Hey everyone, Today we're doing something a little bit different. I'm sharing an episode of another podcast. It's called adhd Aha. It includes candid stories from people who share the moment it clicked that they or someone they know has ADHD. And I wanted to do this because I know from talking to our audience that ADHD is something that many of you are experiencing. And I really liked this podcast and I thought it talked about it in really interesting
and useful ways. I recently listened to the episode titled not Lazy but Exhausted from Analysis Paralysis and thought there might be some listeners out there who could relate to Emily's story. Laura and Emily dive deep into some of the common challenges of living with ADHD, exploring what true mental exhaustion feels like, and also sharing real struggles of suffering from analysis paralysis. I hope you give it a listen, and if it resonates, give adhd Aha podcast a follow. And now here is the EP.
What looks like somebody just like sitting relaxing, not wanting to do anything, you know, watching a show, looking at their phone is actually describing the analysis paralysis. And I just felt like I was in that every day you are just sitting there screaming at yourself to get up and do something, and as the time ticks by, you're like, great, now you have five less minutes to do this thing. Now you have five Now what's the point.
From the Understood podcast Network, this is adhd Aha, a podcast where people share the moment when it finally clicked that they or someone they know has ADHD. My name is Laura Key. I'm the editorial director here at Understood, and as someone who's had my own adhd aha moment, I'll be your host. I'm here today with Emily Weinberg. Emily is a listener who wrote in who said that she's been listening since we started the show, so grateful for that. Emily is also an ADHD coach who is
located outside of Boston. You can find her at adhd with Emily dot com. Emily, thank you so much for being here today.
Thanks for having me.
Oh, there goes the Emily and I are laughing to the fire alarm just went off? Did you hear it? As soon as I introduced you.
This is amazing.
It's part of it. Now, Okay, I don't think I need to evacuate the building. But you know, if you see smoke behind me, please let me know and I'll go running out. If only this were a video episode so everyone could see the flashing lights.
It looks like like a laser beam, like one of those like school photos where you had like the lasers behind you.
Oh my gosh, I know exactly what you mean. And it's not a big deal. You know, we're not people who get distracted at all. It's just an interview about ADHD.
Totally tune that out.
Well, thank you for being at this circus with me today, Emily. I'm excited to chat with you. Thank you for being a listener for so long. I really appreciate it.
Yeah, of course, I mean thank you for putting out such good content my pleasure.
Okay, we're going to talk about your diagnosis. We're going to get to that, but I want to start with a biggie, if that's all right with you.
Sure.
When we chatted last you told me you used to describe yourself as a lazy person. Could you just unpack that? Why did you think you were a lazy person?
I was not a driven by a motor brand of ADHD. I honestly feel like I never had an abundance of energy. I could nap whenever given the option of napping, and I mostly just didn't feel super driven to do a million things unless you know, I know, in high school, like when I was playing sports, Yeah, of course i'd go to practice afterwards, and you know, in those months when I played sports, I would be doing doing, and then in the in between, I just didn't do much.
And as an.
Adult, it's like any time I could just sit and quote unquote relax, I would, And I the term lazy. I really hate it so much now, but it did just kind of feel like laziness, like I don't really feel like doing much. And obviously, what I know now it's that I did have a bunch of things I probably wanted to do and still want to do, but sometimes that feels overwhelming when there's so many different options
and you're not quite sure what to do. And also I really was tired often, you know, and I predit that to just like mental exhaustion of like a really fast moving brain and making choices and decisions all day and trying to plan ahead and not really being able to see ahead, and just you know, everything that happens within the brain of somebody with ADHD. I was exhausted
all the time. I didn't feel like I had a great reason to be exhausted at times, because it's not like I had been out training for a marathon or running all over the place or whatever. But I was just often tired.
Yeah, and just listeners, you need to hear this. Emily is not a lazy person. And I hope you hear that. Emily knows that she's not a lazy person, right, right, right. I wanted to start there because it's just such a stark contrast with how we usually perceive people with ADHD. Tell me more about the exhaustion in your brain and how that kind of transferred to the body.
It's like, I can't even tell you. Oh, I remember in high school just having like a million thoughts a moment and my brain was constantly racing. It's more now, like, of in hindsight, this is now what I know about ADHD. It makes a lot of sense that if my brain was just always on and thinking and processing and trying to figure the things out. It makes a lot of sense then that that would be completely and totally exhausting.
I know, as an adult now. One of the things that really exhausts me the most is just like decision making. I used to be a teacher. I mean, you make four million choices every day as a teacher. So teaching is exhausting period. No other explanation, but man, I just came home and it was like, I can't tell you what I want for dinner. I can't tell you which show I want to watch. I could barely walk my dog and like think about what route I wanted to walk him on.
It was just so you're talking really about analysis paralysis, but not in your more formal areas of life, not in work life. It sounds like, but when you get home and it's just you and you may have an option for there's not something you have to do. Now you have a different kind of choice to make.
Yeah, And I have never felt that part the analysis paralysis so strongly as you and I had. My kids. Their nap times were like torture for me because I think every single nap time they had I immediately went into that analysis paralysis. Exhausted, can't do anything, didn't do anything, just like spin cycle. It's like they'd go to nap when they're really little. You have no idea how much time you're going to have, So that's like your first challenge, Right,
Do I have twenty minutes? Do I have forty minutes? You're exhausted, you just want to sit down for a minute. But sitting down for a minute for me meant sitting down for the remainder, but not relaxing, not taking an intentional I'm tired, I need to do nothing while they nap, so I'm sitting here on the couch. It was not an intentional decision. It was I would like to sit down for five minutes and then do something. But the five minutes of quote unquote rest turns into are they
going to wake up in twenty minutes? Do I have two hours? Do I have laundry to do? Should I do the dishes? Should I organized stuff? And then I get so exhausted in those five minutes, and then I'm like, well, now I only maybe have fifteen minutes, so and it's just it was such a cycle.
That happens to me a lot too. It's so emotional as well. I will when I'm transitioning from anything work or parenting related to none of the above. It's like I'm just going to take five minutes. I just need five minutes. It's always thirty minutes at least at least. Yeah, and I'm not doing anything productive, and that's not really the point. But then I'm mad that I'm not doing anything productive, Like that's this shame spiral. You know.
I'd love to sit here and say, but I'm over it. I figured out how to Yeah, it still happens. I'm a little bit more aware of what's happening.
You know.
I have tools now that I can like snap myself out when needed or give myself some compassion and understanding when needed. But at the time, right you are just sitting there screaming at yourself to get up and do something, And as the time ticks by, you're like, great, now you have five less minutes to do this thing. Now, now what's the point. I think another piece of it, too, is the idea behind like starting and finishing tasks. I
know now I really know about myself. I really really cannot stand starting things that I'm not going to be able to finish because I know pulling myself out of the task when it's not quite done is just so painful. So there's this piece of it where you're like stuck in analysis paralysis, and then the time starts ticking by, and now it becomes well, even if I could get myself to start, now, I'm not gonna be able to finish.
So what's the point. It's the exhaustion of trying to get yourself to do something, doing the mental math of how long that's going to take, trying to figure out what is the thing? That mental exhaustion, and then the afterwards mental exhaustion of just like beating yourself up so much and shaming yourself for not being quote unquot productive with this time. It's brutal.
It's brutal. An example I give to other folks who don't have this brain is you know that feeling when you know you have to wake up really early, and then you can't fall asleep because you keep thinking about the time, like the lost sleep cycles. Yeah, every passing minute. It's like living in that loop.
Right, like all day, every day.
What did this look like as a kid?
You know, I very distinctly remember, you know, you heard the garage door open and like a parent was home, and you like hopped off the couch right like, oh, they can't know I've just been sitting on the couch all day.
I still do that today. When I hear my husband coming home with the kids, I'm like, I get up and I'm conveniently unloading the dishwasher as they're walking in the door. Same, given the appearance, it's same.
And sometimes I can catch it and like stop myself because I'm like, no, I don't need to be being productive right now. But whatever happens in your body when you hear the garage is it's like an instinct where you're like, oh, I gotta be finding something to do.
Yeah, totally.
So there was a little bit of like I should be doing more because I'm just kind of being like lazybones, like, you know, just lounging.
Can you recall ever getting in trouble for being a lazy bones in quotes?
No, I mean I think I just distinctly remember feeling like everyone thought I was just like a lazy bum My sister who now has also been diagnosed with ADHD, which is interesting because we are polar opposites. My sister was more driven than me. She was very go go go. She was like involved in all the clubs and great grades, and she was like a fitness instructor, and I feel like I was like a bum hanging out. I don't
think I got in trouble. I think I got like questions sometimes like how long have you been like playing that game on the computer, or like how long have you been like sitting on the couch, or like what are you going to do today? I was a really good kid. I did not cause any problems. I did not get in trouble. I did fine in school. I didn't break rules. You know, if the worst thing I was doing was like coming home and just like vegging on the couch, nobody was like, you're not doing anything
with your life. It's like I was. And that really, honestly might have been their perception of like they really didn't care because they knew that I was busy at other times. But to me, it always just felt like I don't know what to do, So here I am.
I have this random image in my mind and it's TMI, but just like, go with me for a minute. I I remember right after having each of my kids, and I was pumping a lot. I didn't physically like it, but I liked it because I could pump and I could just play games on my phone and I didn't have to again have to and quotes feel guilty because I was doing something productive with my body while just
letting my mind wither away. Again, nothing wrong with just chilling out and like playing on your phone in between like tougher moments in the day whatever. It was just this like I felt guilty about it, and I needed to be doing that act of pumping to not feel guilty about it.
It was like the one time you really gave yourself permission, yeah, to just zone out totally man and hed sight sho. I should have applied that to my pumping sessions because.
My husband's like, you are very prolific. You are making a lot of milk, right, I mean.
And isn't it so funny though that like I was giving myself permission to just do nothing, and it's like because you're actually not doing nothing, Like oh my god, you're like, yeah, body is creating food for your child. But I know, raise like it has to be that level to just have the permission to sit and play on your phone, when like you should have the permission any day, at any hour, whenever you want to give it to yourself. But that's hard. That's a hard place to get to.
So you got diagnosed in twenty twenty one, what was happening in your life like at that precise moment, if you can remember.
I think it was just a whole bunch of things. One of my best friends, who we are very very similar to each other, people joke like we have the same brain, she had been diagnosed with ADHD, so she had been talking to me a little bit about it, like like, we're the same person. Really need to look into it. My main hold up at that time was this kind of ADHD. I'm not hyperactive. I'm just like disorganized and a quote unquote hot mess and like spacey whatever.
So my sister's son was like in first grade and they were he was, you know, having some problems with like you know, his like folder was always disorganized and is like handwriting, and they were trying to like give him some support, and they said he has some executive functioning deficits, which I am embarrassed to have met. I was a teacher, and I honestly had not really heard of executive functions, and so I kind of looked into it and that's when I was like, this is what
I have. This describes me like organization, planning, time management, you know, self motivation, like emotional regulation all that.
I was like, this is what I have.
I don't have the hyperactive piece, and then looking into that further and realizing, oh, that is ADHD inattentive type. And then I saw the Danny Donnovan graphic of somebody sitting on a couch looking like they're just lounging, looking at their phone or watching TV, and except on the top like what it looks like to the outside world. And then the bubble below was the same graphic with
all the things in the whole thought bubble. Yeah, and what looks like somebody just like sitting relaxing, not wanting to do anything, watching a show, looking at their phone is actually describing analysis paralysis. And I just felt like I was in that.
Every Dayovan friend of the pod. She's phenomenal.
I really thank her for those comments because it was so perfectly portraying my experience. That just catapulted me into going down the rabbit hole.
So your kids right now, you have two kids who are the same age. They are five.
They just turned five. Yeah, we just had their birthday party yesterday. So, oh, my surprised I'm still standing. Actually, it was fine. That was dramatic, It was fine. It was a bit overwhelming, but it's fine.
You and your wife carried your kids at the same time, is that right.
Yeah, you know, without going into too much detail, fertility issues played a part of it, and I'll just say we were kind of hedging our bets, I guess is how you want to put it, Like just hoping for a good outcome, and we just have to get two good outcomes. Very unexpectedly. Did not think that that was going to be what happened. And yeah, so they were born a week apart. We have a boy and a girl. And now they're five.
So in twenty twenty one, your kids were three. How big of a factor did being a new mom play into this? Because you were managing before, Yeah, and then you became a parent to two, not one, but two children.
Right. That made it really hard to try to claim that I had ADHD because the mom kind of dialogue out there is like motherhood is so hard. Everyone's struggling. Everyone you know is having a hard time staying organized. All moms are running late.
It's thisalthy, comicy Yeah, it's.
Just the like being a mom isn't easy. That's kind of what it comes down to. So it was hard to kind of be like, I think this is hard for me because of ADHD, Like I don't think I'm experiencing the same kind of hard as like baseline mom hard. And the first psychiatrist who I spoke to basically did tell me that I was an overwhelmed mom with young kids. Not basically that's actually the words that she said to me was you just see or anxious. You just seem
like you're an anxious mom with young kids. That was it. So it was like, what you already are worried. It is like it's this hard for everyone, but everyone else is just managing it better. A psychiatrist now said that to me, this is just anxiety. Everyone is experiencing this. And this was after months of me researching and knowing it was adh and really just wanting it to be confirmed so I could know I wasn't completely crazy.
You were told to basically just like tough en up.
By the time I had that evaluation, I had already joined a coaching program super thankfully, because I knew that was a possibility. I had kind of been prepared that some psychiatrists do not know enough about ADHD and how it presents in women and chalk it up to anxiety and depression and it's unfortunate. So I kind of knew that that was a possibility going in. I very naively thought that that would not be the case, but it was.
And then I had like a support network for when that happened to kind of tell me, like, get another opinion, go to someone else. That person doesn't know what she's talking about. Because this was also a person she basically just had said, like, you sound like you're, you know, pretty successful, and you graduated college, and this just sounds like anxiety. But she had not asked me any questions about like how school had been for me or how
my work life was. There was no curiosity around where the anxiety was stemming from, which is really where she missed the point. And I try to be really vocal about that because it just that is what happens to so many women, is that they really just told its anxiety.
So you left your teaching career and have become an ADHD coach? Did I say that right? Or I saw your face?
Yes, Well, I left teaching when I had the kids. I won attorney leave, and then I took an extended maternity leave, and then I realized there is no way I can go back to teaching. Like that was the other thing, Like I know that there are so many teachers who are also moms. I could not wrap my head around how much I was struggling with momhood, how much I struggled as a teacher doing those things independently, and then doing both of them. I was like, no,
there's actually no way. And again this is undiagnosed, untreated, unmedicated on anything. Would I want to do it now?
No?
Do I have tools that I could probably make it work now? Probably, but I don't want to anyway. So I had been home. I joined a coaching program. I spent a long time learning, and you know, about a year and a half of that just like try to understand more about myself, trying to learn more about myself, trying to accept how I am and that I'm not just like inherently flawed and lazy and forgetful and considerate and all the words that we have gathered and put
into our own little narrative about ourselves. So I kind of spent a really long time trying to relearn myself. And I still am. I still very much am. Like I said, I pop up when I hear the garage, and I spend time playing on my phone instead of moving on to the next thing on my agenda, and I get into analysis prolesis sometimes and I still do all the things, but I really have learned how to kind of like be a little bit more in control of a lot of that stuff and how to support
myself and others. And that's what really it really just dawned on me one day, like this is what I want to do now. I all I want to do is help other people who are struggling understand themselves more and feel like they can shift into a life that they feel like they have a little bit more control of, more intention They're doing what they actually want to do and not just what they're like feeling shamed into doing or should do. They're not just sitting around beating themselves
up all the time. Yeah, it was just like, whoa, that's that's actually what I have to be doing.
Do you take clients outside of Boston? Do you work remotely?
Yeah? I mean I see clients over zoom, So I have a client in Germany. I used to see someone in Australia, but that time zone, it's very difficult. Yeah, but we made it work.
Yeah. I just mentioned because you have your website adhd with Emily dot com, and I know you are in the Boston area. But when I give a little plug for folks who may be looking for a coach.
Yes, I can totally see people all over I am taking clients.
Yeah, Emily, I'm grateful that you came on today. Emily, I'm really grateful that you have been listening to the show for so long. It's really validating to me too, because it's just it's hard to get organized sometimes to do something like this. So here we are just similar with you with your coaching.
Yeah. No, I have loved this show so much. I love the diverse experience. It's not just like the same story every time. It's like they're all so different, yet you can just understand everybody's experience so well. There it's like a universal language and then like all these different like dialects. So I've loved it.
You've been listening to adhd Aha from the Understood podcast Network. If you want to share your own aha moment, email us at adhd Aha at Understood dot org. I'd love to hear from you. If you want to learn more about the topics we covered today, check out the show notes for this episode. We include more resources as well as links to anything we mentioned in the episode. Understood is a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping people who learn
and think differently, discover their potential and thrive. We have no affiliation with pharmaceutical companies. Learn more at Understood dot org slash mission. Adhd Aha is produced by Jessamine Molly Say Hi Jessamin, Hi everyone. Brianna Barry is our production director. Our theme music was written by Justin D. Wright, who also mixes the show for the Understood podcast network. Scott Koshiera is our creative director. Seth Melnick is our executive producer,
and I'm your host, Laura Keat. Thanks so much for listening.
That was an episode of adhd Aha. To listen to more episodes, search for adhd Aha in your favorite podcast app. That's adhd Aha with aha spelled aha. I hope you enjoyed it.