Transcription
A lot of high functioning women with ADHD that are late diagnosed spend their lives masking from the outside. It doesn't look like there's much wrong. So, as soon as you stop masking, uh-oh, the real me is going to be revealed. And the real me was the one that was told you're too lazy, too noisy, too late. You stop trusting yourself. So, you're more likely to be able to be vulnerable to manipulation, abuse, and coercion.
Do you think if you experience the horrific abuse that you went through, do you think that makes a very nasty version of RSD? If I feel like I'm not pleasing somebody, they're going to be unhappy with me. And there's a consequence to that. It's not just about rejection. Interestingly enough, it's about being perceived as a problem.
How do you separate who you are from who you've had to become to survive?
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I recently met an ADHD woman at an event, and she asked me a question that I can't stop thinking about. She said, "How do you separate who you are from who you've had to become to survive?" When you hear that question, what comes up for you and how does that relate to your personal experience with ADHD and trauma?
That's a very good one. It's a great one to start with as well. So, I'm going to try and answer this without complicating it, which will be very difficult. When you're born, you're born without an identity. Obviously, there's genetic expression and all of that stuff, but you're pretty much this core self, a being of light, and you're shaped by your environment, your relationships, what you see, what you experience. So, your identity is largely based on who you're around, social circles, etc., etc. As we're forming our sense of self and we're developing, our neurons are firing and wiring together and they join through an electrical pulse. And with every thought we have, there's like a chemical cascade in the body that we call the emotion. And then that gets stored as a cellular software and it starts to operate the mind. So we become bottom up instead of top down eventually. And so the unconscious or the soma, the brain body system is now working on this cellular software that's been given to us by our experiences, our relational experiences, our environment. But just like a computer, as soon as we realize that we're in this programming, we can start to understand that we can change it. So our identity is based on that chemical experience that cellular software and that's the energy that we put out into the world. So it's the feedback loop that we get as well. So we kind of get stuck in this repetition compulsion both from a sort of psychological point of view and an energetic point of view as well. So to separate it is to understand that we all start off as this being of light and it's simply the I guess you could call it the simulation where we get this feedback from everything around us and we are a product of that. So you separate it by understanding it first and then you start to design what you would like to be. And I said on a podcast once before and a girl that became a client of mine after I did this podcast last time. And I'd said it in that podcast that if you're going to live in the matrix, you may as well design it. And I believe that firmly that once you understand what your identity is and why it's there in the first place and that it's really not who you are, it's what you've experienced, you can start to work on designing a new identity. And that's the bit that takes time. It's not overnight, but it's important that you know that it's possible.
So, you're born and you've got a certain amount of light to you.
Yes.
What experiences could a typical ADHD child experience that might dim that light?
Again, I mean, this is um true in both trauma and ADHD that there's a sense of hypervigilance when you're constantly made to feel that you're too lazy, you're not paying attention enough, you're too hyperactive, you know, all of these things that people are told over and over again when they're undiagnosed. They learn to see themselves as too much or too little. So abuse, bullying, not being understood, the way that that affects your relationships with your parents, with your friends, with your teachers, it will start to chip away at that light. And you know, eventually you'll start to believe it because especially up until the age of seven when you've got no fusion of the prefrontal cortex, you absorb everything as though it's fact. There's no filter. You can't filter that out. So all of those neurons that are wiring together are wiring together around what you're told about yourself. So you only have to think about the girl that's maybe a bit of a dreamer and you know jumping around and dressing up and perhaps she struggles to get her shoes on in time to go to school and she's told off every day because she's holding everybody else up. Over time that wires in as you're the problem.
Mhm.
So it takes away some of that light and it makes that child feel responsible for everybody else and there the problem begins. So there's one example of how it can dim your light.
And you're clearly hugely passionate about this topic and that comes across straight away when you just listen to you speaking about it for for for five or 10 minutes. I mean where does that passion come from?
Certainly from being undiagnosed myself for the majority of my life. It was only a few years ago in 47 to give time reference that I got diagnosed, but also having that history of um which I talked about on your last podcast um of being sexually abused by my dad and you know having my family sort of create the narrative to protect him. Um he for those that didn't watch that last one, he was in prison for a period of time after admitting guilt, which is extremely rare by the way when someone sexually abuses a child. They very rarely admit guilt, but he did. um he went to prison and then mom moved him back into the home afterwards. And I think um being ADHD as well, I know that I cried a lot and I know that I was very repetitive. So if I wanted to do something, I wanted to do it again and again and again. If I wanted to watch something, I wanted to watch it again and again and again. I was highly emotional.
And highly obsessive. And I think I was too much for my mom even before she realized what was going on with my dad. I think she found me to be too. In fact, I spoke about this to one of my mom's friend after I did this podcast and she'd watched the podcast and she said, "Do you know what? I think if you would have mom had known that you had ADHD, it would have made so much difference to how she treated you." And I don't think it would have done. I don't think my mom was equipped to deal with me. I think I was too much for her. I don't blame myself for that. I just don't think she had the skill set to manage a child that was so um I lived in dreamland. I was like a little I believed in fairies and all the things that little girls should be allowed to believe in. But I think that alongside not being able to regulate emotion, crying every five minutes, um, and then being obsessed with things and needing the same thing over and over again, and then on top of that, finding out that my dad had been sexually abusing me, and I was the one to reveal that, I think that was way too much for her, and she just made me the scapegoat in the family. So it was very much and I know a lot of people that haven't had that type of trauma that are ADHD and are very hyper with it or very perceived as difficult with it. They are made the scapegoat and they become the receptive container for everybody else's frustrations. That in itself is a trauma because you will self-abandon.
And you will feel like nobody understands you and you will go into the world carrying that. And that's where we see all the sort of habits of masking and being the chameleon and all those things which can be gifts as well as a curse start to come into play.
You said you thought you that you were too much for your for your mother.
Yeah.
And and that you referenced maybe the crying. Was there any other behavior that made you think that you thought you were too much for your mom?
I think just um I'm probably quite relentless which has served me well in my career. Um, I think I mean she used to do this thing where she was it was quite fun. I liked it anyway where she'd do magic tricks.
But I think the fact that I needed her to do that 150 times before I was satisfied might have been too much for her.
So, I think I just couldn't leave it in in the way that my brother and sister could probably, you know, have it done five or six times. However, I do actually think they're both on the spectrum. My brother definitely is dyslexic and ADHD. I'm sure of it. Just undiagnosed. And I think my sister is more what would have been ADD.
Yes.
Um and probably not as overtly hyperactive as me. So I think that was the problem. I think it was just my relentlessness and I used to steal a lot. Um, if anyone was going to steal money out of my mom's purse, it was me.
Right?
So that was probably quite annoying as well. And you know, if I wanted the extra biscuit that I wasn't supposed to have, I'd do it cuz I was I was a risk taker. And I got very good at lying. There was two reasons for that. One, I'm highly imaginative. And if I don't want to get into trouble, I would very quickly work my way out of that situation. But equally, because my dad was telling me not to tell anybody what was going on, he was sort of conditioning that further into me as well. So, I think this is where sometimes it's hard to separate the the trauma from ADHD because you're being told on one hand not to tell the truth. This is a secret you must never tell anybody. And on the other hand, you've got this wild imagination and creativity and the impulse control issue with ADHD. So, it's very difficult sometimes to work out which is which is and and I know most people I know with ADHD do question whether they have ADHD.
Yes.
They they'll sort of say, "Oh, have I got ADHD? I don't feel like I have got ADHD." I do that all the time.
Because of the trauma aspect. I'm like, "Well, was it just trauma? Is it ADHD?" But if I look back.
To all of the behaviors, say before five, I think it was clear that ADHD was very present.
Yeah. Oh, so interesting. You mentioned that you did very bravely share the story of how your father abused you in the last episode when you came on here and you summarized it beautifully there. You said that you revealed that to your mother.
Yeah.
What did that look like?
Well, it was actually um I revealed it at school and I shared a journal and um I didn't personally reveal it to my mom. She found out because the police got involved and my dad was arrested and then taken away. But when I got home.
She her first response really was to tell me that she was going to stay married to him.
Right.
Um so I think she went into sort of defensive action. Got to keep the family together. Um this isn't going to break us. Uh it was the first response wasn't, you know, to keep me safe. The first response was we've got to keep the family together and we're going to make this work. Obviously, that's not what I wanted to hear at the time. At the time, I wanted to hear that my feelings mattered and that I was going to be kept safe.
So, that was hard for me to wrestle with because I think alongside being seen as a bit of a difficult child in in in many ways, you know, like I said, the hyperactivity, the relentlessness, the obsessions, the stealing, all that kind of stuff, I was now being told that basically this thing that's happened to you, it doesn't matter because what does matter is that the family stayed together.
Yes. So there was a lot of um crossovers there as well with my developmental experience. So you know I think to be honest the trauma in in in most people that go through trauma as children that also have ADHD sadly it kind of sort of elevates all of the negative traits that you have with ADHD. So, you know, I think the problem is with a lot of high functioning women with ADHD that are late diagnosed as well, they're highly resilient. They're very high functioning, often very successful.
Spend their lives masking. So, from the outside, it doesn't look.
Like there's much wrong, and they spend a great deal of time feeling quite isolated and lonely as a result of it. So, I'm sure a lot of the female listeners will relate to that. trauma really does elevate a lot of the negative sides of of ADHD and and I've met very few people that have got ADHD or autism actually that don't have some level of trauma with it.
I've always wrestled with the question Ella like do the traits of ADHD or autism or both or ADHD like do they make you more vulnerable to trauma or in particularly abuse?
Yes. And do you think your early traits might have played a part or made you vulnerable or susceptible to what happened to you?
Yes. Not so much with my dad. So, I'm going to answer that in two sections. The first is does it make people more vulnerable? That's a definite yes. And I'll tell you why in a moment. The second is, has it made me more vulnerable? I think ADHD, yes. Again, going back to the the sexual trauma with my dad, that elevated those ADHD vulnerabilities as well. um because I was later raped on two different occasions. One when I was 13 by a 20-year-old and one when I was 17 by two men at the same time, which I've spoken about a lot. The reason I share those bits is because that is separate from being sexually abused in the home and so I can sort of explain how that makes women and men more vulnerable. So if you think about it from especially undiagnosed because a lot of us have been late diagnosed.
Sure.
So from the age of maybe four, five, maybe even younger, you're told you're a problem and you're told that you have a problem relating to your brothers and sisters or the people in the class. In fact, you may be taken out of the classroom a lot because you're too much for the teacher or you're too distracting for the other students. So your self-perception is greatly altered from a really early age. you see yourself as less than and you stop trusting yourself as well because obviously you know if you're five, six, seven, maybe even a bit older and you're constantly told that you're too lazy, you're too noisy, you're too late or you know you're too uh obsessed, whatever it is, you stop trusting yourself. So when other people are manipulating you or telling you things about yourself, particularly if we look at things like coercive abuse or manipulation, you don't trust yourself anymore. So you're more likely to be able to be vulnerable to manipulation, abuse, and coercion. Um, and one of the things that I think when you've got the trauma of of being abused, neglected, bullied on top of being ADHD as a child is that you have poor boundaries because you can't I think with the executive function issues, you can't always read boundaries well anyway. And also the the emotional dysregulation is sometimes confused for intuition. So you you're never trusting your your system to be able to read the room properly. So for example, when I was raped at 13, it was a I was at a friend's house. It was an older brother. I didn't read any signals because maybe because I've been sexually abused by my dad, I didn't know what safety looked like anyway. But also with executive dysfunction and emotional dysregulation, was I able to read signals? Well, anyway, being late to, you know, being raped at 17 by by two men, I was walking home with someone I considered to be safe. Turns out I didn't read the I'm not saying this is my fault either, by the way, but I didn't.
Understand the red flags.
Sure.
I didn't notice them. And I don't know if that's cuz I didn't trust myself.
And I always assumed responsibility for, you know, again, some of those things I've spoken about. Maybe I'm too much. Maybe I'm too noisy. Maybe I'm too loud. Maybe it's my fault. Maybe I maybe I was too flirty. Maybe I didn't didn't understand that he was dangerous because I'm an idiot. And I know I'm idiot because I've been told my whole entire life that, you know, I'm I'm I'm bad or I'm naughty or I'm too much. So I think those things make you more vulnerable. Do you think if you experience the horrific abuse that you went through, uh, and top of that, you are exposed to many of those corrective messages you've just said as well. You're too much, you're not enough, all of that horrendous stuff. Do you think that makes a very nasty version of RSD? Because I suppose you've been criticized so many times, but also your physical boundaries have been rejected in that moment of trauma.
Yeah. I I I often say specifically with my dad, I felt responsible for him. I might have said this on the last episode, I'm not sure. I felt responsible for him because as a child, when you're being sexually abused, you can't use rational thinking and analysis, which again often goes offline with ADHD anyway, in an emotional situation. And so if my dad would say to me, you know, no one can hear about this because they wouldn't understand. And then I I would be able to pick up even quite early on, I think I was able to pick up that he felt guilty about what he was doing. He wouldn't necessarily say that. And without being too graphic, in the in the actual physical abuse going on, I wouldn't have said that guilt was there, but immediately afterwards, I would sense his guilt and shame. and I felt that I had to make him feel better. So that became my job to make sure he was okay. So in terms of rejection sensitivity, for me personally, and I'm sure for many other people, if I feel like I'm not pleasing somebody or doing the best that I can do, I feel a great deal of responsibility for how they feel. And if they don't feel good, they're going to be unhappy with me. And there's a consequence to that which is they're going to judge me and I'm going to be pushed out. I'm going to be the problem. Which is what I think a lot of people with rejection sensitivity feel. They feel like it's not just about rejection. Interestingly enough, it's about being perceived as a problem, being perceived as less than, being perceived as being the responsible one, being perceived as the cause of chaos. And therefore, primitively, I think we all assume that if we're perceived that way, we're going to be pushed out of the clan or of the pack or of the family or of the group and then we're on our own again. And because we feel like, you know, we're probably different anyway cuz we don't know we've got ADHD or autism at the time. To be pushed out would be even worse. So I do think it it it heightens that sense of responsibility because you know especially if you're abused as a child but even as an adult if you're raped as an adult you go through which at 17 I guess I was more towards the adult end of of my life but you go through all of the things that you did that created the problem. It's just a natural response. For me it was and I know for many others was it because of what I wore? Was it because of how I behaved? And so you're constantly second-guessing yourself. And with rejection sensitivity, we anyone that's had it, it is just an overwhelming physical response in the body. It feels like a sucker punch. It feels like this emotional fire. And I always say it's like, you know, when a smoke alarm goes off, I don't know if you've used this metaphor, but it makes sense for me. When the smoke alarm goes off because there's a fire, it's great because everyone's aware that there's a fire. But if it's burnt toast and the smoke alarm goes off, it's just annoying. And I feel like that's what RSD is. You're constantly like the burnt toast instead of the fire, but the alarm's going off anyway. And you're going, you're flooded.
Completely with this sense of I've got to fix this. I've got to make this right. And it's panic. It's panic stations immediately. And it's engulfing and overwhelming. And I do think that the combination of abuse or bullying as well as ADHD and autism creates a super duper alarm where the toast isn't even in the toaster and the alarm's going off. You know, so I think there's levels of it.
Sure.
I had somebody write in, a listener to the podcast describing RSD and they said, "It's not just hearing no. It feels like you've been told you're unlovable, unwanted, and fundamentally not enough."
Yeah. Does rejection hit people with ADHD harder than than a typical person?
I think the problem is that you have with the ADHD. So if you think of the brain in two halves, so right side being more emotional, creative, imaginative and the left side being all the sort of more uh analysis, logic, organization when the executive function isn't working as efficiently as we would like anyway, and then there's this emotional flooding. Well, let's say it's hard to remain rational and analytical at the best of times with ADHD. If you're emotionally flooded on the right side and the amydala's going wild, your left side's completely offline. So, when you hear no, you literally cannot rationalize that no. When you feel like you're not pleasing somebody and you sense that they're going to reject you, you literally can't rationalize it. You immediately go into this sense of I'm going to It's self annihilation really. I'm I'm going to be disintegrated. I I cannot remain intact. And it does genuinely feel like the world is going to end. And it could be the simplest of things, but it's the sense that it's you that's dysfunctional. It's you that's the problem. It's you that's caused all of this. And and you can end up hating yourself. And then um what happens is because you believe you're going to be abandoned and rejected, you start unconsciously creating it. That's the that's the thing where you start to see people becoming more and more they test people. And the the way that that affects relationships, colleague relationships with work or intimate relationships can be catastrophic. And you see so many people with such severe RSD that end up on their own because what they're doing is they're unconsciously pushing people away because they already predict that that's going to be the case.
So I wrote a book about rejection sensitivity. Uh and I've spoken to many people who have experienced it and understand it. But I've yet to find a solution or practical advice that actually soothes it in the moment. Like there's quite a lot of long-term strategies after the trigger, after the event, after the deep emotional rage and sadness where you can name it and hold it out in front of you and depower it. But have you got any practical tips for actually soothing it in the moment when RSD is triggered?
Yeah, I mean I personally use this one and I do try to get other people to use it as well. So there's four steps to it. One is the first point is to pause because everyone knows that it's not brand new information. But if you feel in the moment that you're being rejected and it feels like that smoke alarm's going off, the toast isn't even in the toaster, the alarm's gone off.
And you feel reactive or or just deeply wounded, pause. Next step is to concentrate on the breathing. Everybody knows that step. Nothing new. But I love the parasympathetic sigh which came from the first time I heard about it was hubman. The two breaths in through the nose, the first being slightly shorter than the second and then out. Um the next step though and I try and do this with the breathing is bilateral tapping. So the bilateral tapping is really useful because it brings in the right side of the brain and the left side of the brain and it integrates the two hemispheres which really helps with the conscious critical faculty. So in other words you stop overthinking. So if you're breathing doing the two in and the one out bilaterally tapping. The other thing is after maybe 30 seconds of that is to do forwards backwards counting. Now, this is to confuse your brain and to give your brain a gap.
Because remember I said a minute ago when the right side is flooded with emotion.
Yes.
The left side goes off.
Okay?
So, we've lost Wi-Fi on the left side. So, the breath helps because it brings the oxygen back to the prefrontal cortex. So, it allows time for clarity. The bilateral tapping helps because you're bypassing critical faculty. But then the forward backward counting helps because you're giving your brain a real break and you're forcing it to think about something else. So it goes like this. Instead of going 1 2 3 4, you go 2 1 3 2 4 3 5 4 all the way up to 100. So you it literally you have to think about it. It's even difficult for me and I've done it so many times. You have to concentrate on this forward backward counting. By the time you get to 100, the nervous system has had a a time to settle a bit. And like I said, that conscious part of your analysis, logic, organization can come back online. And it will give you that little bit of space to now think more clearly about what's happened. So four steps, pause, breathe, bilaterally, tap.
If you're on a train or something, you can always tap your legs so you can do it so you're not being seen. But I like the butterfly hold because it feels a bit more self soothing. And then the forward backward counting up to 100. So you could be sort of taking at least three to four minutes break. That is just enough time to allow you to bring clarity back.
Wow. I mean that's incredible. I feel like so much damage is done with an ADHD person like immediately in that red zone immediately after the trigger.
Yes.
Like in my history that's that's when I've relapsed. you know that that trigger that that deep emotional pain that rage in response to a real or perceived criticism can be so intense and actually that's when I've reached for a drink after years of sobriety or that's when somebody has stormed out of the office and said I quit while they've you know said I want a divorce in front of their kids and you can't come back with from a lot of the stuff you do or say in these moments.
No, I mean, if you're going to walk out on a job or a relationship or push a best friend away or say something that you can't take back, because of course, I mentioned this to you earlier off camera. Um, you know, I personally during times of rage which may have been triggered by RSD have said some horrendous things and behaved in a really narcissistic way at times. And I can never take those things back. I can never change those decisions where I've hurt somebody else through being hurt. There's no excuse, by the way, but I have to admit that. And and I don't know if I said this last time as well, but one of the things that I think is really important is if you've been a victim of bullying or abuse and you've got ADHD and autism, the chances are you've probably been reactive at times.
Yes.
And you've probably become abusive at times. I certainly have. And it's all very well talking about the pain of being neglected, abused, treated badly, but too many times we don't talk about the fact that we've done it back or we've upset somebody deeply by making the decision to drink again or by being reactive and and saying horrible things we can't take back. Too often we won't admit that side of it. So, you're right. I'm not saying it will work perfectly every time, and it will take practice. And I always say these little techniques that I offer.
You kind of have to practice them when you're not in the red zone.
Yes.
So as a daily little practice so that when it does come to the red zone, your brain is so rehearsed at doing it that it's second nature.
So you do have to put the time in to practice these things. Soma control, brain body system control is very much about practice. It doesn't just happen overnight. So people might say, "Well, I've tried breathing. It doesn't work." But do you try it on a daily basis? Do you put the effort in training your whole system? Because if you're not, probably you're going to have to give it a few goes before it starts to work.
I feel like people with ADHD, they're so terrified of entering that red zone. They're so scared of criticism or rejection because it's a so painful and b they don't trust themselves. How are they going to react? What might they do like storm out of the office or, you know, leave that relationship? And that's going to cause huge anxiety and shame after the event. And it feels like the biggest protector or the biggest mechanism to protect yourself from that experience is to hide who you are and change who you are. So.
Because you've been told so many times that who you actually are is defective often like 20,000 more times than a typical child. I had a listener of the podcast write in and they said, "I learned to mask because every glimpse of the real me felt too vulnerable to risk another rejection." Do you think masking is often a response to feeling unsafe or misunderstood?
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I think it's always a response to that. Um, again, it can become a useful skill. I think people that mask can be really good salespeople. I think people that mask could be really good therapists actually because you can mold yourself around each person. But I think you have to address the root of that. So for me, I would say that I'm really really bad at admitting when I'm not okay. Um, and I almost don't feel like there's a space in the world for me to be not. I can talk about it retrospectively, but in the moment I find it really hard to be vulnerable because again to your point, being vulnerable uh has led me into some really catastrophic events in my life. And I've been criticized highly for being an attention seeker. And I mean, I used to self harm when I was younger. So, when you're told that you're an attention seeker, when you're told that you're too distracting, when you're told that you're too much, I don't know if I shared this before, but when I was a kid, because I was so desperate for people to like me, I used to give away loads of stuff. So, I'd give away toys or gifts that people had given to me or jewelry that I really loved to secure a friendship and, you know, through through the fear that I wasn't enough.
Mhm.
So there's and I know everyone's had that experience with ADHD and autism. You're either too much or you're not enough. You know, there's somewhere on that spectrum you sit. Often you're going between the two. So in terms of masking, you learn that you're not you learn that you're not worthy. So the only way that you're going to survive in this world is to create characters. and you end up sometimes so fragmented with so many different characters that you lose sight of that core self that we spoke about right at the beginning. Um, you know, if you if your identity is split in three ways fine, but if your identity is split into 20 different parts, it's really hard to remember who you are. So the masking then goes up a gear and it and it's such a hard thing to come out of and I think that's where people start to really struggle with mental health.
So, do you think childhood trauma trains people to mask to survive?
Yes. I think because you have to be so hyper aware and hyper attuned and hyper um vigilant um you know, like for me, slight noises of maybe my dad coming up the stairs or thinking he was walking past the door. So, you'd hear the tiniest little movement and wonder if this is going to happen again kind of thing. you become so tuned in to somebody else that masking is a way of kind of avoiding the truth of how you really feel. So I remember being a child and if someone was horrible to me. So I used to be fat when I was a kid and I mean fat. You know, when some people say they were fat as a kid and they actually weren't. They were just a little bit chubby. I was obese. So when I was a child and people picked on me for being fat or obviously at home when I'm being abused, I learned how to behave to avoid the shame or the uh fear that I was experiencing. So if someone said I remember one boy said that I wouldn't be able to go to his birthday party cuz I wouldn't fit through the door. Now now that's quite funny but at the time he meant it. He don't want the fat ugly kid coming to his party. that's going to spoil his day. So that level of rejection. So I just became a bit of a a nutter. I sort of like went around beating up all the boys. That was my way. But actually I was deeply deeply hurt. I was massively affected. So the mask that I wore there was that I'm going to bully the boys before they've got a chance to bully me and I'm going to be protector of the girls so that they liked me. And then at home the mask was just that I guess I became a bit moody and a bit difficult. So instead of being vulnerable, I became somebody again. I probably created the mask of of moodiness. So that that became the problem rather than being abused. So there was these adaptations that you make which make you again very very vulnerable going into adulthood. Because if they're the adaptations that you make as a child and they're the defense mechanisms that you have as a child, you're definitely going to ruin some of your relationships.
And what tends to happen when somebody finally stops masking?
They feel extremely exposed and vulnerable because that's been their defense. Like I say, it's a defense mechanism. It's it's an an armor that you wear and it saves you from being hurt. It saves you from looking foolish. It saves you from hum humiliation. So as soon as you stop masking, uh oh, the real me is going to be revealed. And the real me was the one that was told that you're too much or not enough or that you're naughty or that you're horrible or that you're selfish. That's a big one actually, selfish. So to remove the mask is to reveal the real you. And the real you has been told that you're a problem your entire life. However, the road to authenticity, although it is difficult and it takes a while, once you're free to be yourself and admit that you are flawed as well as hurt, I'm deeply flawed. But I'm also deeply hurt by some of the things that have happened in my life. I'm deeply hurt by being misunderstood and and labeled as the problem. But again, those adaptations have created narcissistic parts of me at times. certainly my 20ies that I am deeply ashamed of. But if you can say that out loud and people still like you, it's like, huh, I can still be me and actually that's okay because guess what? They're probably doing the same. There's a large number of people carrying trauma, autism, ADHD, or all three. We don't know the actual statistics. So, there's so many people that aren't diagnosed. And if it's not one of those, it's something else, you know. So yeah, probably we'll all carry on masking for the rest of our lives, but let's be honest about it.
You know, we can mask and we can say, "I feel like I'm masking. I need a break. This is a bit too much."
Just admit it. If nothing else, admit that you're masking, but it takes a while to be able to to get there. A lot of people sit in silence and suffer in silence and they won't admit it. So, I think it's really important that someone does and sort of go, I'll go first.
Yes, absolutely. I had a heartbreaking letter actually from a viewer about masking and and they said, "I became so good at being who everyone needed me to be that I struggled to find people who loved me for who I actually was." Do you think people with ADHD often experience profound loneliness?
Yes. And actually, that's interesting what she said. People struggled to love me for who I actually was. No, it wasn't people that struggled to love her for who she actually was. It was her that struggled to love her for who she was. Do you remember I said at the beginning about thoughts being electrical and then you've got this chemical cascade. Then you've got the cellular software that operates the soma.
And the identity is created and you put that energy and that frequency out into the atmosphere the electromagnetic waves. So our frequency by the way is about 10 ft around us from an electromagnetic point of view goes a little bit into the physics here and we're matching the energy in the room. If you don't love yourself, what you're doing is you're getting a feedback loop and you're creating this bias, this cognitive bias. Oh, they didn't like me. And so that means that they don't like me because of who I am. Maybe because you don't like yourself. And that's the energy you're giving out. The magnet effect is that people are are cautious around you or slightly uncomfortable or slightly awkward because you're not being yourself. So I would argue that it wasn't that the people didn't love her. It was that she didn't love herself. So, uh, I think loneliness therefore is a real real issue. If you don't love yourself and you can't connect to others because you're so afraid that they don't love you too, then the isolation that you experience is going to be so high. But also remember, so many of us have been told we're a problem. We've been told that we are not acceptable as we are. We've been told that we don't fit into the classroom. You know, so many kids are sent out of the classroom because they don't fit in. So, they sit in a room with maybe three other people while everybody else is all together in the classroom getting on with the lesson. You're going to feel lonely. You're going to feel like a problem. You're going to feel like everybody is against you. So, how do we adapt to that? We mask, we defend, and we push people away, which leads to more of that feeling. So again, we have to change that that that the thought processes to change the chemical cascade to alter the cellular software to alter the identity to change what we put out into the atmosphere into the frequency.
How do you do that? How do you start loving yourself more so you feel like you need to mask less so therefore the version of you that is interacting with people is actually you. How do you reduce that feeling of loneliness?
I think you have to be willing to I mean as a psychotherapist I would say that therapy is a really good way to start because you know I will challenge everything someone says. I'm quite confrontational actually in therapy. I'm not always just going to be sweetness and light.
Mh.
Uh, I think good therapy will be a good balance of the two where you'll feel safe and loved and nurtured and you'll have a great relationship with your therapist, but quite honestly, I'm also there to call you out on your. So, I will do that. And I think that's where where you need somebody that will say, "Hang on a minute." That's a belief system. That's the neurons that have connected. And if you can, as a good therapist will be able to join the dots. So they'll be able to say look this thing that happened to you when you were 10 that create that repetition created a situation in your brain where you were joining these neurons and wiring these pathways which was creating the chemical cascade which became familiar that cellular software that's been running unconsciously 95% running the system for all of these years has created this belief system that is all it is and I go back to the idea of the matrix and a simulation your reality is subjective Okay, most people aren't having an objective view to their own reality. They're literally coming through that confirmation bias because of that whole system I explained before, repetition, compulsion, feedback loops. So, their subjective lens is so small relatively speaking. And you know, Einstein said that your your reality is what you observe. Okay? So if your observation is your subjective lens, you need somebody to to question that. And so the best way for you to start to love yourself is to have someone question it and show you love and safety at the same time. So I can go, yeah, like like like with myself, I love myself truly. I really do. But that doesn't mean I don't go through moments of annihilation and collapse. And still to this day, I struggle with suicidal ideations. But they don't last as long because I'm able now with the skill set that I have to challenge them. Do I want to sit in in self wallowing sometimes for 24 hours, 48 hours? Yes, I do. And I actually don't think that's unhealthy. I think that's a time of self-observation and self-reflection. And sometimes you got to feel the pain. So I think rather than avoiding yourself, confront yourself and do it with somebody that can do it either professionally or someone that you trust. Confront the parts of yourself that you struggle with.
It's a choice. Your your simulation, if you like, the game of life is a choice and you have to be willing to choose.
Yeah.
And maybe you have to be aware that that that you have to choose.
Because if you're not aware that you're
Living in that subjective lens, that's half the problem. Ella, I want to move on to the most emotionally unpredictable part of the show, and that is the audience questions. And I've got three of them, and they're all absolutely fantastic, and they're in the washing machine of woes, which is behind me.
It's called the washing machine of woes because it's a woe from the audience, and it's in a washing machine because, for me, a washing machine represents memory loss because I always forget to empty the washing machine after the cycle's finished. Do you do that?
Yes, I do. And it goes very moldy and smelly.
Yeah. So that's the public service announcement for the listeners to empty the washing machine. Although I do use the Teemo app, which is a productivity app, and it does remind me, so, but I'm still a work in progress. Right, Anna, first question from the audience is, what's one thing people with ADHD need to stop apologizing for?
Well, I'm going to make this much more personal, but I think a lot of your audience will relate to this. I think we need to stop apologizing for being late.
Yes.
I am always late. To the point now where my reminder texts for my clients tell them that I'm going to be late. So rather than apologizing for it after the effect, just let people know the thing that you do that you might apologize for before it happens, so that they know that it might happen, so they can adjust their timescale to yours. If it's time, if it's not time, just sort of pre-warm people rather than apologize. Because if you keep apologizing, then you're putting some weird energy into the universe. Just let them know and let them deal with it.
That's amazing. I have the opposite problem. I don't know if you've ever experienced that.
That's because you're autistic as well.
I'm always early, which is essentially the opposite of being late, I guess. Um, but I have a genuine fear of being late. I don't. I am very on the ball. Like, I do plan train times and everything the night before. I wake up and there's like a, I write down I need to leave the house at 10:00 AM to get the 10:45 train, which gets me into London at 11:45. So it's all planned, but there is like an intense fear of lateness. I'm always in a cafe around the corner well ahead of time. And I guess it's probably like, just the fear of letting people down, maybe, and getting rejected, or sensing that they're annoyed with me, and then the whole interview is going to be uncomfortable for me.
Well, I think when I'm working with train times, I kind of have to be on time. Obviously, you can't control what happens with the trains because that's often outside of our control. But I think the reason that people are trying to be early is because they've been scolded in some way for being late. Whereas, I think I've always been able to get away with being late. Hence the reason I'm not super aware of. I know some people think it's really rude, but in my job, and I think this is where the real problem starts, is that if someone starts crying at the end of a session, I can't just say, right, I don't care that you're emotionally disregulated right now, you have to leave because I have someone else waiting. And because I don't plan gaps between sessions, I work back to back, I think I've got good at telling people I'm going to be late because these things can happen, and that's formed a bad habit in the rest of my life where it's almost like, well, I've got a reason to be late, and no one tells me off for it because they expect it.
Because I don't apologize for it anymore.
So, I'm not saying it's the best habit, but I don't want to keep apologizing for myself. I just have a problem with time distortion.
Yeah.
So, that's it. It's the executive function. I blame the ADHD, and I think that's an actual thing.
But you're the opposite end.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. The other end of the spectrum.
Yeah. So you don't need to apologize for that.
No. But I can't apologize for being... because they don't. I guess I'm always on time, but they don't know that I've been frantically almost panicking to get to a cafe an hour before the arrival time of the actual event.
Yeah. And also, I think when you're always early, you set the expectation that you're always going to be on time, which would frighten me more.
Because I don't want anyone to expect me to be on time if I'm... And I think that's the perfection thing in you as well.
It's fascinating. But that's the one thing I would say to not apologize for.
Amazing. Right. Second question, Ella. Oh, this one's a good one. What's the biggest lie people with ADHD have been taught to believe about themselves?
I think probably the biggest lie is that they're too sensitive. Um, because actually, I think being told you're too sensitive is really dismissive of someone who's perhaps just really intuitive, really good at reading the room. Because again, that hyper-attunement and hypervigilance makes you just really good at joining the dots really, really quickly. If you're told you're too sensitive, what is essentially a good relational skill, I think actually becomes something that's detrimental. So I don't think I don't think we should tell people they're too sensitive. I think we should praise them for their levels of emotional depth and their ability to be hyper-tuned with others. And yeah, I would say let's scrap that one.
Too sensitive. Out the door. Get rid of it.
I guess it could go back to the high hunter farmer theory a little bit. That sensitivity would be a positive thing. Like you would hear the footstep of the lion, crack that twig in the forest, and you'd be alert to danger.
Yeah.
I guess what, how does that play out in today? Are you more like attuned to spotting red flags? Are you more attuned to spotting abuse or gaslighting?
Yeah, I think in most people's lives, there's something that we should be looking out for. You know, as a therapist, I'm looking for those cues. But I suppose as, you know, if you're in the workplace and you've got a friend and you start to notice that they're a bit quieter, or, you know, they're not looking after themselves as well, you might spot those cues a little bit earlier than somebody else. And you can then ask the question, is everything okay? I think that's again, that's a beautiful thing to be somebody that notices others. And, you know, if you feel things deeply emotionally, that means that you're empathetic, and it means that you care, and it means that you're a, you know, perhaps a creative person as well, and that you can use that creativity. So if you feel deeply, write a song, write a poem, paint a picture. It's not being too sensitive. It's being somebody that feels deeply. Just find a way to express it rather than see it as a bad thing.
Yes. Yeah. I guess being too sensitive, if you like. I guess it's like another way of saying you've got heightened intuition. You're amazing at spotting interruptions to patterns that you are associating with safety. So you can recognize when there is a nasty person on the horizon or someone isn't quite being genuine with the words that are coming out of their mouth. And then when it's proven that they are a nasty person, and everyone's so shocked because they didn't see it, you're the one going, I told you so.
Yeah. And how many times have people found themselves saying that about a friend's boyfriend or a friend's girlfriend, or that boss at work, you know, or that teacher at school that ended up being in the newspapers for all the wrong reasons, you know? I think actually, it's a skill. And I think, I think the world is changing in the way that it views ADHD and autism, but I still think there's a really long way to go. I think people really misinterpret what it means from a from a larger picture. And I think one of the things that I'm sure so many people that relate, diagnosed here, is that they're too sensitive, and they must walk around feeling a great deal of people that that's the truth. If you hear something enough times, you believe it, don't you? And then you suppress so much of what's beautiful about you. And I think that's the saddest thing. And that's why I mentioned the subjective lens earlier. You know, sometimes you've got to step out of your way of thinking and observe reality from different angles. And the only way that you can do that is by talking to people. But I think another way that you can do that, and I think a lot of people get this from this podcast, is because they hear these conversations. I know I do. I get this from your podcast, is that you suddenly realize there's something about yourself that millions of other people are experiencing. And actually, that's not the truth because we're all sitting here questioning it now. So I think actually these podcasts are more useful than people realize. You know, generally speaking, I think this is where a lot of people get their education. This particular podcast on things like ADHD and autism, and your books and stuff like that, I think they're incredibly useful and really important.
Thank you very much. And the idea that people are too sensitive being perceived as a negative can get in the bin.
Yes.
Finally, Ella, the final question from the audience. If every person with ADHD could hear one message from you right now, what would it be?
I'm going to go back to the identity. Your subjective view of yourself and your identity is based on what you've repeatedly heard, seen, and experienced. ADHD is not the problem. And I think that's one thing that we have to remember. It can feel like a problem if the people around us are belittling it, minimizing it, taking the mickey out of us. Oh, another person with ADHD, and all of these things that we hear, and then it's almost like, oh, it's embarrassing to have ADHD because everybody thinks ADHD is just one of those things that social media made up. So, ADHD isn't the problem. ADHD can be your greatest strength if you learn how to manage it and learn how to live in a world that doesn't always accept it. So I think one of the things that we need to do is realize that there's a lot of projection from other people. Their wounds, their experiences are often projected onto you. And because you are somebody that feels deeply and somebody that, you know, has a lot of emotional landscape, you might accept their truth to be your truth. You're not the problem. And actually, as we learn more and more about ADHD, and as the world evolves, I think we'll start to see that it's the people that have projected onto us, the people that have the real problem. And actually, as a community, I know people in this community, and it's a fabulous community with fabulous people. That's what I want people to know.
Wow, what an answer.
Thank you.
Thanks, Ella. That was incredible. Uh, just finally, before we end, I want to deliver to you a letter that was written by the previous guest. They actually wrote themselves a letter to their younger self. What I do is I deliver that letter to the guest in front of me today, which is obviously yourself.
Right. There we go. To the next guest. There we go. Ella, thank you very much.
Kindly open that and read it out loud.
Okay. So, to my younger self.
Hi, little one. I imagine you are just getting back from school worrying why you haven't done your homework, knowing you're going to get called lazy. I want you to know you are the opposite of lazy. You struggle with normal, but you excel in the wonderfully strange, creative mountains of your mind. It will take a while, but it will all work out. You will find people that love you, not in spite of your flaws, but because of them. Believe in yourself. You are stronger than you know.
Wow. What an amazing letter to their younger self. That was Rich and Rocks Pink, aka ADHD Love.
An amazing tone to finish on. Ella, on behalf of everyone listening who is grappling to understand how their brain works, thank you so much.
Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure and a privilege.