Danielle’s story: A breakup, an intense reaction, and ADHD diagnosis (from “ADHD Aha!”)
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What is Danielle's ADHD diagnosis story?
Hey everyone, Danielle here. As you know, I shared a lot about my personal journey with ADHD throughout climbing the walls, but there was so much I didn't get to include. So I recently joined another podcast called ADHD Aha. It's all about people's ADHD stories and the moment they realized, oh, this is ADHD. I shared my own aha moment and talked a bit about the making of climbing the walls too. I'm dropping that episode into the climbing the walls feed today. If you enjoy it, be sure to follow ADHD aha, wherever you get your podcasts or just click the link in the show notes.
This is ADHD AHA, a podcast where people share the moment when it finally clicked that they have ADHD. My name is Laura Key. I head up our editorial team here at understood.org. And as someone who's had my own ADHD AHA moment, I'll be your host. I am here today in person with documentarian and science journalist Danielle Elliott. Danielle, your work has been featured on HBO, NBC, The New York Times, ESPN. I know there's a long list. I don't have my computer in front of me, so I can't go on and on and on. But so excited to have you here today. Danielle is also the host and the journalist behind Understood's brand new podcast called Climbing the Walls. We're very excited. We're going to talk about that. Welcome, Danielle. Thanks for being in person with me today.
Thank you. I'm really happy to be here. Thanks for having me. Can I offer you a fidget? I'm like, oh, you're looking at them like, can I grab one?
It's like a tray of hors d'oeuvres that we have here on our fancy new ADHD aha set. All right, Danielle. So on climbing the walls, you talk a little bit about yourself. Today on ADHD AHA, we're going to talk about you. How does that make you feel?
Great. Yeah. No, I'm not convinced. The thing in my head right now is, yeah, how often I tend to overshare and how much I'm going to try not to do that.
That's all I do on the show. I overshare. So you're in good company.
Yeah. I feel like climbing the walls is a giant overshare. So we'll just keep going.
Let's talk about your diagnosis. When were you diagnosed with ADHD?
How did a breakup lead to ADHD realization?
It was the end of February of 2022. Pandemic diagnosis. Yeah.
What was happening? Why did you seek out an evaluation?
What is rejection sensitivity and how does it relate to ADHD?
So I guess it was four or five months earlier. I had gone through a breakup and it was... The night of the breakup, I just had this really visceral reaction to a very normal conversation. And that surprised me. And I kept thinking about it for another, I guess, two months. I just felt like I had this very strong reaction. And I tried to figure out what it was. And I finally narrowed in on rejection. And then I started searching extreme reactions to rejection. And something popped up about rejection sensitivity and rejection sensitive dysphoria. As I read it, I was like, oh, this is actually a thing. This is not just one really strong reaction. And in that article that I was reading, there was a line about rejection sensitivity often being a part of ADHD. It was sort of like, wait a minute, is this like, do I have ADHD? And then I started looking more into ADHD. I talked to my therapist and it just went from there.
Yeah. And now here you are. Here I am. Tell me about the relationship and what was going on.
I would say for the last few months of the relationship, I think we were both, I think the nicest way to say it is like navigating our way out of it. Nice. I've been there. Yeah. That's probably the best way to put it. It was a conversation that I think we both knew was coming. I had been away on a work trip for a week. And during that week, I had been looking at other apartments. I pointed out the apartment to him that I was like, I'm thinking about moving in there. And in my head, it was, we don't have to break up, but I could move into my own apartment, which is... And I apparently I know this now as we drove by it, his thought was like, oh, OK, good. I don't have to feel bad about the thing I'm about to say to her tonight. So then it was just like.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is Danielle's ADHD diagnosis story?
0:00–2:26
2
How did a breakup lead to ADHD realization?
2:26–2:35
3
What is rejection sensitivity and how does it relate to ADHD?
2:35–12:24
4
How does traveling help with ADHD symptoms?
12:24
5
Why do breakups trigger intense emotional reactions?
4:43
6
What does it mean to overshare in conversations?
2:05–8:22
7
How does Danielle's past affect her relationships?
8:22–16:42
8
What lessons has Danielle learned from her ADHD journey?
16:42–30:48