even today, teachers don't always know about this stuff. They're not always educated what this looks like or what it doesn't look like.
Speaker 1:And so that compulsion for your friend. So every third word she had to count to 20. And what if she didn't Like? What's the driver? What if she doesn't count to 20? What happens?
Speaker 2:So they get extremely anxious and they can't function so they worry about it. So if you have Tourette syndrome without classic OCD, they just it doesn't feel right. It's kind of like not scratching that mosquito bite it just doesn't feel right. And scratching the mosquito bite makes it feel good just for a while and then it feels bad again. So now the mosquito bite makes it feel good just for a while and then it feels bad again. So now you have to count to 20 again, right, that kind of thing, whereas with OCD it's quite often fused with the thought that if I don't count to 20, my mother will die, yep.
Speaker 2:Or if I don't count to 20, a plane will crash into a building or a flood will come and kill david forgot to turn his phone off this is very illustrative.
Speaker 1:No, I'm not a problem, that's right so um if, if you don't, let's just take this example, because it's an easy one to understand so I'm reading and. I have to count to 20. If I don't count to 20, there's a belief that my mother will die or a plane will crash. I sort of get that Like. I get it Like it's not so alien to me that I think it's nuts. Yeah, Magical thinking. I understand magical thinking quite well. I sort of get it on quite a visceral level.
Speaker 2:And that's where thought-action fusion comes in as well. So if you want to get into some of the obsessive-compulsive disorder with things like the law of attraction and manifesting, I was just about to say the same thing.
Speaker 1:Oh my.
Speaker 2:God, so dangerous it is and people with obsessive compulsive tendencies. You don't even have to have the full-blown disorder which a lot of people with Tourette syndrome aren't diagnosed with. However, let's get back to that Tourette syndrome for a second. Over 90% or around 90% of people diagnosed with Tourette syndrome have what they call obsessive compulsive symptoms. It's not quite enough to be a full-blown disorder, but it's enough to impact their life. So you can see there's a big entanglement between the two of them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely it's very common and yeah so, people who have this tendency to have actually any anxiety disorder, so generalized anxiety disorder and. Ocd is an anxiety disorder. A lot of people don't know that, that if you have that, you're more likely, if a random thought comes into your head, to believe it will happen. Which is all about manifesting.
Speaker 1:And in my first book, why.
Speaker 2:Smart Women. Guess what I didn't turn my phone. I see.
Speaker 1:I just want everyone to know. I did turn mine off and I moved it from the room. I turned my phone but not my watch, turned mine off and removed it from the room I did my phone but not my watch.
Speaker 1:In my first book, why Smart Women Make Bad Decisions, I do a lot on the whole bullshit that is manifesting and visualising, because I've had clients along the way and I'm like it is just a really bad idea to start believing that your thoughts can action things. Yes, you know, we do work around acceptance, commitment, therapy. A thought's just a thought, it is. It's just a thought, exactly. It can come, it can go, it doesn't mean anything, it just crosses our path. But this notion that I'm going to manifest the life that I want by thinking these things and I've had people in my life that are so frightened of what they think because they're going to make it happen and I'm like, man, you're not that powerful, it's just a thought, it's so dangerous, but for people with obsessive-compulsive disorder it's hard to overcome that sure it's extremely difficult and it takes pretty specific treatments that are very important to find a good therapist that actually does them A lot of
Speaker 2:them say they do, and that's in Jonathan Steyer's book as well, which is another reason it's a great resource is because it goes through. This is what you need to look for with a therapist with these conditions, this type of thing, and it's excellent because most people don't have that insight. I felt I was very lucky because I have three children, two of whom have been diagnosed with what we call in Canada Tourette Plus, which means Tourette syndrome, OCD, ADHD and a whole bunch of other things, but the big three that tend to go hand in hand are the ADHD, OCD and Tourette syndrome.
Speaker 1:And does that at all? Does any of that map on to the autistic spectrum?
Speaker 2:And that's a really great question. You can be diagnosed with both, and one of the very first things that I learned when my son finally got a diagnosis at the age of 11 was that they gave me a pamphlet that showed the symptoms of Tourette syndrome and the symptoms of autism spectrum. Autistic spectrum disorder.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
Speaker 2:And there's these ticks right. Obsessive compulsive disorder is common. Adhd is common. All these things that are common Like a Venn diagram. Yes, and tics are common. You know, the stimming can look a lot like a tic.
Speaker 1:So just for everybody that's not familiar with Stimming, with autistic spectrum disorders, stimming which is like a compulsive movement which is to self-settle, correct, correct, yeah, I think that's correct, and I'm not as familiar with that disorder so you know I might be speaking out of turn just to be clear, we're familiar, we know it. Yeah, oh yeah, perfect, thank you.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 2:And yeah, so there's so much overlap between the two. But the biggest difference I was explained by my son's psychiatrist after diagnosis was that, yes, they have all these things in common, but the biggest difference between a diagnosis of Tourette syndrome and autism was the awareness of social cues. Ah, yep, and the problem is getting the correct diagnosis. Obviously Someone with Tourette syndrome, because they're ticking all the time, especially if they've got eye ticks happening and I'd say a neck tick. So you know they've got eye ticks and neck ticks going on and some vocal stuff plus some obsessive stuff going on and maybe some ADHD mixed in there. They're going to miss a lot of social cues, but if they see them they get them so just to explain that um, in terms of autistic spectrum disorder, is the um?
Speaker 1:inability to notice and respond appropriately to social cues is a big part of the autistic spectrum disorder. Yeah, would you agree with that? Yeah, absolutely. I was just thinking about the notion of magical thinking, which, of course, it all comes under magical thinking that years and years and years ago see, this is why I get it. Years and years and years ago, david and I were doing a production of the African Queen. David had adapted it for the stage. Oh wonderful, yeah, it was really good. Get it. Years and years and years ago, david and I were doing a production of the african queen.
Speaker 1:David had adapted it for the stage and it was really good, and we were good, weren't we?
Speaker 2:I was amazing I would love to have seen that. I love that movie growing up. I love that movie.
Speaker 1:We did it on stage, just the two of us and we toured it around wonderful and um, at the same time that we mounted it, my father this is this interesting thinking style was diagnosed with bowel cancer and I can distinctly remember thinking we can't do that production again because that will cause my father to get bowel cancer. Now I knew I'm quite smart, I'm fairly sceptically brained, but man did I have trouble managing that thinking because that magical thinking had fired off in my brain and I really really struggled with it. And it wasn't really until I went to Kathy Ebert and did a whole lot of work with CBT and I found CBT very, very helpful because she was like where's the evidence, Where's the evidence, Where's the evidence? And that was really good. But I totally get that magical thinking link that your brain, that this spurious thing over here, that this causation-correlation issue, it's right, Remember, I was like that. It was really strange. It was quite a strange period for me.
Speaker 2:And it just goes to show. There's another myth. I talked about it earlier People with Tourette's Syndrome aren't very smart. People that fall for this magical thinking aren't very smart. Well, they are right People with obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Speaker 1:Yep, we know this to be true. I'm generalized anxiety.
Speaker 2:I'm GAD Me too, so I'm a combination of both of you.
Speaker 1:You're like our love child Generalized anxiety disorder, ADHD. You're the result. You can come and live with us here in beautiful.
Speaker 2:Sydney, australia. Oh, I would love to live here. It's wonderful, but I do love Calgary too. Yeah, we're going to come visit you, I think you should, it would be wonderful.
Speaker 3:Can I ask a question around treatment? So, as you say I mean because we're human beings, there's a whole diversity of mental styles, if you like, and we know that with some of these conditions there are schools that are very normative I sometimes think that where I'm living in a different environment, I would drop the medication. You know I might roll with my instincts a little more. You know I basically did what I did for the first 50 years of my life yes, If you were in a jungle and not beat myself up so much, exactly For letting people down, letting myself down. You know being disorganized and you know all of the things that go with it.
Speaker 3:But look, definitely I chose a path initially, which was to see what difference medication would make. And then I think that when I got a little bit stabilized with my thinking and actually could see that there was another way of operating in the world that was not always trying to make up for a deficit of dopamine, that I could function better, and then, once I got that evidence, then I started to become interested in the cognitive behavioral therapy. You know the routines and the rituals and the relationships, et cetera, that would help Now, given the fact that you've got every condition that Annie and I have got and your lived experiences, you know that members of your family have also been recipients of, you know, a genetic makeup that has inclined them in certain directions. I'm coming to my question. You know, what do you see as the role of something like a CBT or other forms of therapy that are to do with a relationship and a conversation and behavioral interventions, and then how does that balance out with your appreciation of what can be done with pharmaceuticals?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's always a balance, isn't it? It's tricky, and it's also pharmaceuticals. Yeah, it's always a balance, isn't it? It's tricky and it's also very complex, especially if you live not in a big city where you have access to therapists and neurologists and psychiatrists and the whole team. Occupational therapists my kids had, because of hypersensitivities that tend to go along with Tourette syndrome, to the point of not being able to wear socks and underwear and sure you know that kind of thing, and not being able to eat foods and be around smells and all these things. So we had, we had a wide range. I always say that. You know, you hear, every baby needs to be born with a handbook. I said every baby needs to be born with a neurologist, a. I said every baby needs to be born with a neurologist, a psychiatrist a psychologist, an occupational therapist, the whole gamut.
Speaker 2:But I think it's really important to do both, to have both available, because something, for example, like obsessive compulsive disorder, the anxiety to overcome it with exposure and response therapy, which is a subgroup of CBT, it can be so difficult that they can't do it. So some pharmaceuticals with the you know. So this is with a psychiatrist and a psychologist and you work together and yet the parents or the siblings, or the spouses or the whoever it is you that help you through it. You do it all together and you go through the process of exposure and response with the help of pharmaceuticals. All of my kids have been on anxiety medications at some point in their life just to get over those humps and then, once they go through the CPT and the exposure and response, they haven't needed it anymore. Sure so, it anymore, Sure. So it's really important. And one of the criticisms that you hear you know, big pharma, all you're trying to do is dope up these kids. You're not doing any hard work.
Speaker 2:I'm just mad. It's crazy because I saw how this helped my kids. Now I've also seen the other side, where I had a friend whose son was diagnosed with Tourette's syndrome, had a different doctor than mine and was on eight medications, ended up out of school with behavior issues, gained 100 pounds. I mean it was just horrific because they were treating oh there's a side effect, we'll treat you with this medication. And so eventually they were so desperate. They saw how well my kids were doing. They said who's your doctor? So they got a referral to my psychiatrist. The first thing they did was cut off a whole bunch of medications.
Speaker 3:And they ended up back at school.
Speaker 2:It's a balance, yeah it's a balance, exactly so. That's where parents or people or adults need to self-educate, but it's so hard to find the good evidence-based stuff that's out there science-based even better and so it's organizations like the Tourette. Ocd. Alberta Network has that stuff on their website. So those kind of organizations are really, really good. And also, I mean we usually include ADHD under our umbrella. We didn't because of funding. It doesn't mean we don't treat it and we don't talk about it. You know, if we go into a classroom to educate kids about any of this or to educate uh teachers and give them strategies, evidence-based strategies that work in the classroom, that are often counterintuitive to the teachers, yes, of course you know they it's.
Speaker 2:We will talk about all of these things. We don't just limit it tote syndrome and obsessive compulsive disorder.
Speaker 1:And I think I know that I exercise a lot. I exercise every day because I find it really helps me to manage anxiety, but I would never be a proponent of. You know, exercise and sunshine will cure everything, because it just freaking doesn't right, it just doesn't Like leave it alone the whole appeal to nature is so annoying, exercise is good. I know.
Speaker 2:We all can acknowledge that. Yeah, and the other one here you were asking what's bad and misinformation. Change your diet and all this will go away. Oh, it's so irritating. It is so irritating and I'm not advocating that all we're going to eat is donuts. That's not what.
Speaker 1:I'm saying I do like a donut, I do like a donut and I'm still going to have donuts?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3:One of your compatriots is very fond of an old beef diet.
Speaker 2:Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 3:Oh, jordan Peterson, we're speaking about the lobster himself, the great lobster, the man who loves myths so much that he's become a bit of a myth himself.
Speaker 2:Yes, jordan Peterson, famous Canadian psychologist, who I said before denied ADHD. But yes, he said that if you go on, what was it?
Speaker 1:Beef and bourbon.
Speaker 2:You forgot the bourbon.
Speaker 1:We have a place in Sydney called the Beef and Bourbon.
Speaker 3:It's actually a restaurant the Bourbon and Beef Steak Up in the cross right.
Speaker 1:Is it still there? We're really old.
Speaker 3:Is it still there? Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1:The Bourbon and Beef Steak. Maybe that's where he got the idea. Maybe that's where he got the idea. Maybe that's where he got the idea.
Speaker 2:Yeah exactly, yeah, so those things are so harmful. And you've heard the myth about sugar. You give kids sugar and they're going to be hyperactive. It causes ADHD. No, it doesn't cause it. It doesn't cause hyperactivity Exactly.
Speaker 2:And I remember this is before I really got into the whole skepticism thing, but I've always been in science. I have a math major from university and I took biology and chemistry and all these things and I remember that being such a thing when I was teaching and I had this really hyper grade eight class and they were the worst after lunch and everyone said, well, it's because they had so much sugar, their diet's crap. And I'm looking at them before they come in. What are they doing? They're out on the field playing soccer. I think they're wound up.
Speaker 1:That's all it is. Yeah, that's what children's parties people always said to me when the children were little oh, look at them all. It's because you've given them sugar and, honestly, I would have had no friends because the amount of times I wanted to go. That's not true. It's because they're involved in this hyperactive, you know social environment they're excited. It's not the sugar, but I couldn't. I just go yeah. So what do you think? What causes it? What causes Tourette's? What causes ADHD? What causes OCD? What's the cause? Oh my goodness.
Speaker 2:There's a simple question. There's a simple question. There's a simple question for a non-medical person. Yeah, yeah, what's your opinion? What do they say? What I have been told is it's mostly genetic. Yeah, and so there are cases where they can't explain it and they don't understand why. Yeah, and so there's there's some unknowns. For sure, yeah, but we had a lot of questions in our evaluation about both side my husband's side of the family, my side of the family and I was told by a psychologist that it is a dominant recessive gene and has to come from both sides of the family. So I had to stop blaming my husband and he had to stop blaming me, which was actually a wonderful way of looking at it, to be honest.
Speaker 1:So is that for Tourette's syndrome and what? About OCD and I think it's similar.
Speaker 2:I think that there are definitely family traits, and but I don't think it has to come from both sides in that case. I don't know that.
Speaker 1:I don't know the answer to that, but we're looking at us. Really, it's in the genes for sure.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah yeah, and so then, if we were to apply that wisdom of of accepting the things that we can't change, that condition could well be. Well, it sounds like it is one of those things that we actually can't change. The condition is there, it is. But to then take your attention, your time, your resources to the things that you can actually impact.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:And those are the doctor you know, holding a skeptical mindset, which I think you know. I hope Annie's podcast is getting the message out there. The skeptical mindset is not rejecting things, it's remaining inquiring until you have achieved some level of certainty that is sustainable and that is authentic and accountable and complete. Those are the things that you can work on. Those are the things that you can change.
Speaker 1:That was very wise of you, david. Oh, sorry, it was a very wise framework, that's all right. It's quite accurate.
Speaker 1:So, look, I think we've probably covered quite a bit, haven't we Quite a bit, yeah, and I think it has been an excellent chat and I hope that everybody that's listening to this. So I think we've covered quite a lot. I think we've done very well and I hope that everyone who's listening to this um, if you do have um, either yourself or someone in your family that has tourette's, that um has ocd, that has ADHD I hope that we've settled some of the pernicious myths that really are just blaming areas of the person's life where the blame does not belong there. It's a genetic condition and, to David's point, there's so much that we can do to manage these conditions and also I don't mean to, you know, be sort of glib, but a lot of these conditions do actually have a superpower attached.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, I know from my own experience of David he's extremely productive and an astonishing human being, so I think it's always really good to remember that Do not believe an influencer online, Do not believe a TikToker, Do not believe Jordan Peterson and do not believe Andrew Tate, who Donald Trump thanks Donald Trump has allowed back into the States to spread his misogynistic vileness.
Speaker 2:It's crazy and would you like me to read that I would. So yeah, jonathan Steyeyer, who I talked about already, who wrote the book, he posted this and he said as a clinical psychologist, I've worked in a hospital setting for over a decade helping people who experience severe depression. They didn't choose it. This is why mental health literacy matters. And why did he post this? Because Andrew Tate posted in all caps, of course.
Speaker 2:Of course it's all I know how to do, right, yeah exactly yeah, depression is not a disease, because it can be cured by exercising and getting rich. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's simply a choice. Oh my God, you disgusting human being. How awful.
Speaker 2:So just know if you have these conditions.
Speaker 1:That is not the case, but there is help out there and there are ways to manage and there are ways of leading a really productive life 100% and thank you so much for traveling all the way from Canada just to see me Just to be on your podcast. Awesome and such a cheap little trip too. Well done so. Thank you so much, Adrienne, Thank you David, Thanks doppelganger.
Speaker 3:Mental doppelganger.
Speaker 2:Mental doppelganger for sure.
Speaker 1:It's been lovely having you and thank you so much for taking the time out to talk to me and thank you very much for listening everybody. I hope that this has been an instructive and inspiring episode. See you next week. Bye, Thanks for tuning into why Smart Women with me, Annie McCubbin. I hope today's episode has ignited your curiosity and left you feeling inspired by my anti-motivational style.
Speaker 1:Join me next time as we continue to unravel the fascinating layers of our brains and develop ways to sort out the fact from the fiction and the over 6,000 thoughts we have in the course of every day. Remember, intelligence isn't enough. You can be as smart as paint, but it's not just about what you know, it's about how you think. And in all this talk of whether or not just about what you know, it's about how you think. And in all this talk, of whether or not you can trust your gut. If you ever feel unsafe, whether it's in the street, at work, in a car park, in a bar or in your own home, please, please, respect that gut feeling. Staying safe needs to be our primary objective. We can build better lives, but we have to stay safe to do that.
Speaker 1:And don't forget to subscribe, rate and review the podcast and share it with your fellow smart women and allies. Together, we're hopefully reshaping the narrative around women and making better decisions. So until next time, stay sharp, stay savvy and keep your critical thinking hat shiny. This is Annie McCubbin signing off from why Smart Women. See you later. This episode was produced by Harrison Hess. It was executive produced and written by me, Annie McCubbin.
