This April Fools Day, we’re exploring ways in which our ADHD brains keep us fooling ourselves
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And how awareness and compassion really help…
How about you?
Le grá (with love),
FULL TRANSCRIPT
For me, if I don’t have something to read, I feel quite anxious. I don’t want to be anywhere where I could be reading and I’m not reading, but also I don’t know what mood I’m going to be in at that time, so I tend to bring like different journals and magazines as well as maybe a memoir and maybe a novel. And this might be just for one night, but I’m, especially now I can drive so I’m not lugging it all on the train, and like my brother has used a Kindle since they were invented and I know so many people use like Kindles or similar and I’m just like, “What if it ran out? What if it broke?” I can’t, I need to know, I’ve got stuff to read.
Hi, I’m Eve Menezes Cunningham and welcome to The Feel Better Every Day Podcast. I am so excited to be sharing new trauma-informed and ADHD-friendly ideas for you to help you take better care of yourself, that highest, wisest, truest, wildest, most joyful, brilliant and miraculous part of yourself, as well as the basic self-care which we all know can be so challenging at times.
I really appreciate you tuning in. If you want a deeper dive you’ll be getting bonus content each week if you sign up to the Sole to Soul Circle. You can do that for free or from as little as eight euros a month. And you can also find more ideas in the book, 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing.
Thanks for joining me again, Jayne Leonard, I really appreciate it.
Thanks Eve, thanks for having me.
We’re celebrating April Fools today and talking about, especially with ADHD, how we fool ourselves, how we delude ourselves.
I’m looking back through 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing and I just looked at the April Fools Day entry and it’s what we’re talking about today:
Are you fooling yourself?
How can we really get honest in a compassionate and curious way about what we’re doing and whether that serves us in terms of what we want to be doing and where we want to be going?
I’m just laughing that I was talking about deluding myself that yumyums were a healthy breakfast. We’re talking also about how like we delude ourselves in terms of, do you want to say some of the things you delude yourself about? Some of the things you fool yourself about?
Yeah, the biggest thing I think I delude myself about is how much I can get done in a time period and I just think, so time is as we know like a really tricky concept for people with ADHD anyway, we just, yeah we struggle with it. But I think also I don’t take into account maybe where I am in the whole, am I in the hyperfocus mode where I can get loads done or am I kind of on the comedown from that or am I in the burnout zone.
So it has been, yeah, it’s been kind of a journey to figure that out and it’s still definitely tricky. Like I sent you a photo when I was in Kerry, in November was it, I sent you a photo of about six books I brought and I was only there for four days and I also had a load of work to do and stuff but this was like, it’s almost like the fantasy of, absolutely, the fantasy of oh and I could and I could get that stuff done if I sat and read.
But I also have all this other stuff to do. But it’s like my brain compartmentalises like you want to get this done so just focus on this and get this done and it doesn’t look at the other compartments that also need to be done.
Yeah I think that’s the biggest thing I delude myself about. I love that about reading and I no longer call them to be read piles, they’re like COULD be read piles because I don’t want that pressure.
For me, if I don’t have something to read, I feel quite anxious and it feels like I don’t want to be anywhere where I could be reading and I’m not reading but also I don’t know what mood I’m going to be in at that time.
I tend to bring like different journals and magazines as well as maybe a memoir and maybe a novel and this might be just for one night but I’m, especially now I can drive so I’m not lugging it all on the train. My brother has used a Kindle since they were invented and I know so many people use like Kindles or similar and I’m just like what if it ran out? What if it broke? I can’t, I need to know, I’ve got stuff to read.
I think packing is like one of the hardest things for people with ADHD because you don’t know what, you know, you’re so used to something not catching your attention, your focus that you saw it.
It’s like you have to have 50 different things in the bag just in case. Which is going to give me the dopamine now?
Thinking like in terms of music, the learning to drive has been hilarious. I drive, my partner lives, it’s an hour and 45 minutes to drive there. I’ll have some grapes and peeled clementines on the seat next to me which I’ve learned over time to do.
Initially it’s like, well there’s nowhere really safe to stop to drink on the way so it’s about having something you can just gently but I need to listen to an audiobook because if it’s a podcast it might have ad breaks that I don’t like. They are too jarring. Even if I have my liked music on shuffle they sometimes insert their recommendations and it’s like or even if it’s something I’ve liked, I’m not in the mood for it in that moment.
I’ve learned to stop fooling myself that I can be more laid back and I can’t do radio at this stage at all but I think knowing I’m still new to driving I have to be really gentle with myself and it’s like nope I have a really long podcast episode and then I can pull over to change it and this is a podcast that doesn’t have ads. Or an audiobook. That’s the safest thing and again predictable.
In terms of fooling yourself, we’ve talked about how much we think we can get done. We’re going to talk a bit more in the Half Moon and Full Moon recordings so if you’re not already a subscriber you can join at selfcarecoaching.net/sole-to-soul-circle/
Even though it’s really, hard like I’ve always been really early, like I was at JFK airport nine hours before a flight from NYC. Same in Spain. I was so terrified that I would get distracted and wander off and miss my flight so I didn’t realise that was ADHD until I did.
It’s that knowing, OK, we know that we don’t have a natural relationship to time. But we also know that time is not actually like time. Clocks were only invented a few hundred years ago. It’s a social construct in a way you never thought about.
Like people with dyslexic brains, apparently it depends on the part of the world you’re from because reading wasn’t a natural thing that like all humans were born known to do. It evolved. We learn how to do it and depending on where you are in the world, you read from right to left or you read in other ways so it depends.
I think yeah we can fool ourselves but we can also be gentle with ourselves and think okay how can I make it how can I feel less foolish around it? I still love the over scheduling myself but by blocking out big parts of my desk diary, I know that that time is not available also for the do do do do do.
I think I also fool myself in that I like I think, “Oh, OK, I can pack this. I’ll just survive with this little bag. I’ll book my flight or whatever and I’ll have this little bag and then I come to pack and I go, ‘Oh my god, no, I need to put everything in here!” Yeah I fool myself a lot.
It’s actually a lot around time. Now that we’re talking about it, I’m realising it’s actually almost all about time. I was talking to someone else actually who fools themselves around and this is not on purpose but again there’s probably a time element. They would only cherry pick the last two instances of something so they might have had an interaction with a mother-in-law or something and they might say, “You know she’s actually really awful to me” but the 10 times before that it wouldn’t have been like that. But it’s again, I think the time and our memories.
Yeah, like if you’ve got a cold and you can’t imagine ever being able to breathe easily again or if you’re physically cold and you can’t ever imagine being hot again or the other way around. So recognising that what we’re feeling in that moment isn’t everything true of everything, yeah.
The ability to zoom out is huge.
Do join us in the Half Moon and or Full Moon Circles and thank you so much for joining. Thank you for listening to this episode of The Feel |Better Every Day Podcast.
I want to help as many people as possible with trauma histories and or ADHD learn how to help yourself to connect with your Self with that uppercase S: that highest, wisest, truest, wildest, most joyful, brilliant, miraculous part of yourself. To become more fully embodied at peace and at ease in your own skin.
To help me do this, if you can think of someone who might benefit, please share it. And if you haven’t already and would like to, you can subscribe, comment, rate, review. And this episode like all of them so far has been produced by me, your host, Eve Menezes Cunningham.
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