The Language of Limitation
We’ve all been there, haven’t we? Stuck. Not physically stuck, mind you, but mentally ensnared. Trapped in a linguistic labyrinth of our own making. For those of us navigating the intricate pathways of ADHD, this feeling of confinement can be particularly acute. It's a subtle trap, often disguised in the seemingly innocuous words we use – words like "just" and "only." These linguistic termites, seemingly insignificant on their own, can gnaw at the foundations of our self-worth, leaving us feeling perpetually inadequate.
Think about it. How often have you dismissed your accomplishments with a self-deprecating "Oh, it was just a small project"? Or downplayed your efforts with an apologetic "I only managed to get half of it done"? These seemingly harmless qualifiers, these verbal tics, are more potent than they appear. They're the building blocks of what Nikki and Pete call out as the "Language of Limitation."
In this episode of The ADHD Podcast, they explore the hidden architecture of this linguistic prison. They explore how these self-limiting phrases, often echoes of childhood pronouncements and internalized criticisms, shape our perceptions and perpetuate a cycle of negative self-talk. It's an exploration of the power of language – how the words we use, both internally and externally, can either liberate or confine us. The pull apart the mechanics of reframing with strategies to dismantle the limiting narratives we’ve constructed around ourselves. They explore the art of mindful communication, offering techniques to navigate the often-treacherous terrain of social interactions.
Language is a tool, and like any tool, it can be used to build or to destroy. Join Nikki and Pete as they illuminate the path toward linguistic liberation, one "just" and "only" at a time. It's a journey worth taking.
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, and right over there is Nikki Kinzer.
Nikki Kinzer:
Hello, everyone. Hello, Pete Wright.
Pete Wright:
Hi. Happy New Year.
Nikki Kinzer:
Happy New Year.
Pete Wright:
I mean, technically, it's not the first show. Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
Well, no, it's the third new year show. You might want to actually like cut that out.
Pete Wright:
No, I don't. Because you know why? This is a pitch. If you were a member, a supporting member of the Patreon, then you would've heard this when it was recorded as our very first live stream of the new year, and you would've heard a whole lot of things that are going to feel two weeks dated by the time you listen to them. But I promise they were new at the time and we were back then two weeks ago, very, very excited to be back and recording together. And our first show, 2025, New Year was good and we're ready to kickstart this season. We've got a great lineup of episodes and we're excited to be here doing that. Today we are talking about, this was, I believe it was Melissa's experience that she shared in our back channel talking about the language of limitation. And that got me going, that experience.
Nikki Kinzer:
It sure did.
Pete Wright:
It did. And so I made an outline and you've just assigned me to talk about it.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yes. And I'm going to comment through it.
Pete Wright:
All right, we're going to do that. I'm very excited about it. Before we get started though, head over to our website, takecontroladhd.com You can get to know us a little bit better, listen to the show right there on the site or subscribe to the mailing list and we will send you an email each time a new episode is released. You can connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, or Pinterest or Bluesky @TakeControlADHD. And let me just say, this is now two weeks dated, if you haven't read up on what Meta is doing with their trust and safety teams and their content moderation, you really should and consider your relationship with Facebook now. So Mom, aunts and uncles who are listening to the show, if you're still on Facebook, go see his thing and see if you still want to be there. It makes me so mad. God, I'm fired up. I am fired up. We'll talk about that another time. Get ready for Coffee with Pete though, we're going to read some terms and conditions. It's going to be very exciting.
But we really would love you to join us in Discord, that's where the ADHD community lives. It is super easy to jump in there into the public chat channel. Just visit takecontroladhd.com/discord and you will be whisked over to the general invitation and login page. If you're looking for a little more, particularly if this show has ever touched you or helped you understand your relationship with ADHD in a new way, we invite you to support the show directly through Patreon. Patreon is listener supported podcasting, and with a few bucks a month, you can help guarantee that we continue to grow the show. You get access to our secret members only Discord channel. You get access at one tier to me and Nikki throughout the month in chat sessions and Coffee with Pete sessions, and we would love to see you there in person. Once again, visit patreon.com/theadhdpodcast to learn more.
All right, the language of limitation. So go ahead.
Nikki Kinzer:
It's a great title.
Pete Wright:
Start a fire, like in your hearth, get a fire going, turn the lights down, get a snifter of brandy because we're going talk-
Nikki Kinzer:
And listen to Pete.
Pete Wright:
We're going to talk about words.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yes and listen to you.
Pete Wright:
Here's the thing that's interesting. So months and months ago, we guested on a whole bunch of other people's podcasts, OPPs.
Nikki Kinzer:
OPPs. We were down with OPPs.
Pete Wright:
We were down with the OPPs, on other people's podcasts. And today as we record this, two of them went live, Brooke Schnittman's show, which was delightful, that's live in Apple Podcasts, wherever you get podcasts, and Ozeal Debastos show, The Creator Factor. I did a solo jam on his show. And as I was listening back to them, because it's been months, I just kind of wanted to hear, what did I say? It reminded me of the story that I was telling about a friend when I was a child who was living with ADHD back when only the most extreme manifestations of ADHD were caught. And that reminded me of the echoes of childhood that we carry through to our adult language and the way we talk about ourselves with ADHD. Criticism, like with labels like lazy and spacey and hyper, not used in conjunction with hyper focus, but used in conjunction with hyperactive.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right. Can't sit still.
Pete Wright:
Can't sit still. Frequent instructions on how to behave, how to sit, "Sit still," how to stand, "Stand still," how to use your hands, "Stop putting your hands in, stop chewing on your collar." Those kinds of things become internalized as negative scripts in our adult lives. And I know that we living with ADHD without doing the work to understand our internal language don't recognize it because it's so internalized. It's such a habit the way we talk to ourselves and the way we carry on a not good enough narrative. These lifetime of unmet expectations and comparisons to our neurotypical siblings or peers leads to this sort of foundational self-deprecating language in our lives.
Nikki Kinzer:
Mm-hmm. Well, and yeah, it definitely carries into adulthood and gets worse sometimes, right? I mean, what feels as a child it feels bad but it can feel really bad as an adult because you're accumulating these experiences over and over and over again and it's hard to forget or to believe that they're not true.
Pete Wright:
Right, right. So just to give an example, I actually put a giant list in our script document of language that fits in this. And I don't want to read necessarily all of them, but as you scan the list, do you see any of these that strike you as particularly sinister for the people you work with with ADHD?
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, I think mean the very first one that you put was, "just." And it's interesting because I use that word a lot, more than I probably need to. And there's sometimes where I'll use the word where I think it's supposed to be used, but then when I was reading through your material and just thinking through what we were talking about "just" is also a very triggering word because it's minimizing whatever it is that you're about to talk about. So when we say, "Just do it," that's not as easy as just getting up and doing it. "This is just a small assignment." Well, it may be to you, but to me it feels really big because I don't know what I'm doing.
I even think about when you came and visited me over the break to help me with my monitor. I'm watching everything you're doing and I'm thinking, "There's no way I would've figured this out," I would've stopped. But for you, it's just putting up a monitor. Doesn't feel like a big thing for you. "Simply" is definitely another word like that. What is simple to one person is not necessarily simple to somebody else. Yeah, I mean, lot of these things.
Pete Wright:
Those minimizing words are really tricky. So I categorize those as minimizing words and phrases, "just" and "only," those came from Melissa's example directly from the GPS session, I believe where that came up. But, "a little bit, merely, simply, at least, kind of, sort of, somewhat," right? Those languages of minimizing-
Nikki Kinzer:
Confusing.
Pete Wright:
Can be confusing because in some cases they can be used to simplify a concept. And we get in the habit of using those interchangeably with descriptions of ease. What should be easy for one person should be easy for the other person. And that's where we get ourselves tied up. But self-deprecating phrases, "I may be wrong but," or, "This might be a dumb question," or, "I'm a dummy, I'm not sure about this but..." "This may be silly, but..." Right?
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
Those kinds of self-deprecating phrases get in the way of us all the time. Hedging language. Oh, hedging language, "Maybe. Possibly. Perhaps. I guess. I think. I suppose. Probably." We pre-apologize through apologetic language. "I'm sorry to bother you, but..." "Sorry if this is a stupid question." 'I hate to ask, but..." "I don't mean to bother you, but..." Those questions are apologetic. And here is one that I do all the time, undermining our own accomplishments with language like, "It's no big deal," or, "Anyone could do this," or, "I got lucky." "It wasn't that hard." "I had a lot of help," is actually a good one. I use that all the time. That's actually not bad. But in some cases we find ourselves saying, because no one would expect us to be able to accomplish this, we say things like, "I had a lot of help," which undermines our own participation in it.
Nikki Kinzer:
Absolutely. Right.
Pete Wright:
Of course, negative self-talk, absolutes, binary language, we talked like that. Dismissive phrases, "It doesn't matter." "Who cares?" "It's not important." "Ugh, it's not important," when it might be important. Passive language. We get in a trap of passive language. "It was decided that..." Or, "Mistakes were made." Not able to take ownership or assign ownership of decisions. Tentative language, deflecting phrases, comparative minimizing, "Well at least it's not as bad as..." Or, "It could be worse..." Worse than? Why are we even going down that road?
Nikki Kinzer:
Right.
Pete Wright:
And so I think having a sense of these categories of language is important and they get bundled in three types, sort of parent types of language issues. The first one's pragmatic language. We're not talking about just turn-taking or social cues. We're talking about difficulty reading between the lines, understanding sarcasm and navigating group conversations. That's a thing that we sometimes struggle with because language isn't clear because the words that we use about ourselves are not clear and obvious, pragmatic-
Nikki Kinzer:
Can I just say something about sarcasm?
Pete Wright:
Sure.
Nikki Kinzer:
We were having this conversation between my daughter and my husband and I about the difference between being sarcastic and having a sense of humor. And because my husband was saying, "Well, I think I'm sarcastic," and both my daughter and I are like, "Well, no, you're really not sarcastic. You have a good sense of humor." But sarcasm sometimes feels more negative to me. When somebody's being sarcastic, there's a little edge there that it feels like a little dig sometimes. And I'm like, "And that's not you." That's not my husband at all. And so I'm like, "You're funny and you have a good sense of humor and you can see light of things, but I don't think you're sarcastic." And so I just think it's an interesting... When you're talking about it's difficult to understand sarcasm, it can be really difficult because you don't know, "Is this person trying to be funny or does this person really think whatever it is that they just said that feels mean?"
Pete Wright:
Yeah, I'm really glad you pull that out a little bit more thoroughly because the challenge with sarcasm is that when a, let's just say binarily speaking, a neurotypical brain uses sarcasm as a joke by saying things like, "just, only, simply," to us with ADHD, when we have internalized that language as non sarcastic.
Nikki Kinzer:
Correct, yeah. Yeah.
Pete Wright:
For me, that language is damaging. For them, it's a joke. And that's where the rift happens. That's where the RSD comes when I don't say anything about their joke. To them it was-
Nikki Kinzer:
Right, right. And then you're ruminating in your head, "What did they mean by that?" Yeah.
Pete Wright:
Right. Exactly. Exactly. So that's where that gets hard. So pragmatic language, really tricky. Expressive language, this is the frustration that we have when we're dealing with word retrieval problems. This is the tip of the tongue issue, "I have a word and I can't get it." And so I use negative language about myself as I struggle to tell stories, structure narratives, I ramble because I can't find the language that I need to use and it makes me speak ill of myself that much more. The answer to that problem is negative self-talk, minimizing my own participation.
And receptive language is the third big category, the challenges of processing information, and that includes in social situations, casual conversations, lectures, meetings, so classroom, work, wherever, it leads to misunderstanding and overwhelm because we deal with the same kind of later retrieval issues, memory issues and real time processing all become a problem. So I would love to turn it over to you and talk a little bit about the impacts of these things.
Nikki Kinzer:
Sure.
Pete Wright:
Where do we see the challenges of these kinds of language issues in the people that you're working with? Where do they need help?
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah. Well, you actually have put down in our outline kind of groups of categories of life. Where does it impact work, relationships, your social life, your executive functioning connection? And I think that when you think about work specifically, we're looking at if you're having a difficult time processing the information that's coming into you through a meeting, then what do people tend to do? They don't want to ask for clarification because that makes them feel like they should have gotten it the first time. Or they'll blame themselves for getting distracted and not listening or hearing all of it. Or maybe they heard it but they just didn't process it or actually take it in.
So I mean, I think that there's a lot of things that go along with the RSD that you started to mention and all of those things that can happen because we're not understanding or misunderstanding what is happening in the situation. So relationships is huge. I mean, gosh, especially when you have an ADHD partner and a non-ADHD partner, how those wires can get crossed, how something can be said and it wasn't meant to be said that way, but that's how the other person took it. And then you know how couples can fight and nitpick and then it becomes bigger issues. So I definitely see it there.
Pete Wright:
Well, and I wanted to add, as I was thinking about relationships, I was thinking initially about partners and my relationship with my wife. But the truth is I find myself completing her sentences, not in a cute way. I interrupt and I realize, "Oh my gosh," I do that to my mother. I do that to friends, parents, children, co-workers. It's a thing to be aware of. And it struck me, "Oh my god, it's everybody." Relationships, I sometimes categorize when I use the word relationship as my emotional kind of relationships. And it's everybody. It's everybody. So that was kind of an aha for me.
Nikki Kinzer:
Absolutely. Well, and it's easy too if you're upset or you're frustrated with your partner to say, "Can't you just do this? Can't you just get this done and just have it be over with so we don't have to have the same argument over and over again?" That is not helpful. It feels like it could be, but it's not. And I think that the social piece of the language piece is that especially if you have any kind of social anxiety, you only have so much energy to put into a social event if you have any kind of anxiety around that. And so that's stressful when you have to be in a position where you have to do your best to listen, you have to make small talk, you have to be on, you have to try not to be distracted by the things that are going on around you. I mean, all of this can be really exhausting and can affect how often you want to go out and who you want to spend your time with. I mean, it all impacts that.
And as you mentioned with the interruptions, I think that's where the executive functioning connection comes in, is that you start to see more of the ADHD symptoms popping out, the impulsivity, blurting out thoughts, saying things that maybe you might regret later because you're not pausing, you're just saying, you're just speaking. Emotional regulation, that is a huge issue for ADHD. So if you have a lot of strong feelings, like I saw it in you today in the introduction about Facebook, there was some emotional dysregulation going on there because you have some strong feelings about that. And not that you are dysregulated. I mean, you have every right to have those feelings. So don't get me wrong-
Pete Wright:
Did you just minimize me with language?
Nikki Kinzer:
I just minimized you, yeah.
Pete Wright:
You just minimized me right here.
Nikki Kinzer:
I know. And I don't want to minimize you because that... But I also don't want to make you feel bad. It's hard being a human being with all these emotions.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, it is.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah. But there's a lot of impact for sure. There's definitely the language, what we say to ourselves, what we say to other people, how we communicate. It's a big thing. And it's a lot of layers to try to figure out.
Pete Wright:
Well, and learning to identify that self-talk, "I'm a mess. I'll never declutter. My garage is going to constantly be a source of trouble. I'm so [inaudible 00:19:43]."
Nikki Kinzer:
I kind of think mine will be. I know we say that's a limiting belief, but I really feel like mine is always going to be a source of trouble. But anyway, go ahead.
Pete Wright:
Well, there we go. There's our minimizing language example right now, that inner critic fuels our anxiety and procrastination and self-esteem, low self-esteem.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah. For sure.
Pete Wright:
That's what it does. And I think that the biggest challenge is learning how to actually challenge the critic, to question the validity of every self-judgment. Sometimes self-judgment is useful. Sometimes self-judgment gives us guidance for how to live in the world and in our own skin. And sometimes it's really, really negative. So remember, did I tell you the story about my therapist, my whiteboarding therapist?
Nikki Kinzer:
I don't remember. You might have but-
Pete Wright:
I went to a therapist one time but I stopped going to him because-
Nikki Kinzer:
After one time?
Pete Wright:
One time. Sometimes you go to therapists and you don't jive. And this is why I wasn't jiving with that therapist, because just when we would get into something, he would stand up and walk over to a whiteboard on his wall and start diagramming something. He was teaching in the middle of our CBT kind of session. And I found that so distracting that I could not get to the other side of it. I was like, "Sit down and listen to me to grieve for you."
Nikki Kinzer:
"And listen to me."
Pete Wright:
"And help me through that guidance and stop whiteboarding. Just stop." But interestingly, the thing I took away from him that I've been digging into was actually a thought recording exercise that he gave me on this whiteboard and I took a picture of it.
Nikki Kinzer:
So isn't it funny that you don't like the whiteboard, however, you still took a picture of it and are now talking about it. When was this that this happened?
Pete Wright:
2015.
Nikki Kinzer:
Okay, so here we are now 10 years.
Pete Wright:
Almost 10 years later now.
Nikki Kinzer:
And you're talking about it.
Pete Wright:
And I'm talking about this exercise.
Nikki Kinzer:
I don't know, maybe he had something there.
Pete Wright:
Well, he could have just handed me a photocopy of something.
Nikki Kinzer:
That's true, that's true.
Pete Wright:
"Send me an email, man." It would've been fine. But it's a thought record exercise. It has been used in a number of different fashions over the years, but it was originated by Dr. Aaron Beck in the '60s, right?
Nikki Kinzer:
Okay, interesting.
Pete Wright:
And so it's structured journaling. And this is a system that I think is actually interesting in the way that it allows you to separate emotion from events in a really organized way. So the first thing that we're going to do is we're going to describe the situation. So situation one, there's no acronym for this, this is seven steps, and the acronym would be SMAEAM.
Nikki Kinzer:
SMAEAM.
Pete Wright:
That's the structured journal. So situation, describe the specific situation that triggered the negative thought or feeling that you're dealing with, the thought that would normally encourage your negative language. The example in this case is, "My boss gave me feedback on a presentation." That's not negative or positive, it just exists. It's concise and factual. What would you normally do about that? You would describe that in your mood.
That's the next step. Mood. Identify the emotions you experienced in that situation. Not redefining the situation, not saying, "My boss gave me horrible feedback and made me feel like a little teeny tiny person." Just that, "My boss gave me feedback," that's a situation. And the mood is, "I experienced anger, shame, fear." And give those a rating on a scale of zero to a hundred percent, right? Say, "I was 80% anxious and 60% discouraged." Right?
Nikki Kinzer:
Okay.
Pete Wright:
Now the automatic thoughts, diagramming the automatic thoughts is step three. These are the immediate, often negative thoughts that pop into your head during the situation. These are the negative self-talk thoughts, the hot thoughts. "I messed up the presentation. My boss thinks I'm an idiot. I'm absolutely going to get fired because I'm dumb."
Nikki Kinzer:
Oh right, yeah.
Pete Wright:
And those are just the things that pop into your head-
Nikki Kinzer:
That pop into your head.
Pete Wright:
That are going to drive the rest of your day, right?
Nikki Kinzer:
Mm-hmm. Yeah, into a huge RSD spiral.
Pete Wright:
And then we get to go into emotional CSI, right? I love procedural crime.
Nikki Kinzer:
Ooh, I love that.
Pete Wright:
Now we have to document. Step four, document supporting evidence for that hot thought. "I am definitely going to get fired." What is the specific factual evidence that supports that thought, as objectively as you can do it? Example might be, "I stumbled over my words a couple of times in my presentation. My boss pointed out a few areas for improvement." So here we are documenting why you think this evidence is going to hold up in your emotional court to support you being an idiot, right?
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
Step five is evidence against your hot thoughts. So now you're the defense and you're standing up and you're saying, "Look, list your factual evidence that contradicts that thinking." This is where I get to say, "The presentation actually went smoothly in spite of the stuff that I documented in number four. My boss praised my research and visuals. I received positive feedback on my work in the past. I have earned reputational points in the bank." So that all stands against that hot thought of, "I'm going to get fired, of course I'm going to get fired." All of that is against that. So now I have been both the prosecution and the defense in my case against my negative language.
And then step six, alternative and balanced thought. So based on all this evidence against the hot thought, you formulate a more balanced and realistic perspective. So your example is now, "Hey, how can I reframe that negative language? I made a few mistakes, but that's normal. I have given myself an opportunity to learn and improve. My boss is now giving me constructive feedback to help me grow. My job is not in jeopardy because of this. My next presentation will be even better as a result." Which "even better," is a great language because "even better" does not-
Nikki Kinzer:
Say that it wasn't good.
Pete Wright:
... imply that the existing one was bad.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah. Right.
Pete Wright:
That is incredibly useful reframing language.
Nikki Kinzer:
It's going to even be better. I love that.
Pete Wright:
And step seven is going back to moods. Moods to re-rate your moods. So after considering all of the writing that you've just done, you re-rate the intensity of that initial emotion and you see how that shift in perspective can directly impact your feelings almost in the moment, right? And now you say, "I was anxious at 80%, now I'm anxious at 30%. I was discouraged at 60%, now I'm discouraged at 10%." And there you go. So those are the seven steps.
Like you said, Nikki will post this, we'll post this in a blog post and we'll drop it in the show notes for the link. So be aware of that. Because what we're trying to do here is just increase our awareness of our own language. And that is the number one takeaway from the show is how can you become more aware of the language that you use in your own head, in your own internal reflection of yourself? How can you challenge negativity? How can you reduce emotional reactivity and those irrational emotional responses? How can you regain some problem solving creativity and clarity? So-
Nikki Kinzer:
This is great.
Pete Wright:
That's where we stand.
Nikki Kinzer:
Thank you, Pete. You did a great job.
Pete Wright:
Look what we did. Thank you.
Nikki Kinzer:
Fantastic.
Pete Wright:
I really appreciate that. Thank you very much. Like I said, this is the one that sometimes we get these topics that come easily to me because I live so deeply in the heart of them that I'm just really thinking about them a lot.
Nikki Kinzer:
Wow, this was great.
Pete Wright:
I don't always get it right, but I know that every time I challenge them, I'm even better as a result.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yes. And even though the therapist didn't work out, you were still able to walk away from something that is very valuable. And it's good. I love it.
Pete Wright:
And clearly, for some people, they need a whiteboarding therapist.
Nikki Kinzer:
And for some people, you don't.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
I get it. It's great.
Pete Wright:
There you go.
Nikki Kinzer:
Thank you, everyone. This was great.
Pete Wright:
Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you everybody for downloading and listening to this show. Thank you for your time and your attention. Don't forget if you have something to contribute to the show about this conversation, we're heading over to the Show Talk channel in the Discord server, and you can join us right there by becoming a supporting member at the deluxe level or better. On behalf of Nikki Kinzer, I'm Pete Wright, and we'll see you right back here next week on Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast.
