Hi, Alison.
Hey, Matt.
How's it going? Is this the second episode of ADHd20? A podcast about ADHD. And Dungeons & Dragons? I think it is. I think it is. How has your week been?
Good. It's for me the last week before I take a little vacay. Which means that there's lots to do and not, you know, more time to do it in. So focus has been at a premium. But we've gotten through it together.
Yup. Yup. It is times like those where I feel like either the hyper-focus happens more, or it fails you. I think this could be an interesting segue into the thing about talking about today, but, I have dipped my feet into TikTok.
This is news.
I mean, honestly, it's via YouTube actually. It's the Shorts, I rarely open up the TikTok app. And why is that? Well, there is a part of me that ever since I was little, I don't like things that are cool or popular. That's why TikTok has been a slow burn for me. But I have been watching specifically # ADHD TikToks.
The #ADHD TikTok content is chef's kiss.
It is!
100 underline, underline. So good.
It's really helpful. It's really helpful. And there's this one, she's a doctor. And can't remember her name. One of the things was like waiting for hyper-focus to kick in. I was like, oh my God, it's so true. Because I will go through an entire day, an entire morning, and go, oh, I can't do anything. Oh. I'm just lost. I'm just, and then like one at one or two o'clock comes around. And I'm don't stop until seven. A joyful thing sometimes. It's also a concerning thing, but it. in her tick-tock.
She was saying it was a joyful thing. And I saw that. Yeah.
I'm going to have to compare lists with you. Interestingly enough, it. So I was, yeah. Another app you don't love to hop onto if you don't have to. I was scrolling through Facebook this morning. I like to look at my memories and just see where I was at a year, two years, 10 years ago. It was one year ago today. That I wrote a love letter to TikTok via Facebook.
Wow.
To basically announce publicly I'm all in on this app. Yeah. So
You…
Interesting that you're bringing this up today.
Well, okay. We don't need to go down a huge rabbit hole. But, my, my problem still with TikTok is that I don't like, or I don't understand the point of the whole here is someone else's song and I'm going to lip sync to it. And it's going to mean something else. It just, it doesn't feel like anything to me. You know, You're a great dancer or you're pretty, or you're, funny or whatever, but I don't. I don't get it though. I love the ones where it's like, Hey, here's a little, here's a little tip.
Take a bucket. Or a basket, and go through your entire house and put everything that's out on the table and on the couches and all the clothes and just dump them in this basket. And then the basket gets full and then you put those things away. That's an amazing ADHD tip and it works for me. And I don't know who she is. She's somebody's mom. She doesn't sing along and she doesn't dance. I mean, it's like, it's just, that's the kind of stuff, I'm like, oh, okay. Okay. I get that.
The one, if we're talking about the same one, she is amazing. She has been a huge part of my TikTok journey, and ADHD coaching. And one of the other things that she has me kind of turned on to is the nightly reset is kind of her big thing. Where it's not about getting it, you know? Right for other people, it's about making life easier for you tomorrow. And she sets a timer. You get like, she gets, you know, 20 minutes to, you know, air quote, reset the kitchen.
And she has, you know, steps she goes through that they're the same every night. So she doesn't have to sit there in analysis paralysis of like, what do I do? What do I do? Do I do the counters? Do I do the dishes? You know, it's just like, these are the steps that you take every single night as a gift to tomorrow You. And I love that because like, I can empathize with that, right.
I can picture tomorrow Alison, and be like, what's just like one tiny, but heavy rock I can take out of tomorrow's backpack for her. And, you know, so the nightly reset, but she's just a mom, you know, she's also, I think some kind of doctor life coach, again, if it's, if we're talking about the same person, but she's just very plain Jane, she's not there. Yeah.
Let me please backtrack and say, there is no such thing in my own mind as "just a mom". I don't. I'm not trying to be cool by saying that I really think that a mom is a mom. There's no, "just"
There's no just there. Yes, but you meant she's not there to, you know, be Beyonce and wear like sparkles and do choreography like she's someone, you know, that we can all see ourselves. Her at is @domesticblisters. Her name's KCDavis. Like letter K letter C Davis.
That sounds right.
How to Keep House While Drowning is her book. And I love it because she's real. I mean, that's the thing about like normalization of all of these things, and I know we're supposed to hate the word normal too, but like, you know, knowing that there's other people like in the deep and swirling waters with you sometimes is better than finding an air quote fix, you know. Like I got buddies who understand where I'm coming from. So yeah, so she's one of my favorite ones. There is another.
I don't know if again, she's like a Life Coach or doctor who just like normalizes everything about ADHD in her posts. And it always just makes me, you know, have those, like, I feel seen. We don't have to have this conversation right now, but I am deeply fascinated what the algorithm thinks of you, because one of my favorite parts of TikTok is what the algorithm thinks about me.
And some very like on the nose ways and some very, like, that's interesting that's the vibe that I gave you algorithms. But Yeah. Again, if you're trying to make people feel seen, heard, felt. It does a great job of that, which is why I think I gravitated towards it. Whereas like Facebook is just kind of become everybody's sounding board to, you know, post their highlight reels. But TikTok became this place that suddenly we could find our way to the places we ultimately want to be.
Oh, I like. Wow. Dang girl. Wow. Yeah. Oh, yeah, we should start an ADHD TikTok.
Well, it's funny because when we were posted on our socials last week, shameless plug to get YouTube followers for Bivins Brothers Creative. One of our friends Megan asked us, are you guys gonna start TikTok-ing? And I gave a swift no, but now that we're having this conversation, was I wrong? Megan, do I need to come back on that. One thing at a time. and
One thing at a time. Sweet Jesus.
That's our downfall, is that we try and to use a phrase that one of my former bosses use boil the ocean. I think I may have said that last session too, where you just try and do everything all at once. It's like, life is one big shotgun start. We're all just running all over the place, but like, I'd rather be good at YouTube, and then be good at Twitter. And then I'll get good at TikTok.
Sure.
Which is not my natural inclination. My natural inclination is like, what do we want? All the things, when do we want it? Right now!
Now I know. And I know that we had a list, an outline to talk about today, but,
Out the window.
You know, there's one thing that is interesting to me about TikTok. It is interesting to me that someone can get millions and millions of followers. And I can say Instagram and YouTube as well. And, and therefore fans, right. But the cycle seems of course, to be faster and faster. And in some ways I feel like that is an okay thing. Because, you know, we have talked in the past about fandom. And how I was a kid that never liked anything that was cool.
And then, you know, then there was a name to, to call me, which was hipster years and years later. I am. I really am. I really am.
You really are. That's
It's funny, cause I used to get so offended when our old partner Randy would call me a hipster. I was so offended. But it's true. I've been a hipster since I was a kid though. I hated anything that was cool. Actively tried not to like things that were cool. It's terrible. I mean, I deserved being beaten up. I needed to be punished for that. I really did. . Alison: I don't agree, but. Well, I took it too far. I mean, I looked down on things that were cool.
I definitely don't do that as much anymore. But there are certain things like I do like to be first finding something. And if I'm not first, then I'd like to quote unquote, discover it like a year or two after. But the flip side of that for me is I never ever turn on someone. It's not that I remain loyal to the same degree that I may like. Let's take U2, right. Let's take U2, loved U2 love to certain albums of U2.
They became a painful joke for a while, especially with the whole, we're going to automatically add our album to…
To your iPhone.
That was intense. That was just a bad idea. I think that was a mistake. So they got trashed and people make fun of Bono. And I don't, I can't, I won't do that because. I don't like, I mean, maybe it's because I've experienced a fan's inevitable, I mean, seriously inevitable, without fail, turning on you. It just happens, period. So I just don't want it. I don't ever want to be caught doing that. Maybe inside I'm like, man, that album, I don't like it. I wish I, I wish it was different.
And I may say some disparaging things privately, I may vent, but I'll never jump on a bandwagon of hate.
I will say that, and maybe this is your fault, I have started to view artists as people too. Instead of like, here for my pleasure.
Huh.
And so like case in point Kacey Musgraves, one of my very favorite artists. Golden Hour is one of the very few albums that I can listen to start to finish without skipping. I never get tired of. Like, I tend to pick and choose three, maybe four favorite songs from an album. And that's it. I don't need the rest of the album. Golden hour, just the epitome of a perfect record for me.
Right.
Hate. Hate her last album. But she wrote it in the depths of despair coming out of a really painful divorce. So now I'm like, ah, it's not my cup of tea, but you needed to write that album. Good on like, I applaud you. I support you. I bought it. You know, I went to go see her knowing she would play a lot from that album. And she actually kind of joked at the show. She was like, damn, that album needed to come with a warning label. I'm really sorry, you guys.
Like, so she gets it, but like, I don't know that that's something that like pre being your friend, I would have, you know, I remember that there was a person on the other side of that. I would've just been like, oh, how dare she write a depressing ass album.
Well, I'm proud of you for that. I think it is not a lesson that most people have the opportunity to learn. I won't even say that it's an important one, right?
I'll say it's an important one. I wish I'd gotten there sooner.
And, you know, in the same way that I don't disparage people for not knowing how to talk to my wife immediately. I get it, you know, there is ableism everywhere. I get it. It was really hard the first time to work really hard on an artistic thing. And have the support of hundreds and hundreds of people. And then…
One asshole.
Well, see, that's the frustrating thing because it's not actually one asshole. It's actually the original, most passionate asshole. They're the ones that cut the deepest. They cut the deepest and I think it's a self preservation sort of thing. I think you can call it hipster. You can call it. you know, any number of things, but I really. I think there are fans that are. Okay. I'm not going to use obsessive in a derogatory sense.
But I think there are fans who are all in all the time and they count themselves as fans. They talk about it, they live, they want to know everything. Then there's people like me and I just, I'm not a fan based person. I have little crushes. They're fleeting. I love things. And I'm very loyal to bands, but I don't have posters of Radiohead. I don't own every album necessarily. I don't listen to them all the time.
I just wasn't a poster on the wall kind of kid and I don't knock that at all, but it's the people that are like that, that fall the hardest. That fall out of love the hardest, and they have to protect themselves because they realize maybe they're embarrassed, even though they should not be. So what they do in order to, you know, protect themselves is to attack, that's a human natural thing.
But, you know, being a fan of something and the tenuous relationship that can be, you know, how hard I can imagine for TikTokers, like. You're just like, is it a constant stress and worry, know what I
Think about the difference in the, like the life cycle of the content when you were a musician or an actor. You had, you know, weeks, if not months to produce that. And whereas now content creators, like they got to get it out same day. If you're not posting at the specific times, multiple times a day, interacting, building, you know, just like. Constantly. You know, casting that net.
Yeah.
You're screwed. And I would think that would be, I don't know. I don't know. I mean, now that I'm like talking it out, is that better or worse for people with ADHD? Because you always know there's another chance. It's like waves, man. Like, there's going to be another one you can ride. If you miss this one. Interesting.
The other interesting aspect of that in particular is. For me, is that. Everything was what they call waterfall back. Two. pre hardcore internet was fans. And there wasn't a daily sharing of new songs or new albums or new demos or new anything. So I also understand the potential level of disappointment when your favorite band goes into a studio and comes out with something and you're like, well, blah, blah, blah. Is that? What. What just happened?
Because, last time I saw or heard you, you sounded like this. And now you sound like that, right? I wonder how much that happens now. Don't you need TikTok to be able to share your demo as you're working on it? I don't know. Yeah.
Fans expect more now. They expect to be able to buy in and be, you know, to comment and invoice their pleasure or disdain, as part of the process.
Yeah. Yeah. We're talking about how you are a fan based person. And I'm not, inherently. And I think both of them are 100% valid.
But the thing is that I'm not until I am.
Right, right, right, right. You just, you have the ability to take it much farther than…
Too far.
I don't know. I
We can say it.
You can say it. I'm not going to say it.
Smart man.
But I exactly so. So, that is really interesting to me. And I can apply this to D&D as well. But I think it's interesting because in this podcast, we want to talk about the different strains of ADHD and in my mind, being more of the inattentive type, it would make sense that I could love Radiohead, and have, you know, a decent period of really listening to that album. And only that album, maybe. Whichever, whatever the newest one is, but also, I can walk away.
I don't like to turn on any band because I've experienced it because I understand it. But maybe. Maybe it's also, I can do that because it doesn't hurt as much. Right. It doesn't like the changes. I don't feel as much because I don't enter that level of fandom that you do. And that's fair too. You count on a certain emotion, a certain sound, a certain feeling that your favorite band gives you, and then it changes maybe. And then you're like, oh, dang. that's that's not what I want.
And that's gotta be really hard. Like for example, I will be interested to know what happens when D&D 6e comes out. It will eventually, in our lifetime. No one knows when, or what it's going to be, or whether it's going to be a major change from 5e. But, 4e, fourth edition, was very different. So completely different that there are people who spun off, and took 3.5 edition and created this thing called Pathfinder, right?
Pathfinder is basically a branch of, a fork of three or 3.5 edition because they did not want fourth edition.
It didn't want to go fourth.
They did not want to go forth.
I reject that level up.
Yeah. So, you know, as a fan of this game, I was invited to play fourth edition with some friends. I guess it was 10, 11, 12 some years ago. And I didn't like it at all. It certainly wasn't the people I was playing with, they were very nice. It was not what I remembered, it wasn't easy, it wasn't fun. It was so many charts and graphs and things. But I didn't like I didn't like oh this game sucks I'm not I'm never going to play it again.
I was a fan, it was a major part of my life, but it just didn't fit at that time. It was which U2 album. The one after Zooropa. It was okay. But I wanted another Sunday, Bloody Sunday or something. And I I didn't get it.
Or it's what a lot of us are experiencing with, with Critical Role. You know, y'all tried to get me to watch it for a really long time. I declined because I was overwhelmed because it's, you know, each season is more than a hundred episodes. Each episode is four hours long. And that was, you know, Nope. And it wasn't until, last summer they came out with a little eight session mini series called Exandria Unlimited, for those of you who aren't fans. That I was like, okay, that's digestible.
I can do that. I can get through eight episodes. Well, now I'm all in on the second campaign, which is, I think 141 episodes. I have 10 left to go, Matt. Wild. Wild. I know it's bananas, but I've been back to the compulsion part of me. I have been watching it and only it since last July, like I use every time you and Evan bring up something, you know, whatever new movie or show you're watching. I say, Nope, because I'm all in on this. I have to be.
But you know, I'm having feelings as a fan towards their third season. And then this again goes also back into what we were saying is now I can see these are people. They have feelings and families, and it's not my right, nor my job to tear them down for what they're doing. I'm wildly jealous that they get to do it in the first place, but.
You know, I'm having a hard time sinking my teeth into the season and I'm watching out of a sense of duty and not out of a sense of love, but I like I'm giving it that chance because I know how wildly talented these people are and where they can take, you know, a simple thread and turn that into a whole world. But yeah, it's kind of like that, that, that fickle fan base thing of like, I don't feel like being all in on this just yet. And I might slow my roll. Pun intended.
Right. Well, and that is your right. And your duty as a fan to. And it's funny because I also finally was able to start watching the show with Exandria because it was just, I, I knew there was going to be an end.
Yup.
That really helps my mind. And I have been, you know, I've been trying to keep up with the third edition. But it's hard for me to even do that. It's hard for me to sit through four hours of anything and, and yet. My respect and understanding of everyone has only shot through the roof. Like.
Yup.
And I don't even know. I can't. I mean, you, Fitz, Evan, you can speak with conviction about the milieu, the world, that those actors have built. I won't, you know, be able to experience it the way that you will. Because I don't know whether I have the capacity to get down and dirty in it. Because you go that far and there's got to be something about that. Like, I am super envious of your ability to not get sidetracked by oh, there's a new toy or there's a new app or there's a new thing.
This is an amazing thing that I'm very envious of, in you. You can sit down and make that your thing. I want to hear more about it because I'm stunned. Like, what is that like? What is it like to not always want something new all the time? Like, you know, what is that like?
Yeah, I well, and I mean, yeah, it's definitely for all the ways that we're the same, that's one big way that we're very different. That, you know, you definitely have the slightly more we'll call it distracted. The ooh, shiny you, you know, disease too. But yeah, like you're the one who's always on top of the new tech, always on top of the new shows, you know, things are coming.
Which is an interesting juxtaposition from what we were talking about, how, like you don't like the things that are cool and popular. Except for the things that you do, right? Like you're always going to be on top of the newest Apple technology. You're always going to be aware of what's coming down the pipeline and MCU. You're always, you know, going to be the one that knows what's streaming long before it starts streaming and things like that. So you're cool. In some ways.
But I guess I don't know how to answer what that's like, because I guess I don't know any other way to be, but I will say this, it takes a lot for me to get to that level. And that's how I am on every single thing is that I'm not tepid. I'm not like in lukewarm about anything. I either hate it or I love it. I am one extreme or another. I'm either like very loud and very animated and must be the center of attention in that moment, or I want nothing to do with people.
I want to go sit on the couch and talk to my cats. You know, I either want nothing to do with Critical Role, or it is the only thing I watched for a year of my life.
Wow. Yeah.
There are a lot of people talk about like, I guess, um, I never know if they're symptoms, side effects, or just, you know, leading causes or what, but, you know, they say people with ADHD tend to like to watch the same things over and over again, because they're comforted by it. They don't like new things. And that's very true for me. There are a handful of movies that I can always watch. And especially if I'm in any kind of like mentally down place.
I'm absolutely going to reach for a comfort item. I'm going to watch a movie I've seen 47 times. I'm going to reread the Harry Potter series. I'm absolutely not going to reach for something new, especially in any kind of like mentally fragile state. But I am wondering if the same is true for the bands that I have been a total fan girl of the, you know, now Critical Role.
Because even though like the episodes are new, or the concerts are new or, you know, whatever it is new, I'm still comforted by that like, I know these people, like this is a safe space. Especially if we look at the difference between my impulsivity and your inattentiveness. You know, we talked about the impulsive ones or, you know, like the, what you think of the stereotypical, like eight year old boys who can't sit still.
And so I, and there's something to be said about like a physical comfort, you know, something to draw their energy into, a blanket to put over their shoulders. So I have to wonder if maybe that's why I tend to gravitate towards. That level of fandom and things, because it's a weighted blanket for my soul. Maybe. But I'm like that in all aspect. I don't like new things. I don't like to be bad at things. I think that's why I'm missing that comfort item. So I like to do what I'm really good at.
I don't make new friends and people are always shocked to hear that about me. They like, oh my God. Alison, are you kidding me? You could talk to a wall. Well, first of all, don't mistake talent with love, just because you're good at something does not mean you enjoy it. Second of all, watch me. I do not go up to new people. I do not go introduce myself. If I see you in a room and I recognize you as a familiar face, I am making a beeline for you.
But I don't know, I am absolutely not going to go. The only way that I know anybody that I'm friends with is either we were all shoved into a new situation together and clung to each other, or somebody introduced me to you. Those are the two ways that you know me. I guarantee you.
Wow.
So yeah, I mean. Yeah, man, we're really. Like on the couch today. This is great.
I mean, this is the kind of stuff that I'm just utterly fascinated by. I think that this disorder or disability or whatever you want to think that it is, is just so broad. And, that's why doctors are taking bigger, broader looks at it. Like that's why it used to be ADD, and then it became ADHD, because they're like, oh, well there's this and this part of it. That isn't represented. And now that like maybe a part of autism, right? Like.
Yeah.
That would explain such vast differences, but things that you can kind of hold onto as far as this disability goes, like, I just, I love it. It's fascinating to me. I really hope that in my lifetime that they come up with a better name for it. I don't know what it will be. Executive function disorder. I don't know what it'll be. Anyway, I like being on the couch about it.
Yeah. Same.
I'm going to ask whether my coach knows a percentage of women with the more impulsive type. Because I'm curious.
I'm a special unicorn, Matt, don't take that away from me!
True. Just you. It's you're the only one in history. That's why this podcast is going places.
We found her. The diamond in the rough. Well, and you're not like the jittering bouncing off the wall guy. So we are both not filling the void that so many others have asked us to fill and generations.
Even in that, I'm a freaking hipster. It's so true. Even in that I refuse to comply.
I refuse to be hyperactive. I demand to be inattentive.
Oh, my gosh. That's so true. You know, my dad was. One of the things that I can always get sad about him not being here, it's just the fact that he missed a freaking artisinal thing. He just missed all the bourbon and everything that people started making. Like, you know, we had to go to, we had to go to Taco Bell to get tortillas back in the South. Back in my day, you had to go to Taco Bell to get a tortilla!
Oh, my. But they used to have something back in the back in my day… have something called a, a chili cheese burrito. And I maintain that was the best thing on the Taco Bell menu. And I miss it. And I want it back. I've had that conversation this week.
They got rid of seven layer burritos too, finally.
Yeah, no more Mexican pizzas.
No more. We make our own. That works pretty well.
You're such hipster! Well,
You're right. My, god. I'm going to hell. I'm going to hell. Hipster hell. Wow. I'm so disappointed because I don't feel like I look like one. Though many people would say that I
Says the grown ass man with flaming red hair and a very enviable wardrobe. But sure, Matt.
I do have suspenders and I do. I
I don't know many people more swanky and dapper than you. And that is not a bad thing.
Yeah. Yeah. Wow. That's interesting. Any other D and D news that you've got to share this week before we call it a podcast.
We did a really good job of not talking about anything we gathered to talk about today. I'm really proud of us.
Yeah, I think that's where this is going to be. Every week I'm going to say, okay, do we have an outline? And then you craft one. And then we full on throw it out.
Yup. Bye. But I mean, the good news is that if we keep that up, we will never truly run out of things to talk about. I mean, it's just, it's the gift that keeps on giving, the party goes on forever. I say. The road goes on forever and the party never ends. There it is. I knew I'd get there.
The thing that I want to manifest into the Universe, is like I really, I really am looking forward to the possibility of people writing us and talking to us about these things that we're talking about. There is nothing better than that. I really cannot wait for that and how it like influences and changes and informs.
Yup.
And then I can't wait. I can't wait to have fans. And then I can't wait to have super fans. And then I can't wait for those fans to turn on us. And say, oh my remember the time where they would like build an outline and then they would totally blow it off. They don't do that anymore. They stick to the outline, every single podcast now. They suck.
They cured their ADHD. They're too organized now. There's no defunction in their executive dysfunction. That'll never happen. I don't want it to ever happen. And on that note until next time. Next week, let's make sure that we roll some dice. Cause that's one thing we didn't do today.
Dammit. Oh, damn it. We didn't, hold on. I can do, I
What'd you roll?
I rolled a 14.
Shut up.
Did you?
I too rolled a 14!
All right. That's a good, there it is. Thank you for listening. Thank you for joining us. And, this is really fun for me, Alison. So thanks for thanks for talking into a mic with me.
Likewise. Thank you.