Listener Q&A!

Q & A

May 23

This week Pete and Nikki dive into their mailbag to answer pressing questions from listeners. From microphone recommendations to advice on job searching with ADHD, Pete and Nikki provide thoughtful insights drawing from their own experiences and knowledge.

One major revelation in this episode is that the dynamic duo has authored a book together called Unapologetically ADHD, which is now available for pre-order before its September 4th release date. The book promises to translate the charm and wisdom of the podcast into the written word, with Nikki sharing practical tips and Pete weaving in personal essays.

Pete, an avid film buff, also shares some recent movie picks and discusses his love of connecting with other cinephiles on the film-focused social network Letterboxd. Another listener is curious about the connection between gut health and ADHD symptoms, a complex topic that Nikki and Pete explore.

Links & Notes

Pete Wright:
Hello everybody and welcome to Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast on TruStory FM. I'm Pete Wright and I'm here with Nikki Kinzer.

Nikki Kinzer:
Hello everyone. Hello, Pete Wright.

Pete Wright:
Oh, hi.

Nikki Kinzer:
Oh, hi.

Pete Wright:
Fancy seeing you here in this questionarium.

Nikki Kinzer:
I like that. Questionarium.

Pete Wright:
Welcome to the questionarium. Today we are taking on some listener questions, questions you have asked, and we are answering and we hope we give some good answers.

Nikki Kinzer:
We hope so.

Pete Wright:
I guess that's it.

Nikki Kinzer:
We'll see how this goes.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. Yeah. We're rolling the dice on another LQ. So before we get started, head over to takecontroladhd.com to get to know us a little bit better. You can listen to the show right there on the website or subscribe to the mailing list, and we'll send you an email each time a new episode is released. If you were to join us over at patreon.com/theadhdpodcast, that's really our favorite place for you to join us because then for a few bucks a month, you would be listening to this as a live stream. You would be hearing it right now. You could ask more questions as we record this thing live and we could answer them. And it's really, really great. We do a bonus section at the end of each episode. If we have a guest, they stick around and answer questions. We really try to make that member feed, the Patreon audio feed, something of real value when you are a supporting member on Patreon and have the luxury of being able to listen to us record live. So again, patreon.com/theadhdpodcast to learn more.
All right. Here we go. It's listener question time. As you survey the outline, do you have a particular order that intrigues you?

Nikki Kinzer:
No. I just say we go from top to bottom.

Pete Wright:
Okay. Well-

Nikki Kinzer:
Because that way if we go all over the place, we're going to forget which one we answered and which ones we haven't.

Pete Wright:
That's fair. Well, the first ones are easy. They're easy and mostly for me. And so I shall begin. The first one is what is the microphone that you're using for the podcast? The quality is great. Thank you. We have two different microphones. Nikki's microphone is the ATR 2100X. It is a USB cardioid dynamic microphone. It has both USB and XLR connection. So if you have an audio device that you plug yours into to control things like gain and volume and monitoring, you can do that, but you can also just plug it directly into the USB port on your computer

Nikki Kinzer:
And it has tape.

Pete Wright:
Well, and it's taped. Nikki's is taped.

Nikki Kinzer:
It's taped so that it holds its position properly because somehow I think I did something.

Pete Wright:
Something broke.

Nikki Kinzer:
Something broke and so I taped it back together.

Pete Wright:
The microphone itself is about 50 bucks on Amazon right now.

Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah. It's not expensive at all.

Pete Wright:
It's not an expensive mic. It's one of those mics that the closer you get to it, if you're in a really sound controlled room-

Nikki Kinzer:
Hello.

Pete Wright:
There you go. See how good that sounds?

Nikki Kinzer:
Yes.

Pete Wright:
Sounds so much better.

Nikki Kinzer:
Well, it is better than when I'm not as close. And now I'm close.

Pete Wright:
That makes me do more work when it sounds-

Nikki Kinzer:
Oh, I'm so sorry.

Pete Wright:
That's okay.

Nikki Kinzer:
I'm just going to keep it right here.

Pete Wright:
That's where it belongs. Right there. If we can see the tape, you're in good shape.

Nikki Kinzer:
All right. See, I try to hide the tape.

Pete Wright:
See the tape, in good shape. No. Yeah. Don't hide the tape.

Nikki Kinzer:
Don't hide the tape.

Pete Wright:
Anyway, it's a perfectly serviceable mic for podcasting and it does great. It's the mic I use when I travel. When I throw something in my bag, I use that one. What I use day to day ... Because remember, I podcast a lot, you guys. I'm just on the mic all the time, and so I invested a little bit more. I'm using the Neumann KMS 105 MT condenser microphone, super cardioid pattern, and it is XLR only so you have to use an audio device like a USB box to plug in the audio to convert the analog signal to digital signal for your computer. And it's much more expensive. Right now it's like 700 bucks for the mic alone, so it's spendy, but man, it's paid for itself over and over and over again. I've used it for years. It's very, very rugged. It's a stage microphone. It's designed for big voice concerts. I just-

Nikki Kinzer:
You have a big voice.

Pete Wright:
I just like how I sound on it. It takes a lot of time to figure ... When you're recording as much as I do, you just start hearing what you sound like on a given microphone and I like this one the best and I've used a bunch. So I landed on the Neumann KMS 105. And if you're interested, I'll put the links in the show notes for that. On my end, part of what makes a microphone like this one, the analog to digital conversion is really, really good because I also have a USBPre 2 box from Sound Devices. It's a tank of an audio device and it is really, really great at taking audio, giving me a lot of fine control. There's no software. It's just everything you need is in the box and it's all knobs and switches and things, and I like that. I don't have to worry about software breaking the stuff that I'm using. I use those two things for capturing audio.

Nikki Kinzer:
All right.

Pete Wright:
I think that's the answer to the question.

Nikki Kinzer:
That's the answer.

Pete Wright:
Let's see what else. "I think I've heard Pete talk about having another podcast about movies he's on or maybe he just likes to listen to. I was wondering, since Pete is someone who enjoys movies, what movies have you seen lately and what would you recommend?" It shouldn't be just me. Do you have any?

Nikki Kinzer:
Movies. Let's see. I just watched a movie with Hilary Swank called The Good Mother. I watched that over the weekend. I didn't love it.

Pete Wright:
Okay.

Nikki Kinzer:
It was fine, but I don't care if I ever watch it again.

Pete Wright:
Okay.

Nikki Kinzer:
That's the last one I can remember. It's one of those times where you'll get asked a question and then you can't remember anything.

Pete Wright:
You can't remember anything.

Nikki Kinzer:
Do I even watch movies? Yes, I do. I know I watch movies, but now I can't remember what they all were.

Pete Wright:
Well, I used-

Nikki Kinzer:
You do a podcast on movies.

Pete Wright:
I do a bunch of podcasts. The main podcast on movies that I do is called The Next Reel Film podcast. R-E-E-L, obviously. A film podcast. And as a part of that, we also do movies we like where we interview filmmakers and talk about the movies that inspire them. And I do Sitting In The Dark, which is another monthly show where we talk about a collection or a theme of horror movies specifically. It's a panel show. So all of that is a part of The Next Reel Film podcast that we do. And I've been doing that show since 2011.
Mostly you can find out the movies that I watch on Letterboxd, if you haven't played with Letterboxd, it's a great social media network for movie lovers. It's letterbox, D. There's no E at the end, so Letterboxd and I am @PeteWright over there. I'll put the link in the show notes there too so you can see it. Now, I do have a movie to recommend. We have been watching a bunch of horror movies because we're doing a series on the Fangoria Chainsaw award winners, which is a horror movie award.

Nikki Kinzer:
I don't even know what that is.

Pete Wright:
And I watched one that if you're into creepy movies, check out Sleep Tight. It's a Spanish movie all filmed in Barcelona, and it is about the shenanigans that go on in a members-only apartment complex in Spain and it is creepy. So creepy. But the movie that I think might resonate with y'all is called Turtles All the Way Down. Have you heard of this?

Nikki Kinzer:
No, not at all.

Pete Wright:
Okay. The book was written by John Green and you know my whole family is a big fan of John Green. He wrote the book and the book tells a story of ... It's really him telling the story of his life with OCD, and he tells it through the world of a 16-year-old girl, a high school student named Aza and about her experience with OCD and intrusive thoughts. I've never seen a movie that is more attuned to a mental health experience, I think, than this one in terms of the reality of modern experience.

Nikki Kinzer:
Interesting.

Pete Wright:
And it's a YA movie and so some of it is like the dialogue is super saccharine and sweet, but really her lived experience and the way they tell the story of how she lives with OCD and the trouble of her callous that she keeps opening because she thinks it's infected and her fear of being in a hospital and because of the infections that she can get are ... It's extraordinary. And it's streaming on Max right now. That's the only way you can see it. But it opened just Friday the third, so it just came out and I want to recommend it because I think John is a conscientious creator and I like the work that he does and this movie is a really interesting exploration through the lives of these interesting characters. And so for me, it is a four star and a heart on Letterboxd, and you can find me. Just search for Pete Wright, but I'll put the link in there. If you're also a Letterboxd user, I would love to connect with you.

Nikki Kinzer:
Cool.

Pete Wright:
I think this next question is a plant.

Nikki Kinzer:
I do too.

Pete Wright:
Did I hear-

Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, I think this is a total planted question, folks.

Pete Wright:
Get ready. "Did I hear that Nikki or Pete or both wrote a book? Where can I find the book? I love listening to The ADHD Podcast every week, so I'm sure I would enjoy a book version of the podcast too." You're in luck.

Nikki Kinzer:
Wow. What a great question to come up.

Pete Wright:
Such a great question. Thank you, whoever you are, for asking this question. We're actually really excited. We did write a book. It's called Unapologetically ADHD. It comes out September 4th and pre-orders are, you heard it here first, I think, available now. What do you want to say?

Nikki Kinzer:
Well, yes, we are very excited about the book. We just took our photo over the weekend for the book's-

Pete Wright:
So exciting.

Nikki Kinzer:
Author photo that goes on the back of the book. So that's exciting. So yes, it's in production and it should come out in the fall. And it's a book around planning and it's based off of a lot of the stuff that I do in GPS and Pete Wright has contributed his part of the book exactly the way that we do the podcast. That is what's kind of fun about the book is that it's very similar to ... I bring a topic and Pete likes to talk about it in his own experience and he likes to share metaphors and he's a storyteller. So he has these beautiful written essays in each chapter of the book talking about the topic that I'm talking about in the lens of an ADHD or in his own experience. And so it is really as close to a podcast episode in a book version as you can get.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. Yeah, I think it's pretty close.

Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, I think it's really close, but we're both very excited. We've worked very, very hard. Writing a book is not easy, but we are very proud of it.

Pete Wright:
Now, as we record this, it's early May. I won't be too specific, but we started writing the book in November of last year, so it's been a long time already. And the release date is currently September 4th, assuming all the fulfillment gods are in cahoots.

Nikki Kinzer:
Right.

Pete Wright:
We should have it on September 4th.

Nikki Kinzer:
Pretty cool.

Pete Wright:
And I will put the pre-order link in the show notes if you are so interested. Let me tell you, I know ... The hardcover book. I know it's a hardcover book, and I think there are people like me who see hardcover and think, yeah, wait for paperback. But if you are interested in this show , maybe buy the hardcover. It'd be a really neat gift for me and Nikki is to have those pre-orders because that it turns out really helps book sales.

Nikki Kinzer:
It matters.

Pete Wright:
I can't believe I'm saying that on a podcast right now.

Nikki Kinzer:
I know.

Pete Wright:
It feels like a trope, but it's turns out it's really true. And I can already see ... When you look at the book, you'll see our placement on the charts in each category. You can scroll down and see that we're doing better in business inclusivity than we are in the ADHD pre-order section.

Nikki Kinzer:
Right. I don't know why. I mean, it makes sense, I suppose, but yeah. What cracks me up about that though is when we first noticed that it was on Amazon and we could see the rankings, and I hadn't even finished the last chapter of the book yet, and I thought that was really funny. I'm like, oh my gosh, they have a lot of faith that this is going to get done because it's not even finished yet and it's up and-

Pete Wright:
So funny.

Nikki Kinzer:
Being pre-sold.

Pete Wright:
Thank you, Kristen, for hanging out in the live stream and you have a question that is appropriate for everybody. "Are you going to make an audiobook?" And the answer, it's really interesting. I did not understand this, but when we did the book deal with the publisher, fantastic publisher, Wiley, they're awesome, audiobook is not a standard part of it. It is not a foregone conclusion that there will be an audiobook. So we found out months later that yes, they actually did sell the rights to a partner publishing house that does audio and that they're going to produce an audiobook of it. And the way they tell us is the audiobook will be released four to six months after the book is released. And that's just production time of the cycle of what it takes to get it done. So there will be an audiobook coming. There is an ebook Kindle version, all of that is also there. You can pre-order it at Barnes and Noble and Amazon and yeah, I think that answers all the questions. So the audiobook is coming. Oh, I guess the second question is are we doing the audiobook? The answer to that is no.

Nikki Kinzer:
No. We could have-

Pete Wright:
We thought about it for a hot second.

Nikki Kinzer:
We thought about it and we could have auditioned for it.

Pete Wright:
Yeah, they would've made us audition.

Nikki Kinzer:
Which is funny. Can I audition to be Pete Wright, please? And then you be Nikki and we'll just switch.

Pete Wright:
Oh, totally swap parts. That would've been really fun.

Nikki Kinzer:
But no. That's another piece that we didn't really realize is that there's a lot of components that go into recording an audiobook too. And so we decided to leave it for the experts, the professionals. And then who knows, maybe someday they'll say, "Hey, we would really like you guys to do it," and we'll do it. But we're okay-

Pete Wright:
Maybe on the second book.

Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, yeah. We're okay with having professional readers do it.

Pete Wright:
We really are. It was the audition bit that I was just like, okay, I'm really fine doing the podcast. It's going to be weird. I don't even know if we're going to get a chance to hear who is going to do our parts. How do you cast me?

Nikki Kinzer:
I don't know.

Pete Wright:
And you. I don't know.

Nikki Kinzer:
But I did ask that it would be a male and female because I did want us to have some kind of reality portrayal of us, so we'll see.

Pete Wright:
Okay. So that's the business and the internal category, the behind-the-scenes category. Thank you for those questions. Now we have a question on jobs. "I have been fired from several jobs, most of where I lasted less than a year because of ADHD. When it comes to talking to a potential employer in the future, how do I explain why I changed jobs so often? Also, I'm not sure what to do when I am asked to provide references when applying for a new job. Unfortunately, I don't have any recent references because of the repeated job failures." What do you think?

Nikki Kinzer:
Right. Okay. So there's a few things that I think about here. One is when you're looking for a new job, I would actually sit down and do a little bit of reflection of why these last jobs haven't been working out. Because if there have been several and you have been let go of each one, I would be really curious to figure out what is the common thread here? And when we say it's because of ADHD, what does that mean? Because is it not the right job for you? There's a lot of jobs that aren't ADHD friendly, but then there are things that ... Can you find accommodations or is there a different type of career or job that you should be looking for that's different that maybe would accommodate more of how your brain works and thinks? So I guess my first step would be let's just figure out what's going on in these last jobs so that you're looking for the right job going forward.
And how does your ADHD show up so that when you do look for new jobs, you have a way to talk about it and in a way that doesn't blame it. And I just want to be honest about that. We can't just say, "Oh, it's always because of my ADHD." We've got to take some responsibility from that and figure out what needs to change. And that may not mean that you have to change. It just may mean that you change the kind of job that you're searching for. So when it comes to potential employers, this is where I would start. And I would really recommend too, looking at different resources around skill resumes. How do you build a resume around your skills versus just about this was my job, this was my title, this is what I did there. So I would look at formats that are more around, here are my computer skills, here are my communication skills, here are the different instances that I used in communicating with other teams and things like that. And start to build your resume more around your skills and not just about the jobs and see if that doesn't help a little bit.
With references, I think it's important to find, even if it's just a coworker, somebody that can vouch for you that yes, you were in this position and these were the things that you were doing. Most of the time references do not honestly give a lot of information outside of just-

Pete Wright:
Not anymore.

Nikki Kinzer:
No. Outside of yes, this is when that person you worked here. So don't lie. Don't fudge on the numbers because a potential employer could still call regardless if you gave them permission and not just to verify your employment, so I wouldn't fudge on anything. But if there's any type of coworker, colleague, somebody that you could talk to that could just vouch that, yeah, this person did this and whatever could help. It doesn't have to necessarily be a supervisor is what I'm thinking. And then I would practice when you're in an interview on how you talk about your past positions.
I wouldn't necessarily say you were fired from them. I would say that they weren't good matches or you found going into it that it just wasn't something you really wanted to do. I would try to stay away from any kind of negative talk or bad-mouthing or blaming because that's not going to help you. So I would definitely role play being in an interview and being asked those questions and how are you going to respond and having a script in mind so that you feel more confident and really can almost, with role playing, get off of the subject a little bit and keep going into about why you should be their employee and what you have to offer and what your strengths are and stay away as much as you can from these other things. And just on last, before you say anything, this feels ... I know. You're like, I want to talk.
But I just want this person to know that my guess is that you might have a lot of emotion and feel bad about this stuff and so I don't think it's a bad idea to also go to therapy and really talk through it because maybe some of these things where you've had some job failures, it doesn't mean it's a personal failure. It just wasn't a job that worked out for whatever reason. So I hope you can work through some of those emotions because I just have a feeling that this person's probably beating themselves up pretty badly and I hope that that you can work through that and see that you have a lot of other opportunities that you can shine in. You just have to find what those are.

Pete Wright:
I don't know that I have much to add. I just want to emphasize really more than anything else, the idea of focusing on the positive aspects of past jobs and the skills, I think is a really good point. And I think it's okay to craft a resume that emphasizes you want to find the right fit for your set of skills, the things you're demonstrated to be good at. The other thing about references, you can use LinkedIn references. You can reach out to former coworkers and colleagues and say, "Hey, write me a reference on my LinkedIn profile." You can request references and you could use those on your resume. And so, like Nikki said, they don't have to be direct supervisors. They also don't have to be the most recent job. You can go back. The other thing, I think the hidden gem, volunteer references. If you have ever volunteered for an association or an agency for helping to just get things done, reach out to those people. If you've never volunteered, consider taking a few hours a week to volunteer for an organization in your area that needs an extra set of hands. Use some charity time and some sweat equity time to build some new relationships with people and maybe find some relationships that people might want to use to advocate for you in the form of a reference.

Nikki Kinzer:
That's a great idea. That's a great idea.

Pete Wright:
That's what I have to contribute. Not much. You did great. That was perfect.

Nikki Kinzer:
Thank you. You too.

Pete Wright:
All right. All right, let's see about the next question.

Nikki Kinzer:
And good luck. Good luck on the job search.

Pete Wright:
Good luck and thank you for writing. "Could you talk about the gut-brain connection and how it may relate to ADHD symptoms? Is there a past podcast on this topic you can point me to?" And production note, Melissa dug through the podcast history, and we don't have one specifically addressing this, though we do have a blog post that we can put in the show notes too that touched on it. I'm fascinated by this, as you can imagine right now.

Nikki Kinzer:
Right. Yeah. I just actually went to look at the blog post because it was like-

Pete Wright:
When did we write that?

Nikki Kinzer:
When did we write this? So when I think of gut feeling, I think of your instinct. What is your-

Pete Wright:
Oh, but this isn't about instinct, Nikki.

Nikki Kinzer:
But that's not about instinct.

Pete Wright:
This is about your biome and inflammation and it's also called the gut-brain axis and it refers to the communication between your gastrointestinal tract and your central nervous system and it can have a-

Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah. I know nothing about that.

Pete Wright:
It's a big deal.

Nikki Kinzer:
I was thinking it was like your gut. Like what is your gut telling you? Okay.

Pete Wright:
Not even remotely.

Nikki Kinzer:
I took that way too seriously. Okay. Yeah, I have no idea.

Pete Wright:
Well, I do.

Nikki Kinzer:
What do you got?

Pete Wright:
And I think we should have somebody on the show. I mean, I got some ideas for some physicians who are good at gut stuff and could come talk to us about this because it's fascinating. Because the gut microbiome as they call it, the stuff that lives in your gut is ... I mean, you're just full of microorganisms that play a really critical role in maintaining your health as you digest stuff and as you extract nutrients. And it really relates to the function of your neurotransmitters and your nervous system and how you think and how you react and your emotional stability. And so many of those things are linked to ADHD. The same neurotransmitters found in the brain like serotonin and dopamine and GABA are produced in the gut. So if your gut isn't functioning, these neurotransmitters that are essential for regulating mood and attention and other executive functions can be completely thrown out of whack. And if you're living with ADHD, those things are exacerbated. All right. The other piece is ... And this is a huge one, and I have a couple of books on ... One is called Wheat Belly and the other one, oh my goodness, I need to dig for it. It's on my shelf, but it's upstairs.

Nikki Kinzer:
I think I've heard of Wheat Belly.

Pete Wright:
Oh, Wheat Belly is very famous.

Nikki Kinzer:
Have you talked about it before?

Pete Wright:
Probably because I'm a big fan. Weird to be a fan of that stuff. Anyway, this is the deal that inflammation is the universal killer. Inflammation in your system will kill you. It's how we die. And getting your inflammation in check when you still can is important. It's important for joint health and muscular health, and it's important for brain health and nervous system health. Chronic inflammation in the gut is linked to increased inflammation in the brain directly, which contributes to the development of neurological psychiatric disorders, including exacerbating symptoms of ADHD. And this is not just diet, but it is the connection between diet and stress and what they call dysbiosis. Dysbiosis is the imbalance of the gut microbiome. And finally, when you look at the vagus nerve, I have a kid with vasovagal syncope, nonconvulsive vasovagal syncope, which is a seizure disorder where they just sometimes seize up when the vagus nerve-

Nikki Kinzer:
You have a kid that does this?

Pete Wright:
Yeah, I do.

Nikki Kinzer:
Wow. I didn't know.

Pete Wright:
And sometimes if there's a sudden change in blood pressure, they will just seize up. They have a 10 to 20 second seizure and then kind of wake up and be like, "Oh, this is fascinating. What happened?" So this vagus nerve is a big deal and it's a really important part of the gut-brain axis because it is a direct line of communication between the gut and the brain. And stimulation of the vagus nerve and lack of stimulation of the vagus nerve has shown to have a variety of positive and negative effects on mood, attention and other cognitive function. So much of this is related to what you put in your engine, your diet, what you eat. If your gut is out of whack, you can't pull out nutrients like omega threes and fatty acids and the various nutrients that you need. So getting that stuff in order, getting your gut health in order is important for all of this stuff. Yeah. As you can imagine, I've been diving in to a lot of this research.

Nikki Kinzer:
Of course. Yeah.

Pete Wright:
Getting ready for what's going on this week for me and I just feel like I'm super intrigued at the prospect of talking to somebody specifically about the gut-brain axis. So know, fair listeners, something is coming.

Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah. That's so interesting.

Pete Wright:
About this topic.

Nikki Kinzer:
And don't listen to me about your instinct unless you have a gut problem. You really feel like something's wrong.

Pete Wright:
If your instinct is to eat better, you should follow that.

Nikki Kinzer:
You should follow that instinct.

Pete Wright:
Yeah.

Nikki Kinzer:
Absolutely.

Pete Wright:
Okay. "What do you do when you're trying to get back on track but you're overwhelmed? I feel like I'm on a spinny thing looking at multiple paths and I can't figure out where to go. I'm lost in my head." First, I want to share a comic that I will read because it's amazing and it reminds me exactly of this, and it was actually in our community and I have sent it to everyone. It's a conversation between a blue bubbly therapist and a blue bubbly patient, and the therapist says, "Update me on the objective. I was focused on a frightening scenario, but then realized concern was unwarranted. Good. But I imagined a new frightening scenario. This is not the objective. I request a positive statement. I will never deplete my supply of concerns. No. My imagination is powerful. Better."

Nikki Kinzer:
Better.

Pete Wright:
That slays. That is exactly kind of my sensory experience of when I am overwhelmed is I could come up with all the reasons that I'm going to fail at everything that's next all at once on the spinny thing.
The first thing is I go through it from a productivity perspective if I can get my brain to stop spinning, and I usually need some sort of a mindfulness break, and I rely on things like my family and I rely on things like walking outside and doing something like standing in the rain or standing in the cold or some sort of sensory change. But mostly all I want to do is get down to prioritizing so I can look at the direct impact of my immediate choices on those next steps. Who am I going to be letting down if I choose one thing over another and start having a conversation in my head about that. And from there, it's just about breaking those tasks down so that I can feel better about taking them on. I set my realistic goals. I go through the process we've talked about, and I just try to do it from a perspective of forgiveness. It's okay to feel bad right now. I get to own my relationship with that immediate sense of lowercase G grief that I don't know how to move forward. And once I lean in to that and embrace that grief, I'm usually able to get to the other side of the feeling.

Nikki Kinzer:
I like that.

Pete Wright:
If I just say, "Hey, this sucks. I know it sucks. It sucks subjectively and objectively.", no one's going to look at me and say, "Hey, you look like you're really winning right now." But once I say that out loud, I can usually get back to a point where I can relate to the world around me.

Nikki Kinzer:
That's great.

Pete Wright:
What do you think? How'd I do?

Nikki Kinzer:
I think you did great. I do. I do. I think this is a common feeling for a lot of people that feel this every single day. So it's not always just coming back from something. It's just getting back on track because it's a new day. So I think that there's a lot of power in understanding and realizing that that's what's happening is that you're looking at everything all at once, feeling like everything is going to fail all at once, and being able to pause for a moment and realize that not everything is as urgent as it feels, and I think that the prioritizing becomes really important. I think verbal processing is really important with ADHD, so if you're feeling this way, to be able to talk to someone, and even if it's just talking about your to-do list or talking about a surgery that's coming up that you're nervous about and overwhelmed about.
Being able to process those things with someone else can help decrease some of that overwhelm. And then you're identifying it, you're processing it, you're talking to other people about it, and then I think it goes back to what you're saying is what do I zero in on and start breaking it down and just really pay attention to that. And as hard as you can, avoid everything else because everything else is what's cluttering this focus and is what's getting you in trouble. Sometimes in my own work, if I start to feel overwhelmed, if I have multiple projects, I put them in buckets and I'll say, okay, I'm going to work one hour on this online course, and then I'm going to work one hour on the GPS membership and then one hour on podcasting. So that I know that at least I've gotten my hands in a bucket. Because it feels worse to me to keep ignoring the online course because it's not as important, but then it keeps getting dragged and I keep feeling overwhelmed and it's such a big project, and so I have to break it down and somehow at the end of the day, what is going to make me feel better and moving these things forward and that's getting my hand in that bucket just for a little bit.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. It's the visit approach.

Nikki Kinzer:
It's the visit approach.

Pete Wright:
It's so beautiful and just reminds you of the things that are important. I'm in this state for the true story side of my life, TruStory FM, that I don't think we've ever had a perfectly complete website. I do the website work and I do so much website work for other people that I've never truly finished our own. And so there's stuff that just looks undone, and I am really trying with an accountability partner to keep reminding me and keep me on task, I'm really trying to invest a little bit every day. Just a little bit. And God, I've been alive long enough to know better, but I'm still constantly surprised at how much progress you can make by just doing a little bit every day. That's true. I'm still surprised by that. I should not be surprised by that. But it's like this gift, this awakening. Every day I realize, hey, if I look back two weeks, I've made a lot of progress on this thing. And so that is a massive gift, the visit approach, is just to move something forward a little bit. It's amazing.

Nikki Kinzer:
It is. And it lessens the overwhelm and then you feel better at the end of the day.

Pete Wright:
Absolutely.

Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah. Visit, visit, visit. Yeah.

Pete Wright:
Okay. We got one more. Are you ready?

Nikki Kinzer:
Yes.

Pete Wright:
"I find that when I am really stressed or overwhelmed, my emotions tend to run more hot. That is, my temper seems to be much worse, and I seem to feel angry or act out in anger about everything. Then once the major stressors have passed, it's like someone let the air out of my balloon and I come crashing down feeling depressed and regretful of my behaviors when I was lashing out. Could this be related to my ADHD? How can I find ways to refocus and choose not to act out in anger when stress inevitably comes my way?"

Nikki Kinzer:
Well, the first question is yes. I mean, it definitely can be related to your ADHD because part of ADHD is the emotional dysregulation, and that's exactly what's happening is emotional dysregulation. It's reacting to something that may seem a little bit more intense than someone without ADHD experiencing the same thing. So you feel your emotions very intense, whether that's anger, but it can also be happiness and all of the good feelings too. But when you're angry, this emotional dysregulation is in full play for you. Then we also have the RSD, which is the rejection sensitive dysphoria, which we've had Dr. Dawson talk about. We'll put that in the show notes as well. And he talks about that rejection piece of it and taking criticism really hard, maybe at an argument with someone or a disagreement, and now you're ruminating over and over again about that conversation and feeling depressed and all of those things.
So what is happening I think is definitely around those kinds of symptoms around ADHD. Where you can find help on refocus and choosing not to act out in anger is not really a question for me and Pete to answer. It's really something to more talk to your therapist about, because this is something that if someone came to me with this in coaching, I would definitely want them to be talking in therapy about this. Because we don't know the intensity of the temper or the anger or what's happened. We don't know enough of the information to be able to really help. I mean, I can give you some surface stuff around pausing and taking yourself out of the situation if you can is always helpful because when you're in the immediate, it feels so bad. So if you can walk away before you do anything that you regret. But this is definitely one I would say talk to your therapist about and figure out what kinds of things can help you with that.

Pete Wright:
I just want to add one thing that I think would be helpful for that conversation, which is I've been a big fan for a long time of this idea of creating your own user manual for your body and brain, documenting the things that work. So we talk about the gut-brain axis. What are the things that make you sick or make your brain foggy when you eat them? Or what are those behaviors that change the way you relate to the world? And I think if you are in the space of finding these outbursts, like outbursts of rage and impulsive behavior, when you are finding the space of calm after, write it down. Write down-

Nikki Kinzer:
That's a good point.

Pete Wright:
The experience. What are the triggers so you can learn your own triggers for that uncertainty. And be as specific as you can. What was it about the state of overwhelm this time that triggered an anger response? What was it about the crash at the other side of it that caused you to feel regret? And write that down because that's going to be your roadmap. That's your outline for a conversation with a therapist. I mean, you're not diagnosing. You're going back to exactly what we talked about recently on a show, which is just focusing on behavior, right?

Nikki Kinzer:
Right.

Pete Wright:
You don't have to say ADHD or any other diagnosis. You're not self-diagnosing. You're just saying, hey, here's what my day looks like and here are these what I'm seeing as pretty big hot swings throughout my day, and I'd like to get some answers on that. I'd like some help processing that. I think that would be a super useful conversation.

Nikki Kinzer:
I agree. And it's interesting because when you bring that up, I remember reading a book with ... It's about children that have really strong emotions, and I think the last name is Green, but I'm not sure. I can find out, and I'll give you the notes to put in the show notes. But one of the strategies with dealing with children with really strong emotions and that get really upset is that preventative piece. We've got to stop it before they get onto the hamster wheel where you can't stop it. So as you were talking, it kind of reminds me of that. As adults, I think knowing what your triggers are, knowing what might make you upset, it is that preventative nature. Because as we know, when you're in an ADHD spiral and you're in the middle of it, it's really hard to feel anything else but anger. So really, I think that preventative piece is important and being able to talk to somebody about that.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. Yeah. Those are the questions for today.

Nikki Kinzer:
Those are the questions.

Pete Wright:
Look, we're under an hour. This has been fantastic. Thank you so much everybody for submitting your questions, those who did, and keep them coming. Sometimes just when we get them and they stack up like this, we'll do more of these episodes. So if you have things that are on your mind, ask them in the community. We sure like doing this, and we appreciate you being a part of it.

Nikki Kinzer:
Thank you, everyone.

Pete Wright:
That's what I got. It's the end. That's the end. You're the best. We appreciate you downloading, listening to this show. Thank you for your time and your attention. Don't forget, if you have something to contribute to any of the answers that we gave or anything else, we're heading over to the Show Talk channel on this Discord server, and you can join us right there by becoming a supporting member at the deluxe level or better. On behalf of Nikki, I'm Pete Wright, and we'll see you right back here next week on Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast.