thinkythink

ADD Coach Talk Radio Interview Thursday at Noon

Tara McGillicuddy recently interviewed me for her online radio show "ADHD Coach Talk."  It's kind of a getting-to-know you interview, partly for the ADD Coaching Club where I recently became one of the coaches.

The interview will be airing online tomorrow, Thursday January 29, at noon ET. Here's the link to listen.

Keep warm out there! It's awfully icy and wintry here in Boston.

Deconstructing My Thoughts Ain't Gonna Do It, Folks.

It's happened once again. Someone has told me about how certain techniques were supposed to be good for them and they just seemed to do the opposite.

I think I've held out on talking about this stuff because I'm not an expert, and because there really does seem to be research that tells an opposite story. But instead of waiting until I've read all the science, let me tell you about my experience, because that's pretty real to me.

Long ago, some therapists taught me some Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Techniques (CBT). I read a book about it even longer ago. What stuck with me as the gist of it, was that as a way of improving mood/outlook/etc, I could analyze my own thoughts and thought patterns, and see where they were bringing me down unnecessarily. I could learn to see, for example, where I was making guesses about the future that may not be true (and so unnecessarily worrying.) I could see where I was thinking about something as all-or-nothing or black-and-white. I could see where my assumptions about what other people thought about me were mind-reading attempts where that wasn't really possible.
And by applying these techniques to take apart my  negative and sad-inducing thinking, I could make the power of this thinking diminish, and so I could feel better.

Except that I think faster than that.
I reason really fast. And my reasoning may be pretty decent.
My feelings go by at light speed. I may forget that felt bad a minute ago while I'm trying to take apart the cause. That's just confusing.
Or I might find the "reason," like "mind-reading" or "fortune-telling," but in the meantime have reasoned further so that I've either convinced myself that I'm right and the technique is wrong, or I might have just moved on to thinking about something else, all without realizing it, so that the deconstruction just skims some surface I don't even notice is there.
Or more generally, I may feel like I'm battling a vast flame with a thimble of water. Now realize, the flame may not be made up of all NEGATIVE thoughts; there are just so many of them that honing in on one line of thought just doesn't do much for me.

I'd really like to know about the research. And I will add, that in my own experience, things like effective ADHD medication (NOT mood medication) can slow down the thinking enough that techniques like those from CBT may begin to be relevant. Once I was on meds I could say to myself "oh hey! look at that! I'm feeling kinda bummed out!" and then maybe decide to do something about it. This doesn't work for everyone- but it does seem like that basic stage, the thought slow-down, needs to be in place first, not after. And I just wish that the people trying to help me in the past, and who are trying to help you now,  could crawl inside your head and see what they're dealing with. Because if you're standing in front of those rock-and-roll speaker stacks with Guns 'n Roses blaring, a piccolo just isn't going to sound so loud.

You? CBT? Other techniques? Have they worked? Failed you? Let us know in the comments.

Panic Techniques

In college, my astute psychiatrist sent me to learn relaxation techniques.

I had panic attacks during the relaxation exercises. So we stopped.
This lovely man, Ron Gatsik (I mention his name because he was so kind and helpful, and has since passed away) didn't know that I had ADHD; adult ADHD was unknown at the time. He knew that I think too much. And he was pragmatic. The problem with the relaxation exercises, I now can understand, is that the mental chatter just kept going, and I would fight to keep the noise down. I would try to quiet my mind. But I could not. So the chatter that was just tiresome would become irksome and disturbing; I struggled with myself; I felt bad because I couldn't shut up inside; I panicked because I was getting agitated and this was so not supposed to be the result.

That's why I tend to say inattentive folk aren't so much always lacking hyperactivity, it's just that the hyperactivity is internal, mental.

Nowadays I know not to fight for internal quiet. Frankly, the TV works a lot better than the relaxation exercises do on a bad day; and if I try to chill out the internal chatter and it doesn't work, I can just walk away from trying, instead of fighting it.

Free Teleclass on Inattentive ADHD

Hey everyone, I'm giving a free teleclass on January 27th at 8pm over at ADDClasses.com called "Strategies for Inattentive ADHD." If you're interested, please sign up in advance so you can get the phone number to call in.

I used to think that I hated people.

I remember this one trip I went on with a university choir I sang with in grad school. I was living in Utrecht, Netherlands, at the time. The choir traveled by train to Kiev, Ukraine, where we stayed in a kind of third-world hotel, and sang together with a choir there. In general, it was an intense, educational, and wonderful experience. We schlepped from the West to the East Berlin train station together. we arranged our backpacks in heaps on the the train to all sleep on. We shared food. We navigated Ukranian maps and signs together. We survived customs and frightening food and beautiful parks... together. We shared rooms at the hotel. I got really annoyed with people and gradually started to think that they were really obnoxious and insensitive. I hadn't been best friends with them, but we hung out and had fun getting a drink together after rehearsals. Now, on a trip that for most people seemed to cause bonding and deepen relationships, I thought they were all really pretty annoying.

In high school and college I lost a lot of friends to thinking they were obnoxious and insensitive. In reality, ok in ADHD reality, I see it differently; they may have in fact been obnoxious or insensitive, but no more or less than other people. What is more informative, is that I was tired. I was overstimulated. ADHD means I have no filters; when people are in my face I can't ignore what they're doing. When I'm overloaded with talk and laughter it feels like I'm two inches in front of a stadium concert speaker stack and someone is scratching a chalkboard with their fingernails on the other end of the mic. I can't turn off all the noise and information and faces and laughter coming in. The more tired I am, and the more intense the social contact, the worse it gets.

Nowadays, I'd say that I needed some downtime. I needed some time where I could control the noise I was hearing; where I could have a break from conversation; and that I might need a nap. And now I know that after that downtime, I might like those people again for a while. And any trip where I don't have any measure of control over that won't really be so much fun.