152 - Jenny Adams - Embracing Self-Compassion: Navigating ADHD, Perfectionism, and Chronic Illness

But today we're gonna talk a bit more about this topic of perfectionism that comes up a lot with a lot of people in this kind of chronic illness world um , and also kind of its integration with , integration with I don't know if that's even the right word of kind of adhd um and the sort of the busy brain um and how that with perfectionism can often be a

little bit like a bit of a powder keg , I think . So in true perfectionism form . We are doing this unedited , so the challenge is laid down . Welcome back , jenny . It's so nice to see you .

Um , so before we dive into this , would you just say a few words about yourself and what you do , and people who want to know more um can go back and listen to the other episode yeah , sure , and just just on what you've said , I think with perfectionism I'm gonna start already .

I have recovered from ME CFS , which I feel personally I had , from ADHD burnout I had . Well , I've still not got a diagnosis for ADHD . My assessment is next week Yay , after a long list of waiting . So I got very , very ill in my um . So I got very , very ill in my uh , probably my teens and my 20s got glandular fever .

I've got a history of trauma , unfortunately , and I think it was just that allostatic load of too much on my nervous system , having really crap boundaries um , all this stuff . That just impacted into burnout and I just kept pushing and pushing and pushing and pushing and it made me very , very sick .

So I ended up using a wheelchair or a mobility scooter for a lot of my 20s . I have now fully recovered . I was off traveling in Spain last week . I'm off to America in a couple of months . So I'm off , doing things , living my best life . Just been out walking this morning . So , yeah , I'm , I'm doing , I'm living , which is amazing .

Um , and I also support people that are in a similar position to where I was , um , working with people with chronic illnesses and more and more working with people who've got ADHD and ADHD burnout , because I've realized through my clients coming to me , I'd say probably 80% of them are women with undiagnosed ADHD and all this the masking and the shame and the

trauma and the stuff that comes with ADHD often results in physical symptoms . So , yeah , I help people that want to get away from those symptoms and get their lives back and not be so held back .

I don't have an ADHD diagnosis , but the more I learn about it , the more I think my brain certainly tends in that direction . Whether I have it or not , I don't know and it's not relevant to me , but just understanding that my brain , you know , has some of those tendencies I find is very useful .

But before we dive into this , what is ADHD and how might someone recognize some of those traits in themselves ?

But some of the traits that come with ADHD a lot of people will have , but it's to what extreme . So things like being forgetful , having executive functioning issues . So what that means is our prefrontal cortex , the front of our brain , things like planning time , emotional regulation , things like that we we often struggle with .

One of the classic things that most ADHDers will say is having like a gazillion thoughts and having all these ideas , and we're often very multi-passionate . We will often have lots of different hobbies .

We'll be the people that can like bake and sew and knit and you know detail , cars and like all the , all the random things are just some of my hobbies that I've gone through and they've they've gone to a hobby graveyard .

But also there's there's this , there's the stuff that comes with like RSD , which is rejection , sensitive dysphoria I think that's what the d stands for which has been very sensitive to emotion and feeling like we're being rejected .

So , like for me , for example , I think I might have pmdd I don't know what that stands for basically like extreme pms , the week before my period at least , which is where I am right now . I just feel awful . I feel like everyone hates me . What's the point in doing anything ?

Like all these thoughts come into my head that I'm just and I've done a lot of work on myself and I now have to say my thoughts are not real . These are just hormones doing things and messing with my head . So there's there's more .

Um , often , adhd is a highly sensitive people as well , so we might have been the kids that you know don't like loud noises and we get very , um , overwhelmed by sensory stuff . Um , so , yeah , there's a . There's a lot of sort of nuances , and I've not covered all of all of the things , but yeah , there's , there's a .

There's a lot of sort of nuances , and I've not covered all of all of the things , but yeah , there's , there's a . There's a broad spectrum and I think it's great . More and more is being spoken about ADHD now . Um , it is also on a spectrum , so most people can probably relate to some of those things , but it's to what ?

What extent does it disrupt and interrupt your life ? I guess so , um , yeah , so for me , I do find some of these symptoms quite difficult to manage . But having dysregulated ADHD is like a million times worse .

If you don't know that you have it and you don't have the tools in place to regulate your nervous system , and it's already dysregulated , it can be a bit of a recipe for disaster .

So often coming into that regulated nervous system and this is sort of the work that I do , um can be a huge help , because finding that kind of safety within ourselves means we're not having to fiddle with stuff , we're not having to , you know , jump between stuff all the time .

We can just be in ourselves and be okay , which can be really , really scary for a lot of us ADHDers . So yeah , hopefully that explains a little bit about what it is .

to have tools in place for , maybe , when that particular thing rears itself up a little bit more . And , of course , you know , the regulating of the nervous system is so key for everybody . So , yeah , that's really

useful . Now , perfectionism is this something that is particularly common in ADHDers ? Is it just common across the board ? What do you see there , in your work , I suppose , and in yourself ?

But if you look at the general population and this is just my observations , this , you know , I've not looked at any clinical studies into this , but from what I see generally people who've got ME-CFS , long COVID , fibromyalgia , adhd there's often an element of trauma involved in their illness and from that trauma often comes perfectionism .

So I've trained with Gabor Marte and you know obviously massive fan of his , and one of the things that he would say is that perfectionism is is a trauma response and the more I look into it and understand what's driving it , the more I can see what he's talking about and where that comes from .

And I definitely have some perfectionism tendencies , but I think I've I've've become more relaxed . I have the motto now , done is better than perfect .

So when my , when my partner's moaning at me that I've not folded the washing as it comes out the tumble dryer , I'm like it's going to stay in the tumble dryer for a week or it's going to get taken out in one lump and then it's going to get folded another day . So done is better than perfect . And I think that is .

Another thing with ADHD is , in particular , is that all or nothing thinking . So it either gets left in the washing in the tumble dryer or it gets all that . All gets done perfectly . There is no in between , and those are both kind of either end of a spectrum of a dysregulated nervous system like where is the safety in the middle of ?

I can do this , the task gets done and it's okay yeah , and I think , yeah , I mean this is so interesting .

So you know the washing , for example , I have a massive pile of washing that my partner has very carefully folded and piled up on the counter for me to put away , and it's been there for about three weeks and it's getting higher . Every week a new layer gets put on and it's almost like the more washing that I get put on there , the bigger task it becomes .

And rather than just putting a few t-shirts away when I have a moment before I go to bed or when I get up , it's like's a big task . Oh , oh , we'll leave that , we'll wait for layer four . And you know I I'm being silly , you know it's a silly example , but you know it's .

It's these sort of things where you start to notice them as you get a bit more awareness . You're like , oh okay , that's that's very interesting , isn't it ?

I then got put on steroids for a week , which steroids are just stress hormones , so I wasn't sleeping for a week . I've come home , we're on a late night flight and then I've uh , I've got a cold as well at the moment . So obviously my body's been through a lot in the last you know week or so .

And I'm unpacking my suitcase and we're at the well , it's the beginning of October right now , so summer wardrobe's going away , it's getting colder and I'm sitting on the floor with my winter jumpers , out , my summer clothes , my suitcase , and I'm just sat there crying because I'm like there's just too much stuff and I don't know where to start and that that is

one of those real moments of dysregulation of . It might seem silly , but it's that extra layer on your pile of washing that it just breaks you sometimes . And when we get stuck in that all or nothing thinking we don't see that there's another possibility that we could maybe break this down into smaller tasks .

You know , we could take half of it , we could do a quarter of it . So I've . I had my meltdown . I went and looked after myself because I realized , okay , I'm dysregulated right now .

Cleaning up , putting my washing away , is not going to make me feel any different , because often that's that's behind the perfectionism is , if I do x , y and z , therefore I will feel , and we get stuck in that mindset and we think , well , once I've done that , I'll feel like this . Once I've done that , I'll feel like this .

Well , actually , we don't always feel like that once we've done the thing , and often we can find that same feeling without doing the thing . So I might say , okay , well , I'll feel relaxed once I've sorted out my summer and winter wardrobes .

Well , actually , maybe if I put that away well , literally close the door and walk away from it and just go and ask my partner to give me a hug , I will feel relaxed . So that same feeling that we're chasing isn't always going to be given to us by doing the thing and we can get tricked into this and we can run .

You know , I call it like the I'll be happy when syndrome that we get stuck . Or once I've done this , I I'll be happy . Or once I earn this amount , I'll be happy . Or once I've achieved this , once I've done that , I'll be happy . But what happens when we do that ?

We end up chasing the next thing and the next thing , and the next thing , and then we're just constantly running towards stuff and we're not actually taking a moment now to either regulate ourselves and give us that feeling that we need , or to , yeah , just to look after ourselves and be in the present moment and be like does does my washing need to be put

away that badly right now , or do I need to look after myself ?

in . Perfectionism is something that I'm working on . It was something that I kind of I mean , if you'd have asked me say , like five years ago , a year perfectionist , I would have probably said maybe a little bit , but I would have seen it as a good thing .

It was what made me a good musician , it was what made me a conscientious , um , member of staff , it was what made me you know it was I would have seen it as a good quality , and I think I'm now starting to come around to this understanding that actually it's not , and that there is this concept of good enough , and I don't know where that is , because I've

never found it in my life before . So I'm I'm hunting for where good enough is , but it's realizing . I think , kind of like you just said , that you know , if we're always striving to be perfect , we are never going to be perfect , because we are never going to be happy with something , because we'll always find something else that we could have done .

You know , maybe you know you're doing a painting and you're like , oh , I'll do a bit more , I'll do a bit more , oh , maybe I could do a bit more . It's always going to be something . And then you get to the point where you've done too much and it's like , oh , it's not not perfect , I need to take some away .

And you know , in the context of painting , you can't do that , um . So so it's this . Yeah , you know , you're never going to be happy if you're always striving for that perfection . So how can I find a way to be okay with that ? I suppose , and that's kind of where I'm at at the moment I'm kind of struggling with this .

I want , I want to be free of it , but I'm not quite there , um . So I suppose you know , and in the context of recovery , you know , you said that thing about all or nothing um , you know , recovery is about those little steps , isn't it ? You know it's not .

Ah , I found the one thing everything's going to be perfect , like I've not met anyone who who that was true for . So you know , this is where I guess it can be really unhealthy , I suppose , in in that sort of context . But yeah , I don't think it's ever a good thing , actually , I think . I think that's what I'm kind of coming to realize .

I don't think there's really any situation where perfectionism is a good thing , and I'm not going to edit that out . That's staying in .

So it makes perfect sense why we would stick to perfectionism traits and I think they are . They stem from a belief of not being either worthy or good enough , or feeling unsafe and needing to control things , that if I have done things perfectly , nothing can go wrong .

And it's really interesting that you mentioned that in regards to recovery , because recovery is not perfect , it's messy , and I don't know anyone that's recovered who hasn't had bumps in the road and days where they're like oh my god , have I just reversed everything I've been doing so well ? Oh my god , you know what have I done ?

Going through all of that , all of those thoughts , and I'm gonna cough just a sec . Okay , I'm back , I've got a bit of a cold for anyone listening . Um , yeah , we're gonna have those bumps in the road and it's okay . It's okay to have them .

And it can be interesting to ask yourself and maybe we could , we could try this with an example with you , if you want is going into . You know how would you feel if things were done a certain way or not , not a certain way ?

So yeah , if , if you want to , if you want to have a little dive into some compassionate inquiry and belief excavation , do you want to give ?

So we did it unedited . It was largely pretty good , but it was a little untidy in places .

This idea of what better actually is , you know this , the sort of perfect um , like you were saying earlier , with you know if , if there's a little scuff in some audio somewhere , unless it's really you know , unless it's someone coughing really loudly for a long time , which could be triggering , it's probably not a problem .

And I can logically tell myself all of these things that it was a good interview , that you know it was fine , it flowed nicely , there was nothing that really needed to be edited , but it was that not knowing it was that I didn't spend two hours going through it , listening to it , fixing every tiny little thing .

That didn't matter , but I would have fixed it anyway .

Definitely , definitely back to sort of when I was a teenager , when I was at school , maybe beyond that , um , but certainly , yeah , certainly kind of young teenager , I think okay , and did anything happen around that sort of time ? um , I've been nothing particularly abnormal beyond being a at school being a teenager , I was a geek . I wasn't cool .

Um , I played the cello and I listened to classical music . So there were people at school that didn't like me . Um , I mean , that might have been when I last didn't worry about what people thought about me . I was quite happy to be uncool .

I mean , it's not like I really care about being cool , but you know that kind of like worrying about what other people think . I feel like maybe at that point I didn't so much , whereas now I don't want to , so I , I , I should , I should do better .

acceptance is more , um , although the irony being actually acceptance for being imperfect would , uh , would maybe be more accepting , um , uh , yeah , it's interesting , isn't it ?

so it's that search for acceptance , for affection for , yeah , all of that sort of stuff and if there's also the counter belief then that if you aren't worthy of love if you don't do things right , if you don't do things perfectly . You said you were probably an early teenager .

But if that goes back any further , even if you were an early teenager , how do you think they would feel ? A youngish teenager feeling that they're not worthy of love and affection from their parents ?

I'm gently rocking myself and this is something that I think I do when I feel on edge or you know , like I need to regulate myself , so I can feel myself doing that more than I was when we started speaking okay , okay , so there's a want to soothe the discomfort here .

feeling like we're shrinking , if we're in that dorsal um polyvagal state , doing the opposite is often too much for our nervous system . So , as you're doing , just allowing , allowing it space , would it feel okay to just check in now and see , see how it is ?

In fact , I just felt my shoulders move back . I just saw an openness in your face then yeah , yeah , I just felt that that was quite intense actually , um , yeah how are you doing now ? Yeah , I feel , I feel much more like that ball of whatever it was . It's a lot smaller , okay , I think it's . You know , it's maybe a baked bean rather than a melon .

Now , um , I love that , um , yeah .

proud parents , acceptance , love . That has a physical feeling , you know , and we'll hold on to that . And this is often where the long covid and the me and the um , fibromyalgia and all of these things come into place , because we're still holding on to that .

The fact that you quite quickly identified something in your body is telling you something when we looked at a belief means there's still some stuff here and and you know it's a bit like an onion we can kind of peel back these layers , um , but the only way out really is is through , is is feeling this stuff , and it doesn't mean you have to just sit with

all of your discomfort forever , but not fighting it so much and just giving it a little bit of space to be felt , because what would you have done normally with this sort of sensation ?

They've literally just counted for 90 seconds and said I can get through 90 seconds of discomfort and it it will . It will come up and it drops down again and it leaves generally . So , yeah , how many of us can actually say , okay , I can deal with 90 seconds of discomfort ?

It's the reason I have a cold shower every day for 30 seconds , because I stand there and I'm like I don't want to do this .

You know , if I think , gosh , I've got to sit here and I don't know how long it's going to take , you know , if I'm gonna , maybe it's coming back to that all or nothing thing that we were talking about a moment ago . Actually , it's like , well , if I'm gonna do it , I've got to do it right .

So I've got to align myself like half a day , because I don't know how long it's gonna take , and and who can find half a day ? Um , whereas , if you know , okay , this could take maybe 90 seconds , it might be a little longer , but you know , I , this whole process could take like five , ten minutes , that's .

I would swallow down the tears , I'd keep them in and I would try so bloody hard to keep all of this in and then something tiny would happen and it was an explosion .

And I'd be in a meeting , in work or you know it was a really inappropriate time and I would just be sobbing , I couldn't breathe and people around me are like , oh my God , what's wrong with her ? But it's because I'd kept . I'd kept it in , I kept it in , I kept it in and it's like one tiny thing just bang too much .

Whereas now , if I feel a little bit of something , I'm like just just cry , like I was crying yesterday . I think I cried about four times yesterday . I went to see my mum and , yeah , she was just like what's wrong ? What's happened ? What's triggered you ? Nothing . I just feel sad , I just need to cry and I just need to be comforted .

And she is starting to understand more now that there's a feeling sometimes and there doesn't necessarily always need to be a reason , and especially when

we've had trauma . Once we kind of allow those floodgates to open and say I'm OK with being in this discomfort . You don't always know why . Sometimes you're just going to feel sad , sometimes you're going to feel angry , and it's following your body a little bit like you did , just going in and asking what does this need ?

And often it wants to be heard or it wants space to be felt . It just wants some kind of acknowledgement . Sometimes it will be a bubbling up of a reaction of I wish I could say this from that time um , unspoken words , that sort of thing .

But your body is smarter than our heads , so you know it's allowing yourself to really drop in and just ask your body , ask that sensation , what do you need ? It doesn't need to make any sense , but if it tells you something it will , 99.9 percent of the time , be the right thing yeah .

Sometimes certainly I do when I'm thinking I don't know where to start . This is such a big task , it's got to be done perfectly . Um , and actually , you know what you said a moment ago about the all or nothing thing . I'm just thinking , oh , my goodness , this is , you know , this is absolutely me .

Uh , this is why I can never get started on my to-do list and I'll sit there on facebook for two hours instead of starting , because , instead of doing one thing , then you know , it's like everything's got to get done , um , so so when we find ourselves in this kind of position and it's going to look different to different people , but that you know , kind of

perfectionisming , what what's the best thing to do ? Is it to sit back and say where do I feel this ? Give myself a bit of space , what's my body telling me ?

And then we get stuck in a freeze response and you go I'll just procrastinate and go on Facebook for two hours because we don't have the motivation to get up and do anything . So when we are overwhelmed , regulate so that can literally be .

Uh , if you are sitting on your computer on Facebook noticing I'm sitting on , I've been here for half an hour , I don't want to move , I need to pee , but I don't want to move , okay , take your eyes off the screen , start to look around your room , start to just take some gentle movements . You're orienting yourself to then not being a threat .

And if you're in a freeze response , that's a very , very old part of our nervous system . That is the only thing we can do when we're about to get killed . Basically , and our body is telling us that , which is why we're sat on facebook for two hours . If you start to look around and go okay , there's no threats here .

Start to gently move your body , unfreezing yourself , you know , stretching , even just taking some deeper breaths , maybe laughing out loud , anything that would say to your body there is not a threat here right now . And then , once you're in that , if you're in that dorsal state , we kind of need to move into that sympathetic .

And that's when we're like the doing mode , that's when you can start to go right , okay , I've unfrozen , let's get some shit done . And that would be a really good time to then look at your to-do list when you're feeling a little bit more regulated and say , okay , what's the priority , how can I make this smaller ? Where do I start ?

And if your mind is just going , oh , my god , I don't know , I can't go back to regulating . And there's , there's loads of tools , you know grounding , orienting um , titration , resourcing , all sorts of somatic um , nervous system , regulation tools . They're going to be different for everyone . Some people like certain things . So find what works .

You unfreeze yourself , regulate first , and then look at your to-do list and start to ask , yeah , how do I make this smaller ? Does this need to be done today ? Does this need to be done by me ? What's the priority , what's urgent ? And you know there are lots of practical tips , like you know , writing lists and reminders and all of that sort of stuff .

But I honestly , hand on heart , believe you need to start with the regulation first , because you're just going to be going into a task dysregulated and it won't work . And then you'll be like , well , I've tried all the things , it's not the things , it's , it's , it's the nervous system yeah that's so interesting yes , yeah , absolutely .

And then there were some days where I , just as I described a moment ago , I just sit there and I'm like I don't know where to start . Okay , I'll procrastinate , I'll do it in a minute , oh , I'll do this , I'll do that , you know , and and I just can't seem to get myself started .

So that's , that's actually because I'm unregulated , dysregulated in those situations . Um , what I found quite useful for me is understanding . Are there different things I can do in order to set myself up for a day where I'm a bit more regulated ?

So I know that if I get outside , you know and you can't do this every day , necessarily but if I get up early , I get my arse out of bed and I get down and have a swim first thing , especially if the sun is shining , but even if it's not , then I'm killing it for the rest of the day .

I'm amazing , I'm on fire , I am yeah , productivity , you know kind of king , whereas if I have one of those days where maybe I haven't slept very well , I wake up , I scroll on my phone for a bit , I , you know , have my breakfast at the wrong time , or I , you know , have a hot chocolate for breakfast or whatever you know , it's like I'm setting myself up

already for this kind of like you know day where it's just not gonna happen .

So we are going to go through different phases . So when we're in like our ovulation phase , for example , that's our full moon . That's when we're out there , we want to talk to people , we're we're very social , we've got high oestrogen levels , like we can do anything . That's not going to be when you're going to go through your to do list .

Necessarily , that's when you're going to be recording podcasts and , you know , networking and socializing . At the opposite end of that , when you're having your bleed . That is when you might get some of those last little niggly tasks done . But you're also not going to want to talk to anybody and you're going to be quite introverted and want to hibernate .

And you're going to be quite introverted and want to hibernate and being able to track your cycles and look at where you feel better in your cycle . When is the time to organize your diary , when is the time to socialize , when is the time to go through your emails and sort them out rather than trying to do things that aren't going to be helping ourselves .

We're forcing ourselves to be social when we want to be at home hibernating . It just doesn't work . So really leaning into when you function best , doing what in your cycle , can be really , really helpful . And secondly , this whole idea of how productive we are like're not robots , we're not machines .

So , yes , we have to get stuff done , but like our value , our worthiness , how , how loved we are is nothing to do with how productive we are . And I think in this I don't know western modern society , whatever you want to say we are so conditioned to equal . Well , the more I do , the better I am .

The better I am as a human , the more loved I am , whatever bullshit we put on it and like , let's unpick that and realize we are human beings first , and then the stuff comes secondary . So look after the body first , because most of the stuff we do , for most of us it's not life or death . If we can't do a thing , no one's gonna .

No one's gonna die generally , unless you're a doctor or something . But yeah , so look after , look after ourselves first , and also knowing that rest is productive . So if we're going , going , going , going going and we keep pushing . Our work quality gets worse and worse the longer we work .

So it is really helpful to stop and have breaks and not feel guilty for it , because we actually get more done . So I've got a um a mantra on my remarkable hair um well , it's called . It says the less I do , the more I make , and I'm really a fan of that . We don't have to work like 30 hours a day in order to be good business .

People be good humans .

You know , your most important thing is that you are human , you are you , and everything else , as you say , is secondary , and you know this ties in really nicely with the perfectionism thing , doesn't it ? Because you know what , what , what even is that you know you're , you're perfect as you are , um , and that you know that .

That productivity , the things that you want to do in your life , you know that they're important to you , but the healthier you are , the more regulated you are , the better you're going to do them anyway yeah , yeah , exactly yeah .

Here , and just you know , hand on heart , just giving yourself an internal hug and saying to yourself , however , you want to talk to yourself in a kind way to just say it's okay , I know you're trying to do this to feel safe or whatever the thing is , it will be okay , let's look after this body first and then we'll attempt the thing .

So , really just finding that compassion because I know it can be really hard when you're unwell and you aren't able to be productive , and if you don't have that belief that your worthiness is tied into how productive you are , you're going to feel pretty shit . You are still a very valid , lovable human , even if you can't do things .

And maybe looking at all the things , all the ways that you bring joy to your family , to your life , to people around you , and , yeah , just finding that compassion for yourself , because you're not a machine yeah , absolutely , I think that's a beautiful place to leave it .