ADHD and Chronic Illness

Good morning, everyone. This is Danielle with NDLAD, and I have Coach Britt here, your ADHD fairy god mentor. And today we're talking about ADHD and chronic illness. But I'm going to actually take a step further back and call it neurodivergence and chronic illness. And in preparation for today, I went looking for stats on this. 60% of adults in the United States have a chronic— a minimum one chronic illness. 40% of that 60% have 2 chronic illnesses, and 76% of those of us that are neurodivergent have a minimum of one chronic illness. So here's a question for you, Brit. How many chronic illnesses do you have, like diagnoses for autoimmune disorders and all of those things?

Shockingly, I only have 2. So I have a diagnosis for hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, um, which for people who don't know anything about that is a connective Essentially, it means the connective tissue in my body does not function as it should. It's too loose, and that causes problems in all my systems. The only other diagnoses I have is psoriasis, and I am very, very lucky. I have an incredibly mild, easy time with my psoriasis. Thank goodness.

So I have— okay, so on paper right now, well, they are currently going through my— all of my diagnoses and now throwing things out. Uh, I currently have 14 on paper, which is absolutely ridiculous. We believe we're gonna nail— roll it down into 3.

Oh gosh, I'm so excited for you.

Oh yeah, I'm extremely excited, and most people are kind of sarcastic.

That was like very— no, no, that—

I mean, to me, that's a— knowing these things is so much better because they keep just adding things. Because one thing, the, the— this batch of things didn't really explain the whole entire thing, and this didn't explain the whole entire thing, so they just kept adding them for years. Uh, right now we believe we're narrowing it down to Mast cell activation syndrome, which is very common among neurodivergents, and MTHFR, also extremely common, uh, around among all of us. And I have MS. We believe— I mean, we know I have MS now, but now we're starting to remove all kinds of other things that they've tried to explain that never actually worked.

Mm-hmm.

For the last 25 years, they've been trying to figure it out. Um, but And this is common. You want to know how many of my clients I talk to who have these? I mean, this, this is a super common thing for us is living with ADHD and chronic illness, and that just adds a whole new spice to our life.

It does. Um, just to scratch my itchy interested brain, so I, I'm familiar with what MS is, I'm familiar with what MCAS is, um, For those of us who are not familiar with MTHFR, I know it has to do with, you know, it's—

Yeah, it is methylation of vitamins, specifically folate. So we should never have anything that's fortified with folic acid. You want to know how much of our food in our food supply in the US is fortified with folic acid? That means no cereal, no, most all bread, Um, no rice. A lot of rices, and especially rice mixes and pasta and all of those things, if it has wheat in it, um, or oats or corn in it, it probably has folate in it. So that's something— orange juice that's been fortified with all of these things, you can't have it. Um, so you have— If you were to ingest something like that, um, it can cause damage over a long period of time because your body stores it because it doesn't know what to do with it. And that becomes toxic to your body.

Okay, so your body can't get rid of it in the same way that someone who doesn't have it can.

Yeah, so I take methylated B complex vitamins and it solves all of that problem.

Yay!

But I mean, and that's one of those ones, it's not a big deal, but it is if you don't know, and it can cause all sorts of system issues and all of that. And I've had EDS, Ehlers-Danlos as part of my diagnosis, and now they're questioning that one with the MS and all that good stuff.

But you share so many symptoms, I'm not surprised.

Oh yeah, well, and they looked at Parkinson's first for me and MS, and we like all of these things.

And they're—

the problem is that there's no one test for all of this stuff either.

Yeah, not yet.

Of course not, not yet.

Hopefully one day.

Hopefully.

I have a sneaking It's because women are more likely to have, uh, all of the conditions listed above. Well, I mean MS, hEDS, and autoimmune. I can't speak for anything else.

Yeah. Well, and, and all of them are very hormonal-based and have hormonal issues that go with them. And all of the— Ehlers-Danlos does, and MS definitely does. Let me tell you, that's part of why I know it's MS now is because I hit menopause. So, you know, that's fun. Of course that's fun. Um, but all of these things, and, and, and I'm ADHD on top of it. So how do, how do you deal with bad pain days? Because our pain, we have pain days that keep us in bed. We have pain days that are, well, and they cause so much brain fog sometimes and stuff, which The brain fog annoys me. It's so frustrating. It's so frustrating.

How do you deal with bad pain days? Um, so with EDS, um, standard like anti-inflammatories don't work really well because the problem is not that I'm inflamed. Right. Unless I were to like sprain something, dislocate, sublux, and then cause that inflammation. I'm not inflamed.

Mm-hmm.

So I don't take a lot of traditional over-the-counter anything. For me, heat, lots of heat, whether that be getting in the shower, getting in the tub, using a heating pad, wrapping myself in blankets. I wear comfy clothes so that I don't restrict my movement any more than it may be, and I don't upset my ADHD sensory brain. What else do I do on high pain days? On high pain days where I'm still functional, and that took a long time to figure out, like, what is pain that needs to keep me in bed and what is pain that I can work through and will be okay. On high functional pain days, I keep myself busy because otherwise I'll just think about how much pain I'm in and it's boring and tiresome. And I focus on—

It's exhausting.

Yeah, it's like it's all you can think about, so I might as well do something else. Yeah, so that my brain can focus on something else. That is the one good thing Maybe there's a few. That is one of the good things about my ADHD brain is that my interoception is not so great. So if I am getting a lot of input stimulation-wise, I'm not able to hear the pain signals from my body as strongly. I'm not able to pick up on them as much, which is a double-edged sword, but You know, learning to navigate that and when, when to use that to my advantage. Uh, what else do I do on high pain days? I avoid like huge physical tasks. Just nope, not gonna happen. Um, and this is not medical advice, but when I'm feeling really, really, really terrible, I will use THC. I don't smoke it, but I have gummies. Um, for me, that's really useful because a lot of— most of my pain comes from— um, so with EDS, because our connective tissue is loose, our brain senses that our joints and ligaments aren't holding us together, quote unquote, the way they should be. So our brain sends signals to our muscles To take on that extra work of holding our body together, so we're very tense people. So a lot of our pain comes from that tension of our muscles just always, always, always being on. So I find that THC is something as opposed to like a muscle relaxer, which is not something I want to get in the habit of taking all the time. That just helps my muscles kind of like relax. A little bit so that I'm not so in a ball. That's what I do on high pain days. What do you do on high pain days?

So I have, and we've talked about this before, I think even the last time we talked, good, better, I have my good, better, best checklist of what, what are my minimums for the day? What are, what can I, where am I going to function? I do an internal evaluation on myself every morning. Where am I going to function? Is it a good day, a better day, or a best day? Right now, I will be very honest, I haven't had a best day in months, which is frustrating to me because I'm a high-achieving person, but my body is telling me, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, stay, don't, don't do anything. Um, so my, my things are Epsom salts baths are like my favorite thing ever. And they are— they help a lot with the muscles. They help a lot with the cold. I'm always very, very cold and in pain, unlike most people with MS. I am not super sensitive to heat. I am always, always, always cold. And—

We have that in common.

So I'm always doing things to make sure I'm warm and getting that penetrating into my muscles. I take really high doses of magnesium and I take 4 different kinds of magnesium.

Wow.

And I have found that that is way better than pretty much any medication on the market for For me, this has taken me years of figuring out, and I also resort to the gummies, and that's what will help me sleep if I'm having a really high pain muscle day or nerve day because I have a lot of nerve pain. And that's— but I cannot take it if I need to function because I am one of those little people that can take a quarter of a gummy and it will knock me out. But I also take an infant dose of Benadryl if I have to take Benadryls. So, and I am not a tiny woman. I mean, I'm, I'm short, but I'm not— I'm, I'm pretty large, and I still take an infant dose of Benadryl. So all of these things, which is why I can't take a lot of the medications that exist, because they just— they're too much. Um, all of those things. Way too much. And they turn my ADHD into a frenzy. Almost all of them, like a muscle relaxant that's supposed to like chill you out with ADHD. Oh no, no, it was, it was I think a 72-hour hyperfocus.

Wow.

So there's a lot of things that affect my ADHD to a point of that it's unmanageable. So I have to be really, really careful and, and really listen to myself because burnout will hit faster because my body is Dealing with the pain and all of that stuff. And, you know, you have to listen to yourself and recognize your patterns. I think that was one of the biggest things I had to learn is recognize my patterns.

Amen. Amen.

So what is— what's one of the biggest effects on ADHD other than the brain fog that we already talked about? But what does brain fog look like for you? Because I, I find it very interesting that it looks different for all of us.

Ah, okay. So brain fog for me, if we're not talking about like, if I'm a chronic illness brain fog versus ADHD brain fog.

Yes, they're not the same thing.

Chronic illness brain fog, it's like I have the same amount of noise in my brain. Um, so I'm, I'm a neurodivergent whose brain never shuts I've met the occasional neurodivergent who, like, their brain is pretty quiet, and I'm like, how? But that's neither here nor there. My brain is always noisy. There is always at least multiple trains of thought happening, images, pictures, sounds, colors, sound bites, song bites, whatever. The best way I can describe chronic illness brain fog is that all of that noise Gets distorted and slowed down. So you know how like when people are in a movie and they're about to pass out and like all the sound around them goes, you know?

Yep.

That's kind of what the inside of my brain feels like when I have chronic illness brain fog. It's, um, it's horrific on my short-term memory.

Oh my gosh.

My ADHD's already— but like, uh-uh, are you kidding? I have no idea what's happening.

So I have similar, except for I feel like I'm operating— you know how in movies you see everybody in the room is like moving at normal speed and that one person that's stuck that's moving in that slow motion? I feel like that's how I'm moving and thinking And operating, that everything else around me is at normal speed, and I can't process it because I am in slow motion. And I still have all of the noise at normal speed in my head. So I don't get the noise slowing down in my head. I still have normal speed noise, but my whole entire body feels—

The rest of you can't.

And it, it's horrible because my ADHD brain fog is more like there's too much noise in my head, and I, I just, I can't pick the one thing to Focus on here, here, here, here, here. Yeah, and my executive function just goes out the window when that happens, and my overwhelm goes through the roof, and my sensory overwhelm is really through the roof. And and that's ADHD brain fog for me. But when I'm in chronic illness brain fog, it's everybody else is operating at normal, and I'm trying to grasp on and take part and be part of life, and I can't because I I I'm reaching out ten minutes after it happened or five minutes after it happened.

Like it's. I noticed that when I have chronic illness brain fog, as opposed to ADHD brain fog, I get really irritable. And that's a good sign to me that I may need to check in with my body. Like, I was in the car with my mom. We were going to a Tom Jones concert the other night, and she said something like totally normal, and I snapped at her, and I was like, oh my God, I'm so sorry. Like, She's like, everything she was saying, my brain like could not pick it up and like hold it and process it. And then I was like, oh, I'm really sorry, like I'm in a lot of pain right now. Didn't mean to do that.

And yeah, I, I tend to not have that, but I think for me, I, I, I didn't realize this until I think the last few months, alexithymia is definitely something because I do have autism. As well as ADHD, and I think that affects me a bit more. So I tend to— the emotional connection things, I tend to not have that. However, if I'm in sensory overwhelm, I will snap at people just because you talked to me and your breath was too close and you just set me off. And it— and give me my personal space, that, that kind of thing will definitely set me off.

Yeah.

But the emotional overwhelm of not feeling well and all of that is— it's not a thing I connect to. And I, I do I teach people this all the time. I have a son with it who is very autistic, all of these things. But it never occurred to me because I was having discussions with a doctor and she's like, well, because of menopause, you're definitely going to be more irritable and all of that. And like, I don't get irritable near my period, or I'm not having that issue at all. And we— she started asking me a million questions. She's like, you sound like my daughter who's autistic, who doesn't connect with her emotions very well. I was like, Wait, I know this from a clinical standpoint. I know this and I could teach anybody.

Really?

That's a new one to me. And I just— it never occurred to me because I don't— when I get my period, I don't have that emotional— that every one of my clients does. I don't know why it's never occurred to me.

I'm so jealous because like I'm very much a PMSer.

But I, I will tell you that there are things in relationships that that definitely causes. Having that lack of emotional connection definitely has caused— and just so many puzzle pieces got put together for me, and I'm like, oh. But luckily for me, being in menopause, that's not something I have to deal with. So that is a plus side right now, and I will absolutely take it from everybody I've talked to.

So. Hell yeah.

So what is, what is one thing that you wished that you could, that you didn't have a job and you didn't have to make the monies and do the things that you wish you could give your body when you're in a flare-up or chronic illness day?

Okay, in a perfect world, I would be able to sit in this— lay in the sun, um, in the warm, warm sun on like a comfy— not a regular beach chair, like a big comfy supportive cushiony chair. I would have plenty of delicious things to eat and drink to pick on. I don't know why my brain is telling me I'd be by the ocean. I think I find that like lapping of the waves very calming and like regulated.

Okay, okay, we have to have a retreat because I've got— I live 3 hours from the Gulf Shores, so, and I will tell you, don't get a beach chair, take a shovel with you. And a good blanket that you could shake the sand off of and make yourself your own comfy custom fit like hammock in the sand because the sand is mega warm and radiates that heat.

Oh, I love— yeah, heat, heat is big. Yeah, um, and I would have like an on-call masseuse. Because when I flare, like, parts of my body just get rock hard, and I can only relax so much sometimes. Like, hey Rhonda, sometimes I really benefit from someone just like with an actual skill being like, here, let me release that for you. Oh yeah.

I— yep, absolutely. I will say that my, my quick and easy way of doing that, which, because my feet and my legs hurt the most for me, that's always the place that hurts the most for me. Oh, I have a spot on my shoulder too. Is going to the nail salon and getting the full-on pedicure with the massage and the hot towels and the warm water and all of that with the heated massage chair. That is That is— I have found that that's actually less, less of a time commitment because I go into sensory overwhelm having a massage, too long of a massage or something like that. And the quiet of massages, I know they're supposed to be quiet and relaxing. I can't handle that.

Oh, I love a talkative masseuse. I'm like, please talk to me.

Since moving, I have not found a good massage. So if you're in the Birmingham, Alabama area and you have An extremely ADHD massage therapist, or you are one, please tell me because I haven't found somebody yet. So I have found that going to the nail salon and doing the whole leg massage with the heated massage chair and the coffee, endless coffee that they bring me, or tea or hot chocolate or whatever I want, is like the greatest thing ever. And one, it's also cheaper, and two, I have pretty funky colored nails when I'm done with it. So, you know.

Can I shout out 2 amazing places in Virginia?

Absolutely.

Okay, so shout out to Sonia Marie. She's a medical massage therapist in Falls Church, Virginia. The first time I saw her, I was like, she's a witch. She's gifted, gifted. She knows what she's doing. Um, if you have chronic pain She is wonderful. And then I want to make sure I get the name right. Yeah, Resolve Body Works in Richmond, Virginia. They are all about massage for pain relief and prevention. They are super Super chill. Um, they're LGBTQ friendly. I will say it's one of the first massage studios I've ever walked into that I immediately felt comfortable, and I was like, they get it. A lot of their massage therapists are also dealing with chronic illness and/or neurodivergence.

Um, that's amazing.

I like— I wanted to cry when I walked in there. Wonderful, wonderful.

That's amazing.

Yeah, you ever come here, we'll go. They're awesome.

Okay, absolutely.

And we can tell them like short massage and like don't be quiet. Talk, talk constantly.

Don't shut up because that, that quiet music, I wish it would put me to sleep. I wish it would because it is, I mean But it doesn't. It drives me nuts. But I love the nail salon because I also live in the South now, and I'm not a Southern girly. I am a New York girly. So living in the South and being in a nail salon is the best people watching ever. And there's one particular salon I found that I love down here is because everything is very— some, some of the places feel like everybody's in their individual, like, little box, even though you're really— you're all together because nails.

Yeah.

Really separate, but they still feel like, like they're in this little box. And this is just long lines of watching everybody, and all of the pedicure chairs are around the outer edge, and I can see everybody from the pedicure chairs and getting my nails done. It is the greatest amount of chaos ever. And you have these Vietnamese women who go back and forth between Vietnamese and the deepest southern accent ever, which I adore listening to, and all of these very southern women in there before the big game to get their nails done and gossiping with each other. And at one point I was in there and these two women were fighting over their baby daddy and got into a throwing things at each other, grabbing hair, pulling hair fight. That was awesome. I found it extremely entertaining. I don't get Southern culture at all. I still don't. I've been here 4 years and I still don't get it. And it's very inter— and I, and I don't mean to pick on people, but it's, it is very different. It is a different world here.

Yeah. And I, to be fair, I, you know, I meet people who grew up in the South who like up north, they're like, everybody's just screaming at each other. I'm like, we're just—

Oh yeah, I have been accused for being rude and like But I wasn't being rude.

No, I'm just, I'm just being direct. I don't want to waste time.

I don't have time for the small talk. I, I just want to do the thing and be done. And that's at the grocery store. I— if I'm in the grocery store, I'm there to do the thing and leave, not have 500 20-minute conversations.

Like, nightmare. It is for a lot of people.

It is. But they're just— I love people watching no matter where I am. I'll go— I love going to the airport a little early when I'm flying Flying somewhere. Love the airport. And do— and what people watch.

And I'll tell you what, I hate ending up in the hospital, but my God, is that some quality people watching.

It is. I always ask to leave my— leave my door open when I'm in the hospital because I want to hear what's going on at the nursing station and the room next door. Like, I want to hear it all. I'm very nosy. Oh yeah, but I love the sensory input.

Yes, because otherwise the hospital can be real boring. You're all shut up and you're like—

So what are some of your favorite tasks or things or hobbies that you do when you're— you've kicked in to entertain yourself? Because I, I had a client ask me the other day, she's like, when I'm sick and I can't move and I can't do anything, what do I do? I have to do something and I feel like I have to work all the time. And if I'm not working, And then I feel really guilty. And like, she ended up in this whole, like, the normal ADHD shame spiral of being sick. And I'm like, well, have you read a book? She's like, I haven't read a book for fun in years.

Wow.

So what do you do?

I mean, I feel like I'm pretty standard. I'm a TV show girly. Like, and when I'm sick, I don't want to watch something that takes a lot of brain So, like, I'm— one of my, like, go-tos right now is Adventure Time, the cartoon, because it's just silly and crazy and I don't have to think. Um, I'm— I don't know who wrote Adventure Time, but at least 3 people on that team have a raging case of ADHD. You cannot convince me otherwise, and I love them. Um, I'm a podcast I love a podcast because sometimes reading is really hard for me, especially if I'm dealing with like headaches. But I can still learn things via listening. I love a lot of true crime podcasts. There's, or like anything nature or animal related. So I do a lot of that. Scrolling on my phone.

So for me, some of my favorite things that I do if I'm not in headache mode. I'd love to read, and I'm going to read a sci-fi, something that is low break. Like, I love young adult type sci-fi, though I have been into Sarah J. Maas recently. I don't love the smut side because I just don't understand why.

That's just not—

like, I don't get the point. And is that—

I don't connect with it. I don't know. I don't connect with it either.

So I, I tend to— oh, I skipped— I, I skipped through those pages. I do. And I actually found a site that will tell you what pages they're on and where the sections are and where it ends and give you a quick summary so that you don't miss any particular storylines and stuff. Which I love. That's awesome because I don't, I don't understand why that's in books, but I love that kind of sci-fi. I love that kind of thing. Um, but I will also watch Gilmore Girls. Gilmore Girls is my brainless When you just—

I will follow.

Yeah, uh, so, and I, I, I can follow the talking and it's, it's enough, but it's so low-key brain thought process. Or I'm gonna watch Star Wars because Star Wars, obviously anybody knows me, I love Star Wars and I watch Star Wars 900 million times. Okay, I've already watched 900 million times. But all of those kind of things are, are the things that I— those are my go-tos. And it's always something I've already read. It's already something I've already seen. I'm not learning something new. Or my husband's favorite thing to relax is Fail Army videos, or the stupid video, uh, pet videos on YouTube that are like pet fail videos of cats trying to jump on things and falling. Things like that. So we'll watch those Fail Army videos of bad drivers and in Georgia and Florida, you know, all of those kinds of things. But they're low-key, they're entertaining. And the 2 neurodivergent people on the couch, my husband and I, can have a commentary going on while we're watching it.

I will also add cuddling. I have really snuggly pets in my house.

Me too.

And the heat from the pets is nice. But also, it's Just like, I think for my ADHD brain that like wants to be doing things, like pet— my pets are such a good reminder of like just being and like the value of just being, just existing in space with another creature. Um, it's really useful. It's so funny, my fiancé, uh, we were joking how like I can feel my heart rate going down And I pet the animals. And so she got out her Apple Watch yesterday and she's like, oh my God, look at that!

And I do, like, I noticed that because I wear an Apple Watch, but I, I'll just sit and pet my puppy. And my puppy has— he's a long-haired, very soft puppy, so he will. And like last night, I was not having a good night last night, so I sat with my Kindle and I had moody music on, on YouTube with like water sound, rain sound in the background, and, and the puppy cuddled up to me, and I had like 3 or 4 blankets on me, and I just— and it was very relaxing, and it's exactly what I was— I needed.

Oh, that sounds amazing.

And, and I do things like that often, and I've learned— and it's taken me years to be able to stop and do things for that overachieving, my overachieving side, which is part of why I probably am so sick, is because I didn't stop doing things for so long. But that's another conversation.

Honestly, though, that is so relatable to you, to me, and to so many other people who are chronically ill, particularly those who received a diagnosis of neurodivergence before chronic illness was ever considered. So much of that, like running ourselves into the ground in search of stimulation and sorts of achievement, uh, in pursuit of perfection, whatever it may be, and not realizing that that's why we felt physically so terrible and thinking, well, everyone feels like this, or, oh, I just overdid it again.

And, and yeah, and then we crash. And when we crash and are burnt out, we crash hard, and it could take us months to recover. And then we feel better and we think we could do it all. And we put ourselves into the max. Oh, I have energy today. That's one of the worst parts of having a chronic illness is I feel good today. So that means I'm going to—

I don't want to waste it.

I don't want to waste it because I know it won't last. So therefore, I'm going to do all of the things that I shouldn't do in the first place, that I should never try to do in the first place because I have physical issues. I have muscle issues. I have nerve issues. I should not be lifting furniture and moving furniture and pushing it around and doing all of that. But what am I going to do when I feel good? That. And then the next day I crash and then I wonder why.

Yeah. I think, you know, having chronic illness and ADHD, Has been a really good constant reminder for me that like we cannot do everything by ourselves. And I get a fair amount of flack on like TikTok for being like, hey guys, like we need to exist in community. People saying like, I don't have community, or I ask for help and people let me down, or like, what do you mean? Like, I'm like, I'll, you know, it's hard to build community. Sometimes. And we don't, at least I'll say in the US, we don't have the third space.

You and I have talked about that before.

We don't have the third space. And there's so much emphasis on individualism, for better or for worse, that a lot of us have lost what community means and what community actually looks like. But when you have chronic illness and/or are neurodivergent and/or— hold up— and/or are just a human, you cannot do all the things by yourself. Humans are primates. We come from primates. We live in communities. We're not snow leopards, okay? We are meant to be in community. Um, we do nothing without each other. Yeah, Rick says— Chris Kowski says community is one of the main reasons why I'm here. Same, same, Rick.

So Rick is one of my ones that's very dedicated. He's in body doubling almost all day long with us every Hi. And he's, he's one of our, like, it is so important to have community, and I couldn't find community, so I built my own. And I have that community because I need it. And I'm not gonna show up for myself if I don't have somebody else to show up for. But that third space of Europe, like, being in Italy and everybody after work goes to the cafe and goes to the bar and goes to the community square and they hang out and they have community events and families eat big dinners together 3, 4 nights a week. There are— there is a community for everything. Now everybody's in your business, everybody knows everything, there is no privacy.

There is—

there is a downside to that, but it's— I think that's one of the things. I mean, and we talk about build your tribe and we've heard that for years, but in the US that It's so hard. It really is hard in the US. So I would say that when somebody asked me what my 3 keys to successful life is, community is one of them. I have to have a community that I can complain with, I can have a bad day with, I can get support when I'm having a bad day, I can get advice of— like somebody a couple weeks ago, I complained in my community. It was really struggling. I couldn't Water just tasted horrible and juices were tasting bad. And this happens when you're a chronic illness person, sometimes everything tastes bad. And somebody suggested this drink thing that I could make, and it was this wild concoction, and I was like, I'll try anything. And now that's been my go-to for like the last 3 weeks. And it was— and it wasn't some other ADHD expert or chronic illness expert telling me something, it was just a friend going, hey, I got an idea, have you tried this?

Yes. And sometimes it's that simple. It doesn't have to be, I need community and community builds my house and rubs my feet. And, you know, like, yes, community can do those things. But sometimes community is just, hey, did you try this?

Or community can be vent away. I get it. I can't help you. But if you need to vent, go for it. Go for it.

I honor where you are. Yeah.

And I like, I really been struggling because, because of where I am and I'm now having to use a rollator, which is a 4-wheeled walker. And I, I need it because I get just too fatigued and I definitely, I'm gonna have to go to a conference with it and stuff. And I was having a pity party. A couple weeks ago, a week ago, and I was complaining, man, people are just gonna see this when I go to the CHAD conference in November, and it sucks, and I hate it. And one— somebody in my community said to me, you are the girly that had zero issue wearing a tutu and a crown and crazy makeup and crazy t-shirts at the conference. Why is this a big deal? Nobody's going to care.

I was like, oh.

Yep, you're right. This isn't crazy, actually.

Can I offer something?

Absolutely.

As a fellow chronically ill girly, I would be so excited to see someone with a mobility aid because it tells me my people are here. Not just people with ADHD, but people who have other things going on, like, it would make me feel so seen. And if I didn't know you, it would make me feel really comfortable going up to you.

That's awesome. And I love that. But it— like I said, I was having a pity party and people reminded me, my community reminded me that that's not that big of a deal. So now my community sent me a sticker. I have a couple Star Wars stickers to put on my Rollator.

Your rollator is just gonna be like decked out.

Well, my rollator is white and black. It looks kind of like a stormtrooper. So I've got Star Wars stickers to go all over it now.

I adore you.

I just gotta figure out how to put them all on. But sometimes it's just as simple as that. Somebody hearing it, you need a space to be, as Coach Vida says, safe, seen, and heard. And, and I've said the same thing obviously for years, but she's better with words than I am. So, you know, safe, seen, heard. And that's what community gives us when chronic illness, ADHD, hormones, because you're just— or I had a fight with my spouse, or everything tastes bad today, or, or, or, or, or, or, or.

Yeah, amen.

So what, what would you want somebody to take away from this discussion and want them to know about living with ADHD and chronic illness?

At the risk of sounding really cliché, you're not alone.

You are not. You're not alone. There are communities out there. I mean, I have ND Out Loud. That's what ND Out Loud is. We have ADHD Upgrade Academy. And, and the 2 most helpful things that we offer every day is unlimited body doubling and a community space where we can vent and get the crazy support that we need. And I didn't build it because I was looking to make millions of dollars. I built it because I needed one myself. It's without my community, I would be stuck in the pits of despair a lot. I'd be frustrated as a lot. I'd be burning myself out a lot. I'd be whatever. Knowing you're not alone is a huge, huge part of all of this. So if you're struggling, if you're— if you don't know what to do, if you don't know how to handle it, if you need to complain and just message somebody that will hear you and acknowledge you, message Britt or I. Our links are everywhere. You can find us everywhere. Just let us know how we can help you because we are here and you are not alone.