Hi everybody. It's me. Katie asaurus and welcome back to infinite Quest this week on the podcast. We were honored and genuinely surprised to have author educator and just all-around badass. Casey Davis aka domestic blisters from over on tick tock on the podcast. However, Casey Davis is a fascinating human being and I felt like she is a guest who really needs a bio before we start the episode. And so full disclosure, I'm reading this off of Her website because I want to get it, right?
But Casey Davis is a licensed, professional therapist, she's an author, she's a speaker. And most importantly, she is the person behind the mental health platform, struggle care, and domestic blisters over on Tick. Tock. So, Casey began her therapy Journey when she was 16 when she entered treatment for drug addiction and mental health issues. After she got sober, she became a speaker and advocate, for mental health, and recovery, and
professionally. Casey has worked most of her career in the field of addiction in rolls. Like therapist consultant and executive director, like I said, earlier, she's also the author of the best-selling book how to keep house. While drowning, which if you haven't read, you need to. I'm not saying you should. I'm saying you absolutely need to. If you're listening to this podcast you need to own Casey's book. We have put a link to the new and updated revised pre-order in the show notes.
You can check that out and we will have more information up on our website about Casey and all of the incredible work that she's doing. in later, but full disclosure of I have recorded this seven separate times because that's how my day's going and Eric's phone just rang. So you know what? We're going to leave it in but we're gonna have a whole page for Casey over on infinite Quest podcast.com. But today is not that day because GoDaddy is broken. So we will get that up as soon
as we can. But we couldn't wait to drop this episode because honestly, it's just really fantastic and I'm super excited about it. So, thank you for listening, thank you for being here. We're sorry about Eric and get ready. Because here comes the show. Oh boy. You near near near near near new new, new new, new judge Kebab that was Doug.
Hey everybody, it's me. Katie asaurus and welcome back to infinite Quest. So hey, you probably found me on Tick Tock and if you didn't, what are you doing here? But we have a very special guest this day, you know, her as domestic blisters over on Tick-Tock and you know, where is Casey Davis in real life. It's Casey Davis, thanks for being here case Davis. Hello, I am. This is probably the most excited. I've been to be on a podcast so far. I'm really well. Thanks for being, I'm really
excited. So uh, oh my gosh, I have so many, I have 10,000 questions to ask you, but the first one is just Qui. Why, how did you get into all this? How did you, how did you start this whole thing? I know I'm going to start with the hard-hitting journalistic question. Listen, it was an accident. Yeah, it was 100% an accident. I came to tick tock and the spring of twenty twenty right after the shutdown. I just had a baby like, literally weeks before I was drowning.
And postpartum depression. My house was totally not functioning. I was overwhelmed, my husband had just started a new job as an attorney is like and literally his first job. Like, you just got out of law school. So he's working seven days a week and I live in a city where I don't have any family around. I have a newborn in a two year old and my sister tells me to get on Tick, Tock, and I do when I'm like, what is this dancing? I hate it, but she got to put in the work and I was like, all
right? And I posted like some video. Adios here and there and then one day I posted my sort of like at this point, famous five things tidying. Yeah Tick-Tock and I almost didn't post it. Like I was like, is this is this stupid? Like is this? Not valuable like are people going to be like this is common sense. Are people going to like judge me for how messy my houses?
But I did it. Anyways and people I was just surprised how many people resonated with it particularly how many people said I've never had a piece of cleaning advice that's ever helped me until this one. Yeah and I just sort of started answering questions and you know because I'm a therapist, the amount of people that said like I feel so much shame over not being able to clean or tidy.
Then I started answering that and I just started talking to people and I take talk is like the perfect platform for me because I'm not a great writer. It's hard for me to think of things to say, for a long period of time, but if people are asking me questions, I could talk for a million years. Well, okay, so well, sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off, but like so you said that you're not a great writer. But like here you are on version 2 of how to keep household
drowning. So, how did, how did that come about? So after about six months of talking about, you know, cleaning out the intersection between like a mental health and cleaning house in a relationship, you're to your space.
People with jump in, start following me and ask questions and I would want to be like just go to the beginning of The Tick-Tock and watch them all because I sort of developed like these foundational principles that I felt people needed to kind of grasp before building upon that. So I originally had the idea to write the book because I just wanted there to be a place for people to go to sort of take in all of the philosophy at once. Yeah.
And I had these ideas and I kept sitting down at a blank piece of paper, like word, doc and not being able to do anything. And over and over and over, and over and over. I've always wanted to write a book and so what I did was I thought, okay, screw it. I went back to the beginning of my tech talk and I started transcribing word for word. Every tick tock where I talked about like a concept that I wanted to put in the book. Yeah.
And then I sort of edited it for readability and then I was like, okay the next step is to like string all these Concepts together until like a chapter book and Katie I couldn't do it. Like I couldn't organize in my head like how did how they all connected? Yeah. And so for weeks I just stared at it and started it and I finally came to the conclusion that I could either publish a book that was just a bunch of disjointed paragraphs. Or I could not publish a well-done real book.
Yeah. So I was like, fuck it. I'm gonna just, I'm just gonna publish it as disjointed paragraphs and in a being, like, 60 pages and like it as most of the people that I've ever read the first edition. Now, like the chapters are like a few paragraphs of peace. I love it, though. Because of that, you know, like it's I mean I know that this is an interview about you, but we're Also working on our book and it's we're having the same
thing. Like we're completely overwhelmed all the time trying to figure it out. And like obviously I saw your like when I got your book, I was like, oh, this is just how I should write the book. Like, this is just this. It's a perfect model, it's perfect. 100% is how you should read? Write it? Because here's the thing. Katie, is that everyone that read it was like man.
I wish I could show you some of the emails like one that I'll never forget, was this woman who said my husband died five years ago and I To love to read. But since he died, I have not been able to read one book until yours. People who have ADHD people who are autistic people that have learning disabilities. Saying, this is the first book. I've been able to read. This is the first time I haven't been overwhelmed, like there was information in this book.
I knew could help me, and I could actually access it. Yeah. And the most incredible thing is, like, people now, it's like, the big interview question is like, what gave you the idea to like, write a book? That's so accessible for a readers? Mmm. And the answer is, like, I didn't I didn't write a book to be accessible to readers. I wrote a book that was accessible to me to write it. Yeah. I mean, the only way I could write it and it ended up being like exactly what everyone
needed. And so, I love it. It's like minor 0. Divergence. My like my limitations, mmm, ended up creating a book that was perfect for the limitations of the people that want to access the material. I mean it's phenomenal is what it is. I love it so much. It's like it was like it's like sitting literally like on my
bedside table right now. I was going to bring it up because I was like I should like have it for the interview that I was like, no. It's in my spot where I'm reading it. But okay.
So you also said something really interesting about like just be the the ability to access information and so like I'm really interested in your background as a therapist because I feel like you know, you came to take back and we like it's weird too because like we've had He's very similar Tick-Tock Journeys. I think in a lot of ways but you're like, a professional. And I'm just some dipshit on the internet. But like, how like, how do you
find? Like, I guess, how do you think about making your message accessible? Like, what goes into that process? Well, it was interesting by way of the book. When, you know, the book got picked up by Simon & Schuster and we talked about, we want to expand the book. We We wanted to make it longer my number-one, like goal was to continue to have the book be accessible and talking about like creative ways that we can do that. And that's how we came up with the idea.
You know, we kept the chapter short, but that's also how we came up with the idea of, like the shortcut through the book and Bolding all of the main points, putting in the literal metaphors, like all these things, so that people could continue to do that and doing the audio book. And I think that Tick-Tock itself is just like kind of geared towards Minds like ours. Yeah, like I told someone the other day, like, okay, if I had like six subjects, I wanted to
learn about. Like let's say I want to learn about ADHD anti-racism meteorology and like, you know, like just six subjects. Yeah. If you gave me like, six audiobooks I wouldn't get
through them. Yeah. Or if you gave me like six lectures or sick, like I wouldn't get through them, but if you gave me one feed and you took all six of those subjects and broke those like hours, long lectures and to 30, second increments and allowed me to listen to all six lectures simultaneously, 30 seconds at a
time. Like, I would learn so much and I have learned so much like it's the perfect platform for like, I these are all subjects I'm interested in, but at the same time, I need them in small clips and so it hits all of those like, every swipe is novel. Yeah, every swipe feels urgent, every swipe is interesting. And it's fascinating to me how like I couldn't, I mean, I have a seat you about eight eighty HD that I want to get through desperately and it's so Hard.
But yet like I learned so much through the psychologists on Tick-Tock because they're giving it to me in these 30 second increments. And so I think that like some of it is I'm getting better about talking and making things. It just it makes me be as short as possible. I guess is what it is. No. That's that makes total sense. Well, okay. And one of the things that I was and this I'm going to confess
Jess this to you. So I don't know if you know this or not, but when I first started watching your content, I was like, oh, she has eight HD. Like, I was like, clearly, she's a mom with ADHD and she has like our ADHD house. Like the all this great. I love this lady's content and then at some point in like, one of your videos, you said I don't have ADHD. I was like bitch. What? And then like later on, like just like in the past year right? You got your official diagnosis? Yeah.
Yeah. What was what was that? Like, this is like the funniest story to this day. Okay. So you have to understand like background wise like I come to tick tock like I start talking about like these weird ways in which I think about my home and how I was like, optimizing my home. And I'm also like going through this journey at the same time as the audience like I began optimizing my home as I'm talking to people about optimizing my home.
Yeah, and the first thing I notice is that, like, so many people who are saying, like, wow, this is really helping me say, like, I'm ADHD. This really helps me. I'm like, huh, that's cool. That's cool. And and people start to say like, are you ADHD? And so what happens for me is that like I have this weird like imposter syndrome almost where? Like I yes I'm sure. Yes. I have some mental health struggles but I also Also, like, I'm fine.
Like I'm, I'm relatively happy, like I. So I have what I have in my mind is like I want to be transparent and authentic, I never want to pretend to be quote unquote, like more mentally ill than I am to gain followers if that makes sense. Yeah, absolutely. And I don't want to like, pretend to be ADHD to gain
followers and things like that. So and I have this fear that, like, if If I talk about some of these struggles that I have people who know me in real life are going to be like oh she's put into pretending to like be broken now. Yeah, because I have like a pretty successful career like with the exception of addiction and my teenage years like I was pretty good at school like I'm pretty intelligent all the all these things where The stereotypical picture of what it
looks like to be a THD. Was not something that I related to MMM. Yeah, I don't know anything about that. Right? And so with people, literally, my followers kept saying Casey, like we're not trying to diagnose you but God damn girl like this looks exactly like ADHD. Yeah, yeah. Like the impetus to, like, go seek diagnosis, then Lippy literally, okay, that's really fascinating. To me, I was told by my followers, go get a freaking assessment and, and I had this,
it was weird. I really did feel like, well I don't deserve to call myself neurodivergent. I've been relatively successful like there's nothing to which I can point. That is really like hung me up. Yeah, and I was seeing a psychiatrist at the Time for postpartum depression. Hmm. And I just switched to a new one because the one I was seeing like only sees you for your first year postpartum.
So I get to this new psychologist and I say I also want to talk about like ADHD and I was told by her staff that she's like well she will not diagnose her assess you like you have to go get the psychological testing for it and then she can treat you for it which I think is probably just a common thing,
right? But she kind of just brings it up. Like, oh, you say you had concerns here about ADHD and I was like yeah, she's like well Makes you think that you have a PhD. And I remember thinking like, I'm about to say something really embarrassing. I was like, so you know, Tick-Tock she was like, yeah, I was like, I have a rather large Tick-Tock following and they have all told me that they think I have ADHD. She was like, I'm sorry what?
And I was like yeah. And I just like I really relate to a lot of the people who are talking about have ADHD and yada yada yada. She was like, okay, so like what things in your life Make you think that? And because it was a like, Telehealth one I was like. So for example I like bring her into my kitchen right? Which looks like it hasn't been cleaned in several days. Yeah. And like, so, for example, I've been trying to create the system where I can make my house
functional. And so, I have this little list and I'm like, scuse me, scuse me. I'm like moving things all around my desk and I'm like, here it is. Here it is. Here's the list. And, and there's only five things on this list, but you see dr. S. If I don't look at the list, I can't remember the five things, it's the five things, same order every night and I can't remember it.
In fact, I can't remember anything and I'm starting to think that the only reason that I ever know what in my house needs to be done is because I see it but then I start doing something else and I forget about it but then I see it again and I realize it. But like that's no way to live. I can't keep track of all these tasks just as I visually seeing them and everything has to be visually organized. I can't do apps. I can't do writing notes in my Mind, like, everything has to be.
I said, I look like somebody who is putting together a conspiracy board, like, with the strings, and the pillars and it said that is how I have to organize my whole life. So I do this for like 10 minutes straight and then she goes.
Mmm, well, I will send you some self assessments but you this is a very Your presentation of adult, female ADHD, proud of you, and this moment, I'll send you the assessments, but you can, you can take it to the bank, this woman, like, she doesn't even make me go, get the testing. She's like, oh no, this is very clear. And like, it's since then, it's so obvious. Now that I know what's happening, and so many things in my life makes sense because she starts asking, this is the Other
part that's wild. She starts asking me about my childhood. And I said, well, I always did well in school unless there was a diction present and she said, well, what do you mean? And I said, well, I always sat in the front of the class, I always listened. I said, but I never did my homework, but I always listen to the lectures. The lectures were always interesting. And so what I would do in schools, I'd sit in the front, I would listen to the lectures.
I participate in class and then I would Ace every single test and quiz, but I never did my homework. But because of the way, the grades were weighted I could get zeros on every homework assignment. Still get an A in the class. Yeah I said and when I moved up to high school they did not. Wait grades that way. And when I moved to high school, the things on the test were over things that we didn't go over and class.
It was things you read in the homework and in grade school wasn't like that there were it wasn't like extra stuff. You were reading that you didn't also here in lecture and she was like I mean yeah. Yeah. Like, so what you're saying is, like, when you were in a structure, you did well. And when you left that classroom, you either forgot to write down the assignment. You close the notebook and forgot that the assignment was written down. You had no external structure
for getting this homework done. And I was like, yeah. But I also like I was not distracted, right? Because that picture of like the young white boy who can't and that's when she explains to me. Like, you know, ADHD isn't about not being able to pay attention. It's about not being able to regulate your attention. Yeah. And the reason nobody caught it in you Casey is because you were interested in school. I just how the fuck, are we the same person? That's what I am. Dear Lord. Um well.
Okay, speaking of being the same person, um one of the things that I like and I being real, truly appreciate about your content is that That you show your house, you show the mess, you show the Clutter you show the. The I won't say disorganization but you know the organization that works for you and it was one of the first times like and it's so funny because people say this to me.
But now I'm saying it to you but it's like it was one of the first times that I saw somebody's house that looked like mine. It was the first time that I was like oh my God like you can be a brilliant intelligent woman and like also have a kitchen that looks like a kitchen, you know? And so like, I guess like I feel like I'm like wasting you on the podcast. If I don't ask you for like, you know, you're like top five pieces of advice.
But first, I want to hear about the magnets, how did okay, how did the magnets start? How did the magnet academy has happened? Are they working still? Is this? Is this a new says, like, how is it? How is it going with the magnets? Okay, so my so as you guys know, heard, My husband's a lawyer, I was actually a stay-at-home mom when I started my tic toc Channel.
And, you know, since my Tick-Tock Channel took off, I wrote the book and I have a web site, I've all these other projects and so I actually a few months ago, transitioned our I guess admitted to myself like I'm not a stay-at-home mom, I'm actually a work at home mom. Like I'm actually working, I actually have a lot of things to do and my husband and I hired someone to Nanny are two small kids during the day so that I
had this protected time to work. So, we have this big transition, where I went from basically a full-time stay-at-home mom to a
working parent. So with that, like my husband and I realized like we really need to read divide our like division of family labor in the home because you know we've had some shifts and I had learned about this book called Fairplay which is written by Eve Rod ski and she's a lawyer and she basically wrote this book about dividing labor and about about how so many marriages end in divorce over the issue of division of labor. Yeah. And it's not as simple as who's cleaning the toilets.
It's about like this growing resentment from the person socialized, as a woman that they're carrying all of this mental load, all of these tasks, and they begin to feel resentful and unappreciated and it eventually erodes, their trust and respect of each other. Yeah, and she came up with the system for Fairly dividing labor between Sort of heteronormative couples and I really want it. I mean, I get questions about division of labor a lot on my channel.
And so, I was like, this is the perfect example, this is a perfect opportunity. Let's use this system because a, I think it would help us be. Then I can talk about it on my tech Channel. That's my husband's like great, whatever. Some yeah. So, we read this book, and in the book, she basically says like she lists out all of these different like tasks and
spheres. Ears and she does a good job of both, like the physical tasks, like who's going to pick up the kid, but also like the mental labor, like, who's thinking about charity? Or who's thinking about the mental health of? Yeah, you know, whatever
whatever. Yeah, and she has this card deck which has like, I think 86 cards and she basically devises it like a game, like you deal the deck and you have these times when you come back together and talk about whether it's working and you can read deal the deck and, you know, some car To your maybe re dealing from day to day, right? Like we, if you really both of you hate dishes, maybe your re
dealing dishes every day. Like today, I'm dishes, tomorrow your dishes, and then maybe you have like the romance card where it's like this month. I'm thinking about setting up our dates and the next month you are so we deal this deck, you know, there's like 76 tasks that we come up with but now I have like a deck of 76 cards and me being ADHD like I'm like I'm like this isn't visual enough for me.
Me like I'm not going to remember all of these tasks and and Michael mentioned something similar. Like how am I going to remember all of this? Yeah. Particularly because there are tasks that switch back and forth at different frequencies. Yeah. So that's when I had this idea.
Like what I want to do is like put each task on a little magnet, like the magazine anklets are like a little bit bigger than a quarter and get like a Magnet board and like split it in half like okay, here's your tasks, here's my tasks that way like we can when we're switching tasks like just move the little icon across and we can see big picture, what we're doing and the other thing that's incredible about it is that it really gives like a sense of appreciation because
visually like you're looking and seeing how much labor like both of you are doing for that family? Yeah. Yeah. So I went to Etsy and I found this this like Etsy shop called the Buttercup house. She makes chore magnets. That's so funny, email her. And I'm like, I have a custom list and she's like, great and she made me these custom magnet 76 magnets. And she actually messaged me the other day, I was like, are you famous on the internet?
And I was like, she's like, because I'm getting a lot of orders and I was like and then her life. Changed forever, she's like, a nice share the list with people. I'm like yes, sure, the list. So it's mostly e, vronsky's Fair playlist, but then we added some extra things that like pertain to us. Yeah. And so now, I have these 76 magnets, and I'm like, I'm going to go probably today and like, get a board.
And the thing that I love about this system, Katie is that, like, her whole thing revolves around this concept called unicorn space and the Unicorn space is The the place in which you reclaim the right to be interesting. Okay. And I like this outfit, this is particularly something that comes up when couples have been together a long time, especially after they have children.
Yeah because when you get bogged down as the main family labor person because care tasks are cyclical and never-ending like you very quickly can run out of having any time space or energy to do anything other. And fulfill your role in that family. Yeah absolutely. And so the Unicorn space is your right to be interesting where you have to pick something that makes you feel one of the following like Words alive. Passionate interesting captivated, or something like that.
I don't remember the exact words. And so like this whole conversation about division of labor, it's she the way she sets it up. It's not about you. Do this. Usually the it's both of us are All people who deserve to be passionate and have lives and identities outside of whatever role were playing in this family. Yeah. And so you start by picking your unicorn space and so like I picked, I'm actually doing a podcast with a friend of mine that has nothing to do with
anything. I do on Tick Tock and it's just fun, right? And so I'm like this is my unicorn space. This is the thing I'm going to do and and you make this commitment of like the whole point of dividing our labor is so that like we can protect each other's time. In space and capacity to like do these things. So, in my board, it's going to be like name at the top and then there's going to be a line that says unicorn space so that like whatever season and you can
change your thing right. But like it's written there and it's amazing because now like let's say that lets say that my husband chooses like golf like he loves Golf and he has not had the time to play golf in a long time. But now, instead of going to play golf being a thing where it's like, man, I really shouldn't leave Casey home with the kids. Or me being like, oh, he's going to play golf. It's like I'm excited for him.
Yeah, right. Yeah. And then moving underneath, that is going to be our magnets and our magnets are broken up into several categories. So the first category of magnets is called The Daily Grind. These are the tasks that have to be done every single day day in day out. Pretty much like on its own schedule. So, these are things like dishes, laundry, feeding things like that and so we make sure that those are well balanced. And then there are things that
Like, purely mental labor. So, like spirituality, the mental health of our children romance special needs things that like they might have some tasks related to them but the majority of the labor is just like making the time to think about it. Yeah. And then we have our tasks that are related to our home but they
don't have to be done every day. So we divide those up and then we have our children tasks, things related to our children, and we divide those up. And the whole idea of the magnet is like when you own it and this is what Eve says you own the CPE which is conception planning execution. I like that because that's not like will write me a list and I'll do it. It's no I'm not make the list
myself, we love that. We love that and I think it's perfect for people who are neurodivergent because it gives you it empowers you to create the system that works for you. So like if I have dishes And I decide well, if I'm the one loading up, the dishwasher at night, I know what my like unique barriers around dishes are. Like I know that I'm not somebody who can get dishes, into the dishwasher as I go along.
Like, I work better with having like, not thinking about dishes forever and then having 20 minutes to think about dishes, right? Yeah. Yeah. But I'm also overwhelmed by a big stack of dishes. I'm also like overwhelmed with dishes in the sink. So like when I decide I'm going to get a dish rack And we're going to put our dirty dishes on the dish rack, all throughout the day, because then at the end of the day, I can set aside time to load the dishwasher but then
because they're organized. It's not visually overwhelming to me. Yeah, and our sink is functional all day long. Like basically the idea is like my partner doesn't get to say shit because it's mine. I own the whole thing I can come up with whatever system. Now obviously he gets a say and to whether that impedes on like, Is functioning in the house. Yeah. But like, I own laundry and we don't feel. We don't fold our clothes. Yeah.
Well, okay. I want to talk to you about that specifically because this is a true story. I did a lecture last night for group of professional organizers and I think I talked about you more than I talked about myself like death, but I like one of the things that came up was like, how do you develop systems? I was like, oh my God. Okay, so there's this lady, her name is domestic lister's but I'm I'm fast like it again, like
I'm fangirling out a little bit. It's fine were all fine, but like you were one of the first like people and I didn't, I wasn't interacting like, you know, it's like we like I just Tick Tock but you were one of the first people who like we're just like, hey, the system doesn't have to be like a, you know, quote unquote normal system if it works for you and I was like my brain is exploding like how like I'm so fascinated.
That what like First like, how you came to sort of that discovery of, like, it's okay to not fold your laundry because I put my laundry in bins and I have felt guilty about that for years, you know. So like how did you come to like creating those systems that just work for you and honestly like
fuck everybody else? And then like how did you go about if you did like just kind of like releasing that guilt and shame surrounding like the expectation that like it's Has to be something different cause I'm fascinated by your work in this. So this is something random, but I love Grey's Anatomy, and there's like this pivotal scene that's burned into my mind when so Cristina Yang is like one of the most talented like surgeons on the team, right?
And she's like, top of her class top of the, whatever there's this pivotal like, burned into my brain scene. Where She takes her boyfriend like her boyfriends. Like why don't we ever spend the night at your apartment? And she finally takes them to his apartment and she like gives him this debrief before she opens the door and it's like I remember this episode. I know what you're talking about, okay. Yes, I remember this episode. But proceed for those who have it.
She's like, no matter what you see, like, please still love me, basically, like I can't prepare you for this. And he's like, what are you talking about? Like there's gonna be dead bodies in there something. So she opens the door and it is The messiest apartment you've ever seen and she like, reveals that instead of doing laundry, she just buys new underwear every week and he like looks around and you can see it on her face. She's like bracing for the rejection and the Judgment.
Hmm, and he just looks at her and says, he's like a really, really tiny guy. So he just looks at her and goes Okay. And that's it. And like she has this moment where she's loved, despite the fact that she has shown this like deep dark secret of being a messy person. Yeah. And I don't even know how I'm going to connect that to anything else I'm going to say, but like that actually had a really big impact on me as a person. Yeah. Because I am that way.
Like, I am the person who early in my marriage made salmon and then didn't wash dishes for two weeks and got maggots. Yeah, like I am that person who, you know, has had coffee cups mold on my bedside table while I look at it every day and go. Oh God, I should do something about that. That I want, you know, like right now there is a multi coffee cup on this desk like automobiles like yep that's yep. I just noticed it. I was like, oh yeah, it's been there for like three days, a great.
Cool, cool, cool. And I think that getting sober at a really young age and having to do a lot of work around worthiness and a lot of work around like being 100% honest about myself and the things that I thought were shameful And getting into that practice of both doing a lot of therapy and doing a lot of recovery work where you're encouraged to like just put your whole self out there and I just, I really did have enough times and enough experiences where I said the
thing that I thought was going to do me to rejection and worthlessness and somebody did not run screaming from the room. Yeah. Like that experience over and over and over solidified for me. This idea that I am a person that is Worthy. And I really got into a lot of Brunei, Browns, work and dr. Kristin Neff, who talked about Shane vulnerability and self-compassion. And, you know, I was a therapist for a long time in the realm of addiction. But the other thing that I did
was I was a compliance manager. Mmm, I'm uh, I'm sort, I'm a weirdo. And that I love the therapy aspect, but I also am somebody who worked in healthcare. Compliance. So I was the person who was designing systems, I would read the giant Manual of like the joint commission for Hospital policies and I would figure out like there's all these things you have to do.
And I and my brain just naturally worked in this way where it's like, okay if we have to meet all of these goals and do all these things, and follow these policies, we're going to have to create systems. Yeah. That get all of these things done because no person. It's just going to remember this list, right?
And so creating a system for quality control and all these things that feel very vague but actually had very specific systems and I loved it. Katie like I loved coming up with systems for how to get things done and I never worked at a place for more than a couple of years, because what I love to do is go into a place, figure out what's wrong, fix it. And then I get bored and I want to leave. Yeah, that and I always thought that I was just irresponsible.
Isabel. And that was like a bad thing about me because I don't have like so but it's not, it's just my brain. And so I think that like this background of creating systems to solve problems and being a therapist and having like a pretty good sense of worthiness and things like that, but I'd never actually applied any of that to my home until I started my Tick Tock Channel. Hmm, there were a few things that I'd sort of like my little
five things Tiding, right? But I Really, what happened was like, the universe just took an ADHD brain. That is good at systems. That tends to hyper focus on things. Anyways, and locked me in my house for two weeks and so I genuinely just started like, I'm incapable of thinking, like, a deeply about things and I didn't have anything else to think about.
Hmm. And so, I just like, started looking around and it having philosophical fucking thoughts about my Laundry and creating systems and then people were into it. And then I like that. I mean, it literally was like, I'm convinced you just, they just took my undiagnosed unmedicated ADHD brain locked. It in a house where I didn't have anything to think about except for my chronic laundry pile and I just started fixing
shit. Yeah. And creating systems and it wasn't, it was hard for me to give myself permission to go outside of the box. But when Buddy would ask when someone would say, you know, I just can't seem to get my laundry folded. I'd be like, well, soft holding it and I feel like I should stop holding it to I I have I have 10,000 more questions but we had, it's getting to be the wrap-up time and now I'm sad because I just want to have the conversation for forever.
Okay, so this is this going to be the lightning round. What is like, your number one piece of advice for like the person who might be listening to this going like I have just found you. I've just found your content like I'm just starting this journey on my own. Like, what is your advice for that? Like first. First day of like, it's time to accept yourself for who you are. Yeah, my first advice is to hear this sentence. And the sentence is, this care
tasks are morally neutral. They have nothing to do with being a good or bad person that we're going to stop thinking about whether something is good enough, and we're going to start thinking about whether something functions in your home. And that you are a person who deserves to function, even if you don't like yourself, and there's nothing actionable about
that advice, Or step. And I think that that's important like we all we often want to jump into these Biggs intricate sentence in systems because we have all this is it this is going to revolutionize if this is going to whatever like this is why every book about how to optimize your life is like behind me on my shelf and very few of those habits.
Am I still doing? Yeah. And so I think that allowing yourself the time to just sort of marinate on the idea that The way that you do or don't do care tasks or approach care tasks is has nothing to do with your
character. I was I just like again, I know that that I'm interviewing you, but I just want to say for the record that you were the first person who told me that and that changed my life and I am so grateful to you for that, like I was like, oh I don't have to feel like a shitty person for not. Okay, okay, cool. The what what that's a shift? Okay, second question. What is the most useful thing that you own that?
You feel like every neurodivergent person should have, man, there are so many, but Like, um, like lightning round it. So, if you want to do like, more than one, it's okay, this is. No, I'm gonna give you guys far as like products go. There are two things. I have two timers in my life that are incredible. Right. I have a big, what's called a visual timer? It's a big round timer and when you turn the dial, it like, makes whatever time a different color. And this is really helpful for
time, blindness. When you don't you have a hard time, conceptualizing And time. Because what it does is that it allows you to visual visualize time as a percentage. Yeah. As a instead of a number. Yeah, that's really helpful. My kids also use it, they respond well to it it's really helpful for. Okay, I'm going to do something for 15 minutes. That is something I use for care tasks. So that is super helpful for timing, myself and Care tasks.
If I have to do suck are tasks that I And boring or sort of a low dopamine. Giving myself that visual timer when it comes to work like things like that. I do at a desk the cube timer is life-changing for me, so a cube timer is literally what it sounds like it's a big Cube on each face. There is a different time. So like 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, and you can get them that have different time increments to.
And the way that works, X is that when you flip the cube, whatever time increment is facing up, automatically starts a timer, very cool. And the reason that this is so helpful is because I learned early on just like when we were talking about like The Tick Tock thing, like, if I can do multiple things at once. Like, let's say, I want to read a book. I would sit down and I would start my phone alarm for like 15 minutes. I'd read for 15 minutes and go off.
I'd set it for 5 minutes. I'd look at ticked off for 5 minutes, then I go back to 15 minutes and I would sort of Back and forth between two tasks, so that I never got bored and I kept making progress on them and this Cube. Timer allows me to do that without looking at my phone. Oh, that's nice. And so it's Flip Flip. Flip Flip. It's really tactilely. Satisfying to do differently. Yes, I don't get distracted by
other things. But the other thing that I use it for is my time Oneness when it comes to so much of what I do. I do is kind of creative stuff at my desk but then I'll have like something that I have to be at. So like this podcast, for example. So let's say that I sit down at my desk at 9 a.m. and I know I need to be at a podcast at 10 like I will look and go. Okay, it's nine. Look down, do something for five minutes and then look up and I'm
15 minutes late to this podcast. Listen, I was in it on the floor with the dog at 10:56 and I went, oh, shit, it'll I can just keep running to my computer that's real time. So it's so it's so Frustrating the way that I the way that I will try to avoid that is even worse because then I'm looking up every two minutes, right? You're like, I don't want to be late, I know, whatever. So what I do is I take my my
timer. Yeah, and I'll go, okay, have to be somewhere in an hour and I'll put it on 30 minutes, nice. And it'll click and I'll look up at 30 minutes and then I'll put it on 20 minutes and then the 10 and then five. So I'm using it to visual to, I'm using it to orient myself. To the time. Yeah without having to frantically look up or worry about getting lost like I can safely get lost in something knowing that I have this system for orienting myself to how close I'm getting to needing to
stop. Yeah, I love that. I love not checking your phone either. I would like to apologize for the next question, but if I don't ask it, Eric will be grumpy if you're a regular listener of infinite Quest. You know what's coming, okay? Casey Davis, magical fairy, Appears in front of you and you have your choice. You can either speak every language in the world fluently and beautifully instantly or option, b. You can play every musical instrument in the world, like virtuoso level ARB.
What are you choose? You can only choose one. Do people struggle with this because I would never choose anything. But speaking, all those languages, it's Fascinating People. Okay. Hey would you like to expound on? Why you don't have a man I think because do you ever do like Enneagram stuff?
Yeah okay so I thought that I was an ideogram 8 because I'm very you know extroverted and principled and all this stuff whatever and when it told me that I was a nine I was like what a Helper but when it when the Enneagram broke down like it's about why you do things and I realized that that was so true for me because like, I experienced a meaningful life, directly related to feeling as though I'm being helpful.
Yeah. And so what comes up for me in that question is like I would be so needed. So useful. If I spoke every language that makes sense. That's a great answer. But there's it is a fearsome, contested debate here on the podcast. Still a lot of lot of bass. Lot of. Yeah. Lot of bees. Lot more be. I see, I would say that I would choose a to but a lot of people to speak it's fascinating. And there the the answers are always very different. It's real, it's really fun.
It's a great question. I love it. I just think about how many social situations where there's like a conundrum where I would be like It's me. I have the perfect thing that can fix and solve this problem. It was like jump out like Hello, haha, I spoke. I spoke your language all alone and be great. And let me tell you like so many things that I now know, have to
do with me being ADHD. Yeah, were I spent my whole life being told that those traits were me being selfish, self-centered, self-absorbed, egotistical and and don't get me wrong Katie like I was actually All of those things like period of my life. Yeah but the mistake that got made was like I internalized that it was my personality. Yeah that was chitty. Not that like I needed to learn to orient. My personality to think of
others. Yeah. Like I like to be helpful experience meaning in being helpful and being thought of as being helpful and like there are ways in my My life in which like I have been Unbound read and self-serving and like my need to want to feel helpful has been more important than whether I'm actually helping like absolutely. But today I have a pretty good and healthy outlook on. Okay.
When am I centering myself? When am I, you know, I need to have some boundaries over it but at the end of the day also being like it's okay. It's okay that I like to solve problems. It's okay that I like to learn things and teach people things and I can learn to not have my identity bound up in that without hating the personality that I have. Ya know, that's, I feel like that's a really hard lesson to learn. And again, we might be the same person.
Like there's like I can think of so many times where I have really centered myself in places where I didn't need to but it's because I was desperate to be helpful.
I was Britt to like be like, oh maybe if I like insert myself into this problem, they'll like me and it's like so much of that is foundationally based in like neuro divergency and like that kind of like need to fit in. When like it's like the world doesn't exactly fit the way that you feel like you're supposed to. Like, I don't really relate to that so hard and it doesn't like it doesn't like justify what I
make mistakes. But what it does do is that the mistakes that I make are always out loud. Yes, like my Friend is introverted on the Spectrum and she struggles with perfectionism and so like the way that she enters a scenario is like sit back. Listen, don't do something that you might make a mistake. But like internally, she could be like centering herself just as much as me. Yeah, but she's not going to say something. Impulsively, do something
impulsive lead, whatever. So like she and I could be the exact Out of like self-absorbed or insecure in a moment. Yeah but because of my personality like I'm going to do like socially unacceptable or like mistake out loud. Yeah. And so like she and I had such different experiences going through the same experiences where like I internalized like oh, it's obvious when I'm like being sort of off-center yeah, that makes total sense.
Oh, I don't ever want this conversation to end, but we have to stop recording. Okay. Casey Davis. Domestic blisters, tell them tell the people where they can find you and where they can buy your book, okay? So my book is how to keep house. While drowning, you can get it pretty much anywhere in D bound, Books-A-Million Barnes and Noble, Amazon. My website is struggle care.com. And there's actually a book tab where you can see exactly where all the places that you can buy
it, it's also on audio. It is released And April 26th of 2022. So depending on when you're hearing this, you can either preorder it now or you can order it. If it's out, I also am on Tick-Tock as domestic blisters and I do have in stes and Facebook's I'm not as active on those but you can get those at struggle care. Great. And just, for dear listener, I will link all of the things ever in the, the show notes. And then I will also make a special Casey gets her own page here.
On on, on infinite Quest. So we'll hook you up with a on the extras section of the website so you can find all the links and I'll link like the Cuban stuff to it'll be, it'll be great. Well, Casey, thank you so much for being here. This I have admired your work for so long. I look up to you so much. I'm so grateful that you took time out of your very busy schedule, but thanks. Thanks for being here. Thank you. This is wonderful.