December 24, 2025 • 16 mins
New Year’s Eve is supposed to be magical. New Year’s Day is supposed to feel like a fresh start.
But for many ADHD women especially those diagnosed later in life it often feels disappointing, exhausting, or quietly heavy instead.
In this episode of Angry on the Inside, Jess and Jeannine talk about why New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day can be so anticlimactic for ADHD brains. From the pressure to have the “best night ever” to the expectation that everything should feel different just because the calendar changed, New Year’s often becomes another place where shame, comparison, and unrealistic expectations creep in.
They explore the fantasy vs. reality of New Year’s Eve, the dopamine swings that make plans feel exciting one minute and unbearable the next, and why New Year’s Day can hit especially hard after the emotional and physical marathon of December. You’ll hear why exhaustion, disappointment, and self-blame aren’t personal failures they’re predictable responses when an ADHD brain is pushed to perform on a timeline that doesn’t fit.
The conversation also touches on late diagnosis, novelty, and the slow shift that happens when you stop working against your brain and start understanding it. From learning song lyrics to buying a Rubik’s Cube you never open, this episode uses humor and lived experience to unpack why “fresh start” culture doesn’t land the same way for ADHD women.
This isn’t about fixing yourself, setting better goals, or forcing a new version of you in January. It’s about permission to do New Year’s your way, to let go of the tropes that don’t work, and to remember that nothing is wrong with you because your brain didn’t magically change overnight.
If New Year’s has always felt harder than it’s supposed to you’re not alone.
🎙️ Angry on the Inside is hosted by two Certified ADHD Coaches sharing lived experience, insight, and honest conversation. This podcast is not therapy or coaching take what resonates and leave the rest.
00:00 – New Year’s Eve Expectations vs Reality (ADHD Women) Why New Year’s Eve creates pressure, comparison, and stress for ADHD women and how expectations quietly build weeks before the night even arrives.
02:20 – ADHD Energy Swings on New Year’s Eve From party mode to total shutdown, Jess and Jeannine unpack ADHD energy swings on New Year’s Eve and why every version of showing up is valid.
05:40 – Why New Year’s Day Feels Anticlimactic with ADHD The post-midnight crash: exhaustion, disappointment, and why New Year’s Day rarely feels like a fresh start for ADHD brains.
08:45 – “The Whole Damn Time”: ADHD Expectations & Shame That realization moment when ADHD women see how pressure, self-blame, and unrealistic expectations have been running in the background all along.
09:40 – ADHD, New Year Goals, and the Novelty Trap Why New Year goals feel exciting at first, how novelty fades for ADHD brains, and what small stories reveal about motivation and follow-through.
12:00 – New Year, Same Brain: ADHD Women Doing It Their Way Late diagnosis, self-compassion, and permission for ADHD women to stop forcing New Year’s traditions that don’t fit without shame.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Have you ever felt anxious about New Year's Eve weeks before it happens?
(00:03):
or the pressure to have that best night ever,
This episode is for you.
Welcome back.
I'm Jess.
and I'm Janine and this is Angry on the Inside.
Quick reminder, we're not doctors or therapists.
However, we are certified ADHD coaches, but this podcast isn't coaching.
It's too late, Diagnosed Women.
unpacking what we've lived.
take what resonates, leave what doesn't, and just remember, you're not the only onefeeling angry on the inside.
(00:26):
That was good stuff.
I was thinking about it, New Year's Eve is at least from when I was young, romanticspecial night sort of uh magical kiss fantasy.
You know what I'm talking about?
It's not Christmas, not like Hallmark, you know, because I feel like Hallmark has a lot ofmagical Christmas kisses, Those are different.
Yes, but in my mind New Year's Eve was always the fantasy
(00:50):
I wanted to stand in the snow and get a kiss at midnight and it all be so fancy
Like some dude that didn't even know me well enough or like me well enough to buy me aChristmas gift within the next six days is going to be planning the most magical evening
either of us have ever had.
I don't know why but that for me that's the one.
(01:11):
Yeah, no, I always thought I agree.
Growing up, it was always like super romantic.
You'd be on this great date or you'd meet somebody at this, you'd go to a fabulous partyand meet someone.
you would see them across the dance floor.
For me too though, with the thing about New Year's is it just for like a test of yoursocial success,
Local news takes over the countdown and you're seeing people all these balls I spent thelast 20 years in Chicago and it was like I'd see all these people downtown and counting
(01:36):
down and I'd be like what the heck
Like if you have a lot of friends, are you invited to parties?
Cause the cool people are, that's what they do on New Year's Eve.
So.
If you don't have people to hang out with, you don't have a party to go to, well, what'swrong with you,
Or
and somehow that four-hour party
magically turns into like eight hours and somehow that, 2000 foot ballroom that you're insuddenly becomes 10,000 square foot.
(02:03):
I don't know, but it happens in my mind, Now, now my New Year's Eve, I like to drinkchocolate milk until I go into a sugar coma and fall asleep by 10.
And I'm really comfortable with that to be quite honest.
I've been in that zone for quite some time and I'm okay with it.
think, yeah, I'd still go to a party, but I'm not as into them as I used to.
(02:23):
And I used to also think whenever you had a good New Year's Eve, the year that followedsucked.
I went through like a decade of just ignore it.
And then the year would be better because I felt like the few times I went to a greatparty, the following year sucked.
that's interesting.
know, thinking about it in the moment, I kind of felt the opposite.
I always had kind of sucky New Year's, especially in my 20s, I always felt like that setthe tone for the year.
(02:48):
maybe it would have been even worse uh had I had a good New Year's Eve.
So maybe I should count my blessings,
Yeah.
Or then I thought maybe I just started to think that because I wasn't being invited toparties.
You know, I wasn't the one to go hang out with and go to the bars with.
Maybe I made that up to make myself feel better.
Like, well, if I have a boring New Year's.
overall, I don't think for somebody with ADHD brain, like New Year's Eve, New Year's Day,any of that is like really
(03:16):
doesn't work with an ADHD brain.
It's all about expectations and should'ves and could'ves and would'ves and all of that.
If I'm looking at it, from the ADHD perspective with New Year's Eve, like we can cut it afew different ways, How about we say that our main character syndrome for New Year's Eve,
we are either the party girl, uh We're out to enjoy ourselves and drink a ton and dancethe night away.
(03:40):
and throw up on the designated driver's shoes.
The flip side of that coin, our Audi HD'ers, are the designated drivers, that's me,waiting for somebody to throw up on my shoes and for me to have to take care of everybody
for the night to make sure everyone is safe with my hypervigilance.
Then you move along, you might be the type who's just laying at home with your kids,trying to keep them from getting grumpy before the countdown.
(04:03):
Or you're in bed by 10.
There's a couple different ways to hack it.
Some people though, I will say, you can get hyped up on New Year's Eve.
That can give you a good bump of dopamine once you get engaged and you go out.
Yeah?
Once you get started running down that hill.
I know someone likes to dance, Jeannine
I do, I do.
(04:23):
Didn't say I was good at it, but I like to.
Once you get me on that, yeah, once I'm there and engaged, I don't want it to end.
Like I'm the one who's just like, yeah, it's 2 a.m.
So why, what does that mean?
Like why does everyone think we have to go home now?
Why does the party have to stop?
I can keep going, let's the party But then it's also the complete opposite,
those times where you agreed to go to the party and then that day comes and you're like, Ihave no energy.
(04:47):
I don't want to deal with the world or people or anything.
it sounded great when I decided our RSVP, yes, like three weeks ago, but yeah, woke upthis morning and that's not where my energy level is.
It's one of those days
I don't have the energy to do anything and I sure as heck don't want to see anybody.
And now what do I do?
I'm stuck going to this party.
that's when your extroverted self that was around for 10 or 15 minutes one day made plansbefore your introverted self was able to be like, oh hell no.
(05:16):
Yes.
my gosh.
How many times, how many times you have that burst of energy, like a half hour and you gothrough all your emails or, respond to all those texts You're saying yes to everything.
Yes, we'll do this.
Yes, we'll do that.
And then the morning you wake up thinking, what have I done?
And spend the next two weeks trying to figure out how you're to get yourself out of it.
What's a good excuse?
(05:37):
Do I just outright lie or do I just suffer through it and go?
Because that's what you should do, right?
You go begrudgingly, but if you can get a toehold in the night and start to have a littlebit of fun, everybody needs to step back because you're going to have a ton of fun on New
Year's Eve if you can get it going.
at the end of the day, I feel like New Year's Day is the ADHD woman's most anti-climacticholiday.
(06:05):
Yes.
So, so, so true.
Because A, I think New Year's Eve, I'm supposed to be like very social, have a great time.
Everything's supposed to be super exciting.
And then that doesn't pan out.
And then, and I remember thinking this as a kid, that you would wake up on New Year's Dayand like the world would be different.
It would be better, It was like a fresh start.
everything you did wrong in the old year.
(06:26):
It's a clean slate and I was just suddenly going to be the most organized, disciplined, umhealthiest, I just could go on and on.
I was just all those things I didn't like about myself were suddenly going to go away.
I was going to wake up on New Year's Day and it all be gone.
And I would be the person who suddenly would get up at 6 a.m.
to go for a two mile run, come home, have a great breakfast,
(06:49):
we expect a reverse Cinderella effect, Once the clock strikes midnight, we expect thatpumpkin To turn into the, what is it called?
Shit.
It's a carriage or whatever.
We expect that pumpkin to turn into a carriage after midnight rather than the other way,all this magical stuff to happen as we sleep so that we wake up and we are just the
(07:12):
epitome of perfection in our brains,
you went to bed, one person and you wake up the next day.
It's a new year.
It's a new you.
waking up on that satin pillowcase that you got and you're stocking.
So your hair is perfectly fluffed, Or you got a bonnet that you remembered to put onbefore you went to bed.
And your hair is not staticky,
out of Yeah.
Because it's the new year.
Even if you have a hangover, you might be popping out of bed.
(07:33):
Who knows?
it's funny because it's like the reason in my mind why it's anticlimactic and why it'ssuch an anticlimactic holiday is you wake up and none of those things have changed.
within a few days, everything hits you in the face because we're planning for 50 morethings after just finishing the holiday stretch.
we're exhausted.
Yeah.
(07:54):
no time to recoup or regenerate.
And we give ourselves no grace for regenerating, We literally just ran the holidaymarathon throughout the month of December, topped it off with staying up super late and,
not treating our bodies very well.
And then we think everything's going to feel so good when we get up that next day.
(08:15):
for many of us, a lot of things come into play,
Now all the holiday decorations have to come down.
Right?
All the lights and the glitter, it's gone.
For those of us who are like horrible with money,
you are going to be financially responsible,
You are going to be financially responsible and yet somehow you end up depressed in themonth of January because you have no money and you can't leave the house why can't we just
(08:39):
take like two weeks?
Let's take two weeks off after that, And just not worry about dealing with anything.
We don't have to be anything.
We just have to get through, Let's just sit and doom scroll.
Maybe we could have a week of doom scrolling.
That's okay.
I can do that.
The whole damn time.
the whole damn time
and you don't even know where that organizer is.
then, know, you go to work and there's that person who's all the way into February andstill getting up at 6 a.m.
(09:03):
to run their two miles and they're feeling great.
And you're like, I New Year's is just really hard when you have ADHD, especially if it'sundiagnosed and you keep wondering why.
God, yes.
feel committed, you are committed.
You really, really, really want to make these changes, you've read every possible articleabout how to set a good resolution, and maybe as you've gotten older, you've learned a few
(09:26):
tricks that, know, so maybe you did figure out, well, instead of having 20 new things Iwas going to do every single day, I would just do 10 new things every day
several years ago, just decide not to make resolutions.
Cause at least I figured that out.
just disappointed me.
I don't know who to credit this with but it was probably 15 plus years ago I was listeningto something and it was like the woman was talking about New Year's resolutions and she
(09:53):
was like I decided a long time ago that I could make all the New Year's resolutions that Iwanted but I would make one that was obtainable that kind of caught me because I would try
New Year's resolutions every year and this was
definitely, pre ADHD diagnosis.
And, I would get so disappointed every year because I wasn't hitting these milestones likeanywhere near soon.
(10:13):
we are instant gratification people.
that first year, I love song lyrics and I decided I was going to learn all the words toREM's It's the end of the world as we know it.
You know, because most people only know like Leonard Bernstein and Lenny Bruce and LesterBanks and boom.
lot of people don't know that, most the song when he's singing, it's the end of the worldas we know it in the background, he's singing.
(10:36):
It's time I had some time alone, the lyrics are kind of interesting and you do kind offeel fancy when you do actually know the lyrics I still do know it and.
after I did that, first year, and it lasted probably for a good 10 years we talk about howour tips and tricks, They wear thin after a while.
we lose our, what's the word?
Dammit, dammit, dammit.
the novelty wears off.
the novelty wears off but for several years I just had a lot of randomness.
(11:00):
then one year I chose that I was going to learn how to, um, how to solve a Rubik's cube.
like how Justin Bieber does with like this stuff on YouTube from when he was like ateenager and he just sits and twist it and turns it.
And then like, all of a sudden it's done.
I decided I was going to do that.
And I even bought myself a Rubik's cube and put it into my stocking.
I was very all over it.
I think I saw it out in the garage a few weeks ago, Rubik's cube still in the packaging,but that was the year.
(11:27):
I solved it by buying it.
I bought it solved, it remains solved.
the way that I was able to do that was by not opening it.
I think that counts as
Right?
Thinking outside the box about the cube inside the box.
especially now diagnosed, knowing myself so much better is just getting comfortable withno matter how you're going to spend New Year's Eve um or what you think about the new year
(11:50):
that's coming is just do it your way.
last year I was just, it was just me and my son home and I think I cleaned my bathroombecause I'd been meaning to do that.
So at least, you know, it was like, I'll go into the new year with a very clean bathroom.
cleaned out my closet a little bit, you know, watched Andy and Anderson get drunk and thenopened a bottle of champagne, had a glass of champagne, went to bed by 1230.
(12:13):
It was good.
That's good stuff.
That's good And I think you're on the right track.
did you get an ADHD diagnosis for Christmas?
If so, come and enjoy your new New Year's, Because New Year's was the hardest when I didnot have a diagnosis.
And I really feel like you're on to something on that because it just feeds into our
Rejection sensitivity and our self-loathing and our shame all these things we line them uppretty nice and neat and we're going to do all these things and then we don't and as soon
(12:42):
as one thing goes wrong We forget that we can always start again tomorrow and it doesn'tset us back, I didn't realize that until after my diagnosis and That is one thing I will
say that I truly love and I truly love that we get to talk about it on here
is I love leaning into my ADHD.
I wish to God I had known you know, know shoulda, coulda, woulda's, I understand, but man,uh all of the pain and hurt, would have saved my nervous system, And my emotional capacity
(13:16):
would be so much different.
the person I am, the mom I would have been, all of those things, because
It's worth leaning into it.
When you meet people who have ADHD, young or old, and they've lived a life where they gotto lean into their ADHD, whether or not they knew it, When they had support systems and
(13:37):
when they got to just be themselves, Those people who had that, they're a thousand percentdifferent than a person with late diagnosed ADHD who
did not have that opportunity or did not have that support system or that structure.
It is night and day difference,
(13:57):
what once you learn to, and I'm still learning because I don't think that it's anovernight thing.
But once you start to learn about your brain and how it works and you start working withit versus against it, that is the huge difference.
some people based on like, just their circumstances, whether it was their parents or theirtalents or whatever, they kind of figured out whether they knew they had ADHD or not, how
(14:18):
to work with it.
for so many of us, especially women, just spent so long working against it, trying so hardto mask it.
very few women get to be unabashedly themselves.
These are women, when you see them, you're very envious of them.
they may not have it all together.
You might think that they do and they may not, But we all know the type of women we'retalking about, the women that don't give a shit what they say but they've always been that
(14:44):
way.
they're still loving and caring.
They don't dismiss people, but they are their own person and they are unapologetic about
And that's kind of the woman that I'm still striving to be after my ADHD diagnosis.
And those are some of the best parts.
Those moments when I realize, oh, I don't have to do this shit.
this doesn't work for me and I don't have to do it.
(15:06):
those moments are so freeing, like, and they pop up out of nowhere because again, itdoesn't all happen at once, right?
You start to see a little thing, start to notice, but
Yeah.
But it's it's so freeing.
And I think maybe that's what everybody wants, Screw the hippopotamus for Christmas.
Let's all just get our ADHD diagnosis and understand that we're all more alike than whatwe realize.
(15:27):
That would make the new year pretty awesome.
um if New Year's has always felt hard um and you've listened to this and thought, yes,this is me.
remember you get to do New Year's your way.
find out what works for you and do it If you want to be up at midnight cleaning yourbathroom.
or you want to be out on a dance floor or having dinner with somebody special, Don't getinto all the tropes of what your New Year's is supposed to look like um and who you're
(15:54):
supposed to be in the new year.
no matter which decision you make, you're not a boze kill and you're not broken.
Your brain just works different.
if you spend New Year's Eve reorganizing a closet at 11pm because you suddenly gothyper-focused...
Totally valid.
Thanks for joining us.
If this episode hit home or hit a nerve, share it with another ADHD woman who might needto hear she's not alone.
(16:14):
until next time, be kind to yourself and remember, you're not the only one feeling angryon the inside.
Happy New Year's everyone.
Happy New Year's.
Have you ever felt anxious about New Year's Eve weeks before it happens?
(00:03):
or the pressure to have that best night ever,
This episode is for you.
Welcome back.
I'm Jess.
and I'm Janine and this is Angry on the Inside.
Quick reminder, we're not doctors or therapists.
However, we are certified ADHD coaches, but this podcast isn't coaching.
It's too late, Diagnosed Women.
unpacking what we've lived.
take what resonates, leave what doesn't, and just remember, you're not the only onefeeling angry on the inside.
(00:26):
That was good stuff.
I was thinking about it, New Year's Eve is at least from when I was young, romanticspecial night sort of uh magical kiss fantasy.
You know what I'm talking about?
It's not Christmas, not like Hallmark, you know, because I feel like Hallmark has a lot ofmagical Christmas kisses, Those are different.
Yes, but in my mind New Year's Eve was always the fantasy
(00:50):
I wanted to stand in the snow and get a kiss at midnight and it all be so fancy
Like some dude that didn't even know me well enough or like me well enough to buy me aChristmas gift within the next six days is going to be planning the most magical evening
either of us have ever had.
I don't know why but that for me that's the one.
(01:11):
Yeah, no, I always thought I agree.
Growing up, it was always like super romantic.
You'd be on this great date or you'd meet somebody at this, you'd go to a fabulous partyand meet someone.
you would see them across the dance floor.
For me too though, with the thing about New Year's is it just for like a test of yoursocial success,
Local news takes over the countdown and you're seeing people all these balls I spent thelast 20 years in Chicago and it was like I'd see all these people downtown and counting
(01:36):
down and I'd be like what the heck
Like if you have a lot of friends, are you invited to parties?
Cause the cool people are, that's what they do on New Year's Eve.
So.
If you don't have people to hang out with, you don't have a party to go to, well, what'swrong with you,
Or
and somehow that four-hour party
magically turns into like eight hours and somehow that, 2000 foot ballroom that you're insuddenly becomes 10,000 square foot.
(02:03):
I don't know, but it happens in my mind, Now, now my New Year's Eve, I like to drinkchocolate milk until I go into a sugar coma and fall asleep by 10.
And I'm really comfortable with that to be quite honest.
I've been in that zone for quite some time and I'm okay with it.
think, yeah, I'd still go to a party, but I'm not as into them as I used to.
(02:23):
And I used to also think whenever you had a good New Year's Eve, the year that followedsucked.
I went through like a decade of just ignore it.
And then the year would be better because I felt like the few times I went to a greatparty, the following year sucked.
that's interesting.
know, thinking about it in the moment, I kind of felt the opposite.
I always had kind of sucky New Year's, especially in my 20s, I always felt like that setthe tone for the year.
(02:48):
maybe it would have been even worse uh had I had a good New Year's Eve.
So maybe I should count my blessings,
Yeah.
Or then I thought maybe I just started to think that because I wasn't being invited toparties.
You know, I wasn't the one to go hang out with and go to the bars with.
Maybe I made that up to make myself feel better.
Like, well, if I have a boring New Year's.
overall, I don't think for somebody with ADHD brain, like New Year's Eve, New Year's Day,any of that is like really
(03:16):
doesn't work with an ADHD brain.
It's all about expectations and should'ves and could'ves and would'ves and all of that.
If I'm looking at it, from the ADHD perspective with New Year's Eve, like we can cut it afew different ways, How about we say that our main character syndrome for New Year's Eve,
we are either the party girl, uh We're out to enjoy ourselves and drink a ton and dancethe night away.
(03:40):
and throw up on the designated driver's shoes.
The flip side of that coin, our Audi HD'ers, are the designated drivers, that's me,waiting for somebody to throw up on my shoes and for me to have to take care of everybody
for the night to make sure everyone is safe with my hypervigilance.
Then you move along, you might be the type who's just laying at home with your kids,trying to keep them from getting grumpy before the countdown.
(04:03):
Or you're in bed by 10.
There's a couple different ways to hack it.
Some people though, I will say, you can get hyped up on New Year's Eve.
That can give you a good bump of dopamine once you get engaged and you go out.
Yeah?
Once you get started running down that hill.
I know someone likes to dance, Jeannine
I do, I do.
(04:23):
Didn't say I was good at it, but I like to.
Once you get me on that, yeah, once I'm there and engaged, I don't want it to end.
Like I'm the one who's just like, yeah, it's 2 a.m.
So why, what does that mean?
Like why does everyone think we have to go home now?
Why does the party have to stop?
I can keep going, let's the party But then it's also the complete opposite,
those times where you agreed to go to the party and then that day comes and you're like, Ihave no energy.
(04:47):
I don't want to deal with the world or people or anything.
it sounded great when I decided our RSVP, yes, like three weeks ago, but yeah, woke upthis morning and that's not where my energy level is.
It's one of those days
I don't have the energy to do anything and I sure as heck don't want to see anybody.
And now what do I do?
I'm stuck going to this party.
that's when your extroverted self that was around for 10 or 15 minutes one day made plansbefore your introverted self was able to be like, oh hell no.
(05:16):
Yes.
my gosh.
How many times, how many times you have that burst of energy, like a half hour and you gothrough all your emails or, respond to all those texts You're saying yes to everything.
Yes, we'll do this.
Yes, we'll do that.
And then the morning you wake up thinking, what have I done?
And spend the next two weeks trying to figure out how you're to get yourself out of it.
What's a good excuse?
(05:37):
Do I just outright lie or do I just suffer through it and go?
Because that's what you should do, right?
You go begrudgingly, but if you can get a toehold in the night and start to have a littlebit of fun, everybody needs to step back because you're going to have a ton of fun on New
Year's Eve if you can get it going.
at the end of the day, I feel like New Year's Day is the ADHD woman's most anti-climacticholiday.
(06:05):
Yes.
So, so, so true.
Because A, I think New Year's Eve, I'm supposed to be like very social, have a great time.
Everything's supposed to be super exciting.
And then that doesn't pan out.
And then, and I remember thinking this as a kid, that you would wake up on New Year's Dayand like the world would be different.
It would be better, It was like a fresh start.
everything you did wrong in the old year.
(06:26):
It's a clean slate and I was just suddenly going to be the most organized, disciplined, umhealthiest, I just could go on and on.
I was just all those things I didn't like about myself were suddenly going to go away.
I was going to wake up on New Year's Day and it all be gone.
And I would be the person who suddenly would get up at 6 a.m.
to go for a two mile run, come home, have a great breakfast,
(06:49):
we expect a reverse Cinderella effect, Once the clock strikes midnight, we expect thatpumpkin To turn into the, what is it called?
Shit.
It's a carriage or whatever.
We expect that pumpkin to turn into a carriage after midnight rather than the other way,all this magical stuff to happen as we sleep so that we wake up and we are just the
(07:12):
epitome of perfection in our brains,
you went to bed, one person and you wake up the next day.
It's a new year.
It's a new you.
waking up on that satin pillowcase that you got and you're stocking.
So your hair is perfectly fluffed, Or you got a bonnet that you remembered to put onbefore you went to bed.
And your hair is not staticky,
out of Yeah.
Because it's the new year.
Even if you have a hangover, you might be popping out of bed.
(07:33):
Who knows?
it's funny because it's like the reason in my mind why it's anticlimactic and why it'ssuch an anticlimactic holiday is you wake up and none of those things have changed.
within a few days, everything hits you in the face because we're planning for 50 morethings after just finishing the holiday stretch.
we're exhausted.
Yeah.
(07:54):
no time to recoup or regenerate.
And we give ourselves no grace for regenerating, We literally just ran the holidaymarathon throughout the month of December, topped it off with staying up super late and,
not treating our bodies very well.
And then we think everything's going to feel so good when we get up that next day.
(08:15):
for many of us, a lot of things come into play,
Now all the holiday decorations have to come down.
Right?
All the lights and the glitter, it's gone.
For those of us who are like horrible with money,
you are going to be financially responsible,
You are going to be financially responsible and yet somehow you end up depressed in themonth of January because you have no money and you can't leave the house why can't we just
(08:39):
take like two weeks?
Let's take two weeks off after that, And just not worry about dealing with anything.
We don't have to be anything.
We just have to get through, Let's just sit and doom scroll.
Maybe we could have a week of doom scrolling.
That's okay.
I can do that.
The whole damn time.
the whole damn time
and you don't even know where that organizer is.
then, know, you go to work and there's that person who's all the way into February andstill getting up at 6 a.m.
(09:03):
to run their two miles and they're feeling great.
And you're like, I New Year's is just really hard when you have ADHD, especially if it'sundiagnosed and you keep wondering why.
God, yes.
feel committed, you are committed.
You really, really, really want to make these changes, you've read every possible articleabout how to set a good resolution, and maybe as you've gotten older, you've learned a few
(09:26):
tricks that, know, so maybe you did figure out, well, instead of having 20 new things Iwas going to do every single day, I would just do 10 new things every day
several years ago, just decide not to make resolutions.
Cause at least I figured that out.
just disappointed me.
I don't know who to credit this with but it was probably 15 plus years ago I was listeningto something and it was like the woman was talking about New Year's resolutions and she
(09:53):
was like I decided a long time ago that I could make all the New Year's resolutions that Iwanted but I would make one that was obtainable that kind of caught me because I would try
New Year's resolutions every year and this was
definitely, pre ADHD diagnosis.
And, I would get so disappointed every year because I wasn't hitting these milestones likeanywhere near soon.
(10:13):
we are instant gratification people.
that first year, I love song lyrics and I decided I was going to learn all the words toREM's It's the end of the world as we know it.
You know, because most people only know like Leonard Bernstein and Lenny Bruce and LesterBanks and boom.
lot of people don't know that, most the song when he's singing, it's the end of the worldas we know it in the background, he's singing.
(10:36):
It's time I had some time alone, the lyrics are kind of interesting and you do kind offeel fancy when you do actually know the lyrics I still do know it and.
after I did that, first year, and it lasted probably for a good 10 years we talk about howour tips and tricks, They wear thin after a while.
we lose our, what's the word?
Dammit, dammit, dammit.
the novelty wears off.
the novelty wears off but for several years I just had a lot of randomness.
(11:00):
then one year I chose that I was going to learn how to, um, how to solve a Rubik's cube.
like how Justin Bieber does with like this stuff on YouTube from when he was like ateenager and he just sits and twist it and turns it.
And then like, all of a sudden it's done.
I decided I was going to do that.
And I even bought myself a Rubik's cube and put it into my stocking.
I was very all over it.
I think I saw it out in the garage a few weeks ago, Rubik's cube still in the packaging,but that was the year.
(11:27):
I solved it by buying it.
I bought it solved, it remains solved.
the way that I was able to do that was by not opening it.
I think that counts as
Right?
Thinking outside the box about the cube inside the box.
especially now diagnosed, knowing myself so much better is just getting comfortable withno matter how you're going to spend New Year's Eve um or what you think about the new year
(11:50):
that's coming is just do it your way.
last year I was just, it was just me and my son home and I think I cleaned my bathroombecause I'd been meaning to do that.
So at least, you know, it was like, I'll go into the new year with a very clean bathroom.
cleaned out my closet a little bit, you know, watched Andy and Anderson get drunk and thenopened a bottle of champagne, had a glass of champagne, went to bed by 1230.
(12:13):
It was good.
That's good stuff.
That's good And I think you're on the right track.
did you get an ADHD diagnosis for Christmas?
If so, come and enjoy your new New Year's, Because New Year's was the hardest when I didnot have a diagnosis.
And I really feel like you're on to something on that because it just feeds into our
Rejection sensitivity and our self-loathing and our shame all these things we line them uppretty nice and neat and we're going to do all these things and then we don't and as soon
(12:42):
as one thing goes wrong We forget that we can always start again tomorrow and it doesn'tset us back, I didn't realize that until after my diagnosis and That is one thing I will
say that I truly love and I truly love that we get to talk about it on here
is I love leaning into my ADHD.
I wish to God I had known you know, know shoulda, coulda, woulda's, I understand, but man,uh all of the pain and hurt, would have saved my nervous system, And my emotional capacity
(13:16):
would be so much different.
the person I am, the mom I would have been, all of those things, because
It's worth leaning into it.
When you meet people who have ADHD, young or old, and they've lived a life where they gotto lean into their ADHD, whether or not they knew it, When they had support systems and
(13:37):
when they got to just be themselves, Those people who had that, they're a thousand percentdifferent than a person with late diagnosed ADHD who
did not have that opportunity or did not have that support system or that structure.
It is night and day difference,
(13:57):
what once you learn to, and I'm still learning because I don't think that it's anovernight thing.
But once you start to learn about your brain and how it works and you start working withit versus against it, that is the huge difference.
some people based on like, just their circumstances, whether it was their parents or theirtalents or whatever, they kind of figured out whether they knew they had ADHD or not, how
(14:18):
to work with it.
for so many of us, especially women, just spent so long working against it, trying so hardto mask it.
very few women get to be unabashedly themselves.
These are women, when you see them, you're very envious of them.
they may not have it all together.
You might think that they do and they may not, But we all know the type of women we'retalking about, the women that don't give a shit what they say but they've always been that
(14:44):
way.
they're still loving and caring.
They don't dismiss people, but they are their own person and they are unapologetic about
And that's kind of the woman that I'm still striving to be after my ADHD diagnosis.
And those are some of the best parts.
Those moments when I realize, oh, I don't have to do this shit.
this doesn't work for me and I don't have to do it.
(15:06):
those moments are so freeing, like, and they pop up out of nowhere because again, itdoesn't all happen at once, right?
You start to see a little thing, start to notice, but
Yeah.
But it's it's so freeing.
And I think maybe that's what everybody wants, Screw the hippopotamus for Christmas.
Let's all just get our ADHD diagnosis and understand that we're all more alike than whatwe realize.
(15:27):
That would make the new year pretty awesome.
um if New Year's has always felt hard um and you've listened to this and thought, yes,this is me.
remember you get to do New Year's your way.
find out what works for you and do it If you want to be up at midnight cleaning yourbathroom.
or you want to be out on a dance floor or having dinner with somebody special, Don't getinto all the tropes of what your New Year's is supposed to look like um and who you're
(15:54):
supposed to be in the new year.
no matter which decision you make, you're not a boze kill and you're not broken.
Your brain just works different.
if you spend New Year's Eve reorganizing a closet at 11pm because you suddenly gothyper-focused...
Totally valid.
Thanks for joining us.
If this episode hit home or hit a nerve, share it with another ADHD woman who might needto hear she's not alone.
(16:14):
until next time, be kind to yourself and remember, you're not the only one feeling angryon the inside.
Happy New Year's everyone.
Happy New Year's.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!