09 Welcome to dopamine kick, your weekly dose of positivity, where your host, Sparky and shell join us each week as we have changed your habits, tackle fears and challenge your mindset. 21 Let's get to it. 24 And welcome to episode 40 of a day for me in kick. I cannot believe we've made it to 40 episodes and today is a big surprise. Or maybe not so much if you've read the title. Today we're going to be talking about ADHD.
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Kid I have my god it's so weird talking about this because a few weeks ago, we had no idea that both of us were going on some sort of little journey of self discovery maybe that's what you want to call it. And I was a bit nervous about saying to shall, oh, you know, actually, I think I might possibly have ADHD and it was something that I was going to build up to. So a few episodes ago, I mentioned something and I said, Oh, this will all become clear at some point because I had a feeling that I might mention it at some point. I just didn't know how I was going to mention it. But I think what's great about this is we both discussed it, and we both had the realisation that we may possibly have ADHD which is like adult ADHD which How would you start with this shout at me like How'd you even start the conversation about how we possibly have ADHD?
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Yeah, I guess we should give some context as to where it's come from. So we haven't just like I don't know, seen a few videos on Tiktok and self diagnosed ourselves. So we have both separately been seeing a therapist, different therapists. And the therapists have both suggested to us that we have some pretty large red flags. And should pursue a formal diagnosis. So I meant to how it all started between nurses, like you said, we didn't have any idea. So we both knew each other. We're seeing a therapist, but we hadn't really discussed anything else. And at the end of was at the end of last episode actually just after we switched off recordings Barkingside go So what's up with you? And I was like, Well, funny thing. So my therapist thinks I might have ADHD and he was like, well, you are like, Oh my god. It just
36 came out of the blue. But you know what? As soon as you said it to me, I felt a relief and then I thought, actually, this all makes sense now like with the way that you are to
47 Yeah, I can see you soon as you told me I was like, Yeah, I see that. Having now done a little bit of research into you know what it looks like? Yeah,
58 I'm I'm on board
58 with your therapist.
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year but you know what, you know what's great about it like you I've said this on so many occasions before you I personally think anyway, you've got it all together. You've got a great career. Like you you're really good at what you do, like it's not just a job for anybody you know, you're a vet. So that's that's an amazing, you know, achievement. And I always thought in the back of my mind, you is so well together, but you always rush and you're always late for things and that very few combinations don't go hand in hand. Do they? So it's always like this. There's always been something kind of fair, but it's, I guess you've kind of felt the same about me too, like things just coming out my mouth and things. And it's always been a bit like, but then as soon as you said it, I was like oh my God makes absolute sense. It's
53 saying this to you last week. I think that's one of the reasons maybe why we became such good friends and why we've never, you know, fallen out or anything because I mean, let's be honest, we both can be quite frustrating people to spend a lot of time
12 very much Well, 13 I mean, I'm including me and I'm saying I am just as much of a nightmare. But when you know when we get together as a for with our our partners, quite a lot of the time the conversation ends up with the two of them just discussing like various ridiculous things that we've done around the house or or like hobbies that we've taken up all the gear for and then drop,
35 I guess as well like when you think about it like that. We've always had that. I've always had your back and you've always had mine so I'll be like, you know, it's not really that bad. Yeah. Is that a terrible thing?
47 Because I do that as well. Exactly. And now it all makes sense. Like the reason that we don't annoy each other is because we can see that like little kindred spirit link. And
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also as well explains exactly why just for people that are listening, why we came up with the dopamine kick name because when when we both came up with the name and it was like a dopamine hit, we're like yeah, that sounds really good. And ADHD is largely down to dopamine as well. Like obviously not always but you know chasing dopamine. Yeah, one of the symptoms is you know, hyper focusing on things that you really enjoy. So that dopamine, isn't it, and it just, it just so Evonik that we started this podcast, we had no idea. And then we've kind of gone on this little journey as we're going along. And we think is like I said before falling into place and all the things that we've mentioned, all of our episode titles are basically stuff that people with ADHD also struggle with.
49 Yeah, and I think we'd like listening back to our episodes as well. There's so many times when we're talking about stuff and giving examples from our own life that it's just like oh, actually, I'm not sure that is neurotypical after all. Like you rearranging the furniture at 3am in the morning. I don't know that a lot of people can identify.
13 Exactly. That's so true, isn't it? Like, how many people listening actually do stuff like that? I thought that was relatively normal, maybe like once
21 or twice but not like every night.
28 Just to put this into context. Every time Michelle comes to my house, it's different every single time it is
34 genuinely doesn't matter how long it's been since I've been there. It's different every time
38 that is what I'm saying. Like looking back you can kind of kind of see that all the signs were there. Why did no one pick up on these like you guys are listening to us? Why didn't you tell us? Why didn't you tell about it not now. So just going on from ADHD and these podcasts like you don't have to have ADHD to listen to these podcasts. We're not going to go all out and do all that hyper focusing and go no, it's not going to become
01 the ADHD podcast. Well, I mean, you never know. We might hyper focus on it for a few weeks, but it's not going to be all about that.
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But people think of ADHD don't they? Like you know, running around not being able to settle and I guess there is some truth to that like children especially I know as a child I was a bit more like that looking back at my reports and it's all like you know, very bright child but needs to focus you know, needs easily distracted all of those things. So I thought that we could talk a little bit about some of what we experienced like how it feels for us because there may be some people out there that are experiencing this too. Or maybe if you don't experience all of the symptoms, maybe there's some things in there that you also experienced as well. So I thought it'd be really funny just to kind of ask you shall what does it feel like for you? Like I know you haven't had a formal diagnosis and I haven't either, but like, if let's say for example, we do go down and we do get the diagnosis like how does it feel for you on a daily basis, like just just some of the funny stuff not not too deep?
05 Not too deep? Okay. I think for me, the big thing is, is hyper focusing on things. So suddenly getting really into like a new hobby or like getting an idea and to the exclusion of everything else just focusing on that one thing. Yeah, so yeah, that could be seen around my house with various abandoned hobbies all over the place your
29 kids that you bought and abandoned, or are you still keeping up with that? Ah, no,
33 I love my orchids. That is still very much an ongoing hobby. Okay,
36 that stopped to
38 crochet, cross stitching
42 Oh, yeah. I remember that time. There was a time where she she was even doing it in the pub.
51 I remember, we weren't getting the most typical thing to do. She just pulls
57 out this bag and you're like are you catching up? I've been drinking a lot. You some nights and you're like, cross stitching that could have made
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the zone I'm in the zone. It's hard for me to even commit to things like going out with friends because I panic that it's taking my focus nice. Just never been able to shut off. Like we've said this so many times with meditating. I cannot meditate because my mind never shuts off. Like even when I go to sleep. Do you fall asleep quite easily and I'm lucky that I tend to stay asleep but I wake up exhausted. Because my mind has just raced all like night and I grind my teeth as well. Yeah, constantly awake Jamie up all the time with my teeth grinding. So yeah, that that's what it feels like for me. It's just like a relentless I kind of liken myself to like a squirrel. I read this fact about squirrels. And I was just like, oh my life that's me. And it was that they bury those acorns everywhere for the winter. But they have quite poor memories. So they forget. I think it was something stupid like up to 70% of the acorns. They forget where they buried them. So they're always in this like frantic panic that they haven't buried enough acorns that they have they've just forgotten where they put them. And I remember reading that and thinking like a squirrel in the past. Like
26 oh my god, your little facts
32 brighten up my day.
34 So what about you? What is ADHD? What could possibly ADHD feel like for you?
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Well, again, with me, it's all to do with focus. And obviously as I've spoke about before, I work from home now. I'm an editor, and oh my god, it's flippin hard. You know, I thought to myself, I just had a problem like, you know, maybe I'm just not cut out for working from home. I love the freedom but you know, it's the focus. I've said this before. One minute I'll be you know, or I need to make a cup of tea and then and then I'll be doing something else and I'll be doing something else and I'll be on a karaoke airport. And it's just it's this relentless stuff. So I figured out that I have three types of workdays. It's the work day where I get absolutely nothing done. And I've sang karaoke apps all day long making friends on karaoke so you know, I've been
31 times you've been like saying to me, like you're so stressed about suddenly you've got so much to do, but then equally like suddenly means all the videos of yourself singing and I just thought we were busy. That's what I mean. You know,
46 I am busy. I just put it up. The next day, the other day is like getting four hours of work done at a random time in the day. So it's like, oh, yeah, just, you know, I've got an eight hour working day. That's what I tried to tell myself. I've got an eight hour working time. Whether that's happens or not, it's just another story. But usually I can get some of it done. And then another day, I can get like, I don't know like 40 hours worked on it like I was tired
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today and when your deadline is approaching is that the day when like it has to be finished. By five o'clock and you've not started at 11 Usually, because when I when I have got an impending deadline, I can laser focus and get so much done. And I've always said if I could just get that even a fraction of that focus, another time you know further further you know, when I've got more time to work on things, and potentially academically I could have done a lot better. But I left everything to the last name and every time all my exams I was like revising at the last moment. I'd go into exams having maybe not even read some of all the material because I just haven't had time, left it that late. But then generally, I would always do okay in them. And that will just reinforce my I suppose belief that I could do it next time. Yeah,
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and I think that's a good belief to have like, it doesn't matter whether you've got ADHD or not the fact that you believe in yourself is a good thing. And we always say this, don't worry. You people need to believe in themselves a little bit more. And I told you at uni I never I mean, I never went to the lectures because I had that I wanted dopamine so I'd go out on nights out or I'd do you know, do things that were that I thought, Oh, this is more important than actually what was important. But then I do my assignment last minute, rushing at 12 o'clock midnight trying to get him before the deadline. And then the tutor would say to me, look, you'll never hear but you do what it says on the tin. You get it done and I've got good grades and I think I'm going to admit something here probably should not make this. I'm not going to blow my own trumpet in the same intelligence because I'm not but at uni what I used to do is I used to kind of do the assignments backwards. So what I do is you know how most people would go to the library, spend hours reading and gather all the information and then write write the assignment. What I used to do is write the assignment about what I wanted to say. And then I'd go to Google documents or Google Books, and I type in certain quotes, and then I'd highlight the quote and then pretend I've read the book.
16 My life I need to get through that.
20 I actually did. I never I never picked up one book from the library in three, three years that was at uni, because I just couldn't focus on reading something that wasn't to me wasn't interested in I just wanted to get the assignment done and move on. And I guess that's where the ADHD kind of comes in.
41 I struggled at uni. So I struggled at school as well. But I think in school because the classrooms are a bit smaller, the focus is a bit more intense to uni when you're in a massive lecture hall with 100 other people. I just could not concentrate and I would fall asleep almost every lecture like it was regular people would expect it. I didn't show up. Or if I did show up in like five minutes. I could feel my eyes going and I would just fall asleep. Yeah.
12 I love that. People just expected you not to show it was 17 and amongst my friends it was like expected that I either wouldn't be there or if I was there I'd probably fall asleep. And I would just blame it on like nights out like oh, you know I was had a label on last night and I might have done but the reason I wanted to sleep is because I was in a lecture. If I'd have been out I don't know shopping or out just not in that lecture hall. I wouldn't need to fall asleep.
37 I guess this is the thing isn't it about the focus. So with the ad with ADHD, biggest problem, especially for me anyways, the focus, but also it can be a bit of a superpower because when you do want to focus, you can hyper focus and I think that's why we're both that's why we've both done really well at achieving what we need to achieve so far. Because we've we hyper focus at the might be the last minute but we do it
04 at the critical time. Yeah, we've always managed to to pull that hyper focus in
09 instead of just stare in their space you know, looking at walls are going on bright colours or
16 wow, I do have periods where I'll just completely stare at the wall, a blank wall and not do anything for half an hour a toddler running around. Yeah, God imagine
30 ADHD parenting and I think we should we should touch upon this, you know? I mean, okay, so
36 I feel like I need some expertise in it to start talking about it, at the moment very much winging it. Well, I
43 mean, we've been winging everything we've been doing so far. So I mean, what's new 40 episodes to realise that we potentially have ADHD.
55 Okay, so in true Sparky and shell style we waffled on for half an hour as usual, which is way too long. Our episodes are usually about 15 minutes, so we're gonna cut this short here and pick up the conversation next time.
09 All right, that's everything this week, guys, but if you want to carry on with the conversation, join us over on our social media platforms. We're on all the major channels and our handle is a dopamine kick.
18 We'd also be super grateful if you could leave us a review on the podcast wherever you're listening, because it helps us to grow our audience and helping people. Okay, we'll see you in the next one. Bye bye.
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