Your Brain's Not Broken: How to Navigate Your Emotions and Life with ADHD

Jeremy: [00:00:00] Are distractions and disorganization taking a toll on your life?

Have you been diagnosed with D h D or are you just a d h D? Curious.

Zach: Today we're gonna debunk A D H D myths. Explore the emotional impact of living with this cognitive difference and share strategies to help navigate your emotions and life with a D H D.

Jeremy: Coming up in just a few minutes, we do have an expert to actually break down a lot of these . Myths and things you need to know about, uh, living with a D H D. But Zach, you're a bit of an expert yourself because this is something you live with.

Zach: Yeah. Wait, what are we talking about? Sorry, I got distracted.

Jeremy: That's weird.

Zach: I know it is very weird.[00:01:00] yeah, no, do have a touch of this. , I overcompensate with, intelligence and I'm able to get things done, , and functionally navigate the world like I do with my anxiety, which would be crippling for most other people.

, so it's, it's been an interesting journey, but, I don't know if anyone has ever seen it, but , there's. Videos that I've seen on Instagram where like somebody will go, okay, I'm gonna unload the dishwasher. And they go to unload the dishwasher and they see that there's like a loose screw on the handle of the dishwasher.

So they go to get a screwdriver to fix the dishwasher, and then while they're out there, they see that like something's dripping out of the car and then they go and look under the car and like so on and so on and so on to the point where they've got the car up on a lift the motor's out and like they're like rebuilding the car

Jeremy: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Zach: from emptying the dishwasher.

Jeremy: right.

Zach: It's not far from the truth. There have been days where I set out to do one task and partially do 13 other tasks. And then go, wait, what? What was I doing today? Like, it just, it's just how my brain rolls. And you're like, oh, I gotta do this thing. [00:02:00] Oh, I gotta fix that. Oh, I gotta fix that. And that's actually why I'm good in it world, because that's actually one of the skills you need, right?

Because you go to fix something and you're like, oh, I can't fix that without fixing the other thing. And then you go to fix that and you're like, oh, I can't fix that without fixing the other thing. And it goes up the chain and up the chain and then you have to come back down the chain. So it's it, it's an interesting life.

, , if it were an Amazon product, I would give it one star and I would not recommend, I wouldn't buy again. But if you're gonna buy it again, get it on, subscribe and save, so you save a

Jeremy: Right. Save a few bucks. You, you don't want to throw money away on this. , the interview that we're about to share with you is, is really eyeopening for me personally, because I have a number of friends that battle the same sort of mental health issues that we've talked about here with anxiety and depression, and many of them that I relate to on more of the depressive side.

Have since gone to doctors and, and been diagnosed with adhd and in the conversation we have, it's funny because you'll hear that, that our guest believes that I may have ADHD based on her experience and, and the people she's worked with. And mine is, uh, or my situation, whether or not I have it, I don't [00:03:00] know, but it's, it's different from yours because where you physically follow those rabbit holes and go and do all of those things.

, mine works in a way where when I think about the dishwasher loading or unloading, whatever it is, I sort of play it out in my head and how long it's gonna take, and clearly it's gonna take like 12 hours and then I've just gotta clear my schedule for the day because that's the only thing I'm gonna be able to do.

And I just get paralyzed in it and it ends up not getting done. And my entire life, I have approached it as well. Well, I'm just lazy. Like I, I'm not driven, I'm not motivated, I can't do anything.

Zach: Well, all that's all of that's

Jeremy: That is all true, of course. But, but, uh, but no, there's, there's like this pause, there's this just like this block of, you can't do this right now because it's so big.

You can't mow the lawn because you've gotta clear the weekend. , this overwhelming, inability to, to act. Takes over. And it's just like, I just physically can't move forward to do it. And I've always just chalked that up to, oh, well, I, I must be depressed. I'm like, I'm, I'm shutting down.

Like, that must be what's [00:04:00] going on because that's sort of, , the mode that it replicates is just that like, I just can't, I don't have the energy to do anything when really it's like I don't have the energy to do that. So it's, it's different. And, and from what we're about to hear, those are sort of two different . Ways of living with this condition, which again, I, I'm not diagnosed, but it, it is interesting that, uh, I tend to have a lot of the traits that she sees in people that live with this.

Zach: And I, I've got that too. I mean, , that happens to me a lot too, where I will build something up so big in my head and it like just thinking through all the steps and then worrying about, well, what if I miss a step? What if I don't know how to do this part? What about this, what about that? Like, all of that, , will lead me down the road of, of not acting.

But those are, those are actually the things, those projects where , I just need to start. I know that like once I start, I will be able to finish it and then. I'll get three hours into it and be like, oh, I got a whole bunch done here. But if I let my brain go too much, it'll literally be like, okay, I need to know [00:05:00] every single step from step A to step Z in order to accomplish this.

And if I don't know them all, then I can't start. And sometimes you just gotta go, start the lawnmower, start going. I mean, in my case, I just hire someone to do

Jeremy: Yeah. Well, there's that. Yeah.

Zach: it makes it a lot easier. the lawn. I just look out the, I just look out the window while I'm drinking a nice cold iced tea or something like that.

Jeremy: Yeah. That's a good plan. That's a good plan.

Jeremy: All right. Well, that's enough of our armchair expertise. Let's talk to somebody who actually knows what they're talking about. Our guest is Dr. Tamara Rose. She's the founder of the A [00:06:00] D H D Center of West Michigan, and we started by asking her about some of the common misconceptions about A D H D.

Interview-Tamara Rozier - USB: I am so glad you asked this because there are so many myths surrounding A D H D. , one of them, by the way, is you can't be smart and have D h D, so it's only a dumb boy disease. It used to be when we thought about A D H D, we used to think about that naughty third grade boy who kept falling out of his seat.

And although he may have had a D H D, there's a lot of others of us have a D H D. So that's a common, , misconception. Another one is, , that a d h you grow out of A D H D. So a lot of people go, you know, I had a d h ADHD as a kid, but I grew out of it. No, you just found better ways to accommodate. And some are healthy, some aren't healthy.

Um, another one is, , women tend not to have a A D H D. And if you had followed me around this morning, you'd know that that's simply not true.[00:07:00] , so A D H D is a cognitive difference. It's a neurological difference, which means those of us with a D H E, our brains actually work differently. That prefrontal cortex, that part of your brain that is really good at telling you just to do it doesn't work as well for us. And so we're like method actors going around, what's my motivation? What's my motivation? And that's one of the hallmarks of A D H D. We are difficult to get started on task. , we tend to motivate ourselves emotionally, and not a lot of people know that.

Jeremy: This might be really 1 0 1 level, but how does someone have adhd? Is it, are you purely born with it? Is there something environmentally that's happening? How does, how does one get it?

Interview-Tamara Rozier - USB: Love this question because, , it, it was hotly debated. But really the science is starting to settle on. Yeah. You can thank your parents for this one. [00:08:00] Um, especially dads and great. So, yep. And so, um, the, the odds are higher than this, but just to play it safe, I always say if you have a parent with D H D, the odds of you having a child with ADHD is higher than 50%.

Hmm. In fact, some research says it's 0.8. 80%. Wow. Yeah. So, , actually my next book is about, , families. So this runs in families. What are, how are we going to create emotionally healthy families who have a D H D?

Zach: All right. Well, I'm gonna say thanks, mom. Because my mom had a D h D. My dad didn't really have so much of it, but, , yeah, no, that just as you're describing a D H D, that's, I think that's me.

I think Jeremy could even. Attest to it. He could probably even make a diagnosis. Yeah. On me.

Jeremy: I think so, and, and I've, I've wondered myself, because I have friends that, battle similar mental health issues. They met battle depression, anxiety, and all these things, and, and they. [00:09:00] They feel like they've made a great discovery when one day they walk into a doctor's office and the doctor says, turns out you have adhd.

And they're like, oh. And they suddenly, there's all these resources and things that are available to them to make their brains work better and their life becomes a little simpler. Uh, I've, I've done a bunch of online tests just because of that, that connection with friends that have had that experience.

And I thought, well, am I, and it's always kind of either like way off, like no, or maybe kind of, So how, how do I know if maybe, maybe I just kind of have a hard time of things because I'm, you know, disorganized or, or whatever, but how do I know if I, if I have it

Interview-Tamara Rozier - USB: Well, first of all, online tests are hard because the d s m, you know, the book that people used as a diagnostic tool is 20 years behind. Mm-hmm. So we're dealing with a tool that is way, way old for us, especially for adults. And so a lot of times the DSM will completely miss adults. The DSM was actually kind of formed on children.

, [00:10:00] and back then it was believed that you would grow out of a D H D, that silly nonsense that you had going on in your brain. So, um, that could be happening. The other thing is, uh, the smarter you are, the better coping skills you have, and so the more you can kind of sneak your way out of certain pickles, , I've actually had someone say to me, well, I doubt you have a D H D.

How could you publish a book if you have a d h D? I'm like, challenge accepted. Follow me around. How many times do I play on my watch? Like, ding ding, ding, there's your phone. I come on my short-term memory. By the way, that's another, uh, problem for those of us with a D H D. We have horrible, short-term memory.

In other words, we can't quite catch it and hold it. And that's a hallmark of A D H D. it's not just, [00:11:00] I mean, you know how you're like, oh crap. I thought I was listening.

Jeremy: Mm-hmm.

Interview-Tamara Rozier - USB: did you just say? It's, it's, um, our brains kind of get stuck between two parts of the prefrontal cortex. Then D m N kind of is like a teeter-totter.

One should be up, one should be down. Our teeter-totter gets stuck. And it, it's like that spiny wheel on your computer. Just keep spinning. Yeah, that's a, that's an A D H D

Zach: hallmark. So, so I, I was gonna ask you a question, but then I forgot. Um,

Interview-Tamara Rozier - USB: well done, sir.

Zach: No, I, I wanted to, I wanted to really like, you know, in, in today's day and age, right, we've got smartphones, we've got things that are dinging all over the place and distracting us and, and creating, , the appearance of of A D H D in, in a lot of cases.

So I'm curious on like what your take is on, you know, all of this technology and people who think they might have it, but they don't, they're just distracted by technology. And is, is it actually causing people to like develop a D H D [00:12:00] like in their brains? Uh, you

Interview-Tamara Rozier - USB: know, here's where I draw a parallel. You know how there's really narcissist.

There's a real narcissist who feed their ego off of people. And then there's people who are so ego-centric that they are full of themselves, but mm-hmm. The person who's full of themselves isn't really a narcissist. They have narcissistic behaviors. Yeah. The same with D h D. Like seriously, I go down a rabbit hole.

So easily, like just, um, and I'm sure you guys do this, um, A D H D folks, well, I'm sorry, I don't know that you're diagnosed. , but, uh, a D H D people have divergent thinking patterns and we're always like, well, what about this? I don't know about this. And, and we love asking the what if, how are these connected? , so the technology kind of gives people like, like, oh, we can find out what the Wall Street Journal is saying. We can do this, we can do this.

And it's so much [00:13:00] information coming in. Well, that's what it does feel like to have a D H D, except the true difference is I don't need technology to have that feeling. Mm-hmm. I can just be all by my lonesome without any technology and have all the pinging happen in my brain.

Jeremy: Yeah.

Interview-Tamara Rozier - USB: So it's whether it's happening internally or externally, uh, A D H D brains, , it's like a lot of my clients say it's like I have a thousand conversations going on in my head.

Not audible because that's a different diagnosis, but just kind of pinging like, what about this, this, this, this.

Jeremy: Yeah. So.

Interview-Tamara Rozier - USB: noisy in here. Mm-hmm. Is what my colleagues say.

Jeremy: So cognitively aside, I mean, that's gotta take a toll emotionally. So talk, talk to me about like the emotional aspect of dealing with this.

Interview-Tamara Rozier - USB: Well, when you can't fully rely on the prefrontal cortex. We go, uh, those of us with a D H D go to a different part of the brain called the limbic center and nestled in deep inside the limbic center is this [00:14:00] little almond sized part of our brain called the amygdala, which is supposed to be alert to keep us safe.

The A D H D brain, the amygdala, is always on high alert, and sometimes it's set too high. So I start to freak out if I have a big test and I just start to whip myself up and just start to yell, like a bear was chasing me, by the way. Some of my clients, a bear could be chasing them, and they've so tuned out of their amygdala.

They're like, yeah, that happens every day. And there's times I'm in a session like, no, no, no, no. Your amygdala needs to be chiming right now. So, um, kind of a definition of A D H D is we get confused what's a big deal, what's a small deal?

Jeremy: Mm-hmm.

Interview-Tamara Rozier - USB: And we literally, um, have the same adrenaline rush from like a cognitive thing happening as we would a bear chasing us.

Zach: [00:15:00] Yeah. I mean, I feel like you're just talking about me.

Jeremy: I know. I keep going. Have you met Zach? Because you're, you've, you've got him

dialed

Interview-Tamara Rozier - USB: I'm watching the look on his face. I'm like, dude, I'm sorry. That was personal, wasn't

Zach: it? No, I like, as you were talking, I was like, I've always described my brain as the Tasmanian Devil, and it's just, you know, like leaving a path of destruction and, and grunting, you know, in it, in its wake.

, and literally I just forgot where I was going with that. Um. You know, in the book

Interview-Tamara Rozier - USB: I ask people to have a metaphor of their A D H D for a reason, and you already have a metaphor of it. And so he's not a bad Tasmanian devil. We just need to kind of learn how to put him in the path of the right things.

Zach: Yeah. I, my, the way I, the way I've al I've always managed it is, you know, it, it fires my anxiety. And, , when I finally realized that it was like a D H D anxiety, instead of fighting against it, I decided to [00:16:00] befriend it. And when it does fire, yeah, I thank it. I say, thank you for perfect, keeping me safe, but you are not needed at the moment.

And, and then I get distracted on 10 other things, but it usually calms down so. So I really, I just, I wanted to ask you more about that, like that's how I did it. But you were, you just said like you have to befriend it, you have to be friendly with it. Can you say more about that?

Interview-Tamara Rozier - USB: Yeah. So, with my clients, I ask them to work out a metaphor.

, my metaphor for my A D H D is every morning I get up and everyone has to run a race. I have to run a three-legged race. I have to. Tie my leg with my D h ADHD version of myself. So there's a part of me that just wants to take off and run, oh no, I'm stuck with this dope. Who wants to sit down halfway and pick dandelions?

And this is gonna get a little dark, but when I was writing my dissertation, I metaphorically would punch her out and drag her body. [00:17:00] Mm-hmm. It's not healthy guys. And, and I, I had like, I had eye twitches, I had, you know, all these bad things happening to me cuz that's not a healthy way to do it. Now I had one person say, okay, but you're, you got it done.

And yes I did. But at what cost? And so really the only way is to befriend. That. So now every morning I wake up, I'm like, Hey, check, we're gonna run that race again. And she's like, you know, I really don't want to. I'm like, how about we have some time where we picked Dan Alliance together? Mm-hmm.

She's like, I suppose, you know,

Jeremy: Yeah. Yeah.

Interview-Tamara Rozier - USB: ADHD people are motivated emotionally, we're motivated by fun and we're motivated by emotions. And, , Zach, what you just said is, Hey, listen, anxiety, I used to drink that like an Energy J drink because it would [00:18:00] fire me up and I'd do it. , the problem with anxiety is that sometimes it turns into shame and then it turns into self-loathing. And so now, instead of just that anxious voice, now you've got this, the meanest coach on earth just screaming at you, his face, all red spitting in your face. , and you can't just simply thank him and wish him well. He's like, oh no, I'm here. And so now you have a bigger problem.

Jeremy: So we, we half joke all the time that Zach lives in the future with his anxiety. I live in the past with my depression and we get together here once a week to in, in the present to, you know, share how we're getting through that. And a lot of what you said about that sort of waking up and, and that's like this other character in your life that you have to live with.

For me that is very much depression. It is very much the thing that has kept me from like applying for jobs, for, from going after things for fear that when it comes time to perform, that guy wins. And, you know, can't get [00:19:00] outta bed, can't get motivated to move. And so I'm, I'm relating there and like I said, I'm, I'm, I'm adhd.

Curious, right? Like, I don't know if I, if I have it, if I'm not, I'm putting my toes on the water. Is that me? I don't know. But

is there, is that

Interview-Tamara Rozier - USB: I wanna be, clear that I'm not diagnosing you. Right. I've also wa been watching your face. And by the way, I know my people,

Jeremy: Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah.

Interview-Tamara Rozier - USB: I mean, you put me anywhere, I'll find the a d h ADHD people. One word. Just way more, more interesting. Um, sorry to the neurotypicals who are listening, but we're interesting.

Um, we know facts that people shouldn't even know. Like they're great. So, um, Jeremy, you just described something that some of my clients have, and I'm not talking about you directly. But, , they call it depression, but really it's related to A D H D. And what it means is you're, you're so tired of the battle.

Jeremy: Yes.

Interview-Tamara Rozier - USB: Everything takes so much effort [00:20:00] where you'll think you'll use that divergent thinking to pop out and go, okay, this could end in one of seven ways. In two of them, I just don't want, and your A D H D might go, great idea. How about we don't? I think there's a carnival somewhere. Let's go there.

Jeremy: Yeah. The, the, an analogy I use all the time is that I have one of the smallest lawns you've ever seen in your life, and the task of mowing the lawn in my head is going to take six hours. I need to clear my day. I need to, you know, be ready to take a shower afterwards. It's gonna be a whole thing, but if I actually time it, it's like eight minutes, right?

Like, I can do it pretty quickly. But anything that, that seems difficult or challenging in any way, Automatically, 14 different stories of this is just gonna be a huge mons, like just a monster to, to, to defeat. How in the world do you do it? Don't bother. You're not qualified, you're not good enough, someone else will do it for you.

Interview-Tamara Rozier - USB: You know, who says pe? You know people who say things like [00:21:00] that. You know what they're called?

Jeremy: What are they called?

Interview-Tamara Rozier - USB: A D h

Jeremy: Oh, okay. That, uh, that adds up.

Interview-Tamara Rozier - USB: Thanks for walking into that one. Um, so a, again, I'm not diagnosing you, but that it's exactly what my clients say. I actually write about, um, my book, how the Dishwasher seems to me like this is going to take all day.

I can't, I simply can't unload the dishwasher. And I started timing myself two and a half minutes. Yeah.

Jeremy: yeah.

Interview-Tamara Rozier - USB: My kitchen's just not that big guys.

Jeremy: Right. No, it's crazy, right? You, you feel like a crazy person. Like I, I tell myself all the time when I, there will be just little things and I'm like, oh, I should pick that up. But it's just like, There's this block of like, I just, I cannot bring the energy to do it.

Interview-Tamara Rozier - USB: that is it. So you guys, so Jeremy is what I would call, let's just pretend you could both have D h, D. Just,

Zach: just discuss. Yeah. Let, let's pretend.

Jeremy: pretend.

that, yeah. That's quite a fantasy that we've [00:22:00] conjured up here.

Interview-Tamara Rozier - USB: Um, so Jeremy would be the energy meiser kind.

Jeremy: Mm-hmm.

Interview-Tamara Rozier - USB: He, in other words, he's like, no, no, no. This is too much energy. Shut it down right now.

And Zach would be the energizer bunny. Like, that seems right. Go on, let's do this. I got it. And, and if not, he'll take it. This deep gulp of anxiety, if he really has to reach deep, even though you thank him for coming up, you know he's standing there in the wings to rev you up if needed. Yeah, so that's what I, you know, some people tell me, well, I have a D H D, but I don't have the hyperactivity.

No, no, no, no. Theoretically you both do. It's just, um, Jeremy's is all internal whipping around Z's comes out a little bit more externally.

Jeremy: Hmm. All right. Well, now that we've [00:23:00] solved that mystery

and, and, uh,

Interview-Tamara Rozier - USB: I'm not

Jeremy: No, I know, I know. And I didn't mean for this to turn into Dia. Let's diagnose Jeremy, but you know, here we are. Um, so what do we

do about it?

Interview-Tamara Rozier - USB: for being. Thank you though, because I think your listeners are really going to appreciate this kind of discussion to help them.

Jeremy: I hope so. So let's help them and let's help me. How do we, uh, I'm trying to make friends with it. We're, we're working on it. You know, we get together and talk every now and then, but other than sort of that befriending and trying to bring it into my life, what can I do to, to turn things around and, and put a leash on?

Zack's Tasmanian Devil.

Interview-Tamara Rozier - USB: Yep. There's three things. Okay. One, really start to learn about it and, yeah, I wrote a book, but my, my book isn't the only book out there, so go find a good, solid resource. By the way, TikTok is not the solid, most solid resource.

Jeremy: I had like three TikTok analogies I was gonna bring like of people demonstrating this is what it's like to have a d h adhd. And every one of 'em are like, oh, that means I have it. [00:24:00] No, stop listening to TikTok.

Interview-Tamara Rozier - USB: Yeah, I, well, I, I appreciate, by the way, the reason TikTok is doing so well with A D H D, and by the way, I'm deep into a D h ADHD TikTok, but the reason it was doing so well is because the medical world let us all down for a while. In other words, the D s M hasn't been updated. It's woefully behind, and so, All these people are starting to take it back going, no, no, no.

I have this. And they want to be listened to. So I do respect TikTok ERs saying, and there's some very good solid A D H D TikTok ERs out there. So, , I'm not swiping at all of them. There are some good ones out there. In fact, there are some that will make me laugh so hard. I will cry because I'm like, whoa, that happened to me today.

And yeah. Yeah. Um, so educate yourself is the first thing. It's a neurological difference. All of us with a d h D, the reason I titled my book, your Brain's Not Broken, is [00:25:00] most of us feel broken. Mm-hmm. The truth is it's a neurological difference, and the truth is we're not really well adapted for modern life.

That's the truth so one, educate two, uh, really start to work on the emotional regulation. You're gonna be dead in the water. If you're listening to anxiety, fear, any of the emotions. If you're motivating yourself in that way, you're gonna be dead in the water.

So I am going to suggest you get help at that point. Yeah. Um, emotional regulation doesn't mean you're blowing up up at your wife. Emotional regulation actually means you're not letting emotions dictate your behavior. So that's the second thing. And then the third thing is learn some good strategies. , people tend to start with the strategies.

Uh, try to tell them not to. Cuz until you learn the emotional regulation, it's not gonna make [00:26:00] sense.

Jeremy: Hmm. Well, that makes a lot of sense. And, and suddenly my life makes a lot of sense. So, uh,

Interview-Tamara Rozier - USB: All right. Well, good.

Jeremy: I have some homework to do now. Thanks a lot. Uh, all right. We're gonna, we're gonna wrap it up there, but before we let you go, where can we find out more about you? Where can we get the book and all the things we need to know to catch up with you?

Interview-Tamara Rozier - USB: Uh, well, my book's called Your Brain's Not Broken, and , I've run the A D H ADHD Center. So our, , web address is www.miadhd.com. Did I pause because I almost forgot my own website? Well, yeah. Um, so maybe you can edit it, maybe you won't, whatever. Um, Uh, and although I'm not taking new clients, I have such a wonderful staff.

, they are really, I, I'm so proud of this team, uh, that we have at the center. So they're good, good people. Um, if you don't wanna go there, , I would suggest a D H D coaching is a great option. , look for an A D H D coach. You don't, it doesn't have to be [00:27:00] one of my coaches. Um, there's coaches all around, , the world.

So you can go to A D H D coaches.org to find an A D H D coach near you.

Jeremy: Love it. Love it. Thank you so much for your time, your wisdom, and uh, for helping me clear up a lot of questions I have about myself.

Interview-Tamara Rozier - USB: You guys are awesome.

Zach: Our thanks to Dr. Tamara Rossier, author of Your Brain's Not Broken Strategies for Navigating Your Emotions and Life with A D H D. You can find links to her and her work in the show notes for this episode@thefitmasks.com. were we talking about? Oh, right. Key takeaways.

Jeremy: Right,

Zach: well, the one thing that actually made me feel a little bit better, because I always thought that I was, I was an idiot or dumb because of my inability to focus and get things done. that's not the case, right? It's not a dumb boy's disease, like this is a human being thing that can happen to any of us.

Whether you are lower intelligence, higher intelligence, middle intelligence, whatever it is, it can, [00:28:00] can afflict any of us.

Jeremy: Right. It's a neurological difference. It's a cognitive difference in your brain that just makes things function a little differently. The thing that stood out to me the most was when, well, first of when she didn't diagnose me, but, you know, wink, wink, nod, nod. It really, it really hit home for me when she talked about how people that, that live with this are driven by emotional motivation.

And, you know, I just keep coming back to things like the gym, things that I don't like to do. Most of us don't like doing that stuff. We don't like doing the things that we don't want to do. But when I am emotionally driven to do something, I can react so much faster. I can be inspired to take action on the things when there's emotion behind it, but when it's just the logical, I know I need to do this, it's better for me.

That's often not enough, and I really have to talk myself into taking action, like going to the gym, like eating better, whatever all the things are that we talk about all the time. I have to find the emotional connection to really motivate me to move forward on those things.

And so it's just, it's really interesting to me that, that is a component of this [00:29:00] that people live with. And so I'm, I'm very curious to, to actually get diagnosed and, and see if this is something that I am in fact living with. , because I feel like there might be tools and resources that might be helpful for me to manage this even better.

Zach: And it's kind of funny how, Heightened anxiety goes along with a D H D. I mean, that doesn't describe me to a t or anything at all. But, , I don't think I would've really put it together. On my own, I would've considered anxiety and H A D H D to be two completely separate independent things. But, if I could learn to befriend my A D H D the way I've befriended my anxiety, maybe I can manage it a little bit

Jeremy: You can have a whole party. It'll be a great time. You guys will all just hang out, kick it. It'll be good.

Zach: Yeah, wait till I'll invite P T S D as

well. And I mean, there's gonna be a lot of fun. And when I say fun, I mean the f u n in the middle of dysfunctional.

Jeremy: exactly. Exactly. All right, well that's gonna do it for this episode of The Fit Mess. We do have a bonus clip for you from this interview. You can get that by subscribing to our newsletter, and the link to do that is on our [00:30:00] website@thefitmess.com. That is also where we will be back in just a few days with a brand new episode.

Thank you for listening.

Zach: See everyone.