ADHD Overstimulation: You're Not Distracted, You're Maxed Out

Hello there. I'm Danielle Ralston. I am the founder and head coach here at ND Out Loud. What is ND Out Loud? ND Out Loud is a team of neurodivergent coaches. We are neurodivergent, every single one of us. TBIs, PTSD, ADHD, autism, AudiHD, and so much more. Bipolar disorder, all of the things. We also have a passion for supporting others like us so you don't have to struggle like we did in our past. We have All taken trainings and certifications and all of that so that we can support you in living a better life and upgrading all of the things that are frustrating about your life. What is this session going to give you? This session is going to give you actionable tips. So yes, we're going to talk about our programs and all of the things that we offer, but I want you to walk away with something actionable for something that is overwhelming, frustrating, or just plain annoying you right now in your life. Or if you're a parent or a spouse of someone with neurodivergence, To help them as well. I want you to walk away with something today. So please sign up today for a free call. We can learn more about each other. Good morning, everyone. I hope you're having an awesome day today. We haven't done this in a whole month.

I know.

Over a month. We took the month of September off and now it's October and it's ADHD Awareness Month.

Perfect.

And there's so many things going on for ADHD Awareness Month. So many companies and apps and stuff do all kinds of stuff, but we're just plugging along doing what we normally do. Same thing we always do— tips, tricks, everything that we need to not be distracted because we're overstimulated all the time.

Yeah, plenty.

I am extremely overstimulated today. Like, everything is overstimulating today. So What do you do when you have a day that just everything is overstimulating? My hair is overstimulating, my shirt is overstimulating, my fingernails are overstimulating, like everything is overstimulating. What do you do on days like that?

Oh, that's— those are hard days. I'm not gonna lie to you. A lot of those days, this is my best friend, my headphones, because I can tune things out and I put something on, whether it's music, a show, or something, but I can tune out the rest. And I make sure that my clothes are comfortable and I make sure that like if my hair starts bugging me, getting it pulled away from my face or up in a messy bun, that's a big thing. And you know what, having a nice warm drink. Of course, if you have a warm drink, you need to have a cold drink, you know? So there's a lot of little things that we do that can help us in dealing with that overstimulation. Sometimes I'm overstimulated with just the light. So I've got to have a room that's kind of dark. The noise outside, because we're still in a construction area with them building around us. So there's a lot of things that can happen to stimulate us, but we got to be aware of what those things are. I think that's a huge aspect because a lot of us are just not aware. Like, there's been times I've talked to you, Danielle, and you're like, Shay, um, you act like you're a little overstimulated. I'm like, no, I'm just bothered today. It's just an irritation. You're like, no, no, no, no. Let's look at what's going on. And then once we talk about like what is physically going on, what is mentally going on, we realize that the physical is pushing the mental overstimulation or vice versa.

Oh yeah, absolutely. I think the big thing to remember is that when we are overstimulated, that we have to backtrack a lot. And I think we forget that we're like attacking the thing that's overstimulating, like we think is overstimulating us, but we're not looking at everything. So I've talked about this before. Stick a fork in me, I'm done. That phrase is— it's not that there's one fork in you that's annoying you. There's thousands, thousands. And they range from little teeny tiny, tiny, tiny forks all the way up to huge pitchfork-sized forks. So you have to start removing the tiny ones so that you can handle the things that are big and overwhelming.

Right.

And is it your shirt? Is it as a woman? Is it your bra? Is your bra itchy today?

I hate bras.

Is— are your earrings too tight? Do you need tighter earrings? Do you need a headband? Do you need a baseball hat to shade some of the light? And do you need that pressure on your head, especially for those of us that have, like, chronic illness and migraines and things like that?

Right.

Is your shirt too warm? Are you too cold? Are you too itchy? Like, what are all of those little things? So There are a million ways to handle that. Change your shirt, change your— but also change your location, change your temperature, whether it's physical or your environmental temperature. Like go outside if you're too warm inside or vice versa. Turn your air conditioning on, turn a fan on, get a cold drink. Or my favorite thing is when I'm really overstimulated because I'm too hot, I will grab a couple ice packs and put them on my wrists.

That's a great, great one.

Or run cool water. If I don't happen to be somewhere where I can get to an ice pack, run cool water over my wrist. Huge help. It brings me right down. Usually that's a big thing for me. Doing lots of vagus nerve resets, deep breathing, ice on my neck, all of those things help. But what are the things that are driving me nuts? What are the things that I need to calm myself down? Like, for me, this new cup that I got, I love this cup because it's Textured. Each one of these blocks has a different texture in it.

Oh, sweet.

And it's become a fidget for me.

Now I'm jealous.

I'm sorry, I apologize. But having fidgets, just simple fidgets like stress balls or just messing with my headphone case—

like, this was one I got when we were down in Disney. It's a nice fidget. It's the Harry Potter thing that Hermione wore. Yeah, the little, the little, uh, I don't even remember what the word is, but the sand goes in it and it's nice to just kind of sit there and fidget with it, you know, your finger, and it goes different ways. So create the area to have that quick grab. Like, remember these, Danielle?

Oh my gosh, I love those things. They're magnetic little guys. We gave them away at Healing Appalachia. Things like that. Having a ponytail on your wrist that you can mess with.

A little one or a big one.

Rings that you can twist. Whatever it is, have a toolbox. We need a toolbox full of things that help us get out of that overstimulation.

And sometimes it might even be like a little stuffed animal. You know, like I've got that yellow one up there. That one has a very soft yarn on it. So when I'm really stressed, I can just pull it down. You know, and they, they kindly got me a stuffed animal there that has little bees inside that has noise so I can get them out and shake them, but they're soft. So what things can slow your brain down, slow you down, keep you from jumping into that overwhelm? It's like a pool of overwhelm. Yeah, it's this and the next day it's something else. It doesn't even have to be the same thing.

Well, those of us that are definitely in perimenopause have this other whole level of overwhelm of hot flashes. Dry, itchy skin, stomach issues, hormonal issues, brain fog, all of those things. And then if you're a chronic illness person like me, then I had all of those things and just, and then I'm ADHD. So my level of overwhelm is always on 9,000. And then I add those other things and I'm now at 50 million some days, but understanding that I need to pull those little forks out. And just pull some of the things out to make life easier.

Right.

Overall is a big deal.

And humor. Give yourself a little humor. I mean, for heaven's sake, the world is too serious. Let's just laugh at something. And when you can start laughing at the silly things you do, I mean, seriously, guys, tripping up the stairs is like one of my classic things. I do it all the time. You know, that's one silly thing. And every time I do it, My kids are like, oh my gosh. I'm like, yep, it's just that big hairy toe on the end of my foot, you know? And it's really not, but you gotta find ways to have some humor in this too, to be able to lighten the mood, lighten that overstimulation.

And sometimes we can't find humor in it ourselves. So that's where coming into community to complain about something and somebody's going to giggle. And I swear to you, we are not giggling at you. We're giggling with you because somebody will say, oh my gosh, I don't remember what I said something a couple days ago and everybody just kind of stopped, started snickering, and I was like, okay, yeah, that is funny. I don't even remember what it was.

Like trying to lock your door with your car keys. We had somebody do that. How many times have we walked out the door and we're like pushing the button and our car's locked? Our house door. We're thinking, why is the house not locking? Because you're pushing the button.

Why can't I get into this vehicle? Because I have the keys from The other vehicle. Like, why is this not working? I can't start the car. I'm hitting the start button. Why isn't it working? And trying it 20 times before you realize you have the wrong keys.

You're like, oh, that, that's for the other car. Oops.

Oops. Wrong vehicle.

Yeah.

Or walking out without your purse, walking back inside to go get your purse, walking out and realizing you now don't have your phone, having to walk back inside to go now get your phone. And now you left your purse behind that you took in with you to go get your phone. And now you have to go back in for that. And then you forgot your water bottle. And then you forgot your support drink, and it's 14 trips inside before you can finally leave.

You're taking the dog to go get a haircut and you forget the dog.

Yeah.

I mean, there's, there's not humor in it, but there is afterwards. But it does stack up.

What are like— We have to release that tension. You really do have to release that tension. And I think that's something that Well, if I just did things right in the first place and I got it right the first time, I wouldn't be so frustrated. That's not reality for us.

No, it's not.

And it's okay.

Right.

So how do you accommodate those things? I have a thing before I leave, and my phone knows when I'm leaving the house. I love technology. Sometimes it's a little creepy, but I love it. And if I have an appointment on my schedule, it will ask me if I have everything that I needed. before I go to my appointment.

Oh, I need that.

It's just a, do you have everything you need before your appointment?

And then you run through the list.

Oh, and then I can run through the list. It's not that I don't know it, it's that I forget to even think about knowing it.

Yes.

Yeah.

Because you're like, oh, I've gotta make sure I take that paper with me when I go see the doctor, or I've gotta take this by the bank, or I gotta take mail down to the mailbox and get the tracking number. I mean, it's small, but our brain just kind of puts it in a box and sets it on the shelf and forgets it's there.

So remembering to look at the shelf, right?

We know the shelf is there.

The thing that we have to remember, we just don't. We just don't get it, right? I mean, we do forget. We're easily distracted. We're overstimulated, and overstimulation can cause us to forget things. It causes us to be late because we had to go back into the house 12 times for the 12 things that we forgot.

What's the highest number for doing that? I think mine's like 7.

Recently, I have, I have actually no idea. I don't think I've ever counted that. I should probably at some point because sometimes it takes me multiple trips back in the house. But that's okay. Being able to laugh at yourself or having tools built in so that those incidences don't even come up.

Well, and preparing how to deal with some of the consistent things that, you know, get you overregulated. Like consistently light will overregulate me. So I have blinds that I can close and kind of decrease the light in the room when I need to. I have— my house hardly ever has lights on during the day because we just don't have them on because it can overstimulate me. So how do you prepare? Wearing, you know, making sure you have clothes in your closet that are comfortable but are also equivalent to what you need to do.

Mm-hmm.

So if you have to dress in professional dress, find the comfortable professional dress clothes, professional dress shoes. Make sure that you're accommodating yourself but not trying Trying to fit in, and I think we had a discussion a little bit about this yesterday. Of what does it classify? Like, what do you classify as professional? What do you classify as business? What do you classify as what you should show up as? Not what everybody else is necessarily telling you, but what do you yourself show up as? Because if we were in a conversation right now and I had a professional dress on and my hair's all done and makeup's on and all of that, I would be more concerned about how does my hair look like. Oh my gosh, that one piece is sticking out, all my makeup, you know, and I'd be more concerned about everything outwardly that my brain would not even be able to focus on this conversation. It just wouldn't. And so it would appear distracted, but it's not that I'm distracted. I've just got so much stimulation that's going on that I can't pay attention to what I need to pay attention to. So there's a lot of that you can prep for ahead of time.

Absolutely. And understanding that it's okay to accommodate ourselves. We don't have to do things like everybody else. As a matter of fact, I don't care whether you have ADHD or whatever, you don't have to do things like everybody else. You can do things your own way. You can create your own ways to do everything. Everybody needs accommodations, not just somebody who's ADHD, autistic, in a wheelchair. And we often think of accommodations are— they have to be extreme, like needing a ramp for a wheelchair. No, wearing glasses, that's an accommodation. Needing a sweatshirt because you're cold is an accommodation. Everybody needs accommodations.

Accommodation.

Having—

yeah, absolutely, an accommodation. I mean, there's a lot of things we don't realize we're already trying to accommodate ourselves with that are naturally accepted. So the other things can be accepted by you. And, you know, I think if we start looking at ourselves too and saying, you know what, I accept who I am, where I am. This is who I am. I'm ADHD, I'm AuDHD. These are my strengths. These are my areas and where I need some help or assistance or accommodation or however the word that you need to use for you. But the reality is, is that once you accept that, then you can start really looking into it and saying, This is what works. This is how we can do it. You know, because for me to settle down, if I get really hyped up and really stressed, physically stressed, then I need to go and do something physical to release some of that and process. For someone else, it may be the exact opposite. They need to sit still. They need to wind down, have soft music. Me, I'm like, give me that hard slamming, bamming. I got to get this out, and then I'm okay.

So we had Wendy over on LinkedIn that's asking some questions. She said, how do you handle the hyperfocus as for So she says she is— has ADHD and she has— her brain has more tabs open than her laptop, and somehow none of them always have, have the answer. I think trying to find the answers myself is a thing that always kept me stuck and kept me unable to figure out what to do next.

Oh yeah.

The minute I started operating in community, And we do that. We have 10 hours a day of mentorship/body doubling/coaching calls, 10 hours a day available Monday through Friday of people just helping each other. So I don't have to figure out what tab is making noise. I can go ask Shay. Oh my gosh, today is just insane and I'm overwhelmed and I can't figure it out. And Shay And Jessica and Tara and Tim, and somebody's gonna have an answer for me that I could try that might work for me.

Right.

Because we're all ADHD, AuDHD, some combination thereof, and we help each other and we all can have an idea of what might be going on. When I try to find the answers for myself, I'm not gonna find them most of the time. And this is coming from somebody who has 25 years of ADHD coaching experience. I still am not going to be able to help myself and support myself as much as somebody else's. Goofy answer 99% of the time is gonna help me. And like Wendy says, it always—

Or we can throw back at you what you tell us to do, and you're like, oh yeah, I did say that.

Well, yeah, there's that. And I love when somebody does that to me. And Wendy also says she plans to be on time, but her brain went on a snack break halfway out the door.

Yeah, absolutely. Very familiar.

We're so familiar. But also, I think part of that humor comes in from being in a group of people who get it.

Well, we don't explain ourselves all the time. If I come in and I said, oh my gosh, I was 20 minutes late because I was walking out the door and then I had to go back in the house 4 times to get this and that and this, everybody's like, uh-huh. There's no condemnation or shaming for it. There's no, I can't believe you would be 20 minutes late. None of that. It's more of like, oh yeah, we get it. Well, this is what we did.

I did that yesterday. There's commiseration, I think, sometimes, and that helps.

Yes.

An immense amount for acceptance because it's not just us accepting that we're screwed up and broken and we're— I can't believe I did that again. Yeah. It's the, oh my gosh, I have been there, Wendy. I do that all the time. Oh my gosh, I did that yesterday and I was 40 minutes late for something because I just totally forgot about it.

Yeah, that was me on Friday.

I was planning and I was all ready and I got ready early and I sat down and I got distracted and, and, or whatever.

I got distracted. I fell asleep. I couldn't find the thing that I thought I had. I don't know where the car keys are. All of the above.

I was hungry and decided to make myself this elaborate lunch instead of getting to my doctor's appointment on time. And I totally forgot why I was all ready. And then I got something on me, and that made me even later because then I had to change my clothes, you know, something that would fit, that was comfortable, that was—

and, and, and.

We often have these, these things that come up, and we get it. And I think, again, operating in community— community is one of the biggest tools that I have because my community keeps me sane.

And I believe, you know, and I've only been in the Community since January of last year, or this year, or whenever. It's been a long time. It feels longer, but it's not. But still, within that timeframe, I have been able to build a business, coach new people. I've been able to expand my creativity into a way that I wanted to and get good advice and good suggestions and also being able to alleviate some of that heaviness that we carry. Because when I'm feeling stressed and heavy, all I need to do is just reach out to the community and the community's like, hey, what's going on? And it's not always the same person and it's not always the same thing and it's not always gonna be at the same time, but there's still that connection there that allows us to know, okay, we're gonna be okay. It's, you know, they don't have any answers at that moment, but that's okay because you know what, when and if they choose to give you an answer, because some of us AutieHD people like to go down the rabbit hole, Then they'll come back with an answer or they will help you to find the answer for you and how to do that. Like, what do I need to do to figure this out? What do I need to do to— like, how do I keep myself from getting overstimulated? Well, have you tried— here's some ideas. This didn't work? Okay, so did any part of this work? I mean, there's so many ways that we can help each other and when we help each other, We're not only helping that person that's in the community, we're helping all the people that connect with them, all the people that connect with those people. I mean, it just branches out into such a supportive area and community that it's— you can't even realize it until you're in it.

Absolutely. And community, like, and even if nobody has the answer, just having somebody go, oh, been there, I'm so sorry, today sucks. And not treat me like it's my fault or I'm broken for it.

Right.

Understanding, commiseration, community, all of those things are such a huge part of, of just getting it.

And never hearing anyone say, oh, it's all in your head, or just get over it. We have enough of that in our life. We have enough people telling us that too.

So, so Wendy says she's struggling with ADHD and her comedian diva dyslexia. Oh, I get it. And now here she's in Puerto Rico and they don't really see a need for adult to have meds. I've tried no meds. I got fired within 1 week, but it's affecting daily life. Adderall was and has been what works for me since 5th grade. How do you not get meds but still able to keep a job, if that makes sense? I will say, so I Both Shay and I, we are 2 that are unable to take medication, not because society. For us, it's medication. I, I just cannot take ADHD medication.

Right.

And for me, my top 3 things is I have to have accountability. I have to have, and I need this, I need this all day long. Like, this is what I need. Not everybody does need it all day long. I need it all day long. is what I figured out that works for me. I have to body double almost constantly, almost all my tasks, including cleaning my house, including meal planning, all of the things I have to body double. And then I always have to have a coach because if I don't have a coach, then I am not staying on task and following through for myself.

Mm-hmm.

I get distracted and unmotivated without that accountability community. Which is the body doubling piece and a coach for myself. That is something I need all the time. And it's why we do— why Shay and I do what we do here at Indie Hive and the whole entire rest of our world here at Indie Out Loud and Indie Hive is because we believe in that so much and we believe in offering it as affordable care.

Absolutely.

Because not everybody can afford a coach. Coaches are— can be really expensive. I used to be a coach that charged $20,000 a year. And I learned that I really want to work with people that don't necessarily have the access, which is why we charge $20 a month for 10 hours a day of support every day of the week, not weekends, because we all need breaks and become squirrels on the weekends.

But some of us have to get away from the computer.

Yeah.

Well, and that's the bottom line, is that we have to recognize, like, Danielle, how long did it take you to figure out Those were the 3, the top 3 that you needed for you.

It took me 6 failed businesses and a bankruptcy and almost losing my marriage for it.

And you know what? We hear that over and over and over again with my clients, with your clients, with our community. We've heard that repetitively about how does our ADHD, AuDHD affect relationships, jobs, our own personal skills and things that we wanna do, our kids' relationships. Not ours to our kids, but the kids in the outside of our own home. What are we setting them up with if we don't have the tools?

Mm-hmm.

And honestly, these tools, I didn't even know I needed them until the last few years of my own life because mine exacerbated after a car accident. So what I thought I had that was functioning didn't work anymore. And it affected my job, it affected my family, it affected my marriage, it affected My, you know, even my family outside of my immediate family, like my siblings and my parents and all of that, because I didn't know how to regulate my emotions. Holy cow. Like 0 to Mach 5,000 in a heartbeat and not understanding why. And then feeling that remorse and sick to your gut feeling and—

Shame.

Yes. Shame, I think, is the worst. Because we, when we're in shame, we won't share. We don't tell anybody because we're too embarrassed.

Absolutely. So Wendy asks, how do you find a coach? So, well, we have 6, 5, I don't remember how many on our team. And we are one of the most, and I know for a fact we are the most affordable ADHD, autistic, ADHD, dyslexic, chronic illness coaches that exist out there right now. And we do that on purpose. None of us do this to make money. Believe it or not, this is not where our income comes from. Believe me, because charging $20 a month for 10 hours a day of support is not something I can support myself on. But I have other businesses and I do things on— same with Shay, same with Tara, same with Tim. We all do other things, but we want to be the most affordable option out there for people and give people options.

Right.

Because it is so important. It is so life-changing to have understanding and accountability and support. It's life-changing.

Well, and I realize if I would've had this 10 years ago or 20 years ago, how much different it would've been for my kids growing up because my kids have ADHD too. It's not like it just stopped here. The buck didn't stop at mama. No, it's like continuing on. And if I would've had a community I could have gone into or known Danielle 10 years ago and been able to say, I am really struggling with my child, then I might have had someone be able to say, okay, you're struggling with your child, but what are you struggling with?

Yeah.

Let's work with you because we see the ADHD with you too. Because I didn't even realize— oh, it's been probably 10 years now that I've known I've been diagnosed. But still, if I would have known that as a kid, as a teenager, as a young adult and a young mama, how much could we have done different?

Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, my son is 28, so I knew I was ADHD before I knew him, but I did— before I was in my teens when I knew that, but I didn't realize I was autistic until I got him diagnosed when he was 7. How much more could I have helped him earlier if I would have known?

Or helped yourself?

Oh, really helped myself. I mean, I almost lost everything because of me not understanding myself.

You know, I'm gonna say something very blatant here, blunt. But you know, we struggle with people saying they don't understand me. Okay? I've gone to therapists, I've gone to coaches, I've gone to this or that. And they don't understand me. That's what we're trying to say. You're going to get help from someone who doesn't understand you because they aren't walking through that path. Now, I'm not saying that Therapists and counselors and all that can't help someone with ADHD. But if you have someone that's already walking through that path and has those skills that they can teach you as a coach, as a therapist, counselor, et cetera, et cetera, that's a lot more effective than it is just trying to figure it out yourself or go to somebody who doesn't understand that kind of neurodiversity brain.

Absolutely. Having somebody who understands And Wendy just said, one thing I figured out is if we teach kids all about loving others and overthinking and stuff, we need to remember to teach each other about loving ourselves. We do need to love ourselves. And I think that's one of the things that community has really taught me is to love and accept myself. Because again, I don't feel broken. I don't feel shame. I don't feel frustrated. I mean, we all have bad days and we feel frustration and we're overwhelmed. We're overstimulated.

Right.

Having a community who understands that makes me not get into those shame spirals, rejection sensitivity quite so much with myself.

Well, I love the fact that I can show up with the body dumpling. I mean, my hair could— I could put pigtails in like this and just be me, and nobody would be like, what are you doing? It'd be more like, hey, are you doing all right? Because they know that there's a shift, there's a difference in how I'm appearing. But there's no embarrassment.

I am the crazy one who will show up with Mickey ears on depending on my day. And if I feel like I haven't done that in a while, because I haven't been in my office in a while, who will show up with crazy headbands and crazy makeup and crazy colored hair, and nobody bats an eye. I'm never judged for it.

Purple today instead of, ooh, she has purple today. We don't—

yeah, there's no judgment. And I love that. If you're looking for community, if you're looking for support, if you're looking for somebody to just understand you, come join us. We are just $19.99 a month. The link is below. We would love to have you. You're always welcome. And Shay and I are going to be back every week having these conversations again. And I so look forward to hearing from you. Have an amazing day, everybody. And Wendy, thank you for joining us today. Thank you.