Delayed Sensory Affect: Understanding the Overload with Dr. Michael Felt
This week, Pete and Nikki sit down with Dr. Michael Felt to learn more about Delayed Sensory Affect (DSA). Ever find yourself so immersed in hyperfocus that basic needs fall by the wayside, only to erupt into chaos later? This could be a hidden ADHD struggle you've been facing.
We know our brains can be overwhelmed by constant stimuli and misinterpret sensory cues. This can lead to dramatic emotional responses. Through the amusing "I have to make" model, he illustrates how this affects both children and adults, becoming a silent disruptor in our daily lives.
The discussion turns raw as Pete opens up about the emotional toll of transitioning from work to home, highlighting a common yet unspoken burden for many ADHD adults. Nikki challenges listeners to recognize these patterns and take actionable steps to soften transitions with intention.
Dr. Felt is an ADHD & Executive Functioning specialist who has lectured at Yale University School of Medicine, and is a professor at Columbia University, where he teaches Psychopathology. He’s also, once again, a new dad. Congrats, Michael, from all of us, to all of you.
Links & Notes
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Pete Wright:
Hello everybody and welcome to Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast on TruStory FM. I'm Pete Wright. I'm here with Nikki Kinzer. Oh, look, it's Nikki right there, right there.
Nikki Kinzer:
Oh, I'm right here.
Pete Wright:
Hi.
Nikki Kinzer:
Hello.
Pete Wright:
Boo.
Nikki Kinzer:
Hello.
Pete Wright:
You scared me. Let's see, as this episode goes live, Nikki, you realize today is Halloween.
Nikki Kinzer:
Oh.
Pete Wright:
This is a spooktacular edition-
Nikki Kinzer:
It's a spooktacular.
Pete Wright:
... of The ADHD Podcast.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yes.
Pete Wright:
Spooktacular edition. I'm very excited about it. We've got a good friend come back to the show. He's only been on once before talking about comorbidities, and he's become best buds. We just love having him here to talk to us and help us understand new concepts, and that's what we're doing today. We're talking about delayed sensory affect. Oh, it's a new topic. I feel like it's going to be a barn burner.
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Dr. Michael Felt is an ADHD and executive functioning specialist who has lectured at Yale University School of Medicine and is a professor at Columbia University, where he teaches psychopathology. Today, we're diving deep into a topic that sparks a lot of interest during our last Patreon Q&A, delayed sensory affect, or DSA. We're thrilled to welcome Dr. Felt back to the show to teach us all about this misunderstood maybe phenomenon and its relationship to ADHD. Welcome back to the show, Michael.
Dr. Michael Felt:
So great to be here, really. It's so cool how sometimes, when you have chemistry, things just click.
Pete Wright:
Just falls together.
Dr. Michael Felt:
It's so good to be here. It feels like we've known each other forever. This is-
Pete Wright:
I know.
Dr. Michael Felt:
... really great to be here, and it's always awesome to talk about DSA and ADHD and how to make ADHD awesome.
Pete Wright:
Well, you say that it's always great to talk about DSA, and I don't think we've ever talked about DSA. We're first-timers.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yes.
Pete Wright:
So, we got to start with the, what the heck, who is it?
Dr. Michael Felt:
Sure.
Nikki Kinzer:
What is this? Yeah.
Dr. Michael Felt:
All right. So, hi, I'm DSA. I'll introduce myself. So DSA is really the way that I coined the phenomenon of where our sensory input and our sensory cues get overwhelmed or ignored due to that rushing stream of stimulation throughout our day. The way I like describing it the best, and forgive the crude example, I call it the I-have-to-make phenomenon. Now, here, just hear me out, hear me out, right? So, as you guys know, we just welcomed our fourth child, so that means that we have a lot of little kiddos here. And obviously, whenever mom and dad need to get anything done, no judgment, but we sometimes use the telly as a way to keep the kids to watch something and have the screen babysit for a good 20 minutes and give us 20 minutes of blessed relief.
So, during this time, as the kids are sitting in front of the screen transfixed by Bluey or, I don't know, one of these other amazing adult redeemers, we'll ask, "Is anyone hungry?" "No." "Anyone want a drink?" "No." "Anyone need to make?" "No." The second that show is over, all of a sudden, all of them at once in this raucous cacophony of complaint, "I need to make. I'm hungry. I'm starving." Right? And my very child, she'll also like that. She really, really, really, really needs to make right now, right now, 12 seconds ago now. My wife would always get so obsessed with like, "What? Just pause the video and go and fish. What's the problem? I just don't get it."
And the answer is that, when our children are watching that screen, and not saying that it ever happens to us, but children, when it happens to our children, they're watching a screen or they're looking at something, they're totally bought in there, transfixed. And because of that stream of stimulation, it becomes so much more exciting. Then whatever little impulses... or have you ever seen on a studio or something, when someone is talking, the little buttons go up, up there? Or on a EKG machine-
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Right, right.
Dr. Michael Felt:
... something goes up?
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Dr. Michael Felt:
So, they're not seeing the little hits of hunger, needing to void, thirst.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right.
Dr. Michael Felt:
Right? Because there's something so much more bright that outshines all the other sensory input. And then what ends up happening is that, as soon as that sensory input is reduced, all of a sudden, the rest of the senses and all the other cues that were coming up for them, they're now loud and center. Especially because the longer you wait, the more intense those sensory cues become.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right.
Dr. Michael Felt:
So it's really this giant, almost like battle between our stream of stimulation, meaning external stimuli, and our internal sensory cues.
Pete Wright:
Like our receivers are all on mute for a little while?
Dr. Michael Felt:
In a way. I wouldn't say they're mute though because they're there. That's exactly the point, it's a delayed sensory affect. We don't feel the sensory input until afterwards, meaning until after the stream of stimulation, until the SOS stops. Meaning, when we are caught in a stream of stimulation, it's just it's too exciting. It almost blinds. It's so bright. You never heard the concept of a bright spot, right? So there are blind spots and bright spots. It really just blinds us to what's going on because of the excitement of this current stream of stimulation.
Nikki Kinzer:
Well, and isn't that the definition of hyperfocus? You're in a hyperfocus mode, and so when you're in that mode, then this is when this delayed sensory happens.
Dr. Michael Felt:
Affect. Well, then-
Nikki Kinzer:
Or affect.
Dr. Michael Felt:
Yeah. The point of the delayed sensory affect, it's the phenomenon of what happens when that hyperfocus wanes.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right.
Dr. Michael Felt:
When it's over. And now, what? Right?
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Michael Felt:
Of saying, "I know, for me, that happens all the time," right? So Alan Brown has this great advice. He says, "Whenever you sit down to hyperfocus session, always bring with you the proteins, the drink, whatever," for two reasons. I think, number one, because I know how many times I'll get up to get a drink before I start the project I was going to sit down to do 12 minutes ago. But also because when we're in it, when we're so hyperfocused, then between the time blindness and the hyperfocus, we are experiencing this delayed sensory affect, which is that, even though our body is still hungry, or we are still thirsty, or really do need to void, but we're just not feeling it as much because it can't compete with that sensory input that we're getting from this stream of stimulation of whatever the stimuli that I'm involved in, the spreadsheet that I need to finish, this YouTube Short that I must, must see, right?
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Dr. Michael Felt:
"Oh, and the other one. Oh, and the next one. And this one looks cool, too," right? But by the time that's over, what happened now? Right? What about our hunger? Where did that go? The point is it didn't go anywhere, it just got stronger.
Pete Wright:
Well, that was my next question. I feel like, as I was researching this, on the other side of those hyperfocused events, that delayed sensory affect, now that I have words to describe it, seems to describe how I misunderstand the sensory information that comes in all at once, right? And sometimes, that comes out in exaggerated responses, right? Maybe I'm-
Dr. Michael Felt:
Ooh, I like that word.
Pete Wright:
... angry, maybe something is too funny, too sad, too whatever, but I'm misappropriating the original sensory input and I am amplifying it perhaps-
Dr. Michael Felt:
I like that. I'm writing that down.
Pete Wright:
... incorrectly.
Dr. Michael Felt:
Exaggerated response. Ooh, I'm going to add that to the clinical definition of this one. This one is good. Not bad work on that.
Nikki Kinzer:
He-
Pete Wright:
Thank you.
Dr. Michael Felt:
It could be your-
Pete Wright:
Right.
Nikki Kinzer:
That is awesome. We witnessed something big here.
Pete Wright:
Something big just happened. I don't actually know what just happened, but I feel good to be just an orbit of it. But the point is, how do I... I see that as a special bundle that comes with my bouquet of ADHD symptoms. What? How do you treat that? How do you meter it?
Nikki Kinzer:
Right.
Dr. Michael Felt:
Awesome. Oh, I love that you guys get straight into the guts of it. So, I personally have this whole build-up, you know me.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Dr. Michael Felt:
So, if you allow me just to continue the-
Pete Wright:
I'm sorry if I interrupted your narrative. I encourage you to please take it on.
Dr. Michael Felt:
I will. So what's funny is that it's easier to see it in kids because it's so much more intense and extreme, and black and white, but-
Nikki Kinzer:
Because they're following you around.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
"Mom, mom! Dad, dad, dad!" "Yeah, yeah."
Dr. Michael Felt:
What's so interesting-
Pete Wright:
"Give me the phone, give me the phone. I want a snack."
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Dr. Michael Felt:
But when it happens to me, it makes me feel like a kid.
Pete Wright:
Well, yeah, [inaudible 00:10:46].
Dr. Michael Felt:
Because we're going [inaudible 00:10:47] primal.
Nikki Kinzer:
And they're overwhelmed.
Dr. Michael Felt:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Michael Felt:
We're back in beast mode.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Dr. Michael Felt:
Right? And so what's cool is that it's not limited to kids. Think about adults going through the modern-day equivalent of watching a show, right? The modern-day equivalent of that stream of stimulation, our own SOS would be work. You have one meeting, and then an email you have to send to that annoying person that you never answered, and then another email that, "Well, yeah, you should have done that also two days ago," and then this new email that's way more exciting than the other two emails that you're really supposed to have done, but you're going to do this one first, and then another email and then while I really need a drink, and then, "Ah, but first, this coworker has my stapler," and then another meeting.
And so it's just boom, boom, stream of stimulation, stream of stimulation, then you get home. And as soon as you get home, you yell at your partner and you're like, "Whoa." You could chalk it up to RSD and all sorts of impulse, and whatever, which is true and I love that phrase, the bouquet of executive dysfunctions. Yes, 1,000%, that's all part of this phenomenon of delayed sensory affect, but what's really going on is exactly that, is that my own stream of stimulation is now waning as I'm leaving that rush of just constant adult stimuli. And now, I'm finally able to... My bodily senses and my internal cues are now raging, right?
So, I still haven't finished that stupid coffee that's probably on my desk, lukewarm and nasty, right? And yeah, this food that I packed, oh, I didn't really get to it, and then what? I eat some nuts, or ended up buying some junk from the snack machine, which I vowed I would never do every day. And then the point is that, by the time we get home, we're underfed, I'm overworked, impatient, and just yucky-
Nikki Kinzer:
Tired.
Dr. Michael Felt:
... just nasty, right? It's the adult equivalent of, "I had to make," because, now, we're like, "I just..." I remember when I would get home from school, right? So I was in a full day doing college and biblical school in the morning. It was crazy stuff. I was out from 7:00 to 7:00, and then I would go back from 8:00 to 11:00, and then do homework from 11:00 until 2:00 AM. So I was in this constant stream of stimulation. Then I knew, as soon as I got home, I would have to strip, just take off all my clothing, and just sit on a couch with a beer and just on the wine, right?
Now, again, it's that stream of stimulation that was just going and going and going, then my body just got overwhelmed and that's it. I get home, I couldn't do anything other than just veg out, right? And now, it makes more sense. Looking back at it, "Oh, that makes sense, it was the delayed sensory affect." Where I find it most comforting to recognize our delayed sensory affect is that, again, personal disclosure here, it's me coming home and then being handed a kid who is screaming, and then another one who has clearly just urinated on the floor, and then another one who is just not talking to anyone because she's not in the mood, and then I'm like, "Wait, you want me to deal with this?" I'm just snappy and irritable and gross like, "What happened?" Everyone is so excited, "Daddy's home and daddy's nasty."
Nikki Kinzer:
Right.
Dr. Michael Felt:
"What just happened?"
Nikki Kinzer:
Right.
Dr. Michael Felt:
"Is daddy nasty?" And that's the answer, the answer is because daddy didn't take care of himself. Now, daddy is a lot smarter, daddy brings cookies or an apple, and it's an apple a day keeps the DSA away. Because when I just-
Nikki Kinzer:
Oh, I love that.
Dr. Michael Felt:
I know, it's nice, right? I just thought of it now. And as I get home, I just pop an apple because the starchiness of it makes me feel full, right?
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Dr. Michael Felt:
And so, it at least attends to some of that DSA that's been going on and all those sensory input that I haven't yet dealt with. I make sure to go to the bathroom before I get home. I make sure to just take care of my bodily needs before I get home. This way, I don't have to bring my whole package of DSA as a dark storm cloud on my-
Pete Wright:
Right.
Dr. Michael Felt:
... poor hapless family.
Pete Wright:
Shed the overstimulation on your skin, yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
I really do appreciate that we're having this conversation because this is the first time that we've talked about this. We're talking about it, we're talking about the symptoms and things like that, but what's your recommendation for those listeners who want to continue being aware? How do you know this is happening to you?
Dr. Michael Felt:
Well, you could track the pattern of when you're called nasty.
Nikki Kinzer:
True, yeah.
Dr. Michael Felt:
When does your husband say that you're just nasty? When does your partner feel that she just can't be around you?
Nikki Kinzer:
If you guys are fighting a lot are a big green.
Dr. Michael Felt:
Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Michael Felt:
Try to look for those patterns. A lot of science is about noticing patterns, right? And so if we combine that scientific outlook with internal self-awareness, we're really gold. You're good to go in almost all of life, but especially here, and being able to be aware of these patterns. And it takes a drop of humility, something I'm working on still, to recognize when like, "Okay, I'm not exactly in tip-top shape during this time," and that honesty that like, "Yeah, this is not my preferred self," and then looking inside, taking a deep breath, that 3, 6, right? 3 seconds in, 6 seconds out of just like, "Okay, let me just feel what's happening in my body." It's a drop of mindfulness. I feel like you'd be all over this.
Pete Wright:
I'm totally all over it because I'm thinking right now about just my own routines, right? And for me, it's very much it's one of those dominoes things where it starts with the one, and then it grows and grows. And at the end, it's this explosion of dominoes. I feel like that's the metaphor for my day, that I meter my day so that, when I reach the end of my work day, there's nothing left in the tank, and that means my wife. I work out of my house. My studio office is in my house, and my wife can hang out in the kitchen and listen to me be excited and happy on podcast after podcast and be in a great mood, and then the door opens at 5:00, 5:30 and I'm a different person. I'm a substantively different person.
There is 10 feet of transition space between the guy I was when I was happy on a microphone and the guy I am now who is surly and hasn't had the space to, again, purge the overload that is now just all hitting. And so I'm trying to be really aware of what can I do in 10 feet so that I don't bring all of the negative stuff I've been storing up and pretending not to notice out of my office and thrust it all over everybody else in the house.
Dr. Michael Felt:
Yeah. It's getting me emotional as you're saying that because I'm right here, that's the door. And literally, my bedroom is right here. And also, I feel like the wall next to me is my kids' bedroom, and they hear daddy being so happy, so positive and encouraging, this beacon of hope and light and love, and he gets out, "It's nasty dad." And as you're talking, Pete, I'm getting emotional. It's so not fair to our family and the people we love the most. Everyone else gets the best of us, and the people we care about the most don't.
Pete Wright:
And it sets a model like, "What does that mean? When I'm at work and I'm being compensated for the work that I do, am I compensated for my mood then? Is that what it is? Does my family need to somehow compensate me to be in a good mood?" And that's just a horrible constraint, and I'm trying to be super aware of that. And I don't feel like I've had words or a collection of words to describe why it feels the way it does, and it just feels like I've been bathing in sandpaper at the end of the day.
Nikki Kinzer:
So, I'm going to put my coach hat on. It's on, okay? So, a lot of what you're talking about, too, is that transition from going from work to home. And because you don't have a commute, you don't have any space in between. You have no transition time.
Pete Wright:
Exactly.
Nikki Kinzer:
And so, one of the things that I would say as a coach is, how do you build that in for yourself? Because maybe that means, before you walk into the living room, you walk outside and take a walk, or you make a commute.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, create a commute.
Nikki Kinzer:
Create that space because you need that with your ADHD as well, right?
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
You need to be able to switch that or flip that switch, and then become that person that you need to be at home.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. I'm going to start walking down the hill and get on a bus, go downtown.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
Get on a train.
Nikki Kinzer:
Whatever you need to do.
Pete Wright:
Find some random building and come home from it.
Dr. Michael Felt:
[inaudible 00:19:44] equivalent of a home happy hour.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right.
Pete Wright:
This is what happy hour was. It was supposed to help all the rest of the world deal with their DSA.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yes.
Dr. Michael Felt:
Right?
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Dr. Michael Felt:
So why shouldn't we have anything less? I think we should start installing our own bar in the 10 feet between our office.
Pete Wright:
There you go.
Nikki Kinzer:
That's right.
Pete Wright:
It's just a 10-foot bar.
Dr. Michael Felt:
It's a business expense.
Pete Wright:
Exactly right. Why has it taken so long?
Nikki Kinzer:
There are so many things that could go wrong-
Pete Wright:
I don't know what you're talking about.
Nikki Kinzer:
... with that.
Pete Wright:
[Inaudible 00:20:07].
Dr. Michael Felt:
[inaudible 00:20:08] right. Is that [inaudible 00:20:09]?
Pete Wright:
The connection is breaking up.
Nikki Kinzer:
That's true, that's true. Yeah. Yeah. I just have to say, when you were explaining that scenario, Pete, it reminded me of I had a friend, this was many years ago, and neither one of them had ADHD, but this was just a marriage issue where he was an engineer, and he was building bridges, and he was in charge of a lot of people. And he would come home and she always felt like he was treating her like an employee, and they would fight about it, and she's like, "I am not your employee out on the bridge. I'm your wife."
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
And so I think it's a really important subject regardless of DSA, ADHD. It's just a people communication partnership that we have to be aware of when we're making those transitions from work to home.
Dr. Michael Felt:
Yeah, like building bridges and creating connection. It's not about the bridge, it's about the connection.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, absolutely.
Pete Wright:
Well, it's just so interesting to talk about... We talk about it in terms of the primal way. It makes me feel like a child when I'm going through that tantrum stage, and so it makes me really wonder about the way DSA impacts us across our lifespan, right? I feel like I am suddenly aware of DSA because, now, I have words to describe something that I was aware of all along, but I wonder how you see it change in people, if it changes at all. It sounds like it might not even change at all. We're all throwing little DSA tantrums at the end of the day.
Dr. Michael Felt:
Well, we all experience the DSA because it's just a reality, right?
Pete Wright:
Right.
Dr. Michael Felt:
It's that conflict between the stream of stimulation and our own sensory input... or output, really, whatever is happening inside us. And we have bodily needs, our sensory... It's always going to be happening. We're always going to become more hungry, become thirsty, and always need to use the restroom, right? Hopefully. If you're not, then we have a much bigger problem, right?
Nikki Kinzer:
Very true.
Dr. Michael Felt:
But the point is that there's always going to be this internal conflict. And as long as you're a functional human being, there will always be this kind of conflict. And so that's a good thing, right? It's a good thing that we're having that, it's just I think even better to be aware of, "Okay, this is a reality." It's not just like, "Oh, I have to avoid this DSA." No, DSA happens. We're all DSA-ing all the time, right? So the question is, how do we deal with it?
I love my apple a day because it's a way that it helps me attend to the negative effects of DSA, right? Again, I don't know if I've yet to think of a positive effect of it, but I don't want to limit DSA to being negative. I just feel like it's a reality. It's a net neutral. It just is what it is, this is us, especially those of us with ADHD and how our prefrontal cortex is constantly taking in all those airplanes of data that are coming into our air traffic control tower. It's just a constant stream of stimulation. Our brain is fluid, thoughts happen, and this fluid nonstop process. And think about it, have you ever not thought a thought? Ever not felt the feeling?
Nikki Kinzer:
Right.
Dr. Michael Felt:
There's always something.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right.
Pete Wright:
Right.
Nikki Kinzer:
Something I would add that has helped, and this is coming from somebody that does not have ADHD, and I'm coming from the place of where I'm doing a lot of listening and a lot of talking throughout the day with clients and the business, when I... And I am an introvert at heart, so it's very difficult for me to walk out at the 10 feet of my space and then come to two people who have ADHD that want to talk to me, and they talk a lot and they have big stories.
And one of the things that I have found, we just recently did this, but I will show my husband, "This is my day today." And if he sees a lot of green, he's going to know that, "Okay, maybe she's not going to be real talkative this evening." But yesterday, I only had two clients and it was at the beginning of the day, and I had all kinds of things that I could do yesterday. I went grocery shopping. I had family dinner. We were talking the whole evening. So I think part of it is also communicating what you need, and just doing it before the fight happens or the irritation seems to help.
Pete Wright:
That's really interesting. What I'm realizing here is that, really, for my home environment, I need to be more talkative about exactly what you're saying. I need to be more aware of what they are hearing on the other side of the door and need to tell them upfront, "I'm going to be exhausted at the end of the day." I already know that because I know what's ahead of me. And I have the great privilege and luxury that my wife also works out of the house, upstairs, and we can now meet for lunch, right? And our kids are gone, right? So, we have the ability that I don't come out and inflict myself on her the way I have in the past. It is solemn, this awareness, because I do wish I had come to terms with this 22 years ago, right? This is delayed sensory affect awareness, DSAA. But if not then, why not today?
Nikki Kinzer:
Well, that's right because you've got the whole future is unwritten.
Pete Wright:
I'm curious, Michael, I know DSA is not a diagnostic, right? It's not in the DSM, right?
Dr. Michael Felt:
Not yet.
Pete Wright:
So what's the plan? Are you working on that?
Dr. Michael Felt:
Oh, yeah.
Pete Wright:
Have you submitted it?
Dr. Michael Felt:
I'm yet to find the official inquiry or a submission page.
Pete Wright:
Is there a form?
Dr. Michael Felt:
Right.
Pete Wright:
Google something?
Dr. Michael Felt:
But I'm hoping that, as... To me, it doesn't even have to be in the DSM. I just wanted it to provide this solemn awareness that you're experiencing now.
Nikki Kinzer:
Absolutely.
Dr. Michael Felt:
We all deserve that. None of us like being nasty dad or irritable dude, or whatever. We want to be our preferred self. And I think that having this awareness allows a space for forgiveness for ourselves first, and maybe for other people to develop understanding and acceptance of us, but mostly for ourselves that just recognize, "Oh, wait, I'm not necessarily a horrible person, but just when I DSA and I don't effectively manage my DSA, it makes it harder for me to be the person I want to be."
Pete Wright:
Right.
Dr. Michael Felt:
And now, being aware of it, it allows us to then embark on the steps you just outlined, Nikki, which is being communicative about it, talking about it, preparing for it, the apple a day, or just even telling people. I'm not the biggest fan of telling people, "Oh, I have RSD." I feel like that ends up just coming across as an excuse, and our partners end up feeling like, "Oh, another one of those ADHD things. Yeah, shove it. I've heard enough. And every day, you come up with another acronym for why I should put up with your horrible behavior." This is not that. This is for us. For those of us who are struggling with it, to have that awareness that allows us to have an acceptance, and then allows us to take steps forward to combat it or effectively manage it so that we don't have to be nasty, so that we could be the person we wanted.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah. This is great. Thank you so much.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, yeah. It's fascinating to me. Knowing that it's not diagnostic, we're getting more and more people talking about it and aware of it, where do people go to learn more?
Dr. Michael Felt:
That's such a good question.
Pete Wright:
Have you written a book about it yet? Is your book coming?
Dr. Michael Felt:
A book is coming. I was just working on an agent and getting someone that's going to do this right. But yeah, I could do it in there. I'm just torn because I feel like it should be out right away. We all know how long it takes for books to come out. I'm wondering if maybe we could make something. You know how we all need deadlines? I'm wondering if maybe we can make a deadline where I'll try to write something up, or you guys to either post on the site or put on my website.
Pete Wright:
Link to it.
Nikki Kinzer:
Oh.
Pete Wright:
We'll put it on your site, yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Dr. Michael Felt:
Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
That's great.
Dr. Michael Felt:
Just a little blurb. It's cool though because I think that you guys are that... you're the frontier. And if anyone ever wants to know about it, they could come to you guys, and this is really where we flushed it out a little bit. Pete, I love that phrase, the way you define that as an exaggerated response, because it really is, right?
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Dr. Michael Felt:
It's an exaggerated response. When our kid says, "I have to make," it's an exaggerated response to that sensory input, but we also have that in our own more sophisticated felt ways.
Nikki Kinzer:
Way. That's right.
Pete Wright:
Sophisticated or not, I'm still an ass, right?
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Dr. Michael Felt:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
Well, this has been wonderful and illustrative, and thank you for poking at us and making sure that we come back and talk about it, because it's important stuff and I think just seeing people in the chat room who are saying, "Oh, yeah, nice to have words," right?
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
"Nice to know this is what defines that experience because, now, I can talk about how to change my relationship with it," everything, right? Explanations that are just for us, that is a beautiful way to put it. So, thank you, Michael. We appreciate you. adhddoctor.org, you haven't moved your website, have you?
Dr. Michael Felt:
Not yet, not yet. One day when I embark upon the Filth Center for ADHD Excellence, or something like that, I'll let you guys know. But until then, it's just same old, adhddoctor.org. Just trying to do my bit for the rest of us ADHDers.
Pete Wright:
Outstanding. As we wrap up, it is the last day of ADHD Awareness Month, and we've been asking our guests all month-long to do us a favor, as if sitting around a beautiful and gigantic shared table. Would you offer us a toast? Raise a glass and offer us a toast to our ADHD? What do you have to share?
Dr. Michael Felt:
Sure. When I give my toasts, or what I call a L'Chaim, when I give my L'Chaim, I often accompany it with a blessing. So I'm going to give the toast with my blessing, and my toast is that ADHD, that annoying, brutal part of us that forces us to become better people, then allows us to utilize self-awareness and slowly recognize how ADHD, as a self-control problem, really allows us to become self-control masters and masters of ourself. And that's my blessing that we could use our ADHD to look inside us and become the best version of who we want to be.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah. Cheers!
Pete Wright:
Cheers, everybody.
Dr. Michael Felt:
L'Chaim!
Pete Wright:
L'Chaim.
Nikki Kinzer:
That's great.
Pete Wright:
This is wonderful. This is really, really wonderful. Thanks for doing that. Thanks for sharing. Thanks for being here. Thank you everybody for downloading and listening to this very show. We appreciate your time and your attention. Don't forget, if you have something to contribute to the conversation, we're heading over to the show talk channel in Discord, and you can join us right there by becoming a supporting member at the deluxe level or better. On behalf of Nikki Kinzer and Dr. Michael Felt, I'm Pete Wright, and we'll see you right back here next week on Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast.
