ADHD at 33

[Music]

i was running late

i had to give a parent talk that night

so

i got on my bike and immediately all

these thoughts start racing through my

mind and i was thinking

had i prepared enough for my talk would

the parents

like me and then i start going into

other places as well so i was thinking

you know what was i gonna have for

dinner tonight and this car pulls up

alongside me and they have you know i

love music and

they have this really great beat kind of

playing in the car and i’m kind of

dancing along and enjoying it

and then i’m like oh there’s a really

cool store over there maybe i’ll check

that out sometime

all of a sudden i’m at the building and

you know i’m looking down at my phone

and i’m looking at what was the room

number again and all of a sudden

wham i walk right into a glass wall

and immediately i started thinking what

was i

thinking that was so stupid what why am

i always in this

rush and trying to you know get to where

i’m going i’m always three steps behind

and these are questions that i’ve asked

myself

throughout my whole life and i could

never really quite figure out why i just

thought

you know these are things that

everybody’s always thinking and i just

have to work

really hard to get things right so i go

to my counselor

and my counselor asked me a bunch of

questions about my family

and my history and uh you know why might

i be thinking some of these thoughts

and he said have you ever been assessed

for adhd for attention deficit

hyperactivity disorder

and i thought no you know i know i

struggle with attention

but i always sort of just feel like

well this is what i need to do and as it

turns out

i was diagnosed with adhd and still

am at age 33.

so what i really want to get at today is

these three things where we’re in this

highly distracting society

and all of us are experiencing this

right now

we need to change our ways for better

health

and we really need to help people unlock

their passions

to really help our society and our world

thrive

so adhd you might know someone with adhd

you might have it yourself or you have a

friend who has it or you might think

you know think you have it really is

comprised of

inattention so what’s called inattentive

type where

you’re highly distracted hyperactive

impulsivity so that is the

restlessness and the sitting on the edge

of your seat and

this is the kid who is bouncing off the

walls in the classroom

and you can have one of these or the

other

and you can also have what i have which

is this combined type

so the more i kept reading about adhd

the more i kept thinking that is me that

is

a hundred percent me in a book or me on

a page

things like talking excessively

on the right here i’m a musician and

these are all song ideas

and i’m frantically scribbling down song

ideas and generating all this content

and

in my head i’m thinking oh what’s the

rhythm to that and you know what

instrument should go there

but then you kind of look at the page

and you think

jesus kind of a disorganized mess you

know there’s no real logical

coherence anything about it and

these are the struggles these are you

know things that i deal with every day

and my favorite uh sort of symptom that

when you take the um

screening tool for adhd is this being

driven by a motor

which uh is exactly you know who i am

every day so the key here is that we’re

different

having adhd and this is absolutely

crucial is

does not mean that you’re stupid it

doesn’t mean that you’re inadequate

or you’re not capable of being a

contributing person

in society it just means that you think

differently we are chemically wired to

be different

so if you look back at

research from adhd this syndrome of

paradoxes

so adhd especially if you’ve worked with

someone with adhd if

you have it yourself you know that an

adhd person can be highly distracted

but then the next minute they can be

intensely focused on something

and there’s this paradox right that

happens and

another um term that you might hear is

this variable attention disorder so

my attention varies from one moment to

the next

okay how do i cope with this how do i

deal

with all of these challenges in my

day-to-day

well with the pandemic and all

of these life stressors going on whether

it’s family

or relationships or anything else that’s

going on in your life

it’s really really hard and

as someone with adhd it’s even more

of a struggle right this information

overload trying to make sense of

everything and process

so what do i do well there’s some

really basic things you can do i would

highly suggest getting your own

counseling

i see a counselor regularly regularly

and it is a tremendous help to have an

ally and a coach

and someone who really believes in me

also

if you need it and you’re diagnosed

taking medicine can be really helpful

adhd is

highly treatable in a lot of ways and

really allows me to still

contribute to society

the last piece is this social connection

where

you know if i’m really struggling i call

a friend

maybe i call home find those people

in your life that you know you can

confide in and talk to

and those things are tremendously

helpful

but all of those things as i’ve kind of

processed this and

and worked through this diagnosis and

coming to terms with it

don’t really um change

everything right i still have those

struggles those day-to-day struggles

and i was trying to figure out okay what

is going to really

help me the most and what i realized

is it was following my passions

and focusing my energy on my passions

i’m actually able to focus

on things that i’m passionate about

so this has been really revolutionary

for me and

passions are important for many

different reasons in our life

i think right everyone deserves to

to be able to follow what it is you

really care about

there’s two main things for me that

they’ve been really helpful for

so first is this idea that

when i’m following my passions i’m able

to attend and focus

and put all my time and resources and

energy into that thing that i’m doing

which is something i don’t have that

opportunity to do in something that i

don’t really care about right if i’m

sitting in a boring lecture or a long

talk

i immediately drift off

the other reason they’re really

important is

adhd kind of like i mentioned earlier

we are always feeling like we’re

inadequate

right feeling like we’re not good enough

and

these passions really are things that

i’m confident and i have that

self-confidence

in myself that i know i’m good at this i

know i can do these things well

so a couple examples i love

being in nature and i love

i i grew up on an island and i was a

fish growing up and i love to

swim and i also love going into the

woods

and you know maybe i hear a bird or

maybe i’m checking out a particular

plant or

um and what’s so amazing about nature is

it’s this fully immersive experience

which really is an adhd person’s dream

because there’s so many things i can

attend to and i’m not feeling

judged or like other people are being

critical of me

right i’m just letting myself be and and

be present in that in

that space the

next passion of mine is i absolutely

love to cook

so growing up my family called me shea

pear

which you know short for perry

i love cooking and i love exploring

flavors and textures and

and different foods and what’s amazing

about cooking is

it’s a really complex task so i have to

go from

start to finish and follow all these

different steps to get through a recipe

and get to the end it’s really

complicated and especially for someone

with adhd how amazing is that to

focus and actually see something to

completion and i get this great

satisfaction

when i serve up a warm meal to someone

and just seeing the expression on their

face and wow this is so

delicious this is so good it gives me

that self-confidence that i’m

talking about the other passion of mine

is music

and i grew up playing music and guitar

and doing audio production

as a hobby and mixing and performing

[Music]

and what i love about music is this free

creative space for me to just explore

and there’s so many things to attend to

in music

there’s so many different types of music

there’s so many things for me to focus

on of

the balance of the instruments or the

particular sound that i’m going for

and all of those things right is what i

excel at those are the things that i

know

i can confidently be proud of

so the last one

is i love exercise

and whether it’s going for a bike ride

or a run

[Music]

when i’m exercising there’s actually a

chemical basis for why

exercise is really helpful for people

with adhd

so i have right a a deficit

in neurotransmitters that causes me to

seek out stimulation

okay and when i exercise right it is

this

flood of activity that balances that

chemical imbalance

so when i come back from a run and i sit

down and i have to do

a task and focus i’m actually able to do

it right so it has this chemical basis

so it’s a very very powerful tool to

change my body

and to change my mind and that’s really

something that’s been revolutionary so

how do we unlock this

potential in people we often look at

people with adhd from this deficit

perspective

right and oh they’re so annoying and

they won’t stop talking and they’re

always disrupting

to unlock potential we need to

change how we think about our

development throughout the lifespan

and really help people with adhd figure

out

what is it they’re good at what do they

enjoy what do they like doing

and support them in that right and give

them something to be proud of

and if we can do that our world will

really

thrive thank you

you