Speaker 0 (0s): Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the true life podcast. We are here with an incredible individual, someone who has overcome adversity in not only her life, but has helped multiple people overcome adversity in their life. She's an author, a doctor, and I think a pretty amazing person, Dr. Tamar rosier. How are you today?

Speaker 1 (26s): Hey, thanks for having me here today. I really appreciate this. This is going to be fun.

Speaker 0 (31s): It is going to be fun for those that don't know. Dr. Tamra has written an incredible new book on the mysterious world of ADHD. I guess people could say, can you introduce the book a little bit and tell people about how this came to be?

Speaker 1 (47s): Yeah. Now just to be clear to quote white children, I'm not a real doctor, so I want to be clear to everyone. I'm not an MD. My kids have always made that clear, like, well, mom, you're not a real doctor. I don't want to mislead anyone when we're talking through medication or anything. Just want to get that out of the way. So I wrote this book, I'm an ADHD coach. And I wrote this book because I was working with so many people who didn't understand how ADHD was just really messing up their lives, their just their daily lives.

And those of us who have ADHD, we have big feelings about that. And so these clients were just dragging into my office, feeling horrible about themselves every day,

Speaker 0 (1m 31s): Besides wanting to help other people. Is it fair to say that you have maybe suffered some of the, the ADHD issues?

Speaker 1 (1m 42s): Well, if you're asking me if I have ADHD, yes. I outed myself. When I founded the ADHD center of west Michigan. When I founded that about 10 years ago, I just saw a lot of people who knew we, what kind of went. Oh, that makes sense now. Yeah. So yes, I have ADHD. The thing I want people to know about ADHD is it's not tied to how smart we are. That's a whole different construct. I mean, whether we're smart or not, that's, that's a different thing.

Right. But it does have to do with how we think and how our brain processes things. And that's, it's such a neurological difference that we think differently. And so I know there's all these jokes like, oh, look, squirrel. And like we're highly distracted and do this true. But there's all these other things that go along with ADHD that actually make life quite difficult for us.

Speaker 0 (2m 43s): Yeah. I agree. I, I heard you say something in a previous interview that wasn't in the book that maybe you suspected in the future, they're going to see our nervous systems, maybe being wired a little bit different. Can you explain that a little bit?

Speaker 1 (2m 59s): Yeah. Well, Tom brown is a researcher. He's a real doctor by the way, he's a researcher and he's, he's noted this. And he said that those of us with ADHD have a, have a different type of nervous system. And the way I explain it is it's almost like we're too twitchy. It's like the part of our brain, that's the survival part, the fight flight or freeze. It's like, that's on hyper alert all the time. And then our braids get confused.

We think, well, we have the same response to a sales report being do as to a bear chasing us neurologically. That feels the same for us. And so you can imagine how exhausted we are all the time, because we get confused. What's a big deal. What's a small deal. And we really, we go through modern, the modern life kind of going, oh shoot. What's how do I do this again? So let me give you an example. Okay.

So I have a PhD. So for those of you guys who are listening, I must not be that. I must not be that stupid. Okay. Right. But I recently I flew to DC and I was doing a presentation. So I'm in DC, all by myself, big girl, Tamra, right? Go to bed. My clothes are laid out. I get up in the morning and I literally had to set alarms as like little places to go.

You should have your makeup done by here. You should be walking out of the hotel by here. You should arrive in, I had alarms to get me and to move me to the place where I had to be. And that's not because I'm dumb. It's because my ADHD, I have no temporal knowledge. I don't understand how time and space work together in a linear fashion, every member, doctor, who would suggest it doesn't. So I'm a huge doctor who fan. So the idea here is in a way I'm handicapped in the modern life.

I mean, other people just get up, go. No, no, no. I had to think through everything. And it was a mechanical kind of thinking through. So the metaphor I kind of suggest is if you didn't have ADHD, it's like you have an automatic engine. You just automatically know this stuff. And those of your listeners who are listening, like who the heck does he have on this? She can't figure out how time works. You're all neurotypical. So just relax. The ADHD folks are going, dude, I get her.

You probably should get diagnosed. So, but that's how hard it is for me to actually work in time and space. Right. I have no concept of when or how time happens.

Speaker 0 (5m 58s): Yeah. That makes perfect sense to me. When we start talking about topics like time, talk about rabbit holes. I can, I can spend so much time thinking about the concept of time past, present, and future. Like, I, I just I'll be stuck there for like a deer in the headlights. And that kind of brings me, I think, to chapter four in your book called rabbit holes and just, I think what has blown my mind a lot is the way in which you were able to explain divergent thinking from the opposite.

Can you talk a little bit about that?

Speaker 1 (6m 37s): Well, okay. So I'm going to take a risk here. You know, we just met, but I feel like we go way back, way back. So would you mind telling your listeners how you responded?

Speaker 0 (6m 49s): Yeah. So I picked up a camera's book. Your brain's not broken. I don't know if we've mentioned the title yet. The book is called your brain's not broken. And if you want to learn a lot about ADHD, I highly recommend picking up this book. If you live with somebody who has ADHD, I highly recommend picking up this book. It's it's chock-full of information. And I got to learn a lot about myself and others like me, that, that have suffered from this. And so the realization I came to was for my listeners and for my friends and family.

Have you ever read something and thought to yourself, Hey, this person's writing about me. Hey, this is something that happens to me. And it's more than just a general idea of this probably happens to everybody. This was like, no, this was written about me. Exactly. She's explaining something that I would use or explain for beta chapter four, which we're going to talk about. Dr. Tamra talks about convergent thinking and divergent thinking for me that really hit home because I'll give you an example. I was at a PTA meeting with my daughter's teachers and the principal and all the parents, and we're sitting there talking and it was a little bit of an icebreaker before we had done the interviews with the teachers.

And so people are talking about how we don't have time. We should have more time with our kids. And the next thing I know, I launch into this idea about creating an invisible friend for my child on the drive to school so that you can help solve problems. And if you want to, you could even come up with like a fake language, like loss of Lelea. That just sounds like Bob, you know, you're just making up all these different words. And I had launched into probably like this five minute diatribe and I stopped and everybody is staring at me with their mouth open, like

Speaker 1 (8m 37s): What just happened,

Speaker 0 (8m 41s): You know? And then I feel in those moments, it's both, it's both overwhelming, but also sort of this moment of pride where like everyone's looking at me and like, oh my God, everyone thinks I'm crazy. I am crazy. Why would I say that?

Speaker 1 (8m 55s): Okay, perfect. So now you just gave me an example, brilliant example to work with, right? So convergent thinking, I mean, your timing on this is wonderful convergent thinking is what the modern world demands of us, right? And the modern world says, Hey, we want you to think in these ways it's linear. There's one answer. Find it in Sherlock Holmes does it, right?

Sherlock Holmes will be deducted and kind of gather everything into one answer. That's convergent thinking. So it's gathering information together for one oh, but no, my friend, you and I do not do that. A hallmark of ADHD thinkers is to take that one idea. And your one idea was, gosh, we don't spend enough time with our kids and you were listening to conversation, but your head blew that one idea up into 50 trillion, little tiny pieces.

And then you're kind of chasing those pieces around. And then it got away from you and you start verbalizing those little pieces. And you're like, you know what? We could do. You know what I've done in the past? You know, here's what we could do. And you know, here's how this is related. And you confiscated for a second on your divergent thinking and all the convergent thinkers in the room were looking at you going, wait, what? I'm sorry, what did you just do? And now it had, I been in the room and I didn't have a strict agenda cause I can be, you know, a bit of a dictator like that, but I would've been well, you know what?

That's an interesting idea, but what if this and you and I would have kind of riffed off the, what ifs for awhile. I there's the international conference on ADHD. It's a wonderful conference. I'm on the conference committee. Many of us on that phone call have ADHD. And you can imagine the, what if riffing that goes on and these are really smart people, leaders in the field.

And they're like, well, what if this would have this? What is this? And you know, it occurs at a time where at least my meds have worn off for the day. So I'm just right there going, yeah, follow that rabbit rabbit. And the problem is we all have 15 million rabbits to follow up. And so that was a great example. You just gave us so that those of us with divergent thinking, and by the way, humans can do both. It's just, we have a strong preference, which one to do.

So I'm in my office today. My daughter who's in college is my administrative assistant. She does not have ADHD. Okay. Underline that she is training some new hires on our computer system. And you know, the apps we use she's patient she's, she's convergent. I tried training someone on something and I'm bumping around going, well, you know, here's this, here's, this here's this.

She has her her list and she moves sequentially through it. And I'm positive. Those new hires were looking at her today going, Hmm. Is she really related to Tamra? I don't, I don't know how this is possible because my daughter prefers convergent thinking and I prefer divergent thinking. Now the problem is a one is like a gas pedal, the other one's like a break. And so you and I love the gas pedal and we're just like, yeah.

And then everyone else in the room is like, Hey, how about, how about we tap on the brake a second? How about, how about we just tap on that? Can we, and I see, I see the look on my daughter's face when I've gone divergent on her. Now sometimes it can be a gift and we can look like freaking geniuses. Can you think of a time when that's happened to you where you're like, people are like, dude, that was genius.

Speaker 0 (13m 4s): Yeah, absolutely. I've you know, I've, there's been multiple times where I've been at work and I've sat down with district managers and they're telling me, you know, we need to squeeze production out of these different routes and where are we going to do it is we have this model and all these numbers that add up. And I'm like, those, that those numbers mean nothing. Are you kidding me? What you need to do is just, if you want to look at these routes, like pieces of cake and you want to shave off like a little bit, just cut off this fat piece of all this frosting, get rid of it.

We don't need that frosting on this cake, you know? And I got like five district managers looking at me like what I'm like, let me, let me write it down for you in numbers. Okay. Let me, let me, you know, the Pythagorean theorem, right? Let me write it down like this. And eventually if, if they, if we're talking about numbers and they care about the actual end result, I'll finish it. And I'll finally put a bowl on it where it makes sense. And there'll be like, you gotta be kidding me. How can we never thought of this? And I'm like, you know why you never thought of it because it's hard for you, you know?

Speaker 1 (14m 7s): Well, and that, that's the thing though. That's why we can look like freaking geniuses sometimes.

Speaker 0 (14m 13s): Right?

Speaker 1 (14m 13s): And then we look like idiots, the rest of the time.

Speaker 0 (14m 15s): A lot of times, a lot of times

Speaker 1 (14m 18s): We're actually, misapplying our divergent thinking.

Speaker 0 (14m 21s): Right?

Speaker 1 (14m 22s): And it's when we misapply it, that we just look like idiots. And so one of the things I work with my clients for is when, what are you supposed to use your divergent thinking as your beautiful strength and what do you just need to do convergent? I think, I feel like we should probably give an example of that to see other day I was working with someone who wanted to clean out his garage. He said, well, before I clean up my garage, I have to get the lawn blade sharpened.

I'm like, why is that? He goes, well, actually before that. And so what he was, he was trying to do is like, make things much more difficult. I have to do this, this, and this first, like do the, it has nothing to do with your clicker up. And it's almost like, remember those Rube Goldberg machines. Yeah. I used to love those. I used to love cartoons. Right? And for your listeners there, when you create a complex machine to do a very simple task, like turn on a light switch and we create Rube Goldberg machines just to get simple things done.

I mean, there's times I'll go through the house and butter to myself, keep it simple, keep it simple. Tam, just keep it simple because I'll, I'll try to like add extra steps because I'm diverging.

Speaker 0 (15m 45s): It blows my mind to think about, so there's the genius side. And then there's the not so genius side. One of the, one of the,

Speaker 1 (15m 52s): And we are both,

Speaker 0 (15m 54s): You have to, you have to, and it's one thing that kind of saddens me a little bit is that there is an ability to ruin relationships, you know, not maybe on purpose, but it is a lot to deal with people that are in your life. Like you saying, I bet your daughter's a beautiful, intelligent young woman. I'm so thankful that you guys are working together and having a cool relationship and you have a cool family. I, I I'm sure that there has been times where people in your family, like it's way too early for this. Like, I cannot deal with this right now.

And for someone that has ADHD, it's like, ah, man, I am, I, you know what? And then you can just fall into these rabbit holes of like, you know what I'm doing, all of these things wrong, look at all this stuff, you know? And there is a little bit of a darker side that I kind of want to touch on just so people can understand that they can get through it and they can understand how to live in it. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Speaker 1 (16m 44s): I can, you don't know this, but that's my next book project. Yeah. And it's, it's seeking, I haven't written it yet. Right. I'm still working with a publisher on it, but it's trying to answer the question. How do we live together? Like how do all of us, we love each other. How do we live together? Neuro-typical those without ADHD and those with ADHD, because you know, this we're a handful to live with.

We don't shut cover doors. Don't throw trash away. We have big emotions, usually dumb things. So some people and you and I are probably on the healthier side of things, right. There are some people out there that are highly emotional messes because of their ADHD. It remember if they are, that's not because they're bad people. It, because it's because their brain chemistry isn't well balanced. Right. And so you and I, you know, really work hard at getting that life balance and that mental balance, but not everyone has had that journey yet.

Speaker 0 (17m 54s): So

Speaker 1 (17m 55s): Yeah. So, so the next project is really talking. So I'm hoping it, maybe this is a bit granddaughter. I don't know. We'll see, I'll talk to you in a couple of years. See if it works, I'm hoping to talk to three groups specifically. And I call them the saplings, the young trees, the young families and the young trees, the families with like high schoolers and then the mature trees and that's families with adult kids, because we all need to figure out how do we live together and how do we all get along?

And how do we love each other the best? What happens when we get sideways with each other? So to your listener, who it feels like, cool story Tam, that, that book is not written for me yet. That's okay. There's still hope. And it starts with you managing your emotions. So it really does start there. And that doesn't mean stuffing your emotions. It doesn't mean exploding your emotions. It just means you understanding like, oh, remember the book when I wrote about, I get angry on hot summer days when I get into a car and it's hot and I immediately start sweating and I'm like, oh, I hate this.

And how ridiculous that is really for me. And yet that's my ADHD. Just having an emotional response. Right. So, you know, just learning to manage, like you don't her, do you have to be so angry? Like it's predictable today is 80. Oh, it's 90 degrees outside. Your car is going to be hot when you get into it, that's predictable. You do not need to have a big emotion following that. And if you do, let's try to get rid of it.

Do you see? Like, but, but think if I had someone else in the car with me and they witnessed that, right. They could think it's about them. They could just get tired of me having big emotions all the time. And so that's how neurotypicals feel. A lot of times we just, we tire them out.

Speaker 0 (19m 60s): Yeah. And ourselves too. I mean, it's emotionally draining. Right. And so

Speaker 1 (20m 5s): Exhausting to Bebe. Yes.

Speaker 0 (20m 8s): Yeah. You say it in a book.

Speaker 1 (20m 10s): Yeah.

Speaker 0 (20m 11s): When I, I think that the first off, that sounds like a great next book coming and I'm looking forward to reading and what a great way to help heal people, to get an insight into your life and others' lives and to help both the people with ADHD and the people that love them. Like that sounds like a movie people with ADHD and the people that love

Speaker 1 (20m 31s): To love them.

Speaker 0 (20m 33s): I do think that maybe, maybe it starts with your first book, the brain's not broken. I gets, it's a great place to start. And I really hope people take the time to get your book because it really helped me. I had a question on emotions that I'm hopeful. You can maybe fill in some, it seems that we do run hot emotions, be a delusions of grand jury sometime, or, you know, just getting angry at stuff

Speaker 1 (20m 56s): That

Speaker 0 (20m 56s): It seems like we feed on those emotions. And I remember a few years back getting to a point where I realized, oh my God, I'm getting angry. Just so I can have fuel to get through my day in a powerful way.

Speaker 1 (21m 8s): Okay. You said it and you said it perfectly. We have big emotions and we use them for fuel. So I'm going to nerd out just for a little bit, look, you know this, but so if you tap on your prefrontal cortex, that's on your forehead, right? That is where the it's this modern amenity and it's called the prefrontal cortex. And it's in charge of executive functions, like organizing your life, knowing what to do next, knowing what, how, and when to do things.

And for those of us, with ADHD, we lack regulation of dopamine. That's mostly in our prefrontal cortex, right? So it's a big problem for us. We don't, we don't know what to do, how to do it and when to do it. And so you're looking at something you're like, oh, well, my brain is not telling me what, how it went. Oh, I know. I'll go back in my brain to the limbic center. I'll scare the crap out of myself and then I'll have the emotion to do it.

Or I'll make myself so bad at something. I'll have the emotion to do it. And yeah. And frankly that's exhausting, but that is how I have a PhD. I'm not going to lie. I have a PhD because of this. Right. I did my dissertation in a really short amount of time. It was short. It was intense. And I'd go out jogging after I was writing and just jog up this hill, crying like this dissertation is not going to beat me.

And I swore, and I used all kinds of language with that. Right. Mustering all this emotion. Oh, by the way, it didn't work out well. Yeah, sure. They still call me doctor, but I developed an eye Twitch. I was like, for six months after I had this like weird kind of, it wasn't really PTSD, but I just had like, I'd flood all the time. Like my nervous system was shot after that is because I fed on big emotions just to try to, oh.

And you know, I was working full-time and had a child and president of an organization. And yeah. You know, you know, the, the average here. So

Speaker 0 (23m 27s): It's, so it's such an it's, it's a beautiful story. It's, it's a story that comes with trauma that comes with failure, but also comes with the winning the gold medal and the accomplishment of goals. I can't imagine living any other way. And it's, it's sometimes it's, it's fun to embrace and to know you're different and to see the look on people's face, even when they're looking at you, like you're not normal, you know, I think when you get to a certain point, hopefully for those that aren't there yet, I hope everybody gets to a point where you can embrace exactly what you are and see the upside and get to know the downside so that you can begin to at least live on the grid.

Would maybe you can talk about a little bit.

Speaker 1 (24m 19s): Yeah. Oh my gosh. That was, that was perfect. What you said. So I am not suggesting that we throw a big pity party for ourselves, even though some days I feel like it, I am suggesting that we look realistically who we are and you know, I just confessed to all of your listeners that I am horrible at. And it's not managing time. It's understanding time. Right. As a concept, right.

Specifically as a Western concept. So I have to be real about that, which is why the hotel room, I set alarms as marks to hit. So I could be on time. And that's, that's why I just want to be clear. Like this is hard for us. I, something I love that you just kind of alluded to is every time see people succeed. I kind of feel like we're freaky heroes Because we had to do more with less.

We had to work harder because we don't have the prefrontal cortex to make it work. We had to kind of hack our bodies to try to do something. And so the equivalent of this is this sounds strong. And I do just want to say it though. We do not have reliable access to that prefrontal cortex. That would be the equivalent of being born, missing half your leg. But then everyone's job is just to run.

And so I don't know why any of us run. And then some of us are really darn good runners, aren't we? And so any time any one of us succeeds, I just, I just feel like you're a hero, man. You're doing it. I, in the presentation I gave last week, I kind of gave that example. And there was a person in the room who I knew he had ADHD. Cause I could just tell, he was like, oh crap, she's talking about me.

But he got teary-eyed when I said that, I said, man, people should be cheering because it was so hard for us to do the simple things in life. And you know, I write about like, you know, the simple things in life are super hard for us. Right. And yet, sometimes we can look like geniuses and so big problems.

Speaker 0 (26m 48s): Yeah. It's such a, it makes me want to cry. Like it's such a beautiful thing. Cause I, you probably get it a lot when you talk to people like it just, it hits home, it hits home and it's, it's every single underdog story I've ever watched. I've ever seen. I've ever listened to. And it's there is I get goosebumps thinking about, you know, how lucky and how thankful and how hard I've worked to have these little wins and be around people that I think are so much better than me.

And I'm jealous of what they look at me like, dude, wow. How are you here? Oh my God. You're really smart. You, you, and then you talk to them and you're like, how about that? And they're like, whoa, you know, and it's I thank you for saying now. Like I, again, I think you're speaking the story that so many of us have. And if you're listening to this interview right now and it's hitting home, pick up her book that your brain's not broken. I promise you there's tons of these. This just like this conversation is making you feel she's speaking directly to you.

So will the book bring out this same feeling through multiple chapters? So pick up the book, your brain is not broken. If you're listening to this right now,

Speaker 1 (28m 1s): Thank you so much. I really appreciate, I it means a lot to me that this situ personally, because I was writing to people like you to, to be an encouragement. I mean, well, first here's what I pictured. First. I threw a glass of water in your face and then I wipe it off and say, Hey, now don't you feel better? I'm sure there's some times where it's like, Ooh, wow, this kind of hurts a little bit. I wonder if we could talk about rejection sensitivity for a second because you kind of alluded to it.

Most of us with ADHD expect to be rejected and we never feel good enough. We never feel grown up enough tomorrow. I'm going to meet with a lovely human being. She's we're expanding the ADHD center. And so she's, she's a designer helping me think through choices. She is neurotypical as the day is long. Let me tell you, and she's so sweet when I say something kind of divergent and she doesn't quite agree. She tips her head and goes, and that's her cue to be going think about that Tam, but I'm always kind of embarrassed around her.

I always kind of feel like I'm not as good as she is. I'm second class. And she is such a wonderful human. And she always is like, well, Tamra, look what you're doing. I could never do that. I just do what I do. And I want to say, you know what? I'm standing in front of you. I'm surprised my shoes match today. Like, you know, I'm working at a low level here and I just love how gracious and kind she is to me. And if you are a neuro-typical person listening and you know, there's an ADHD person in your life, I really hoping you'll respond.

Like this designer responds to me in this loving, like reassuring. Like, no, no, no. I'll handle this detail for you. You know, she orders blinds for me because I mean, if you're going to screw up, I could screw up ordering blinds. I get so nervous about it. Right. Blinds for windows and all that. But she's very kind. She has never put me down for what I don't have. She encourages me for what I do have. And I, I just love the gracious way that she interacts with me and that, so it for your, you know, I, I know you're married and I suspect your wife does not have ADHD.

And I, I just, just from the, you know, briefly us talking, it sounds like she's a gracious and kind person to you and builds you up. And that means everything. And so every ADHD person needs someone like that or their life. I work with a lot of spouses, frankly, who are just angry at their ADHD people. And they try to fix them. They're like, well, he needs to stop doing this. And she needs to just focus.

And I would never say this because it's not professional, but I'm like, dude, get out of that marriage. She hates you. Like, there's no fixing this, Right. We need, we need someone to see us because we already have rejection sensitivity. We already have the, I just know I'm an inept at life and someone will reject me. Right. So if that neurotypical person and you haven't EHD child, spouse, someone you love in your life, you can be that kind and gracious person.

It doesn't mean you're going to do things for them because remember we're not, we're not trying to be victims here.

Speaker 0 (31m 46s): Right.

Speaker 1 (31m 47s): But I do, I am quite sensitive to rejection as I'm sure you are too. And your listeners with ADHD, I'm also kind of almost sure I'm going to screw up somehow. Right? Like if something happens, I'm like, oh, how did I screw this up? It's sometimes it's not even my fault. Have you had that happen to you?

Speaker 0 (32m 11s): Yeah. I can always find a reason why. It's my fault.

Speaker 1 (32m 15s): Yeah. I mean, dude, you're, you're just encapsulating everything. Yes. That's it. Everything's my fault.

Speaker 0 (32m 23s): Yeah.

Speaker 1 (32m 23s): I used to joke when I was growing up because I saw this in myself, even growing up, I said, you know, you could convince me that I caused the middle east crisis. And I've always, I've always known this about myself. Like I, yeah. Which means I have be careful who I hang around. So if I hate around people who do want to make me the scapegoat.

Speaker 0 (32m 47s): Sure.

Speaker 1 (32m 48s): I that's. So that's another thing I want to write about it in the future.

Speaker 0 (32m 53s): How

Speaker 1 (32m 54s): Do we maintain healthy relationships? Because we're, low-hanging fruit for narcissist to

Speaker 0 (32m 60s): Yeah. There's there are a lot of, you know, rabbit holes or avenues or just divergent thinking. Like, I can't tell you how many conversations I've had with myself sometimes out loud for an hour. Like, are you talking to, who are you talking to? What are you talking? What

Speaker 1 (33m 21s): Only person who understands.

Speaker 0 (33m 24s): Yeah. That's so true. It's so true. And I've lived, I've lived other people's lives. Cause I go down these ideas of like, you know what? I wonder what they were thinking. Maybe they're thinking this. I bet you to think in that, because this happened to when they were young. That's exactly what happened to him. I bet you was their uncle. Cause I'm, I've seen their uncle and I've seen the way that their uncle, you know, what's weird. Is she always watching her right side of him? Why do you think that is that you hold her kid all weird? Like she's protecting them. Like I wonder what's going on there.

Speaker 1 (33m 56s): I love, I love you just demonstrate something of one divergent thinking. But to ADHD is really, it's not attention deficit. It's too much attention disease. Right. Probably as you are noticing all those things, you're probably supposed to be noticing something else, but it was stupid pedantic and boring that you're like, I'd rather not do that. I'd rather conjecture interesting.

Speaker 0 (34m 30s): It's yeah, it is. It's, it's both debilitating, but also incredibly insightful and fun and, and heartwarming and entertaining and leads me to live a life with living in a sort of way. The ADHD makes my life a life worth living.

Speaker 1 (34m 50s): Yeah. I, you know. Okay. So let's talk about this for a second because I want to be clear. ADHD is not a gift.

Speaker 0 (35m 2s): I mean, crazy.

Speaker 1 (35m 4s): You're live, your listeners couldn't see your face, but your face was like, yeah, it's not right. Same time. There's something we, we kind of carry this almost like childhood wonder With us. Right. And by the way, if people are like, it's not it, you know, why is it not a gift? It's not a gift because in the modern world, we have too many things stacked up against us and that's not a definition of a gift.

Okay. That's we would be able to with a gift. Right. But there is this, like, we love learning. A lot of us just love learning. You know what I'm, you know what I decided to do this summer because I don't have enough on my plate. I decided to get chickens. I decided I'm a chicken person. And you know what? I reading everything I can about chickens. I bought a very good chicken coop and it's arriving in a couple of weeks and I'm going to get chickens.

And we're going to figure out this chicken thing. Why? Because that's what ADHD people do. Right. And if you saw my, my book pile next to my chair has three books right now that I'm reading family dynamics. It's about it's psychology mitochondrial function, which is how cells work and chickens. Those are the three books on my next to my chair.

And that, I think you could tell you that ADHD just from the books, because I have very varied interest and like you, and that's where I think we're talking about it makes life worth living. Like we're, we're interested in everything, right?

Speaker 0 (37m 1s): Yeah.

Speaker 1 (37m 3s): I mean, that's, we're curious people and we are so curious and I think that's kind of the joy we have when we're living now. We don't have that joy when we're trying to do like calendar events. We don't have that joy when we're just trying to do the laundry necessarily, but we kind of do that. And those of us who have 80, she also loved being outside. I bet you've experienced that.

Speaker 0 (37m 32s): I, I have, I've found a professional where I'm outside all day long.

Speaker 1 (37m 37s): That's

Speaker 0 (37m 37s): Awesome. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (37m 40s): And that's so how do you feel when you're outside

Speaker 0 (37m 44s): Alive and hopefully beautifully distracted,

Speaker 1 (37m 50s): Right? Oh, alive. So there's research on this, the ADHD brains calmed down in our war, focused outside and we feel alive. And I, you know, it's really sad. A lot of younger people don't get outside enough. I live in Michigan where it's hard to be outside in a life parts of the year because it's so cold. Right.

And I live in a part of Michigan. We don't even see the sun a lot. So my clients and I have to use some lamps because we get so sad, but it looks, it looks like this time of year, all my clients are outside. They're we're, we're just so happy because we're kind of getting that balance back. You live in somewhere where you have that balance, your route.

Speaker 0 (38m 44s): I do. Yeah. So first off everybody should like Hawaii is, might be the most beautiful spot in the world. And all you need do is go outside and look around for a minute. And it's like, the earth has given you a hug or there's some sort of spiritual being that enters your body. And it's like, I love you. You know, come on Hawaiian visit. If you come out here, I'll buy a cup of coffee. You should definitely bring your family and visit out here.

Speaker 1 (39m 10s): That's it. I'm going to Hawaii for a cup of coffee. That's it. And you know what, that's what ADHD people will do. Like a good deal. Let's go.

Speaker 0 (39m 23s): Right. We're not,

Speaker 1 (39m 24s): And I've never been to Hawaii. So, you know, that's

Speaker 0 (39m 28s): Now you have a reason. I bet your daughter, your husband, your daughter, your family. Well, it would probably be a great inspiration to work on your new book. I bet you come out here to be outside, feel alive.

Speaker 1 (39m 38s): Do you know? That's what I say to my husband. I'm like, you know, I have a lot of writing to do, but I can really only do it in sunshine. I should go somewhere. So, and it is true. I've written a lot of my book either on my back deck in the summer or going to Florida for us is a quick, easy plane ride. So hopping down to Florida in the winter. So

Speaker 0 (40m 3s): How does that work be? Like, can you talk a little bit about the writing prompt for someone who has ADHD and someone who has done what you've accomplished, how does that work for you? Do you have a process that inspires you to write, or how does that creative process work for someone at your level that has ADHD?

Speaker 1 (40m 23s): You know what I do, I take advantage of my divergent thinking. So I always have a notebook with me and all right, see your daily life right there. If your listeners have ADHD, trust me, you will not remember it. Let me just, you know how people are. We lie to ourselves like, oh, I'll remember it. No, the answer is no. Never. You won't remember it. So what I do is that notebook is my external hard drive is how I interface with the world because I have to remember things I have listed here and all kinds of notes, notes about chickens now, too.

But anyway, at any time an idea comes up of, huh? That has to do with my next book idea. I jot it down in my book and I put a little tiny, I draw a light bulb next to it. And then I go back when I'm ready to start writing, I go back and collect all those little light bulbs. And I start to put the light bulbs together. Like, well, these ideas kind of circle around this, these ideas circle around this and I start to put them together.

And then once I'm ready, like I'm ready to talk to the publisher about it. We're emailing back and forth. I have a really fleshed out idea now because I just gathered all those little light bulbs together. And then from there I just write 16 essays. And that's it.

Speaker 0 (41m 55s): Those are those 16 essays off each light bulb or is that like a preheated chapter or

Speaker 1 (41m 59s): Those are once I gathered all the light bulbs together, those are all the, they become chapters.

Speaker 0 (42m 7s): Right.

Speaker 1 (42m 8s): And so one, I know I have to do this now. I don't get it. Right, right. Because I'm not great at that sequential thing. So I'll actually be writing, going, you know what? This should have been two chapters. I'm trying to do too much here or ah, crap. I, I, I didn't even think this. And now I have to write a chapter on this because my, my mind, like yours will leap to another and forget to help others make connections. So fortunately, I have some really good people in my life who will read my stuff and go, cool.

You missed something. I'm like, Hey, good, thanks. I appreciate that.

Speaker 0 (42m 46s): That is incredibly helpful. I, I really like that. Thank you.

Speaker 1 (42m 50s): Yeah. Just start very organically. You know, the other thing I use, I use an app called Scrivener and I start to put all the light bulbs kind of gathering together. Like, well, these all seem to be able to conflict. I'll put all those in there. And then it's kind of like, I'm gathering all these together. They just start to make a picture. And sometimes I'm like, I'll read and go. I don't know what the heck I was thinking there.

I have to move on. I mean, not all ideas are good ideas, right?

Speaker 0 (43m 29s): It is true. Have you, how, how do you feel about language in ADHD? Do you find yourself being distracted sometimes by a trigger word or not trigger in? Like, it makes you feel crazy, but just sometimes words for me, I can't get past someone will say something a certain way. Maybe not meaning to use a certain word, but I have to go back and be like, you know what that word means. It means this. So they're probably thinking that, like you find language with some of the people you talk about, like something that they get hung up on.

Speaker 1 (44m 4s): Yeah. Okay. First of all, I love, I love you cause I'll go. Hmm. I didn't use exactly the right word. I wanted this. And then I'll go down that rabbit hole for my own words. And then, then I'll pick up sometimes when people use a word that you've used earlier in the conversation, it means they're really linked up with you. I'm like, oh wow. They're really linked up in this conversation. And then whoops, I'm down another rabbit hole thinking about our relationship and how we're linked up. Right? Yup. So the ADHD, anything could be like you and I are sensitive to work for other people.

It could be something in their five senses. It could be a color that starts that it could be a sound. It could be a smell. And the key is whatever the stimulus is. You and I are both like semantic kind of nerds, but it could be anything that goes, oh, this reminds me of this. And we went down and hopefully we'll come back. So, so yeah, so it it's combining so ADHD.

I want people to know two things. It kinda how ADHD affects you. Depends on your environment and your personality. And so ADG is a thing, but it kind of interacts with your personality in very specific ways. So I I'll leave that for a second. It's also about environment and it sounds like, like you have a job where you didn't realize you had ADHD really until you read my book.

Right. And I'm not diagnosing you. Right. But right at this point, I'd be shocked if you did it. And so what, what I'm saying is you found such, just happy environment where you're not, face-to-face all the time with ADHD that you still have some of the dark side of like, oh, why am I never good enough? Or why am I always failing? Right. Those are dark side. There are some people living lives where every second their environment is slapping them saying, you're not good enough.

And you're not smart enough. And that's rarely the truth, but it's so let me give you a quick example of environment. I, I have a client who was an accountant and has ADHD and you know, he was good at numbers. So everyone said, dude, go into a county. And so he's like, yeah, I guess so I'll go into a county. He is the saddest accountant on this planet. He just hates his job.

He is just so ticky-tacky, it's, it's never finished. It's just, he's like, all I do is pass big notebooks back and forth. That's all I do. He's like, it's never ending and I'm sad and I hate it and he makes mistakes and he's bored. Right? That's an example of environment being bad. Now I want to be clear. There are some people who have ADHD who are accountants and that's, you can do that. But in this case, his environment doesn't line up with error, help him.

It only points out the negatives of his ADHD.

Speaker 0 (47m 26s): Yeah. Some, some of us I'm thankful for all of us, but like, you know, it goes back to what you said. Whenever we see somebody that has ADHD come out on top. It's like a win for all of us. And I can thoroughly understand, well, I guess I can't really understand it, but I I'm saddened to see someone live in the dark like that and unable to climb out of it like that. It must be horrific. I,

Speaker 1 (47m 52s): It does. And I know because I was there, I, you know, I, it, this just dawned on me and I think you just kind of let this idea in my head, you know, I always say I wrote this to future clients or to clients. I don't know, you know, people who are hurting and people who don't know, they have ADHD who feel dumb, who feel dragged, but it just dawned on me, you know, in a way I wrote it to myself because I was that person, like, I always felt like a day late and a dollar short.

So why can't I just get my act together? And that's, so there's been a lot of personal healing for me in that area of, I w I didn't start treating my ADHD until I was in my forties, you know, after I've raised children. Right. So, Hey, could I add something? If, if a person's listening, thinking they have ADHD, and if they have biological children, their children have a 50, 50 shot of having ADHD too.

And so we really want to like start looking at the whole family and go, how is ADHD affecting my family?

Speaker 0 (49m 14s): Yeah. That, and that brings us back to the relationship aspect of it. If you're married and have a spouse that doesn't understand, they're probably looking at their kid being like, oh my gosh, my kid has weird G son of a gun. Are you kidding me? And it's, it's not fair to them in so many ways. It's really not. And it's not fair to you because maybe you don't understand it, but it's almost up to you as an individual that has it to do a lot of the work to fix it. And it's not fair. And if you have a PhD, it'll never be fair, but you're capable of doing it and doing it really well.

Speaker 1 (49m 49s): Exactly, exactly. And, you know, you know, like the airline tells us put on your own mask first, if you're the parent with ADHD, put on your air mask and figure out your ADHD, and then by all means help your child because kids are growing up with way more pressure. I don't, I don't think I would have survived school the way I did with the pressure that my, my students that I see have is constant homework, homework, homework.

I was just smart enough in high school, not to do homework and to still get beeps. And I probably like some other ADHD folks could kind of talk my way out of things. It was verbal enough now. Not all ADHD. People can do that, but some of us can.

Speaker 0 (50m 46s): Right.

Speaker 1 (50m 48s): And yeah, I, I just quickly, just very quickly, I remember explaining to my English teacher why I didn't have my assignment done. And I said, well, it's because I didn't understand the connotation. And I went through what I didn't understand. He just called my bluff. He goes, listen, if you can use the word connotation, you could have done this whole work. You just chose not to. I was like, okay, mental note, he's going to call my bluff. Okay. All right. Good to know.

Speaker 0 (51m 19s): Yeah. It's, it's fascinating to me. I, you know, I read some very, not only heartwarming, but some very incredible stories about people with dyslexia and how it it's a learning disability. However, some of the most intelligent people in the world become the great minds that they are because they have dyslexia. And I think there's a parallel to ADHD the way in which you have to learn. Things is incredibly different because you're just zigzagging all over everywhere.

But that means you've covered all these different things to get the of, from a to B, you went to Z X, P J Y. And along the way, you've picked up these incredible ideas. You've seen the scenery, you've taken the scenic route. So by the time you finally get to B, you have more information and you have more knowledge. And if you can understand that, it becomes an incredible way to not only rationalize, but to feel good about some of the things that you may feel bad about.

Speaker 1 (52m 24s): You nailed it, you nailed it because we don't have a choice for us to learn something. We have to be deep learners. That means we have to create this whole constellation in our head of how everything's related. If we're going to learn it. Whereas everyone else on neurotypicals can just learn a to B, C, D, and they can learn that symbol line. We have to learn a whole constellation in order to learn ABCD.

Right? Yeah. And, and so, so deep learning is our only choice. We can't be surface learners because, oh, by the way, did I mentioned we have poor short-term memory. And so for us learning, that's our only option. Right. And so, yeah, I, you, you said it perfectly, so remember Einstein, right? We're pretty sure he had ADHD. He never really learned to tie his shoes. He didn't know his left from his right.

I mean, he was scattered as all get out, and yet he, people are still trying to unravel his theories. Right. DaVinci is another classic person with ADHD. And so there are these people through history who changed how we think, well, literally about time and space in Einstein's. Right. I said, it's example, time and

Speaker 0 (53m 52s): Springs. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (53m 53s): Yeah. And yet that guy couldn't manage his own time and space. And so, you know, ADHD folks can be world changers. It's just, we get so bogged down by the Monday. And we get so tired carrying the mundane daily task. And that's why I wrote the book to say, yeah, you suck at the mundane tasks. Whoops. Can I say that? I am sorry.

Speaker 0 (54m 23s): So you see whatever you want. The book is called, your brain is not broken. The book is called. Your brain is not broken. The book is called. Your brain is not broken. Folks, go out there and pick it up. It's beautiful. And it's fun. And it's functional. And we have barely scratched the surface of what's in there. There's a lot, not only of anecdotal stories, not only stories of, of people that Dr. Tamar has helped, but there's a lot of functional things in there that you can apply to your life. She's gone out of her way to, to tell her story, to help you.

And I hope people pick it up and you have a, you have things to, do. You have places to go. And another thing to see, I, I could talk to you for another two hours. I hope you'll come back sometime and we can continue to talk about new things.

Speaker 1 (55m 9s): Absolutely. Anytime you ask, I'll be there because you're fun to talk with. I like my people, right. I like talking with my people.

Speaker 0 (55m 16s): I'd give you a hug. If I could right now, I really enjoyed it. Thank you. I have. And all the links will be down below. Is there anything else where can people find you? And is there anything else that you want to leave us with?

Speaker 1 (55m 26s): I just want, if, if you do, if you've been listening, going, oh gosh, I think I have ADHD. It really is better to know. Yeah. And so there are great organizations out there that can help you. One of them is called Adda, M a D D a and they're adults with ADHD. And another organization is Chad children with ADHD. Those are great places to start for resources for you.

There's a magazine. I love, I'm not getting paid to promote them. It just, I love it is called attitude. A D D I T U D e.com. And that's, those are some resources. So just start learning about this. Not everyone has to be a nerd that I am reading books on chickens, but just start to learn, to get, get to know your

Speaker 0 (56m 23s): Brain. That's really well said. And I, I appreciate it. And it's been a real pleasure. And thank you for the book. Your brain is not broken. Links are down below, and I got to learn a lot, and I'm really thankful to talk to you. So we'll talk again soon. I'm so grateful to talk to you. Thank you so much. I hope you have a great rest of your day and I hope the chickens are awesome. Okay, doctor, thank you for your time. Have a wonderful day. All right. Thanks. Bye-bye.