Secret #75: Impossible Masculinity with Ruth Whippman
What does it actually mean to raise boys in a culture that both expects masculinity and criticizes it?
In this episode, journalist and author Ruth Whippman joins Chris McCurry and Emma Waddington to explore the pressures boys face in the age of “impossible masculinity.” Drawing from her book BoyMom, Ruth explains how cultural narratives about masculinity shape boys’ emotional lives, relationships, and sense of identity.
The conversation explores the surprising science of boys’ emotional development, the cultural contradictions boys must navigate today, and why many young men feel lost when it comes to friendship, vulnerability, and connection. Ruth also shares practical guidance for parents raising boys today and introduces her framework of curiosity, critical thinking, and connection.
Highlights:
Raising boys in the age of impossible masculinity
Why boys may be more emotionally vulnerable than we assume
How cultural stereotypes shape boys’ emotional lives
The importance of curiosity and connection when raising boys
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Intro and setup
03:12 MeToo pregnancy panic and rethinking boys
11:13 What “impossible masculinity” means
24:00 Why boys feel they cannot cry
33:30 Understanding incel culture and male loneliness
40:14 The Three Cs framework for raising boys
48:30 Takeaways and closing
More about Ruth Whippman
Order BoyMom: Reimagining Boyhood in the Age of Impossible Masculinity
Subscribe to I Blame Society - Ruth’s Substack
Follow @ruthwhippman on Instagram
Ruth Whippman is an author, essayist and cultural critic from London living in the United States.
Her writing appears in the New York Times, Time magazine and The Guardian, amongst other places. Her viral essays, including Enough Leaning In, Now it’s Time for Men to Lean Out, Can we Really Love our Children Unconditionally, Everything is for Sale Now, Even Us, and What We are Not Teaching Boys about Being Human, have been shared hundreds of thousands of times on social media. She also writes the Substack, I Blame Society.
She is the author of the forthcoming Boymom, Reimagining Boyhood in the Age of Impossible Masculinity (June 4th 2024, Harmony, Penguin) and America the Anxious, How Our Pursuit of Happiness is Creating a Nation of Nervous Wrecks (St Martin’s/ Macmillan, 2016) UK title: The Pursuit of Happiness (Hutchinson, Penguin.) America the Anxious was a New York Post Best Book of 2016, A New York Times Editors’ Choice and Paperback Row pick, one of Newsweek’s Nine Books to Change the Way You Think in 2016, a Sunday Times top summer read and a Daily Mail Must Read.
Fortune Magazine described Ruth as one of the “sharpest minds” of the decade and selected her work as one of “25 ideas to shape the 2020s.”The Sunday Times described Ruth as a “whip-sharp British Bill Bryson.”
Ruth is a regular contributor to radio and podcasts. She is also a regular speaker and has given talks at Google (part of the Authors at Google series) TEDx, Somerset House in London and UC Berkeley as well as several other venues.
Before becoming a full time writer, Ruth was a producer and director at the BBC in London making documentaries and current affairs shows for BBC television. She lives in California with her husband and three young sons.If you would like to request Ruth to speak at your event, to your book group or anywhere else, or for interview requests, please fill out the contact form on the website.
Follow us on Facebook @lifesdirtylittlesecretspodcast and on Instagram @lifesdirtylittlesecrets
Reach out and let us know you are listening and what you would like to hear on the show - email:lifesdirtylittlesecretspodcast@gmail.com
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Secret #45: ADHD in Women with Michaela Thomas
[00:00:00]
Introduction and Guest Introduction
Emma Waddington Video: Welcome
Emma Waddington: to Life's Dirty Little Secrets. I'm Emma Waddington
Chris McCurry: And I'm Chris McCurry, and today our guest is Michaela Thomas.
We're delighted to have
her.
She's a senior clinical psychologist, coach, speaker, and founder
of the psychology [00:01:00] practice, The Thomas
Connection.
She's also the author of The Lasting Connection, Developing Love and Compassion for Yourself and Your Partner. She has
an award winning podcast, Pause Purpose Play,
and Michaela specializes
in the intersection between perfectionism and ADHD
with ties to stress,
anxiety, depression,
procrastination,
burnout, productivity, and overall well being.
We will have information about her and all the wonderful things that she's doing in our show notes for this episode. So, welcome, Michaela. Thank you so much for being here.
Michaela Thomas: Well, thank you so
much for having
me. I just already feel
that this is going to be a very authentic
slash chaotic conversation.
Chris McCurry: Authentic, because I
think we, we all have a bit of what we're going to be talking about today.
Chris McCurry: ADHD
specifically as it relates to women and I'm guessing professional women.
So, start us off with just [00:02:00] kind of, a bit of a broader
higher
level view of this whole issue of ADHD.
I know working with kids for all these years, I've seen a lot of
what people call ADHD
and it always mystifies me how different it can present in different people and
and
some of the misconceptions about it. So what are your thoughts on that?
Michaela Thomas: Well, I think it's really nice to remind yourself of the phrase of once you've met one ADHD er, you've met one ADHD er, or you can replace
that with one neurodivergent
person because
The
presentations are so wildly different.
And that is
something that
can stop people self identifying
or recognizing the traits themselves because they might see ADHD
as being synonymous with this, you know, little boy with
ants in his pants.
Who,
absolutely there can be
a presentation that looks like that, the hyperactive little boy who can't sit still,
But it's not always like that. And something that we've seen a lot through now being, you know, able to [00:03:00] fund more research around ADHD in women
specifically, because most of the previous
research was
done
on
Hormonal Impacts on ADHD
Michaela Thomas: boys and men, we can see that the different hormonal impacts also means that ADHD presents it differently across the lifespan of a woman as well, with particular challenges around, say, adolescence pregnancy, postpartum, and also by current stage perimenopause, where everything just goes to shit.
So. That's something I think is really fascinating of understanding why so many women are late diagnosed, partly because we then been operating for the last three, four decades on the decades on this notion that ADHD means hyperactivity, you can't sit still. And if you can sit still, you cannot be ADHD.
That's
just simply not true.
Secondly, is that those women who've grown up with that notion that ADHD is just hyperactivity. They have not necessarily struggled as much as they currently do because their challenges
[00:04:00] in life have been increasing
Incrementally,
exponentially.
So just from my personal experience,
but
for definitely
the women I meet in my clinic,
when they get pregnant, if they become mothers, that's where it gets even more challenges.
This is the hormonal aspects that women uniquely have, where we're looking at estrogen and progesterone and
how that fluctuates across the
lifespan. Then you look at say, when they come into perimenopause where
estrogen is fluctuating even more,
And they then have maybe a couple or even like three kids in your case, Emma.
That
adds to the chaos, right? And maybe some of those children are neurodivergent. So that adds further to the load on their capacities, their executive functioning, their ability to do things like
planning,
and so on. structuring their day, remembering things, all the admin that having kids involves, that's really difficult, really taxing.
So if you look at the average age of diagnosis for women today with ADHD it's [00:05:00] about 36, 37 in the UK. That kind of makes sense for where a woman is when she's 36, 37 in mid, like coming into midlife, maybe
in the most senior role she'd been in ever at work with more senior responsibility, having children, having fluctuating hormones and wham, you suddenly
can't cope anymore.
Emma Waddington: because up until then, how were women
coping? If we're thinking specifically about women who do
have ADHD, why is it that it's almost like the perfect storm.
Everything comes together. The hormonal influence on our cognitive functioning, the sort of increasing demands.
is it that we just get to a point
where no longer
have
the ability to cope
with the load.
Emma Waddington Video: Is it quite
Emma Waddington: literally
a load on our cognitive ability. Is that
what it is? Or is there
Michaela Thomas: Partly. Yeah. Partly that. And partly I guess it's that some of the ways that
we traditionally
[00:06:00] try
to cope with this, for instance, masking, which means that we suppress our need to move or suppress our urge
to speak or suppress any impulses
we might have.
and trying
to fit in,
trying to be.
like those other people, trying to be normative, trying to be typical.
So masking is a term that has been around for a little while, but it might not be very well known. And that can help women who often have been socialized differently from an earlier age doing more role playing to socialize, They may be learning a little bit more of the
rules of the game, so they can try to fit in.
But that's hugely taxing. It's very exhausting to try to constantly mask and say the thing that you think is
expected of you, rather than
saying the thing that you actually want to say.
So masking is one thing, kind of almost seeing it as camouflaging yourself
to fit in.
That's very difficult. But another thing that I specialized in
for
15 years before I realized
Perfectionism and ADHD
Michaela Thomas: that half my caseload were [00:07:00] also meeting criteria for ADHD is perfectionism.
So perfectionism, people pleasing, overworking, repeated burnout cycles. All of those things
were the things, were my bread and butter in my clinic, the things I was seeing.
And when I
then got my own ADHD diagnosis, it sort of clicked that, ah, okay, these are the things we do to cope. These are the things we do
to try to suppress
the
urges,
try to fit in, and try to do things to hide the chaos we have underneath.
Emma Waddington: no. That's quite incredible.
I think you came
to that conclusion because I see in a lot of women with
perfectionism,
more than men,
We
see a lot more women who Are perfectionistic, have these kind of unrelenting standards across their lives as parents as working women, as everything really.
And and they also tend to be very self critical with that perfectionism and
until recently,
I'd never connected it to ADHD.
Emma Waddington Video: ADHD.
Emma Waddington: I [00:08:00] just thought
it was, you know, very
rigid beliefs about
themselves and how things should be done. I didn't think
it was compensating for a
difficulty, an underlying difficulty.
I, I think that has been really
that has shifted
my view of a lot of
the clients
that I work with, and even myself thinking about how
really perfectionism
is a compensation as opposed
to,
a way of coping, as opposed to
a series of
beliefs about how things should be done.
Michaela Thomas: Well,
it can be both.
obviously it's multi,
multi dimensional that, and I think you mentioned self criticism, and I want to just touch upon that as well, that
what we know from the research
around growing up with ADHD, and
especially if we don't know about it, and I'm sure Chris could weigh in
on that as well as a child psychologist, that
we get
told a lot of negative comments.
You're too late again, or don't be clumsy, you're lazy. All the things that are little remarks on the behavior and
the [00:09:00] conduct on children with ADHD gets internalized as self criticism over time. And there's some harrowing research that says that you've had 12, 000 negative comments by the age of 12 or something like that.
that
is
then becoming internalized as your own inner dialogue that oh, I'm just so lazy. Why can't I get myself started today? Why can't I remember this appointment or why did I forget to do this thing again? and then you lay on the shame and the self blame and the guilt and There we have kind of the recipe for coming into depressive cycles as well.
Chris McCurry: you can end up with, you know, the, and again, this may fall under gender lines. I don't have the research, but
You get a lot of boys. That hit uh, you know, in the States, it's called fourth grade. So, you know, 10, 11 years old,
and they
just give up academically because again, it's kind of like what you were describing before
Chris McCurry: the demands increase.
So the shift between third grade and fourth grade is huge in [00:10:00] terms of the type of material that kids have to learn. And you're.
Reading
to learn as opposed to learning to read and you have multiplication and division, which are very holistic as opposed to the linear stuff of adding and subtracting.
And
so if some boys, you know, they hit that and all of a sudden things are hard and they quit and then the girls again, you know, over generalization are going to work harder.
So,
you know,
there's coping
and then there's compensation, and then there's perfectionism. It's kind of on a continuum.
Chris McCurry Video: And
Chris McCurry: so perfectionism is when it gets toxic.
Michaela Thomas: Yeah, absolutely and we get praised for that. That's the thing about the narrative of being a good girl. You know, in the classroom, we know that girls get different attention to boys.
Uh, Even if
a teacher is trying to be as conscious as possible, there are, you know, gender norms and stereotypes about how a boy and a girl behaves, and boys can be excused more of that, maybe distracted or hyperactive behavior, and girls [00:11:00] can be told off for those
things. And so there's a lot of overcompensating
of that, of trying to be a good girl, do what's expected of you. And this is where I often see when women come into midlife. When they've come to the point where they realize, actually, I
don't want to
just do what's expected of me anymore. I want to live a life that I enjoy, that I feel is fulfilling, and that's where it can have real sort of midlife clarity and realize, I've been doing everything else for everyone else, including maybe being a carer, my whole life, and when is it my turn?
And that can be linked with sort of that sense of strong sense of empathy and compassion that a lot of ADHD women also
experience.
They can feel very deeply,
very intuitively for others. And that can mean that they're more prone to
vulnerable to burnout
because they overstretch themselves and over deliver for others and don't meet their own needs.
Emma Waddington Video: Yes.
Emma Waddington: That's
such an
important piece. So
the burnout piece is
is fascinating
for me because I hadn't realized to what degree
women
with [00:12:00] ADHD can burn out.
Burnout and Hyperfocus Cycles
Emma Waddington: I've had clients that will tell me that, you know, they work incredibly hard, perfectionistic, relentless,
and it's kind of that hyper focus and burnout, or hyper focus,
perfectionism and burnout seem to follow a sequence. maybe you
Michaela Thomas: Like a
roller coaster, if you
Emma Waddington: Yeah. Could you talk a bit about that? Because I find that fascinating because it kind of doesn't follow. Well, it is a burnout, but it feels almost more physical than the burnout perhaps from this sort of relentless amount of stress. Like some of the women that I work
with when they get their ADHD burnout, they are
out.
Michaela Thomas: yeah.
It's a very,
I mean, that's why chronic fatigue is over represented in ADHD women as well. And it's all linked. It's really all linked. Autoimmune disorders are over represented. Chronic pain,
migraines, a lot of the things they're just your body saying, you know, enough.
You've done
more than you can
cope with.
You've gone over your capacity. And that's [00:13:00] where I think
the patterns are so cyclical where they might then have a period of being a
bit procrastinated or
maybe struggling with their task initiation, you know,
getting going, then they
beat themselves
up a bit for that because everyone else is so motivated. Why can't I do my stuff?
They finally drop into hyper focus.
Okay. Okay.
I can get going now.
I'm going to do these things. Get interested in it. Usually
motivated by
a sense of urgency. Because the deadline is looming and usually because cortisol
has kicked in, the stress hormones
have kicked in, adrenaline, okay, I'm going go.
And
that's where they
do a, you know,
a 2 a. m. kind of late deadline,
staying up really late and working through all the cylinders, basically burning the candle at both ends. And then
after that,
eventually they crash because a hyper focus cannot last in, you know, in definite amounts of time. So I call that the hyper focus hangover.
Where you feel awful, right? So they go into the [00:14:00] procrastination coming into them and
thinking, okay, must do something now is lastminute. com need to get going, hyper focus, overwork, then often feel a bit
dissatisfied with what they've also put together because they started too late and didn't have the time to really give it the attention it needed.
That was seen in perfectionism as well.
And then beat
themselves up a little bit more for being in this pattern again, being in the crash where can they can literally be out for the count and needing to be signed off sick from work or just lie in bed can be very deep kind of completely depleting and then it starts over again because that crash has them fueled another episode of procrastination and slump so and round it goes
I think of it as the the meerkat and the sloth, right? This is actually came
from my own sister's account
of who I am for my ADHD assessment. And she said, Michaela has two modes, the meerkat
and the sloth. The meerkat is when I'm constantly like attentive and like looking around and, Oh,
what's going on?
What's going [00:15:00] on? I mean, you know, sidetracked by squirrels that's where you're really focused. And then suddenly you can't do that anymore. you run out of the meerkat steam and you become a sloth and
just very stationary and like, ugh, I can't be bothered.
So
that's why I think sort of using these sort of metaphors can help us understand that it's not your fault, but you do need to recognize which state you're currently in, how you got into that state, what's gonna help rather than be harmful for you
to come
out of that state, and how you can gently guide yourself through that.
oping Strategies and Self-Compassion
Emma Waddington: Yeah, that's that self compassion piece that you were talking about at the beginning because
clients
of mine when they get, you know, they're very hard on themselves because they procrastinate and they don't understand it doesn't make any sense. Why can't I just get going?
And
then they do exactly like you said, or they'll work really hard and do
tremendous amounts
of work,
neglect everything else.
And I think that's really
important to to [00:16:00] mention because.
Most people recognize this, you know, we all
procrastinate, we all leave things to last minute, and we all have a tendency
to sort of focus
on something if we're really
interested in it.
But I think the difference is that hyper
focus is to
the detriment of everything else, every other cue in our body, be it sleep or eat which is why it ends up in the burnout.
Like where in that book you said it's loss it's a really good metaphor. And getting out of that cycle is really difficult.
Do you have any
so the self compassion
piece is really important to recognize
that there is something
sort of, you know, cognitively, the way we approach things, the things that motivate us.
I, I, love one of the metaphors that they use in the neurodivergent woman podcast, where they talk
about ADHD being sort of, I'm going to butcher their version,
but there's like uh, we have
our our office, but our office
is very under resourced. And it only has two admin and [00:17:00] the admin have a dilemma.
They either attempt everything. Which means,
you know, nothing
gets done very well. And it's very chaotic and disorganized, or they only go for one thing,
but that means that everything else is neglected. And I think that's a very compassionate
realization. I
think a lot of people recognize that
Just simply true, that they can't do everything.
The same way they'd like to, and they have to make these choices and having that more compassionate lens
perhaps helps
them to, yeah, to hold it more lightly as we say in our
ACT
community although that we use,
Michaela Thomas: less arguing against yourself less fighting against the fact that this is likely to happen, that you are likely to have a slow start. I think of it similar to how I learned about managing my asthma when I was a child. I was told that it's really helpful for my lung capacity for me to be able to do exercise by doing a slightly longer warm up, right?
[00:18:00] We're not just going to go.
off
you go and run because then my, usually I would sort of make my lungs would feel a bit too challenged by that. So I think of it sometimes we just have a slightly longer warm up
before we can
train.
And then when we're off, we're pretty sprinty and to the point where sometimes you have to slow us down because otherwise we'll miss things along the way.
We'll make careless mistakes as the diagnostic term says, which I
think is horrible. Because
we'll miss things because we're so focused
on whatever we've got in front of us. So I think if it's been helpful of
reminding yourself of the four
different things that motivate the ADHD brain.
So the urgency
is something we've touched upon already.
So when we have a deadline do things, we procrastinate until the deadline. So the urgency that drives us into action.
but interest
is usually when we drop into a hyper focus. I'm interested in a topic, so then I want to read about it.
Challenge
when you can make
it playful and fun.
You know, challenge yourself to get this amount of work done in 10 minutes or wash up all your dishes in 17 minutes.
The last
one is [00:19:00] novelty, which is crucial to understanding why sometimes ADHDers get into trouble. The novelty isn't just about seeing the beauty in the world and, Enjoying traveling
to fantastic
scenery and taking away sort of the, don't know, just the life enjoyment, but it can also be the thing that gets us into deep trouble, like leaving relationships before we should quitting a job that we could have persisted at,
moving countries, or
just impulsively burning your business down because it didn't go so well one week.
Like that bit of craving things to be different is also something I see.
Caused a lot of problems
for the women I support because they don't stay consistently persisting with something. They kind of go,
Oh, that didn't go well next. And that wanting to
do the next thing, because that gives more novelty, that gives more stimulation.
That can also mean that you then crave that stimulation, that dopamine in unhealthy things like
overeating. We
know that ADHD is highly correlated
with binge eating disorder [00:20:00] and bulimia.
So overeating, because you feel then. a sense of stimulation, a sense of feeling alive gambling, addictions overall, you know, alcohol, drug abuse, sex.
So there can be, you know, as a couples therapist as well, there can be issues with wanting to have an extra marital affair. There are lots of things like that because there's just, there's no tolerance for boredom. We just crave stimulation and novelty.
So when you know those
things,
you can work with
yourself as the person you are, with
the tools
you've got,
rather than shaming yourself, you can then bring in healthy,
helpful novelty and stimulation,
so that you don't
go seeking dopamine in the unhealthy places.
Emma Waddington: I like that. Can you give some examples? Cause I think that's really helpful. For our listeners,
Michaela Thomas: so let's think
of a really concrete one. I'm sure
that anyone listening, and maybe yourselves included, would occasionally doom scroll. You scroll on your phone, don't really know where you've done, what you've been doing for the last half an hour, and suddenly time has just [00:21:00] passed. That's usually because our brain is craving some sort of stimulation and we can be too tired to initiate something else and then you come out of that you don't usually feel very good so
instead of doing
that so.
Working with yourself knowing what kind of things can lift your energy so it's managing your energy for me music works really well a
lot of my clients
have
particular playlists that I
go to for more dopamine. Even if you went on to spotify or apple podcast or anything.
Michaela Thomas Video: Apple music,
Michaela Thomas: there
will be things where you can search
for like ADHD, upbeat music,
et
cetera, certain types of rhythms and beats
that can be really stimulating
for our brains. Movement. Always go to movement. So even if
you're not hyperactive type of ADHD, you might have an internal restlessness instead that still you can't really think your way out. You need to
move your way out of that.
So when you're stuck in
analysis paralysis, looking at all the accounts on Instagram or the people doing better than you, you can't sit there and like question those thoughts.
[00:22:00] You just need to move to make the thoughts subside, if that makes sense.
Emma Waddington: That's so interesting Cause that's I
just want to touch on that internal agitation, right? So, so the difference with
women
not being sort of fidgety and ants
in our pants is that we might have a lot of catastrophizing. That's quite typical too, isn't it? There's this doom and gloom and worst case scenarios and our minds can go wild with stories and ideas.
And
so you would,
You think, you
would see it
in a similar way, is that we're looking for stimulation, that our mind is interesting, that's,
Michaela Thomas: And that for women kind of common telltale sign that comes along with that catastrophizing and over, like overthinking and being too stuck in your own mind. It's anxiety. So a physical manifestation of anxiety in your body perhaps, or even. Panic attacks or sleeping
problems or migraines, because your body is
saying just stop for a moment, but we [00:23:00] can't it's like the Ferrari metaphor
that you're, you know, your mind is racing really
fast or your body is
racing really fast or both.
So, again, very different presentations from person to person.
Emma Waddington: Yes, and that's where some of the self
criticism can just,
you know, take off as well, in that space. So it is really important to start to recognize those patterns and
I guess, so
when we think about ADHD, I mean, there's been
so much in
the social media and so many people sort of saying, oh, it's just a fad and everybody's getting diagnosed now and, I think
this idea that women have been incredibly good at masking
and that
I
think, but it is important to recognize that, you know, we all are quite critical. We all can be sort of catastrophizes.
Emma Waddington Video: catastrophizes.
Emma Waddington: We
all can feel hyper focused at times, but ADHD is
will
really impact our functioning.
Michaela Thomas: It will do, and I think one thing that's not very commonly talked about is rejection
sensitivity,
you know, [00:24:00] thinking about rejection, sensitivity, dysphoria or RSD.
Michaela Thomas Video: RSD,
Michaela Thomas: Which is
very universal. So
even though you might differ from your
Fellow ADHD
and how your brain is operating, a lot of us experience that, which means that we've taken it personally, when someone says something neutral, we will look for the negativity in it almost because we have a negativity bias in our mind, almost like the glass is kind of half empty and it's not your fault that your brain is wired that way.
So it's a bit more
of an uphill struggle to come out of a meeting in a positive way.
So
that classic thing of you send your friend a message on WhatsApp or something, and you can see that they've read it. So you see the blue ticks, but there's no reply. They must hate me, right?
It's I think it's one of those things that's really hard to be ignored for us though. So even if it's benign, like even if you be
like, Ah, everyone does that these days, nobody replies to text messages. The ADHD mind would be like, But if they loved me or if they liked me, they would, so we would find a reason to [00:25:00] go,
Oh, but that's
because they don't like me
because we have,
I mean, I mean, this is general terms, but overall.
People have so many experiences of being rejected of being teased or bullied or seen as an outsider so that we have,
you
know, a super scanner that looks for that in a very hyper vigilant way. We're going to be on the lookout for anyone saying something negative because we've heard it all before.
And
even if we haven't heard it all before, we say it to ourselves constantly.
The Impact of ADHD on Relationships
Michaela Thomas: So even in, you know, in relationships where an ADHD ear is with a partner, they would often be
reading their body language, their facial
expressions, their tone of voice. Very consciously to be aware of any slight or any perceived kind of rejection, they will be on the lookout for it. So that's why
women
with ADHD can also be really good at reading facial expressions.
Now it gets more complicated if you also have an autistic profile, which we know there's a huge overlap between the two. So,
again,
there's that [00:26:00] misconception that neurodivergent people or neurodivergent women can't ever read a facial expression.
Sometimes they're very good at it because they've trained themselves their whole mind their whole lives to pick up
any signs
of threat
or rejection in the mannerisms of another person.
But they don't always get it right. They might jump to conclusion, catastrophize, like you said. Oh, that must mean that I'm
horrible.
So it's not a nice place to be.
If you get stuck in those thoughts, you can kind of make sense
why depression and anxiety is more likely in neurodivergent people.
Chris McCurry: it seems like a lot of. A lot of what we've been talking about is sort of a very binary black and white kind of approach to the world.
You know, you're either working like a demon or, you know, you're slothing, you know, as a way of even self care at that point.
But,
you know, I'm either completely loved or I'm completely rejected and people who are [00:27:00] stressed out tend to think in very black and white binary terms as we all can under the right circumstances.
And you were describing earlier the
37
year old woman who is like trying to juggle all these things, all these spinning plates so just trying to distress a little bit could probably help open things up to see the possibilities somewhere in between. This is really great, and this is really awful.
Michaela Thomas: Really difficult with those nuances though, because all or nothing thinking is very common in perfectionism and also in ADHD, that kind of polarized thinking. And that can be very difficult to say, maybe I need to de stress a bit, because the prospect of slowing down, the prospect of taking a break, might mean
that I won't get started again.
So not wanting to take a break from overworking isn't just
about, well, I'm now being productive finally, it's also the fear that
if I stop I won't get going
again,
and then I'll have to start all over again
with
that long warm [00:28:00] up, like I said. So if you are someone who can just stop and start and get going and don't get
sidetracked or
distracted then you wouldn't
mind having a five minute break to just stretch your legs or
your colleague asking you a question whilst
you're in the middle of something.
But when you're, When
ADHD and Workplace Challenges
Michaela Thomas: you have ADHD, having that kind of interruption to your focus can be, it can sidetrack
you for
the rest of the day. If you are not able to kind of find tools to come back into it
again, because
you might've worked so hard to even get you into the place of focus that you can very easily come out of it again.
And then the self criticism cycle starts again. So
all of these
things give massive implications for how people are treated in the workplace, sitting in
open plan offices or being a
senior. Senior
professional in a corporate workplace
where you have 40 people constantly coming to knock on your door to interrupt you, you will never be productive.
So understanding
that of how our productivity differs from neurodivergent to neurotypical people
is crucial for
having a workplace where. We don't have people serially [00:29:00] going into burnout because then they take the work home with them. I didn't finish the stuff I was going to do today. So now I'm going to stay up till 2am, get it all done, then have a sleep deficit.
And we know that sleep deprivation makes ADHD
symptoms way worse, and then
the next day they start and being even less able to focus and concentrate because executive functioning is impacted
really negatively
when you don't sleep.
Emma Waddington: And
I guess
Rebranding ADHD: Attention Allocation Deficit
Emma Waddington: as I'm listening to you, I'm thinking about, you know, the idea that ADHD, you know, that kind of how we need to rebrand ADHD, that it really isn't an attention deficit, but you know, in your contemplation
Chris McCurry: attention allocation deficit,
Emma Waddington: yeah, it's,
Michaela Thomas: regulation
problem
is It's a lovely one that I like.
Chris McCurry: or sometimes I tell parents it's an intention deficit disorder. Your child is not intending to do his homework.
Yeah
he's not motivated. It's not interesting. It's not, you know, he's not going to get any satisfaction out of this
Michaela Thomas: No. And it's really sad because that means we [00:30:00] have so many children
growing up.
Harnessing Potential in ADHD Children
Michaela Thomas: Like you mentioned those coming to 10, 11 or et cetera,
who
cannot utilize their potential,
You know, very bright minds growing up who could solve the energy crisis for us, who are just not able to do that
because they're not harnessing that energy, harnessing that potential.
My son being a great example of that. He is incredibly bright and he hates school because
it's too boring. It's too slow. I have to sit all day long and I'm not
motivated and I don't get to do all the extra work I want to do. I don't get to move into more advanced things. I have to do the basics. So he's not motivated
And that's, that. I see that so much.
Chris McCurry Video: challenges
Chris McCurry: are threats.
Because they're going to expose me as really not that smart that everybody's been telling me I am. But if it's difficult, it must mean I'm not smart.
This is Carol Dweck. Research into self stories. Yeah.
Michaela Thomas: Yeah, I find that really fascinating when we think about ADHD as well, that[00:31:00]
how
you think of your own identity, what you've been told,
And I
work with a exceptionally bright people as well, who've often hinged sort of their identity on being smart, because that's the only thing they can kind of ride on to get
through school.
So they
might have been,
you know, achieving academically,
but at
a cost
of their own energy or not seeing friends as much because they were focusing on constantly studying.
So,
we know
that's also a compensatory strategy. High
levels of intelligence
can also mask and hide the ADHD symptoms because you
find out different ways to try to ease it
for yourself. My son has
figured out that if he goes
up to ask
to have uh, you know, a drink of water far more often than he actually needs, he gets to move. He's given himself jobs in the classroom They give him the most movement in
the day,
like handing out all the books to everyone. So,
and that we used to in that before
anyone even noticed that we were doing this.
So,
smart
children and then smart adults can go [00:32:00] undetected because they find all the compensatory strategies to still try to mask and fit in and hide the fact that they struggle so much underneath.
Emma Waddington: And then, but then the risk of that is that you have this, you develop this very critical narrative. If you go undiagnosed and you build a story about yourself that is, you know, makes everything worse and I guess for me, in my mind, what's been really helpful in this conversation is starting to sort of disentangle anxiety from ADHD because there's so much about ADHD that
looks like anxiety.
And the anxiety can kind of mask the ADHD
in a way. And it's, I think it's important to be able to disentangle the two pieces that anxiety is inevitable if you have ADHD.
Michaela Thomas Video: Yeah,
Chris McCurry: Well, they're both about
attention, you know, they're both about attention allocation. If I'm anxious about, you know, if I'm a child and I'm
sitting
in the classroom worried about whether or not somebody is going to play with me at [00:33:00] recess, I'm not allocating my attention toward the teacher.
So,
you know, they both come from the same parts
of the brain.
Michaela Thomas: absolutely. And allocating our attention to past failures or past mistakes or times when someone did have a go at us for something that's.
that,
you know, not being in the present moment is going to have a huge impact on that, because you're thinking about all the past failures, you're worrying about failing again in the future, and,
That
piece of
research saying that we're, you know, only
In the present
moment, what, 47 percent of the time, or whatever it is, that Harvard University study,
Chris McCurry: I'm sorry,
Can you say that again? Yeah.
I
was not in the present moment.
Michaela Thomas: were you distracted, kidding. Yeah.
Just kidding.
Yeah, I mean, it's 50 50, if you would have heard me right.
Chris McCurry: Exactly.
Michaela Thomas: so, I wonder how high that would be for ADHD though,
Like, is it 47 percent of the time, or is it
80 percent of the time that you're not in the present moment, because you're somewhere else entirely?
It's interesting. It's
fascinating with our attention and it's [00:34:00] not, like I said, it's not a deficit because we also know from the research around ADHD as being in, say, in the emergency services that we're really good at handling crisis and emergency in the moment.
So when it matters again, urgency, interest, challenge, novelty, new things happen, the
Lateral problem solving and thinking that ADHD is going to have
can bring huge asset. To emergencies where everyone else is run running the other way. The A
DHD is running towards it because
they can think of it. It's almost like, I think of that as we can handle
the complexity
but we can't handle the simplicity.
Dunno what
to, you know, make sure I booked a dentist appointment for my son or et cetera. But I can write a whole book about couples relationships.
Emma Waddington: That is fascinating, isn't it? It's so true. I mean, from conversations I've had with clients is that, and that until you start to think about ADHD, it makes no sense in your head. Why [00:35:00] is it that, you know, in a crisis during sort of COVID, for example they, there was lots of things that you know, individuals with ADHD could get done and work with an
intense force,
But then could organize the childcare or the children's party, unless it was going to be the best party in the world with every single sort of entertainer, you know, confetti, whatever it was, then they could get it going. But if it's just your average party, then I just, I can't find myself. And yet I can do all these other incredible things.
It doesn't make a lot of sense. It doesn't follow that
anxious. you know, if it was just
the fear of what others are going to think about me, then I get more motivated. That's always the dilemma. procrastination, like I, should be motivated because
I'm going
to get into trouble if I don't get this job done. And that's why you can differentiate it from anxiety because there isn't that, there is, of course, a fear, but the fear isn't motivating them to move until the end.
Michaela Thomas: it can be [00:36:00] even more paralyzing, and this is what I mean about sort of using things that do help you. Raise your energy. Again, if you've been in stationary sat at the computer and then your mind is going, I can't focus. Then you always have to move. It's just, you cannot sit there for another hour and think that your focus is going to come.
It won't.
So it's, yeah, the
answer is always
movement to pretty much any affliction. And that's, I've noticed a difference for myself personally, how much better I feel on the days when I've exercised, I do sort of heavy weight lifting, not like.
you know, bodybuilding,
but as in a lift, lift
weights in exercise, do cardio.
I do yoga because that's yoga is easier for way
into meditation for me because there's still body movement. I can sort of be in a flow with it, but I'm still moving.
And it's finding. Like finding peace with that and making peace with what works for you,
rather
than thinking I should
sit down and do.
Ten minute seated
meditation every day because that's supposed to be good for me. [00:37:00] There are many ways into mindfulness meditation that still works for the more hyperactive, restless mind that doesn't have to be you sitting there with eyes closed for ten minutes. I personally love it that too, but then I often have to layer it up with another, like, almost like another layer of stimulation, like listening to Thank you.
A soundscape, or having some things like
a scent around me. Like
having a few things that makes my mind go, Ooh, this is really exciting. Like a weighted blanket can feel sensory nice and anchoring me in the present moment.
So there's lots of things
we can do that just, it doesn't have to look exactly the same as what everyone else does, but you can still practice things like meditation and mindfulness.
Emma Waddington: Yes. Can I
backtrack I was thinking about this emotional overwhelm. That individuals who present with ADHD can
get really upset,
really angry and
really overwhelmed. You know, obviously that rejection sensitivity is
a part
of it. So it
can be around people, but it can be around things [00:38:00] not going the right
way.
But it will be this very, you know, like a tsunami of emotion that they can't stop.
Michaela Thomas: it can be very raw and especially for
children who have more immature frontal lobes as well, they're still growing and developing, so they won't have the same stop pattern anyway. But the emotional regulation part of ADHD is, it's a funny one because it's been, you in the diagnostic criteria than taken out of the diagnostic criteria.
And now people are lobbying for that needing definitely to be a crucial part
of
understanding ADHD. So if you are someone who is a big feeler or you're highly sensitive or
You just feel like you have your heart on your sleeve that is quite common and not ever again, we've said sort of the presentations vary so much, but some children are very explosive.
I think Ross Green's work around the highly explosive child
kind of signals that I'm one of them.
I'm sort of the, my, my emotional range is
Like Ariana [00:39:00] Grande's vocal range.
It's, it's a lot of everything. I can hit the highest and the lowest. And some people are a bit more steady in the middle.
And I have to think that. As much as I find it hard with the emotional lows or the frustration tolerance, not being what it could be. It also means I hit the emotional
highs,
like the joy we can
feel that
the fact that I literally and metaphorically can skip when
I'm happy about something.
And my
husband, who is a little bit more steady, he wouldn't.
Skip. So I feel like I, you get the one with the other,
unfortunately,
you get the peaks with the troughs. So knowing that about yourself, it doesn't mean you're better or worse. There are plenty of fantastic singers out there who have a limited vocal range and you still enjoy their music. So it's just self awareness, understanding that I'm likely to
be emotional
here, So I give
myself
little permission pieces
around that. So
if something happens, I know I'm going to
react strongly, you know, if something [00:40:00] triggers my RSD or, If I get an email from someone that is ever slightly rude or critical,
which doesn't happen a lot, thankfully, but if I face a troll on, the internet, these
things happen when you're slightly public profile, if that happens, I just step away because I know it will bring big feelings.
And then 12 hours, 24 hours later, the big feelings will have subsided and I can come to clarity about what I want
to do.
So the wisdom comes after that. So
I love
the wise mind from DBT, dialectical behavior therapy, where you have an overlap of your sense and your sensibility
your
kind of, your logical side, as well as your emotional side.
They can meet in the middle. And that can be hard for ADHDers if we don't first regulate our emotions and allow them to be there first. So, yeah, I'll hit some high notes and then I'll move on, basically.
Emma Waddington Video: that's wonderful. And I guess when you were saying about, you know, that
Emma Waddington: rejection sensitivity
being so,
Emma Waddington Video: [00:41:00] strong,
Emma Waddington: then that one has to be sort of.
really sensitive to that that, you know, if you are going to be working in environments that are social
you know, if you are going to be connecting and having a busy social life, or you want to have
Great friendships, and that is, you know, a vulnerability that you have to just be pointful of and treat yourself very kindly and know what's happening.
I think awareness. Is so powerful. If like Dan Siegel says, you know, name it to tame it, give it a name. And even that rejection sensitivity, I hadn't thought of it before like that. It's really useful to know that's what's happening. I'm particularly sensitive to the possibility of rejection. And so I'll look for it and I'll find it.
Chris McCurry: And in acceptance and commitment therapy, we would talk about how, you know, these things are directly linked to our values. I mean, I'm sensitive to rejection because I [00:42:00] value connection.
You know,
Michaela Thomas: where we care and we care where we hurt
Chris McCurry: Right. Exactly.
Chris McCurry Video: Silence.
Michaela Thomas: I'm having some RSD triggered by this text and I can start a conversation with my husband then.
If so, what's up? Oh, actually I think it's just a bit of RSD being triggered and I can notice that. That's very different to, or you wouldn't believe what this person said in this text message. I'm already having a bit of distance between me and the thoughts and the feelings by noticing them and saying, this is what I think is happening.
It's not my fault. I'm not going to shame myself for it. I'm just going to give myself a bit of space then.
Chris McCurry: Yeah.
Michaela Thomas: then knowing that you need to go easy
on yourself.
Chris McCurry: it becomes one of those. Oh yeah. One of those. And even just abbreviating to RSD is a way of kind of getting a little distance from that a little decentering.
Michaela Thomas: Yeah,
it's just one of [00:43:00] those things that,
or one of those days
that we can often see in, And women who have more or less ADHD symptoms depending on where they are in their cycle.
So
in the monthly cycle. So knowing that as well, oh, it's the PMT week. That's where more demons come in.
Emma Waddington: Yes, because one of the questions that people have asked me is around perimenopause and menopause and how that also makes some of the ADHD symptoms worse. And to be aware of that, I guess, is that hormonal influence on our cognitive functioning and our emotional regulation as a result.
Chris McCurry: Could it not?
Emma Waddington: How could It It makes sense. How could it not? It's and I think that's sort of ending our chat with a lovely sort of compassionate thing of how can I be helpful rather than harmful to myself if I am. A perimenopausal woman with a senior role, a couple of kids, and they're driving me up the wall. How can I be helpful rather than harmful to myself?
Michaela Thomas: And
Self-Compassion and ADHD
Michaela Thomas: that's, might give you some ideas of setting up some better systems, asking for some more support [00:44:00] and developing some self compassion for yourself.
Emma Waddington: Absolutely. You don't have to be everything for everybody, which is what we've often had to be as women.
Michaela Thomas Video: Yeah,
Michaela Thomas: It's a nice way to get the patriarchy in there again.
Chris McCurry: And let me just
on behalf
of the patriarchy, let me offer my sincere apologies.
Michaela Thomas: Accepted.
It's okay, we need
male allies. So we need men to enter the conversations with us and, Help us understand the the lack of equity and then we
can continue to work towards equity.
Emma Waddington: That's
right. Yes. This has been wonderful. My goodness. I must admit, I have got more questions, but I'm going to hold them.
I'm going to restrain
myself.
Michaela Thomas: always come over to my website and have a chat with me. And this is what I talk about on my own podcast constantly.
So I would love to have a conversation with the other side of having you two over in my podcast one day. So
Emma Waddington: Yes.
Chris McCurry: We'd love to join you there. We'd be honored.
Emma Waddington Video: Absolutely.
Emma Waddington: It's [00:45:00] just so important and I think it's so empowering. I'm so excited. When I was so excited when I heard and I think of that description of yours, happiness with a skip, I totally know what that means. I get very excited about
that. And
when I when I, little bit,
Michaela Thomas: a little bit extra.
Emma Waddington: you're absolutely
right. A little bit
Plus
as they would say
here.
Um, And this. This ADHD with perfectionism is just, it's such a powerful insight
for me. And it's helped. Me support my clients much better and really give them a that compassionate lens that they really needed to hear and
it's
like magic. It really is. So I,
we haven't touched on, you know, diagnosing, et cetera.
but I
think, Reading
about ADHD,
seeing if you recognize some of these symptoms can be incredibly empowering.
Michaela Thomas: It
can be. And self identification is also really valid. Sometimes people choose to come into my world and work with me [00:46:00] therapeutically or join my group coaching program
and then further down the line go through
the formal diagnosis. Some
people choose to
do the diagnosis first, because the way I do the assessment is therapeutic in itself as well.
It's not
just here's
an hour where you tick through a few questions and tick boxes. It's in itself an exploratory journey where you come to terms with yourself and make space for that grief and relief that comes post diagnosis. Oh, it's not my fault and oh my goodness, what could life have been like had I known about this 40 years ago?
So it's a lot. It cracks your world wide open. It's
Michaela Thomas Video: But
Michaela Thomas: this
is why I've, you know, just thought about it when you said it, Emma, the combination between ADHD the the happiness with a skip,
that perfectionism can really rob
you from the joy that you could hit
more with your ADHD,
that some of the extras that you don't allow yourself because that's a bit weird or that you don't fit in and people, what are people going to think?
So,
the self
regulatory aspects
of perfectionism can really
poo on your pee on
your parade, if you may.[00:47:00]
Emma Waddington: Yeah,
it's a very good point. Actually. I haven't thought about it either. And you're absolutely right. Thanks. Like it just constrains you. And I know Jennifer Kemp, who's on our podcast,
talked about, how liberated she felt when, you know, the more and more authentic she's been able to become. The less masculine.
Michaela Thomas: Love
her and I love her work and I saw her at a conference recently.
she's, like the Australian Michaela. She does what
she does
on the other side of the world and occasionally we meet up. So she's lovely.
for anyone who wants to do more work around this, I haven't
yet written a book on ADHD, encourage anyone to go and check out Jennifer's, because it's great.
Emma Waddington: Her work, her workbook. It's really
Michaela Thomas: The Neurodivergence Workbook for developing self compassion. So it's a great resource, but if you want to just listen more, not everyone can pick up a book, then come along to the Pause Purpose Play podcast.
Michaela Thomas Video: podcast
Conclusion and Final Thoughts
Michaela Thomas: And hopefully Emma and Chris will join me in the future.
Emma Waddington Video: Hey, how
Emma Waddington: how exciting. Well, that's
given
me a little
skip
internally.
Emma Waddington Video: Wonderful.
[00:48:00] Well,
Chris McCurry: This has been wonderful. And I know listeners are going to be fine. We'll find it very helpful and informative. And
Emma Waddington: And validating.
Very. thank you. That's the whole point. This is why I do these things is just to get more people to realize it's not your fault. You're doing the best you can with what you've got and there are also things you can shape and mold and improve.
Michaela Thomas: It's not
the end of your life if you get a diagnosis, it's just the beginning of it.
That's when you can
really
start to live life a little bit more extra. So thank you so much for inviting me.
Emma Waddington Video: Thank you.
[00:49:00]
