Bonus | The No.1 ADHD Expert: How To Level Up Your ADHD | Dr Ned Hallowell
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Ned Halliwell, thank you so much for coming back onto the ADHD Chatter podcast.
It's a pleasure.
I want to, your first episode did incredibly well, and I really wanted to follow on from there. And I suppose a foundational question to sort of set the tone for the whole episode. What do you think are some common tough patches that you notice in people that you've treated with ADHD?
Well, until it gets diagnosed and treated, or as I like to put it, the gift gets unwrapped. The main problem is just a tremendous sense of underachievement. You know, I haven't done what I know I could do, and I don't know why I haven't done it. And then what I call the moral diagnosis starts piling in. I'm lazy, I'm bad, I'm undisciplined. I haven't taken advantage of the advantages I've been given. I mean, just this slew of morally tinged versions of I'm a bad person. I mean, and so that's when they come to see me as adults and they have not been diagnosed. That's the person I meet. The extraordinarily talented person who is hanged down on themselves and just doesn't know what to do. And somebody said, well, maybe it's ADD, so they come to see me.
Do you see a common theme in there? I'm going to use the word blind spots, like a common theme in their blind spots, or to put it another way, are there shared behaviors within the ADHD community that confuse that same community until they hear others are doing the same, and then suddenly it makes a lot of sense to them?
Oh, absolutely. I mean, until they get the unifying concept of ADHD, which, by the way, is a terrible term, that brings it all together, then it's all the sort of helter-skelter patches of problems. You know, the disorganization or laziness, so-called laziness, or... wrong job, bad marriage, you know, impulsive, just this collection, this smorgasbord of life problems. And until you see the unifying concept that brings them all together, it's like whack-a-mole. You take care of one and something else pops up. And that creates a problem of its own. You're running around all the time trying to fix things up, And you can't do it because they keep falling apart. And then you get the depression thrown in or the just, you know, give up-edness thrown in or the why did I do wrong? I mean, you know, these sort of existential problems that only make it much worse because then you start to lose your most important asset, which is hope. And when hope deserts you, then, you know, you're really in trouble.
Yeah, I mean, it's quite emotional hearing you say that because it's such an echo of my experience and so many people I've spoken to on this podcast. You kind of go through years and years and years of not knowing why your behavior is the way it is. And I suppose with that lack of understanding comes a feeling of being different.
and different in a bad way different in a bad way yeah and i guess like that feeling of difference and feeling lost how can that affect the human brain in its early development oh in real bad way it's sort of like having a a high fever that doesn't go away you you know you kind of cook your brain and and it doesn't do well in response to that you you lose your native juices. You lose your enthusiasm, your buoyancy, your natural, innovative nature where you can handle anything. I mean, we are the most resilient people you'll ever find as long as we understand what's going on. What the kiss of death, or not death, but close to death, is the negativity. I'm a lousy person. I'm a loser. I have not... I deserve to be punished. I deserve to suffer.
That, the weight of that... you know, can knock the stuffing out of anybody. But the good news, once you get the diagnosis, it's like a whole new sunshine shines through. Oh, you mean I'm not just a loser? Oh, you mean there's a reason for this beyond my lack of discipline or these amorphous moral concepts? Yeah, there's a neurological reason for it. Your brain is different indeed. But guess what? It's different in a good way. That's the real kicker. I mean, yeah, you've known you were different all along, but you thought you were different in a bad way. And so, no, truth is, if you manage it right, you're different in a really good way. And you have whoever invented the wheel, whatever that person had, you have.
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