Hello Brains!
The last time I did a vlog I talked about how to make our world ADHD-Friendly
and I immediately started walking around my house going "What could make it more ADHD-friendly?"
and Googling stuff and looking stuff up and trying to think of like
"How do I make a project where I make my bedroom the most ADHD-friendly thing ever?"
What I realized is I've done this in the past and it generally does not go well
because I end up solving problems I don't even have.
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There are a lot of challenges that I run into on a daily basis
there's a lot of little barriers that get in my way
when you have ADHD you wanna grease the wheels
you kind of want to make your environment a little bit easier
on your Executive Function to do the things that you want to do
and on the flip side you wanna make it harder
to do the things that you want to avoid doing.
So an example of that is like
if the work that you need to do is in a file on your computer,
and you don't know where it is, and that computer's also in your backpack, and that backpack is
also in the car but the video game controller is right there [Jessica points to a space near her].
Probably not gonna do your homework! [ Jessica laughs ]
You wanna make things easier to do,
you want to reduce the number of challenges you run into
and issues you run into trying to do whatever it is
you're trying to do on a daily basis.
[ INCOMING AD ] Speaking of reducing barriers,
I asked BetterHelp to sponsor this episode in particular because
they're really good at reducing barriers to therapy.
How? BetterHelp is an online counselling platform
that connects you with a licensed therapist that matches
your individual needs and you can communicate through text and, if you want, video.
A couple years ago when I was going through my divorce
I started using it because it felt a little easier for me at the time
while dealing with grief, change, and trauma
and I just wasn't ready to start up therapy in person.
What I loved about using it was I could share what I was going through while I was going through it
I would just open up the app and text and I got thoughtful responses pretty quickly.
It also helped me get used to talking to a professional about some really painful stuff I was going through
which made it a lot easier to transition into in-person therapy later.
With BetterHelp you can start communicating with someone within 48 hours of signing up,
and log in any time to send a message to your counsellor.
BetterHelp makes it easy and free to change counsellors if needed too,
which is important because finding the right fit can make a big difference when it comes to therapeutic outcomes.
And it's available world wide so hello international Brains!
This is not a crisis line, by the way, it is actual, professional counselling done securely online.
If you're currently in crisis and need help, I've linked to some crisis lines in the description below.
If you wanna learn more about BetterHelp
go to betterhelp.com/adhdhowto and complete the questionnaire
so they can better understand where you're at and match you with the right therapist.
And like with any service that helps you find a therapist
make sure you do your own homework too.
Look up the therapist, and make sure they're a good fit for you.
In the mean time, back to the vlog! [ END OF AD ]
So I started doing this thing called an "issues log"
and this is something that I did a few years back
when I had a roommate and she wasn't doing great
I wasn't doing great, the environment was definitely not anybody-friendly,
definitely not ADHD-friendly, and rather than trying to tackle
the entire thing at once we decided to keep a log of any issues we ran into.
Any time we didn't do the thing that we wanted to do we wrote down why.
Any time we ran into a challenge we wrote down why, what it was,
and at the end of the week we would review that and
try and see if we could maybe remove some of those barriers.
No judgement, no "it's because they didn't do the dishes",
it was just "hey I couldn't cook my dinner because the pot that I needed wasn't clean"
or "I didn't get dressed because there was stuff in the way of me getting to my clothes in the closet..."
"...so it was just easier to stay in my nightgown all day."
Whatever barriers get in our way we can write them down and then at the end of the week
we can go through this log and see oh, okay,
are there maybe some easy solutions.
I started doing this again and it was hilarious to me
the kinds of things that ended up on this log.
I actually spent 20 minutes trying to walk around my house
finding socks just so I could go to the grocery store
to pick up the grocery sushi that I was going to eat
that day because it's Wednesday and they're on sale for $6.
Long story short, I put it in the issues log.
End of the week, I just bought more socks,
like I clearly need more socks and I just wanted to share this
because I think it's just one those really simple things
but you don't recognize it because a lot of the time
those of us with ADHD are so used to struggling our way
through our day that we don't even think about it.
I am used to climbing over things
and stepping on piles of laundry to get to my bed.
I am used to things like spraying myself in the face with brush cleaner instead of primer because the bottles look the same
and I don't even really think twice about these things
but this is not an ADHD-friendly environment.
There was one where it was a shoot day,
and it was just like "Ok, I forgot to charge the iPad that I use as a teleprompter, so that needs to charge..."
"...I forgot to finish formatting the script, for shooting..."
"... and oh I also forgot to actually finish this other script so let me do that real quick!"
Every time I shoot I really struggle to keep that on time
because I'm dealing with so many technical difficulties
maybe somebody who understands technology better than me should be helping me shoot.
So one of the things that I realized is I need somebody
to shoot with me, because set switching is hard.
Switching between tasks that require different mental processes is hard.
Switching between "let me do the technical problem solving [and] setting up the set stuff"
and the creative "let me sit and talk to [the] camera and be a communicator and an educator"
those are different skills and having to switch between them
was just too much for my brain!
I think if anybody's ever struggling, there's a reason that they're struggling,
and keeping an issues log is a great way of figuring out why are you struggling, what's in your way?
And then if you review it at the end of the week,
you might start to see some patterns like
"Hey! I notice I regularly am late to things because I can't find socks, maybe I should buy more socks!"
So much of my life I spent just accepting that I'm climbing over one obstacle after another,
and if I run into so many obstacles that I'm late on something
then that's still my fault, it's still some sort of moral defect, or moral failing and NO!
It doesn't have to be that way!
Trying to get through our day and trying to focus on the things we're trying to focus on,
and trying to switch tasks when it's time to switch tasks,
these are all things that are impaired in ADHD.
We have a hard time keeping and maintaining a house the way that someone who's neurotypical
might be able to and that doesn't mean we can't do it, but it means it's a lot harder,
we might have to take more extreme strategies.
A lot of people with ADHD are very minimalist for that reason.
A lot of people with ADHD are very early to things so that they aren't late
because these are things that we struggle with
and so not only are we working with a brain that is constantly throwing barriers at us,
we're also dealing with an environment that partially because of how our brain works is also constantly barriers at us.
It's exhausting to get through the day when you have ADHD.
I can only speak for me here, but because I'm so used to things being so hard it doesn't even register,
until I started actually keeping an issues log.
"Hey! Did I do the thing that I said I was going to do? If not, what got in my way?"
And doing it completely mindfully, with no judgement, at all.
Because then I can sort through that and be like
"Ok! What were the issues that came up?"
"Can I remove some of these barriers?"
"Can I do something about these obstacles so that every day isn't an obstacle course?"
"Everyday doesn't end with me melting down and crying, wondering how the heck I got through that day..."
"...and how am I going to get through the next day?"
I think it was Brendan Mahan of ADHD Essentials calls it "people with ADHD play life on Hard Mode." We really do.
And yeah, we can do hard things, but we don't have to do them in the hardest way possible.
Thank you that was a really cool thing that you said.
We made an issues log inspired by this personal journey that I'm on.
If you wanna check it out, there's a link to this in the description,
and you can try it. I think it might surprise you, and if you have a kid with ADHD, a partner with ADHD,
and you're wondering why they don't do the thing when they say they can do it,
encourage them to fill it out. See what happens!
Because I guarantee you that you're running into and they're running into more challenges
than you realise and a lot of those maybe we can do something about.
Let me know how it goes. Let me know if you try it.
And I will see you next video. Bye!
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