The Fragile Dance of Memory and ADHD with Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.
We tend to think of memory as a vault—something that, if built correctly, should always open on command. The vault metaphor is tidy, satisfying, and wrong. In truth, memory is more like a three-legged stool balanced precariously on a floor that shifts beneath us. For people with ADHD, that floor isn’t just shifting—it’s often crumbling. And still, we’re asked to sit perfectly still.
This week, we’re joined by Dr. Daniella Karidi—executive coach, cognitive scientist, and founder of ADHDtime—for a conversation that reframes what we know about memory. She maps its steps—encoding, storage, retrieval—and then shows us exactly where, and why, those steps falter in the ADHD brain. What emerges is a picture of fragility—of a system doing its best under conditions for which it was never optimized.
We explore working memory, the critical minute when new information is either transformed into long-term knowledge or simply lost to distraction. We talk about why prospective memory—remembering to do something in the future—is especially difficult for ADHDers, and how most of our strategies fail because they focus on what to remember, not where or when we’ll need to recall it.
But perhaps the most radical idea Daniella offers is this: Forgetting is not failure. It is human. And for ADHD brains, it’s not about being careless or lazy—it’s about a system built for immediacy, not for invisible timekeeping. The key is not to “try harder,” but to scaffold smarter. Memory isn’t a moral issue. It’s an engineering problem.
Daniella shows us how to work with our memory instead of against it, from post-its and memory palaces to understanding state dependence and the power of meaningful cues. This is a conversation for anyone who has ever walked into a room and forgotten why, missed a meeting they cared about, or been told—once again—that they “just need to focus.” If memory has ever felt like a betrayal, this episode is the beginning of forgiveness.
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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:
Nikki, we got so excited in our pre-show chat, we almost forgot to start the show.
Nikki Kinzer:
I know.
Pete Wright:
There was hard-core education happening and I can't wait to get back into it in Media RSS. For people who are members, in your personal podcast feed, you'll get the little taste in our ADHD entertainment clutch, and now we're getting into it proper. Before we dive in on our day of memory, a quick request.
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Visit takecontroladhd.com/discord to sign in and say hello. Today, we are talking about one of the most frustrating and misunderstood challenges of ADHD, memory. Why do we forget names, appointments, entire conversations? Is it really memory that's failing us or is there something deeper, something else going on?
To help us unpack the science and the lived experience of ADHD and memory, we are joined by Dr. Daniella Karidi, PhD, executive coach and founder of ADHDtime. She brings to us a deep expertise in cognitive science, executive functioning, and neurodiverse coaching across the lifespan. Daniella, welcome to the show.
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
Thank you so much for having me here.
Pete Wright:
We are thrilled to have you. And you're just dripping with knowledge about this stuff, and I can't wait to just bathe in it. First, let's just set the table with an understanding of memory challenges in ADHD.
What is a good mental model for us to think about how our memory is affected with ADHD? Working memory, short-term, long-term, how does it manifest across the scope of memory?
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
So I will start with the basic thing, that if we come out with today, will be amazing. Forgetting is not the enemy.
So if you imagine that you would remember everything, including that the kid that sat next to you in third grade and farted, you don't need to remember everything. Remembering everything is a problem, right?
Nikki Kinzer:
Right.
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
So our goal is not to remember everything, our goal is to remember what's important. And the other thing that we need to understand is that our memory is not a machine. It's not like you put everything in and it automatically comes out as one thing. What happens is there's steps and these steps are very, very fragile. So let me explain. First, we need to do is we need to encode memory, encode information, that's step one.
So you hear a sound, you smell a smell, you taste a taste, you see something, and you need to convert that into a memory. So that is the encoding stage. The next stage is the storage stage, where you put the things in different places in your brain. And the last stage is the retrieval stage, when you take it out. We have this illusion that everything happens at once.
We also think that it happens automatically, and we also believe that it's like forever. We put something on the shelf, it's going to stay on that shelf. And that's not how it works.
Pete Wright:
Well, this is the executive function challenge. We don't often think about how we think about things.
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
Right, right. So when we talk about memory, we understand that the more steps there is, the more fragile it is. So if I tell you, "Can you tell me where we met?" Okay, that's trying to remember the past. That is talking about something that happened in the past and I'm asking you. Or if I ask you, "What's the capital of the United States?"
That's again, asking some information that you should have collected in the past. It's stored somewhere in your brain, and now you need to retrieve it. But if I ask you, "Take your medication at 7:00 PM tonight," I'm asking you to remember to do something in the future. Now, I'm making it even harder.
I'm adding to the three basic steps of memory, additional steps that require you to not only to remember to execute something, I'm asking you to keep it for a certain amount of time. Be triggered by something like a clock or an event, and then executing. That is prospective memory. That's the hardest type of memory, and that's the one where ADHD struggles the most.
Nikki Kinzer:
So I have a client who struggles with, well, one client. I'm going to say, all my clients probably struggle with this.
Pete Wright:
And many of your friends and colleagues.
Nikki Kinzer:
And many of my friends and family members, and yeah. And I don't know if this is past or future.
You put something down, but you can't remember where you put it down and now you're searching for it. Is that past? Where does that fall?
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
So here, depending on the situation, it might be past, it might be future, but that falls under usually not encoding the information. So when we're doing something that we're doing it without intention, we're not putting the attention to. So I could take my book that I'm reading and I can just put it by wherever I left.
Okay. Suddenly, there's a doorbell. I leave my book and that information did not encode. But if I'm a librarian and I put this book on the shelf in the right spot. And I followed a system, a decimal system, that is encoding it in a systematic way. And what happens with ADHD, we are very, very distracted.
So we are not putting the effort in encoding the information in a way that we can retrieve it when we need it.
Pete Wright:
Okay.
Nikki Kinzer:
I'm writing this down. This is good stuff.
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
So what you're doing when you're writing something down, you're telling to yourself, you're acknowledging that you're not going to remember it.
You're using a strategy like writing down to enforce the information, but the challenge will be remembering where you wrote this down.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right. Yes.
Pete Wright:
So write another Post-it Note that says, "Remember that one thing."
Nikki Kinzer:
That I wrote notes from the podcast on memory in my notebook, yeah.
Pete Wright:
This is where, and I may be jumping ahead, but you hear pundits, you know where the pundits live? And they say things like, "You have ADHD, get rid of your notes and memory, and you're failing yourself."
You're doing yourself a disservice to your own memory, the muscles, intellectual muscle that you need to develop, by making so many notes. How do you address comments like that?
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
So memory is a skill we do develop, and the strategies around encoding, storing, retrieving, improve as we age and as we use them. So if you're a little kid, we're not expecting you to do the same thing as we expect a 17-year-old or an adult. So yes, memory can be trained and can be improved.
But it has so many limitations and challenges, that any strategy that you can use to support it, especially as an adult where you already developed the skills, the basic capacity. Let me explain what I mean. Working memory is a type of memory that we talk about a lot in ADHD and people don't totally understand it.
So working memory is a type of short-term memory. Short-term memory is everything between a zero to a minute. After a minute, we're already in long-term memory.
Pete Wright:
Wow.
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
After a minute.
Pete Wright:
I never understood that, okay.
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
Everything above a minute, is already considered in memory research long-term.
Pete Wright:
Okay.
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
Our brain should have already encoded it and stored it somewhere, so our notepad for short-term memory is very short, very, very short. Inside that notepad, there's something that professionals like to call working memory. Now, what makes working memory special, it's because there's a job that happens.
There's working that happens. It's a manipulation of information. So the example that I like to give people is math, basic math, 1+2. You're doing that in your working memory, if you're doing it in your brain and not on a piece of paper. If I pull up two ties and I ask you, "Which one should I take, the red or the green?" That decision-making is happening in your working memory.
The working memory has to be doing a job, making a decision, calculating math, making change, translating a word from one language to another language if you're a multilanguage speaker. Those are things that we do in the working memory, but it's up to a minute. The minute we pass the minute, we're already using our long-term memory skills and no longer using working memory.
Nikki Kinzer:
All right, wow.
Pete Wright:
So all right, help me conceptualize that. What should my effort be then to outlast the minute, if I want that memory to be most effective or to finish the processing in under 60 seconds?
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
So the effort would be to create structures in your brain that will shift things as quick as possible and as solid as possible into your long-term. So it's not trying to manipulate the short-term because that is limited. So I had a researcher in one of our labs, and he did 25 years of research on working memory trying to improve his working memory. And there's a limit to that capacity.
We call that limit a seven-digit limit, a seven, two plus, so plus two. So you can push it to nine or you can go down to five, but that's the limit. That's why phone numbers, by the way, are chunked, because we could not remember the long. So we're chunking stuff. So chunking is an example of a strategy that you can use to increase your working memory capacity.
Pete Wright:
Sure, okay.
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
So when you talk about that kid that can repeat the whole pi, unlimited pi.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, right.
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
He has already put it in his long-term memory and what he's doing in his short-term, he's just retrieving. He's just retrieving.
Pete Wright:
Okay. I want to take a digression, because I read a book a long time ago that I've always been fascinated by, if not successful in implementing myself. It was called The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci.
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
And you're familiar with the book, it was the story of the priest who goes to China. And the entire thing that he offers to teach was, "If I can teach you religion, if you'll let me teach you religion, I'll also teach you this memory technique."
And that was essentially building a palace in your mind that you knew to such a degree, to such a degree of intimacy. That you could essentially place memories in rooms in this giant palace in your brain, that would help you to retrieve them later.
And YouTube is rife with people who swear up and down that they've built their memory palaces. Do you have a memory palace? And what color is it?
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
So I have a picture of a library, and that is my version of a memory palace.
Pete Wright:
Okay.
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
I kind of like put things, I use my brain. I imagine a library where I put things on the shelf and take them off when I need them. And I consciously tell myself, "Put it back on the shelf, put it back in the right space, create a trail, breadcrumb trail of how to remember things."
I think that the idea that comes behind The Memory Palace that can be used for people with ADHD, is the idea of putting effort in remembering things. Building a routine about remembering. So it could be a palace, which it's hard to relate to.
Because I don't know about you, but I don't have palaces in my everyday life that I can imagine easily, unless we're talking about Disney and that palace. I don't know, it's a little too much exposure, but the point is that-
Nikki Kinzer:
You could get distracted pretty easily if you had a Disney palace.
Pete Wright:
There's so many tourists moving my stuff around too.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
Exactly, exactly. And then they just went and repainted it. I don't know.
Pete Wright:
Oh my God, it's just all my shelves are churros.
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
It's true. So the idea has to be that it has to be something that relates to your life.
Nikki Kinzer:
That you relate to.
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
And when we talk about memory in general, when we talk about memory challenges, and we talk about memory successes. We learned that the number one trick, especially with brains that are fragile, like ADHD brains, is creating connections that are meaningful. So using stories, using family experiences.
Using rooms in your own house that you can imagine in your sleep, are helpful into trying to build these structures. But what makes it really important is the building the structure. So when I talk with parents and they tell me, "Well, my kid keeps on forgetting." I ask three important questions, "Did you provide enough information for remembering?"
And the example I use for adults is, "If I tell you on the way home, buy milk, okay? On the way home from work, I need you to pick up milk." That example relates to a lot of us. Oh yeah, we always have to do things on the way and from places, so that's relatable.
But I don't know what about you guys, but for me, milk can be a very general, conversational thing. Milk is oat milk, it can be coconut milk, it can be milk for my coffee, it can be milk, so it would've been helpful if I knew why. Who needs this milk? "Oh, we need the milk for your coffee tomorrow morning."
I might be a little more motivated than I need the milk for Aunt Betty that's coming to visit. Or actually, ADHDers tend to be motivated for others more than for ourselves, so maybe I will remember to buy the milk for Betty. But the point is that knowing the why helps our ADHD bring remember better.
So if I would've just said, "Hey, on the way home, can you get me coconut milk for my coffee? And don't get any almond milk because I'm allergic." So coconut milk for my coffee, and if I made the question even easier, I'd say, "Hey, on the way home from work, is there any grocery stores?"
And you, in your brain now, you're driving home from work, you're thinking about the route. So I encouraged a path for you to remember.
Pete Wright:
Which I'm already familiar with.
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
And then you said, "Yeah. There's the one with the green awning, that one has a good parking lot." I'm like, "Great. So on the way home, can you stop at the green awning grocery store, and pick up coconut milk for my coffee?" I gave you a why, I gave you a where, and I related it to your life.
Now, is that easy to do? Hell, no. Is that time-consuming? Yes. Will that help your child? Yes. Will that help your spouse? Yes. Is it something you'll do all the time? No. But if you do it enough times, you'll create these systems that will support an increased memory.
Pete Wright:
Let's transition because right now we're talking about giving something for someone else to do, helping with compensation strategies for other people.
What if I just have some new things in my life that I want to remember more effectively myself? How do I employ these same, I don't want to call them tricks, strategies, accommodations to improve my own memory without the help of a buddy?
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
So the one thing you can look at, is if this is something that you want to remember about the past or the future. So really thinking about is this, "Oh, my kid is going to college and I want to remember their first admin weekend"? So it's about trying to remember the past. Or, "Oh my God, I'm going to prepare for a conference. I want to remember to bring this and that and do these things."
It's a new experience I need to prepare, and that's about remembering for the future. So understanding the difference between the two will help us figure out what strategies to use. So even consciously thinking about, "Okay. This new thing I need to do is I need to take a new medication. I need to take antibiotics, I need to take a new medication." So how do I remember, "Oh, this is something for the future"?
So I need to think about future strategies that future me can use, okay? One of the things we need to look at is where is the context I'm going to be doing this remembering? Am I going to be doing this remembering in my kitchen or in my office, or where is this remembering occurring? We sometimes only think about what we need to remember and we don't always think about where we need to remember it.
So if I need to remember it in the kitchen, maybe the cues I want to use to support the memory, are going to be in the kitchen.
Pete Wright:
That's the thing. So I have my undergraduate unfinished, I have an unfinished undergraduate psychology degree, so that's 30-years-old trash psychology. But one of the things I remember is that when I studied, I would be in a certain state of caffeination and physical activity. I liked to move a lot when I studied.
And one of the things that I did poorly on on my exams was recalling that information, until I walked out of the exam room and started moving again, and walking on the brick walls and things like that. And then I could remember every question that I missed on the exam. This leads us down this path of state dependence, and I think you're getting there.
Thinking about remembering things in the future, is projecting my state when I'm going to be remembering this thing. How much of a myth is state dependence when it comes to memory? It feels like it's maybe not that much of a myth at all.
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
So as everything, it depends on what we're trying to remember. So when we talk about studying for exams or preparing for a recital, state dependence is very important actually.
So that's why kids do better on the exam when it's done in the same class they study the material.
Pete Wright:
Oh, okay. Yeah.
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
So that's an example of that. Or even why some professional pianist, when they're doing their concert, they bring their bench. Okay, they shift their bench with them, and part of that is the state dependence performance.
But that becomes to retrieval a lot more than future execution, so that is more about studying for exams, which we can talk about another time.
Pete Wright:
Okay, sure.
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
But when we're talking about remembering things in our everyday life, that is less state-dependent, it's more cue-dependent. And what do I mean by that?
So what is the cue that will execute the remembering? So for example, if we need to take the cookies out of the oven, a good cue could be a timer, right?
Nikki Kinzer:
Right, yeah.
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
Because that is a cue that could be relating to managing time. And a timer might not be a good cue to remembering to call your grandma, because that is not.
Nikki Kinzer:
You're going to ignore it.
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
Right. So the cue to execute the action is really important in remembering not so much the state.
So I'm changing a bit the vocabulary here, and I'm putting emphasis on what are we using to remember the task we need to perform?
Nikki Kinzer:
So one of the strategies, because I will coach college students, and one of the strategies that I talk to them about is to switch, to change where they're studying.
And so what I'm understanding from you is that the science behind that is because you retain more. You remember that, "I was in the library when I studied this section"?
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
So I think the difference when we're talking about performing an exam and studying material in college and in tests, it's very different, there's different things. So the example I can think about is if you're studying for a chemistry test, okay? When you go to study in the lab where the chemistry test will be occurring, there's something that triggers your brain to retrieve chemistry information.
There's some link there that helps your brain kind of, "Oh, I'm in chemistry studying mode. I need to take out my chemistry information. I'm going to do better on this test because I'm in this lab." Versus if I take you to a different chemistry lab in another totally different building where you're not familiar, it might not create the same level of trigger. Even though it's a chemistry lab, it's still better than if I take you to the library.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right, right.
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
Saying that, there is an element that works on our ADHD brain that doesn't work on other people, and that's the new element. When something is new and there's a change that happens, we create curiosity again, we're triggered again to pay attention, we're less distracted.
So the example I can think about that helps people understand this, is if I ask you about breakfast, "What did you eat yesterday or today?" Or if you ate breakfast at home and everything was normal and nothing surprising happened, all your breakfasts are mixing your brain to one story.
We do that, we layer our events because they're boring and we make one story. But if I ask you about that crazy one brunch, breakfast that you went with a bunch of girls, and you had this cool dish and suddenly there's a smile, there's a memory, there's a retrieval, there's a story. You can even tell me maybe how the smell was that day.
So the newness, the differenceness allowed you to create a better. So when we talk about trying to learn information, our ADHD brain does benefit from having that newness. So when you tell that student, "Shift to the library to change the memory," you're creating that newness.
So now, the studying has a new story to go around it. And it might be helping their brain, but you also are creating a shift in the environment that helps our ADHD arousal levels and other things. So yes, this is not a black and white answer. It's not like-
Nikki Kinzer:
Right, yeah. No.
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
But it's helpful to understand, yeah.
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
Right, and it's helpful for understanding what changes. If we're adults and we can analyze our own behavior, and we can say, "Yeah. Chemistry, I really need to go into the lab to study."
So one of the things we can do is at the end of a studying session, we can say, "How easy was it to study? How hard? How much do I think I remember?" We can go back and meta-analyze these things and help us choose better locations next time.
Pete Wright:
Let's talk about what is actually going on in the brain. We've talked a lot about our dopamine and serotonin. How does the chemical impact that we already are familiar with living with ADHD, impact our memory?
When are we going to have the easiest time remembering new information versus the most challenging times?
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
So the easiest time for us to remember is when we can focus on the encoding, when we are not distracted by other things. So if you think about the brain, we want to think about it as a machine that we put in the information, it takes it and it keeps it, but it doesn't really work like that. We need to put the cognitive effort in encoding the information.
And if our brain is distracted, so if you're listening to this talk while you're also doing your homework or doing something else, or washing the dishes, if the other task is cognitively demanding, so the ongoing task in addition to whatever you're doing. So listening to the talk and doing something else that's demanding, then you are reducing your chances of success because you can't put enough cognitive effort in encoding.
I like to ask people that ever parented, if when you're holding a kid and you're trying to do something else, how much you can do with that other hand? There's a few things.
Pete Wright:
That's a great example.
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
Oh yeah, I can maybe feed myself, but I can't really, there's things I can't do with only one hand. So our memory can't work. So if you walk into a room and there's a lot of noise and a lot of people, and someone tells you their name, if you do not put effort in encoding that information, it's not going to stay.
So as ADHDers, we are more sensitive and we're more fragile, and we're more tend to be distracted by things. So our biggest challenge could be the encoding stage. But then we also have the retention stage where we need to keep the information on the top of the surface.
So let's say I tell you, "Hey, next time you see me at the ADHD conference, say hello." You're not going to walk around looking for me every day of your life, right?
Pete Wright:
Right.
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
Maybe, I hope so. Maybe when you get to the ADHD conference, you might be a little triggered and you are like, "Oh, there was someone I need to say hello to," so that surfaced a bit. And by seeing my face, that could be maybe the cue to like, "Oh, I need to say hello to Daniella."
So what's happening here with ADHD many times, is we forget to shut off. We forget to say, "We don't need this now." We keep it on the top, even though we don't need to remember Daniella until November until the ADHD conference. So actively telling ourselves when we need to take this out.
So saying something like, "I'm studying for the chemistry test that's on Wednesday, I'll need to retrieve this on Wednesday. I'm going to go buy milk on the way home from work. I don't need to think about milk all day." I'm allowed to put this thought away and retrieve it when I'm going to the car, so how am I going to do that? Oh, maybe I'll put a Post-it in the car, maybe I'll put an alarm.
But actively understanding that the retention stage can interfere with ADHD, which it doesn't do so much for people that don't have ADHD. People that don't have ADHD look at me sometimes with that look when I tell them, "You need to let go of this until November." They're like, "Yeah, of course, we do." No, no, we don't want to do that.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right, yeah.
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
People with ADHD sometimes need to say that out loud.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, I need to hear myself say it.
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
Right, and then we also need to close the loop. And closing the loop is something that people without ADHD do a lot easier, and that's understanding that we did the task. So it's not laying in bed at night and reminiscing and thinking, "Wait, did I take that medication? Did I close the fridge? Did I go?"
In people that have anxiety and depression, also we find this challenge of closing the loop. We do know that people with ADHD have more comorbidities, so it's not surprising. But in general, it's paying attention that the loop has closed.
Which also can cause challenges, if our brain is busy thinking about the tasks we already completed, we don't have capacity to think about the new stuff.
Nikki Kinzer:
That's so interesting.
Pete Wright:
Amen to that. I feel like you've just described Monday through Sunday of my life.
Nikki Kinzer:
Well, right, because you don't trust yourself. You don't trust your memory, you don't trust that you did it, and so you almost assume that you didn't do it.
And now I'm worried about doing something that I already did, but I don't remember if I did it or not.
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
That's why we talk a lot about the five phases of perspective memory. Because we say that in addition to the three that regular memory has, perspective memory has that time interval where you have to wait, that waiting interval. And then you also have the evaluation of success interval, which is more challenging when you need to remember to take your medication at 7:00 PM.
Big fan of those little stickers next to the medication pills that you can pull them off after you take it. Or even taking a marker, taking a black marker and writing Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and then crossing off every time you take it. It's about supporting your memory, finding the strategy that helps you support your memory.
I don't know, I feel like I personally am a big subsidizer of 3M, like all their Post-its, I think personally.
Pete Wright:
I think I'm practically a major shareholder.
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
Yeah, should be, should be, should be. But it's choosing also the right one. I don't know what about you, but I have small Post-its, I have Post-its with lines, I even have poster-sized Post-its.
The idea of that a Post-it needs, if I just say use a Post-it and I don't choose the right one in the right place, in the right strategy for my brain.
So it's about finding the right tools and using them in the right time for increasing success.
Pete Wright:
You work with people across the lifespan. So when you're thinking about memory over long periods of time, we've talked about kids, we've talked about adults, students.
And then as we've talked about in this series already, the act of aging going into older age with ADHD. At what point do you find the memory issues most intense?
My assumption is memory is hard with ADHD no matter how old you are, but when do we need to take steps?
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
So first thing we'll go with the assumption and memory is hard no matter what with ADHD, I agree 100%.
Pete Wright:
Check me on that.
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
That's a script that I know too well, yeah.
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
Yeah, that was my dissertation. I had to prove to people in 2011, that ADHD has prospective memory problems because there was no research out there that said it. So it was like, "I experience it, I see it, but we needed the research to support it." So yes, people with ADHD have significant memory problems, in prospective memory especially.
And this is true for all age groups, but we know that there's a cognitive decline as we age. Part of this cognitive decline relates to, just like we talk about little kids. Little kids have to develop skills and they have to develop the executive function. We're not born with a full-functioning executive function.
So any skill that we can develop, we can lose, it's that easy. So if you learned to use your executive function to plan, to organize, to remember, as you age, you can lose your ability to plan, to organize, to remember. So we have to understand that there's a decline that happens as we age, and there is the element of ADHD.
When we talk about adults with ADHD in like retirement when they lose structure, we find that there's more struggle. And this is consistent across all my aging clients. Actually, I have a group of moms that are, we used to call it empty nesters. Now they like to call themselves successful launchers.
Nikki Kinzer:
Ooh, I like that.
Pete Wright:
I like that, yeah.
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
But the idea is that when we lose these structures of our life, it could be our kids going to college, it could be our retirement, it could be a spouse that passes away, a divorce. These structures supported our executive functions and supported our memory, and losing the structures makes it even harder.
So if I was remembering to buy milk on the way back to work, if I'm not leaving to work, it's harder to remember to buy milk. So losing structures makes it really challenging for aging adults. Now, I spent a lot of time training professional in the world of memory to understand the difference between a memory decline, like Alzheimer or dementia, and ADHD.
And one of the most important things I want to put up here on the table is having a skill and losing it versus not having it. So you're talking about, hey, you're saying to me, "I can so relate to these memory challenges. I had these memory challenges as a kid, as a teenager, as an adult, I'm going to continue having them as I age."
But now, when I'll go to the doctor, the doctor might think this might be Alzheimer or dementia. So it's my job to say, "No, no, no, I've been having these since I've been a kid. I've been having these as an adult. I've been having these as a teenager. This is not the new part." The new part is maybe I can't sleep well, the new part might be heart problems. The new part might be high blood pressure.
I'm getting memory loss because of all this other stuff. That's the new part, versus someone that had a great skill, had memory, and now they lost it. Now does it mean you can't have Alzheimer or dementia? No. And the bad news, I'm sorry to say, is that we have some studies that show you're at an increased risk if you have ADHD, to have some of these cognitive decline challenges.
Pete Wright:
Right.
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
So unfortunately, ADHD doesn't protect you. It actually puts you a little bit more in the risk group for having some of these aging-related cognitive declines. So it's really important, and this is where having a good record of your ADHD symptoms from before.
This is where having someone come with you to some of these appointments as you age could help. This is where I recommend professionals to do a good history interview, but we can talk about this for hours, hours and hours.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. For sure, for sure. Well, I would love to end. We've got some, let's just say, sad comments are starting to come in in the chat room. Sad reality, the sad reality of those of us with our lot in live tied too ADHD.
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
It's okay, we'll forget. It's okay, we'll forget it.
Nikki Kinzer:
We'll forget it. Yeah. It's fine, everything's fine.
Pete Wright:
Well, let's just turn the attention as we get to wrapping up on how to shift the narrative in how we think of ourselves and our relationship with memory.
How do you coach people to reposition how they look at their own memory?
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
So first thing, we need to think about memory as a strainer. Things are going to fall through the holes, okay? So if that is our strategy, we need to think about ways to catch what's falling if it's important, and not try to catch everything. So one language shift we need to understand is we need to put the effort on what's important.
Remembering our friend's birthday might be very important, but remembering the phone number of the pizzeria we grow up with might not be as important, so putting our efforts where it's important. The other is taking a language of explaining to others when we fall back, when things happen, instead of saying things like, "Oh my God, I have such a terrible memory, or I didn't care and I didn't remember."
Putting the language, talking to ourselves in a way of, "I did not support my memory enough, or I need to change the strategies I'm using to try to remember this." Instead of saying things like, "I am a terrible person. I can't remember your birthday." Because it's not coming from not caring about that person, right?
Pete Wright:
Right.
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
Now, you have to apologize if you care enough about that friendship. Yes, don't take this as a giving you permission to forget someone's birthday.
Pete Wright:
A pass, yeah. Right.
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
But what I'm giving you permission is to use the language towards yourself is, "I am not doing this on purpose. I am not using maybe the right tools. Maybe I need to change strategy." And then when you want to ask for help, it's also having a better language to ask for that support.
So we talk a lot about here in the world of ADHD, about scaffolding and strategies and tools. We don't talk so much about being nice to ourself, talking to ourself like we want other people to talk to us. Talking to ourself as if we want to talk to our kids, the same way we would talk if we were. So using that language towards our memory is really important.
Pete Wright:
I think that's really an important observation, because in our experience, and we've talked about exactly that point about like, "Look at the language you use to talk to yourself." It's generally terrible, but memory seems to be a box outside of that language set.
Because memory is, for some reason, so deeply entwined in our ADHD, that it almost never gets a pass. I don't know about you, Nikki, but for me, hearing you say, "I did not use my memory to its greatest effect," is really eye-opening language. I've never heard it, because I'm so used to, "Oh, my memory is terrible."
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah. That's the go-to, for sure.
Pete Wright:
Right. Right, that's news.
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
And I would add another one. If you're in a relationship, a work relationship with a partner, a family relationship, a spouse, you will find that there's a lot of negative talk around memory and forgetfulness. We do a lot of, "But I told you that, or I can't believe you forgot."
And changing the narrative to, "That's new to me," instead of, "You didn't tell me." Like, "I'm the problem, or I'm the one that didn't get it. I didn't register. It didn't process. I didn't attend to that." That is taking ownership to your forgetfulness without having a battle, did the person tell you or not?
Or necessarily even needing that battle. Shifting the language too and then putting on the other spouse, "Listen, if you're going to tell me about this important event with your mother that we need to go to, but you're telling it to me while I'm watching Game of Thrones or while I'm listening to my podcast, just assume I didn't hear you."
Nikki Kinzer:
Right, right.
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
So there's a conversation-
Nikki Kinzer:
That's that asking for that support, right?
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
But it's also awareness to the part, so it's about awareness to when can I encode information? When can I multitask? When can I listen to you? I notice that when I talk with my kids in the car, when they're actually not looking at me, they retain a lot more information than when I'm making them focus on my face.
We were told so many years, "Look at me, I'm talking to you." I can tell you that's the worst advice. I can tell you that my kids do better when I talk with them when they weren't looking at me, because they were teenagers, and looking at me took too much effort and too much attention. And they weren't focusing on what I'm saying because they're focusing at looking at me.
I can tell you that when I worked with my colleagues and I let them take notes, take notes about important things while we're working. Them looking down and taking notes doesn't mean they're not paying attention to me. Actually, maybe they're focusing more. So shifting a bit of what means paying attention is also what will help us remember.
Nikki Kinzer:
So before we end, I just want to ask you, what are some tips or strategies that you can give to the audience, as we start to wrap up, that maybe they could even just try today? Something simple that they can take away?
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
So the one thing is if they're trying to remember something, don't trust themselves, don't trust your working memory. It has a one-minute limit, so try to support it. So write things down, put things with reminders.
All those things, just go under the assumption, have that assumption, "My memory has a one-minute limit. I need to shift things into the long-term. And to shift things into the long-term, I need to support it."
Or I need to say it out loud or write it down, or build a story behind it, or put it in a palace.
Nikki Kinzer:
All of these things, yeah.
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
Like, "I need to do something to move it." I'm not trustworthy, not me as me, but my working memory is not trustworthy.
It's like a little toddler and the toddler needs help, and I'm going to help it in a positive way, instead of a judgmental way.
Nikki Kinzer:
And talk nice about it and talk nice about me. Yeah, yeah.
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
And then my other takeaway is that forgetting is not the enemy. And so understanding that if you forgot something, you're not a terrible person, because you can't remember everything. And you need to think about what can I do to support next time? How can I change this?
What do I need to do and who do I need to say sorry to? That is the mind shift we need to do, and it might be myself I need to say sorry to. I forgot something that was important to me. I can apologize to me, "Future Daniella is sorry to past Daniella, that she didn't remember to do this."
Pete Wright:
Oh, that is actually a really important reminder, that the relationship we have with ourselves over time matters too.
Because I don't want to live my present day full of yesterday's Pete's regrets. I can't live my life that way. I can't move forward and see what's in store for tomorrow.
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
So you need to learn from Pete's mistakes and build on them, instead of live in Pete's regrets.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, right.
Nikki Kinzer:
Great, good stuff.
Pete Wright:
Well, Daniella, what a gift, holy cow. Yeah, you'll be back on memory. We're going to continue this conversation.
Nikki Kinzer:
For sure.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Thank you so, so much.
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
Of course.
Pete Wright:
Thank you.
Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.:
It was a pleasure.
Pete Wright:
Oh, it's such a joy. Thank you, everyone, for downloading and listening to the show. We sure appreciate you remembering to show up and listen.
Nikki Kinzer:
That's right.
Pete Wright:
We appreciate your time and your attention. And don't forget, if you have something to contribute about the conversation, we're heading over to our show talk channel in our 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 and Daniella Karidi, I'm Pete Wright, and we'll see you next time right here on Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast.
