In this episode of Translating ADHD, Ash and Dusty discuss the emotional challenges faced by individuals with ADHD in the wake of significant global events, such as elections and social issues. They explore how these events can lead to increased emotional dysregulation, rumination, and a diminished capacity to attend to daily responsibilities. Through personal anecdotes and client experiences, they emphasize the importance of recognizing one’s emotional state and adapting self-care strategies accordingly. The hosts advocate for checking out from overwhelming news cycles and focusing on manageable tasks to maintain mental well-being.
The conversation also highlights the importance of community support and connection during difficult times. Ash shares his mantra of “no dying” as a reminder to prioritize self-preservation, while Dusty introduces practical tips for breaking tasks down into smaller steps to combat feelings of overwhelm. As they wrap up, they affirm that it’s okay to be where you are emotionally and that the struggle will eventually ease, allowing for greater engagement with the world around you.
Episode links + resources:
For more of the Translating ADHD podcast:
- Episode Transcripts: visit TranslatingADHD.com and click on the episode
- Follow us on Twitter: @TranslatingADHD
- Visit the Website: TranslatingADHD.com
Episode Transcript:
[00:00:00] Ash: Hi, I’m Ash. [00:00:02] Dusty: And I’m Dusty. [00:00:03] Ash: And this is Translating ADHD. Before we get started, quick reminder about the upcoming group coaching courses I am hosting in January. Purpose begins January 13th and Project X begins January 14th. Both meet at 8:30pm Eastern. For more information about the content of each course, pricing and to apply, visit the website TranslatingADHD.com and click on the group coaching tab.So, Dusty, we’re going to deviate from, I don’t even remember whatever our last episode was. I think we, we left off on a, yeah, we left off on a thread that we’re going to pick back up. Right.
[00:00:42] Dusty: We did two. [00:00:43] Ash: We did two. [00:00:43] Dusty: Might do three. [00:00:45] Ash: So listeners, we’re going to deviate from the topics that we were on today, because this is the first time Dusty and I have sat down to record since the U.S. election. And we’ve both been in the seat as coaches afterwards, seeing how this is impacting our clients.Toward the end of season one, Cam and I did a series of episodes on when life gets in the way. And right now, we’re all experiencing a moment where life’s going to get in the way for us in some ways. This is having an impact on our clients. It’s having an impact on you. It’s having an impact on me. And that is something that needs to be talked about.
[00:01:30] Dusty: So, I think there’s sort of a lot of interesting and important tangents here, because obviously this is pretty historical. It’s like a really big major thing. But at the heart of this is the issue of like, how do we, how does our ADHD impact us when global events like this happen – or even just big events in our own life, like the death of a loved one or a job loss or something, right?Because with ADD, we struggle more with emotional dysregulation. We struggle with justice sensitivity, rumination, black and white thinking, perfectionism, and all of these are going to impact our ability to, like, do the, attend to the, like, daily things that we need to attend to in the face of, like, things that are happening in the world or in our lives, right?
And so I think probably we have a decreased capacity to, like, attend to the daily things, like walking the dog, and like paying the bills, and like getting the groceries when we’re, like, totally consumed, and totally emotionally consumed by something like this. Would you agree?
[00:02:30] Ash: Absolutely. And it was really interesting because I was noticing my own ability to attend in the month leading up to the election was really diminished. And I genuinely wasn’t sure why. Things were otherwise very much on an upswing for me. I was feeling optimistic. I was feeling ready to tackle some things, including a new creative project.And suddenly here I am, like to use some really oldschool podcast language, in Hoth. Right. I’m just unable to attend to anything that doesn’t require me to attend to it. And it was really frustrating
[00:03:10] Dusty: Did you say in Hoth? [00:03:12] Ash: In Hoth. [00:03:13] Dusty: Is that an old podcasting term, or is that a Star Wars reference? [00:03:16] Ash: It’s both. It’s this crazy metaphor that Cam and I came up with when we first started coaching together. And at that time I was genuinely stuck on the couch. My organizing business was dying because I wasn’t attending to it in any way, shape, or form. I had no clients booked. I had existing clients and new clients that wanted to work with me, and I just wasn’t doing anything about it.And so Cam likened that to the doors closing on that base in Star Wars on Hoth and me being stuck inside by myself, which was a great metaphor and a place I found myself again, to a lesser degree, but a place that I recently found myself in again. And for no reason I could pinpoint in terms of what’s going on in my own life.
And then I realized as the election was getting closer, particularly as a transgender person, I was carrying that anxiety with me and I hadn’t realized it. It very much was impacting my ability to attend. And as we got closer to the election, particularly with my clients who are marginalized in some way, the queer clients, my clients of color, that started coming up in our coaching sessions as well.
In fact, I coached a queer client the week before the election. We narrowed our focus to just the next week. They couldn’t see past next week, and I normalized that for them. First of all, that’s okay. What does it look like to show up for yourself between now and then? And that was the coaching work that we did.
[00:04:47] Dusty: Yeah, and that’s it, right? Like, I think we have to, it starts with acknowledging that these things are going to hit us harder and hit us differently. And then thinking about what we know about ADHD to navigate around that, because as much as these things are like, they are devastating, and they are global, and they are very worrisome.We still have human meat suits that require sustenance. We have responsibilities to attend to, and we don’t know the future. So it’s important not to be like, there’s no point to any of this. Everything is over. Right?
Like, I have a similar experience. I have a client who’s very involved in science and climate change, and it is really challenging for them to attend to daily things because of their perspective on where we’re at with climate change. Which is like, again, totally understandable. At the same time, I want to make sure that this person doesn’t just like fall apart.
So, our ADHD can get the better of us here in a way that’s problematic. Like for me, when my daughter was very young, in her first, second year of life, this was during the period where all that stuff was happening at the southern border with kids being separated from their families and taken to detention centers. And with a very young child, my empathy went into overdrive, and I was like obsessing. Like I kept looking at my daughter and thinking like, oh my God, like there are children the same age as her, the same developmental level as her, and like what happens to these kids when they can’t access their parents, when they can’t access the comfort, when no one’s taking care of them.
And I was obsessing, right. And I was so upset all the time. I wasn’t really attending to my daughter, right? Like, yeah, I mean, she was taken care of, but I was, like, distracted. I wasn’t with her, right? My heart went out to all these other children so much that, like, my own child in front of me, like, I was having a hard time getting my attention.
And I was having a hard time taking care of myself. You know, I didn’t want to go to the gym, I just wanted to like, have a bottle of wine or just like, veg out in front of the TV. And so, who am I helping with that? Right?
And my client who’s really, you know, quite ruminative and really feeling challenged around the climate stuff, like, who are they helping if they’re just falling apart about it? And that’s it, you know, it is going to impact us harder. And those impacts are going to have consequences.
[00:06:54] Ash: And the closer those impacts are to home, the harder it is to detach from those things, right. This has been an ongoing conversation with a number of my clients since 2016. This wanting to do good in the world, wanting to be part of the solution and not part of the problem, wanting to find ways to have an impact.But in this way, where my clients drive themselves crazy because they feel like they need to do it all. Something I said to one of these clients a few years ago, and I’ve used many times since, is the world is on fire and you are one person with one bucket. You can only do so much. And the really important thing here, listeners, is you can’t do anything at all if you are driving yourself into the ground with anxiety and worry and rumination that’s not serving you. Then that’s not serving anyone else.
I very rarely give advice, but in this case, the piece of advice I would give to anyone listening who’s having a hard time right now is it’s okay to check out for a while. It’s okay to go on a low information diet. That is exactly what I did the day after the election. I unfollowed all of the political subreddits I follow, and that’s really the only social media I use, so that was the only step I needed to take personally.
And I took a further step of asking my co parent, who is able to stay engaged and stay informed without getting alarmed – he’s good at knowing when to be alarmed and when not to be alarmed – to let me know if something happens that I need to know about, that I need to be alarmed about. So I’ve even got support there in terms of, I don’t need to be informed because someone else has my back and will inform me if it’s something that directly impacts me as a transgender person living in the state of Missouri.
And otherwise, I just don’t need to read it. And all it does is cause anxious response for me.
[00:08:57] Dusty: Well, and you’re talking about asking for help. You’re talking about outsourcing. Classic ADHD like thing that we, I mean, I think your advice is apropos in that it falls within the scope of like what we all always need to do. We need to ask others for help. Right? And I think there’s something here.Maybe we can talk about it today, or maybe we can talk about it in a future episode. But I think where we’re getting close to is the topic of ADHD and activism, or like, being that person who makes that social change. ‘Cause I actually, I have a lot to say on this. I have always struggled with this myself, and I’m like the opposite of that, right?
Like there, I have those clients too that drive themselves way too crazy trying to do everything perfectly. I just get overwhelmed and shut down. ‘Cause I know that there’s like so much learning I need to do, so much background education and so many actions I should be taking and I’m not. I don’t know where to start. And I just like end up shutting down.
And I’ve had to do a lot of work myself on figuring out like ADHD friendly solutions to like being who I want to be in terms of a global citizen or a person in my community or an activist or whatever. So, I feel like I have a lot, there’s a lot to say there, but yeah, it’s about recognizing your capacity and as in the words of Casey Davis, right? You can’t save the rainforest if you’re depressed, I think is what we’re getting at.
[00:10:06] Ash: Absolutely. And those are wise words. And by the way, if you are depressed, be where you are and that is okay too. It is okay to be where you are and to recognize, I don’t have anything right now at this moment to give to other people. None of us always has the capacity to give to others 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So if that’s where you are, be there and be okay with that. [00:10:34] Dusty: I have one thing to give to the listeners. It’s an Audre Lorde quote. It says, Audre Lorde said, “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” [00:10:46] Ash: Ooh, I love that. And it really is so apropos in these times. I will tell you what I’ve been doing since the election. I’ve been spending a lot of time with my queer community, and I’ve been trying to encourage others to do exactly what that quote says. Now is the time for us to take care of ourselves, to enjoy the beautiful moments we have. And if things get ugly in a way that we can’t see or predict right now, we have so much skill and talent and grit and generosity of spirit among us that we will figure it out from there. And no one of us has to do it alone.And so, we’ve harped a lot on community, I feel like, in the last several episodes, but listeners who are feeling particularly alone right now and feeling like you don’t know what to do, now is the time to maybe find something very local, to find your people in a local, accessible way. And when a need arises in that community if you’re the person that can fill it, great.
[00:11:57] Dusty: I’ve been making Molotov cocktails. Ha ha ha, just kidding. [00:12:01] Ash: Careful. We’re going to have the FBI listening to our little podcast. [00:12:04] Dusty: Good. Bring them on. Bring them on. Come for me, Gmork. I am Atreyu. [00:12:12] Ash: I wish you all could have seen the face and the hand motions that went along with that. It was really, really great. [00:12:17] Dusty: We all know this is getting edited out and in the post, leave it, leave it in. I dare you editor, leave it in. Come for the advice, stay for the confession of illegal activities. [00:12:31] Ash: That was all very funny. So please don’t take my lack of reaction as anything other than me trying to hold onto this balloon string of a thought so that I can get it out. Something I’ve really learned to do for myself is, like, consider what my resources are, right? What do I have that I can freely give, whether it be time or money or whatever. And if I don’t have it, I don’t have it, right?So where do we go from here today? What do you think?
[00:12:54] Dusty: I think we’re starting to get into it, but it’s just about understanding. I think we’re talking about having the understanding that, like, as ADD, this is going to impact you more. Your experience and how you’re feeling right now is not necessarily just the way that everyone else is feeling.I think it’s important to give yourself more space and grace, and recognize that this might be impacting you harder than other people. And that means that this is the time to use strategies, right? This is the time to be like, okay, what do I do?
You know, there’s the activism piece. There’s the what do I do in terms of how do I help? But right now it’s about the what do I do to make sure that I don’t like completely fall apart and that I’m taking care of myself in the face of some very hard news.
[00:13:35] Ash: That’s exactly right, Dusty. And I talked earlier about what my last month looked like, and I’ll talk a little bit more about it. Why did I not slide all the way back into being on the couch and being completely frozen the way that I was when Cam and I first started working together?It was because I know things about myself that I didn’t know then, and I’m better at giving myself grace than I was then. So, the things that must be done, get done, because that’s self care. The things that can slide – I’ve been living, my kid and I have been living out of the dryer in terms of laundry, for the last month. And that’s fine. The clothes got washed, everybody has clean underwear to wear, and it is okay to have to take the clothes out of the dryer for now. Is it how I operate at my best? No. Is it something that I can let slide without it having detrimental impacts on my life? Yes, I don’t have to put energy into this right now today.
Another thing that’s been really helpful for me is sitting down and just getting that stuff out of my brain. Right. Rather than this undifferentiated mass of what all am I concerned about both globally and very like hyper locally in my own personal life, swirling around and making me anxious at inopportune times, just sitting down and like dumping that all onto a sheet of paper and seeing it in black and white.
That’s a great first step to start to organize your thoughts. Okay, what’s the action for now, and what can I set aside and worry about at another time? That’s kind of a double whammy for me as a trans person, right? Because there are steps that I want to take that I may not be able to take if I don’t take them now. So that’s put some rush on those things as well. Because when it’s swirling around in a disorganized mess, it’s not helping anybody.
[00:15:24] Dusty: Yeah, and so I think there’s sort of like, there’s three layers here that I’m seeing, right? Like one is the like, what can I ask for help with? Right? Cause like some of that stuff, like as a trans person, what are the things I need to do that I may not be able to do?This is the time that we go and we talk to our trans friends and we go, what can I do for you? Right? We have more capacity. We got to help. And you ask your friends who are less impacted or may be less personally impacted by these things, come take these things off my plate, whatever it is, right? Do some research for me, even, right? Can you research options for me? Can you bring me three options for whatever?
The second thing I’m hearing is like, breaking it down, down, down, down, down. Right? Like when you’re under a mass of like, problems, you just have to take like, one step. And just let it be one step. It can be the smallest little thing. But just like, just focus on one tiny thing in front of you.
And I do this in different ways because I get really overwhelmed by this, too, whenever I have something going on that’s like really got me down on top of a bunch of little things. And so sometimes I will literally take a post it note and I will write my one small action and I will carry that post it note around the house, and I won’t look at my to do lists.
Other times, I almost kind of imagine myself like those racehorses with the little blinders on either side of their face, and I actually narrow my field of vision to directly in front of me. And I just think, like, what is the one task that is directly in front of me? It’s just this right?
And I will literally walk around the house with my hands like this on either side of my face. And it’s like a reminder that like, okay, I’m just focusing on this. It almost like creates a magical barrier between all the like ruminative thoughts in me. I can like push them away by keeping my hands on either side of my eyes and be like, no, just this one thing, just this one thing.
So there’s that, there’s breaking it down to the, just the one thing that you can do. But then I think the third level is also around, like, your body basics, right? Like, now is not the time to be up late scrolling and cutting into your sleep. Like, now is not the time to be, like, binge drinking. You have to sleep more than you think you should sleep. You have to hydrate more than you think you should hydrate. You have to rest more than you think you should rest. You need to make sure that you have, nutritious and nourishing foods, you have to get out for a walk.
All those basic things have an impact on your brain, but during times of trouble, like, we tend to do the wrong thing. We stay up all night doom scrolling. We don’t leave our bed, we don’t shower and then that further exacerbates the already horrible situation that you’re in.
[00:17:42] Ash: Dusty, that’s a really excellent point. And actually you just called out something I’ve been doing that I didn’t realize I was doing until now, in a good way, a form of self care. I have been, since long before the election stuff came into my purview in a way where it was an active stressor, I have been struggling with morning care, brushing teeth, washing face, et cetera. Getting it done often enough, but never consistently.And in the last couple of weeks, I’ve made it a really intentional practice to make sure I’m leaving enough time from the time I wake up to the time that I have my first client or my first meeting, or my first thing I’m obligated to be at, to not just wash my face and brush my teeth – and floss my teeth all of the sudden is a thing that I do every day – but to give myself time to do it in a leisurely way so that it doesn’t feel like this rush, this annoying thing I have to hurry up through.
And it really does feel better to start the day that way. Particularly so now in these difficult times, you’ve seen me roll into podcast recording before with my hair completely unfixed and looking like I just rolled out of bed. And Cam saw that a lot more often because we used to record on Monday morning. So I would literally roll out of bed and into my chair.
When things are otherwise going well for me, and I’m otherwise attending to that self care stuff in another way well enough, that’s okay. But adding some intentionality right now to, okay, it’s a tough life and a tough world, but you’re still here, you’re still alive, you can wash your face and brush your teeth and start the day feeling just a little more ready, has been a really huge source of support for me.
[00:19:34] Dusty: Well then further to that piece around like activism or like what we do, you know, and this idea, you can’t, you know, save the rainforest if you’re depressed, right? If you can’t convince yourself that anything matters right now, or you’re depressed, or you’re like really struggling, you have fear for the future, to show up for yourself, like, tell yourself you’re doing it because, like, you want to be ready, right? You want to be ready to do what you can. You need to take care of yourself so that you can help in any way that you can help.And I think if we go back to that Audrey Lord quote, you know, now is a time where, if you occupy, you know, a certain kind of identity, and under this leadership, I would argue many, many identities are sort of not being looked out for now. Just continuing to exist is an act of revolution, too.
I once saw this Tiktok. I thought it was really funny and perfect, but it was like, it was talking about, like, continuing to live out of spite. Right? Like, as a trans person, or as like, whatever, just like, existing spitefully, you know? Like, you want us to be gone? You don’t want us to, exist? You don’t want us to have joy? Well, we’re gonna do all those things despite you, right?
And so I do think that no matter where you are, where you feel like you’re at right now with the future, or what kinds of global things are happening, or what things might be happening in your global world, again, like loss, grief, job loss, maybe you just broke up a relationship, maybe you’re getting divorced, maybe your beloved pet died, maybe you lost a child. Like, you know, there are things that happen that, you know, it puts us pretty low.
Like continuing to exist has a purpose, right? And it’s an act of revolution and, it makes ripples, right? And it helps other people. When we live through historical times where there is more oppression or where we don’t have as much personal liberty and freedom, seeing those identities and those voices and knowing that there are people out there like us is even more important.
[00:21:28] Ash: That’s really well said, Dusty. And I’ve thought about this myself on a couple of fronts. Number one, when I came out on this podcast, that was in my brain, at the time, just like a functional and logistical thing that needed to happen. I wasn’t at all thinking about what impact I might have. Just being a visible trans person doing this good work. And that was a bit of a surprise to me when listeners, particularly other queer listeners, started reaching out specifically to say that your visibility matters.Number two, I have a little mantra. We actually, this is a running joke in my house, that rule number one is no dying. And I’m going to tell you where that came from. The day that I came out publicly. The day that that podcast episode dropped, and I had an email ready to go to all of my former clients and colleagues, again, thinking about the logistics, thinking about, I want people to be able to find me and still know who I am, who do I need to reach out to? I had this massive list of things that I needed to do that day to flip that switch, new website, emails need to go out. There’s a video that needs to be posted.
And the night before, I sat down, and I realized I needed to organize this list. That was the final thing I needed to do before I went to bed. And I was so anxious. So I opened up a word document and without even thinking about it, my fingers just typed ‘no dying’ in all capital letters at the top. It’s like, okay, if I don’t die, then we’re all right. Since then, that’s been a running joke in my little family, right? Rule number one, no breaking rule number one, no dying.
But it’s kind of taken on a life of its own where now I think about no dying, and it’s like some days like no dying is enough. Some days adhering to rule number one is enough, and I don’t have to do more.
So listeners, feel free to borrow that mantra if that’s helpful for you. If I’m having a particularly tough day, whether I’m feeling particularly gloomy about, like, all of our collective future, or I’m down in the muck about my own personal stuff and the struggles there, it can add a little levity to just be like, you’re not breaking rule number one. So long as we’re there, right? There’s still opportunity to get through this.
[00:23:47] Dusty: Okay. I have a resource to offer you and the listeners. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen this, Ash, but there’s a website called YouFeelLikeShit.com. And it’s literally a game that leads you through self care. So you go to YouFeelLikeShit.com, and it just asks you a series of questions. And then it makes a series of suggestions based on how you answer.So it’ll be like, have you eaten? Have you slept? Have you had water? Like, have you, you know, do you need to take any medication? Like, are you feeling worried? And then based on your answers, it’ll give you little things to do. So the game can sometimes take up to an hour. But like, again, whether you are feeling really low in response to geopolitical events that have recently happened, or maybe you’re someone who struggles with really bad depression, or you’ve been through something very tragic in your own life, there are tools that exist for your mental health, and I love YouFeelLikeShit.com
It’s like such a basic straightforward thing. It’s kind of funny, but if all you can do, you know, there’s this great ADD coach – she’s taking a break from coaching now, but she had a great Tiktok account, I think she’s still posting it from time to time – their name is Sarah Dopp. I don’t know if you’ve heard of them.
[00:24:46] Ash: I haven’t. Tell me more. [00:24:47] Dusty: Okay, so Sarah’s TikTok content is really great. I really recommend going to watch it. But there’s this one TikTok that I love to reference in particular because it talks about a coaching concept that I often discuss with my clients, but I never had like really snappy language for it.So Sarah talks about like, if you’re at a 1, don’t try to go to a 5. The problem with ADD is we try to skip steps. We’re at a 1, we feel like going to a 5 is like impossible. So the example that they give is like, let’s imagine that like a 1 is like you’re laying in bed, and you feel miserable. And a 5 is like going for a jog. And you’re just like laying there trying to will yourself to get up and go for a jog, and it just feels too hard.
Don’t try to go from a 1 to a 5. Try to go from a 1 to a 2. So if 1 is laying in bed, maybe 2 is like sitting up in bed, right? Maybe 3 is like standing up next to the bed. Maybe a 4 is like putting on your clothes and your jogging shoes. And maybe a 5 is like going to stand outside and then deciding if you want to go for a jog. So if you’re at a 1, just try to get to a 2. What is a 2? When you’re at 2, then try to get to a 3, right? But don’t try to go from a 1 to a 5.
I think that that’s like again such a useful framework. Don’t worry about getting the groceries. Don’t worry about getting your taxes done. Don’t worry about, you know, all the getting the, this big report done at work. If you’re at a 1, what is a 2? Maybe it’s just going from your bedroom to your office. And maybe a 2 to a 3 is just turning on your laptop, right? And maybe a 3 to 4 is just booting up the program where your report is. Like, just take it one step at a time.
[00:26:18] Ash: I love that, Dusty. And that’s such a great framework for what we were talking about earlier. That’s what is the thing that I can do now? If you aren’t in a place where you can do what I suggested earlier, which is writing it all down and looking at it, that’s a great way to, in the moment, check in with yourself and tackle that question.And that’s actually, I love that language, and I’ve not heard it before. I will definitely be adopting it as well. It is very snappy, but that’s, in so many ways, how I’ve been living my life lately is. Okay. I can’t solve the biggest or even most urgent problem right now, but this is what I have energy towards and that’s okay that’s helpful, too. That’s something that either needs to be done or that I want to do.
So rather than being upset with myself about it, I’m going to put my energy in that. I’m just going to follow the energy and put it in that direction and let that be okay for right now, because I know that right now I don’t have the capacity to tackle the hairy, scary, urgent thing, but I can tackle something.
[00:27:16] Dusty: Yeah, and you will again someday. Right? That’s the other thing, like, with ADD, I don’t know about you, but I, once I get in a mood, I’m sure that, like, this is how things have always been and how they’re always gonna be.I always like to tell this little anecdote to my clients. This one time, after my ex-husband left, I was living with my daughter, who was very young, and my mom lived downstairs. I was totally responsible for keeping our house clean. I wanted to sweep the floor in the kitchen, because it was messy. But I just didn’t want to. Like, I wanted to, but I didn’t want to.
And so I kept talking to myself about it, and I was beating myself up in that classic way. Like, come on, sweep the floor. Like, what’s wrong with you? Come on. How are you going to be an adult? How are you going to take care of a child if you can’t even get yourself to sweep the floor, like, right. And I was just getting really down on myself about the fact that I just didn’t want to sweep the floor. And I was doing that thing where I was, you know, Hulk smashing through the wall of awful as Brendan Mahan says, right.
So I pushed myself, I bullied myself until I went into the kitchen. I started sweeping, and I just remember I was weeping while I was sweeping.
[00:28:09] Ash: Oh no. Weeping while sweeping. [00:28:11] Dusty: And then I stopped, and I was like, wait. I had this moment where I was like, wait. I’ve swept the floor before and it hasn’t been this hard. So, if it’s been possible for me to sweep the floor in the past and it’s felt easy, is it possible that there might be another time in the future where I can sweep the floor and it won’t feel hard, but it just feels hard right now? Like, why don’t I just wait for that moment where it doesn’t feel hard?So I put the broom down, and I went away. And then, like, the next day – I just like went to bed or whatever – and the next day I was like oh, I’ll sweep the kitchen floor. And I just swept it, and it just felt easy. And I think now for me every moment where I’m like trying to force myself to do something that feels so hard, I try to remember that moment and be like maybe, you know what, you’ll probably feel like sweeping the floor tomorrow, right?
So if everything feels hard now, and you just have to do the barest minimum now, like just remember that like that is not necessarily how you’ll feel tomorrow, next week, next month. You might feel this way for a while, but like you’re going to feel better again at some point.
[00:29:02] Ash: I love that, Dusty. And I think that’s such a great place for us to wrap because what you just articulated is really kind of the moral of this episode, if there is one. And what we’re trying to convey is, listeners, be where you are, but also be aware that you are impacted to a more severe degree than somebody who is neurotypical.So, whatever self care looks like for you right now in this moment, that’s okay. And you will eventually feel better, and you’ll start to figure out what to do from there. Which is what we’re going to talk about next week when we dive into ADHD and advocacy, which is another challenging topic – that whole one person, one bucket with the world on fire.
[00:29:48] Dusty: Yeah, and if you don’t feel better by that point, I should have a lot of Molotov cocktails. [00:29:52] Ash: All right, listeners, on that note, we will see… [00:29:55] Dusty: Wait, if the FBI is listening, I’m joking. Okay? Don’t come for me. I’m kidding. This is a joke. [00:30:02] Ash: I’m sure that disclaimer will make a difference. So provided that Dusty is not locked up next week, listeners, we will see you back here next week. Until then I’m Ash. [00:30:12] Dusty: I’m Dusty. [00:30:14] Ash: And this was the Translating ADHD podcast. Thanks for listening.
