November 22, 2024 • 59 mins
ADHD in women has historically been underrepresented and misunderstood, leading to many women being undiagnosed or misdiagnosed. Christine MacCarroll welcomes Sari Solden, a pioneer in the field of ADHD research for women, to discuss the unique challenges women face and the importance of recognizing their experiences. They delve into the significant impact of societal expectations and the internalized shame that often accompanies ADHD in women. Sari shares her journey of writing groundbreaking books and emphasizes the need for a supportive, humanistic approach in therapy and diagnosis. Together, they explore the evolving conversation around ADHD, highlighting the empowering connections women are forging through shared experiences and self-advocacy.
Takeaways:
- ADHD in girls often goes undetected, underscoring the need for increased teacher awareness.
- Sari Solden's pioneering work highlights the unique challenges women face with ADHD.
- Many women internalize shame regarding their ADHD symptoms, impacting their self-esteem and relationships.
- The importance of community and support groups for women self-identifying with ADHD cannot be overstated.
- Understanding one's own ADHD experience is crucial for effective self-advocacy and boundary-setting.
Books by Sari Soldin:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
It wasn't until 1997 that apivotal meta analysis reviewing 16
studies revealed that ADHD ingirls often went undetected by teachers.
This was the turning point foradditional research into understanding
some of the unique differencesexperienced by women, and there's
still a wide gap in the research.
As a woman who graduated highschool in 1996, this was a stunning
(00:21):
revelation.
Welcome to ADHD SmartSolutions for Holistic Women with
Christine McCarroll.
Hi, I'm Christine, and this isthe spot to learn natural strategies
for supporting your ADHD brain.
As a woman with all thehormonal curve balls and unique challenges
that only females face, I'vemade it my mission to uncover the
root causes and little knownsupports for your ADHD brain that
(00:44):
your doctor doesn't know andwon't tell you.
Learn the truth and find your focus.
No prescription required.
Hello friends, and welcomeback to ADHD Naturally.
Today's episode is a bonusepisode of an interview from a couple
of years ago with Sari Soldin,who wrote the very first book on
women with adhd.
And as I just mentioned, thisis a relatively new area of research
(01:08):
and I am so pleased to be ableto bring you this bonus interview
with a pioneer in the field,Sari Soldin.
Okay, so I have an excitinginterview on today's podcast.
So I had the opportunity tointerview Sari Soldin, who I am lovingly
calling the mother of ADHD for women.
(01:31):
So the reason I am saying thatis because she wrote the very first
book specifically about theway that ADHD presents for women.
So this was reallygroundbreaking, Terry.
Several decades ago, actually,she has gone on to write additional
books.
So she's a bestselling author.
(01:51):
She has written Women DeficitDisorder, Journeys, Adulthood, so
ADD Old Hood and A RadicalGuide for Women with adhd.
So all of those books are phenomenal.
I have read all of them and Iwas so excited to be able to have
this interview with Sari Soldin.
(02:11):
So I had reached out to herafter I read, I think, her first
book, and I went and read theother two shortly thereafter.
But when I first was diagnosedand I started looking at, of course,
one of my first questions,being someone who has worked with
women's health for years, ishow is this unique and different
for women?
And everywhere I looked, Icould see that she was the first
(02:35):
voice to begin talking about this.
So I went on to join somedifferent online groups for women
with adhd.
And again, seeing everywherethat everyone just really felt as
they read these books thatSari was describing them.
Exactly.
And I Think it's even in oneof the forwards to one of the books.
(02:56):
Like, the comments that she'sgotten over the years is basically
like, were you filming me inmy kitchen?
Like, it's.
It's just uncanny how similarthe experience is and how well she
captured this.
So we talked a lot aboutdifferent topics, specifically for
women, of course, with ADHD onthis episode.
We talked about the history,because, again, I am coming into
(03:16):
this decades after.
After Sari has been doingthis, and she has a lot of insight
into how this field haschanged, how the work has changed.
I was curious about herinitial experience, kind of breaking
down the barriers, talkingabout this, first of all for adults,
then for adult women.
Really interested in herthought on some of the kind of.
I don't know if I'm gonna callit a controversy exactly.
(03:37):
Maybe it is this controversyI've seen lately where, first of
all, a lot of women.
There's this beautiful thingwhere lots of women are becoming
aware of this as even adiagnosis, potential diagnosis for
them.
At the same time, thispushback from some people saying,
oh, this is just a fad, orsuddenly every woman has adhd, and,
like, this is like, basicallytrying to put women in their place
for their lived experience.
(03:58):
And so I was really interested in.
Her thoughts on that.
We had a great conversationthere, and it was just so wonderful
to be able to talk to someonewho has been in this field looking
at women, looking at ourunique presentation of ADHD again,
for decades.
So, per her professional bio,Sari Soldin is a psychotherapist,
and she has been a pioneer,again, in the field of counseling
(04:19):
women and men with thestrengths and struggles of ADHD for
over 30 years.
She also serves on theprofessional advisory board of the
association for Adults with adhd.
And she again, has writtenthose three books, and those books
have been translated andpublished in Europe and Asia.
So her groundbreakingprofessional work and her personal
(04:40):
story have been featured invarious media, including cnn, Time,
People, Parade, and Prevention.
So I'm so excited to welcomeSari Soldin to the podcast.
Sari Sullivan, welcome to the podcast.
Well, thank you, Christine.
It's lovely to talk to you.
Lovely to talk to you, too.
(05:00):
I'm so excited to have this conversation.
We were talking a little bitbefore we started recording, and
yours was one of the veryfirst books that I read when I started
going down and trying tounderstand ADHD in my own.
And my experience was what Ihave seen in numerous group chats
(05:20):
that I've seen, that I've been.
Now that I'm kind of swirled,which is so many people saying, like
she was in my head, she wasfollowing me around, reading.
She must have had a hiddencamera in my kitchen.
Because you do such abeautiful job of describing this
experience for women.
And I love that you were likepretty much the groundbreaker.
(05:40):
I think I'm like calling youthe mother of this ADHD for women
topic because you were thefirst to write this book.
So how did you decide youwanted to write a book about the
specifics of women with adhd?
That's a good question.
And that was a very powerfulexperience for many women to read
those things because this wasbefore the Internet, a long time
(06:03):
ago.
And so people really wereisolated and had no idea.
So they felt like that becausethey had no idea how I would know
this.
And so when they read, I couldwrite a book based on all the experiences.
It must be real that theremust be a lot of other women out
there like this.
So yeah, well, this was not intentional.
I just happened to be in theright place at the right time.
I started out in the early,well the late 80s.
(06:24):
I was in studying minoritymental health and cross cultural
counseling.
I didn't come from the medicalbackground or any interest in adhd,
but I think these intereststhat I had in counseling really have
affected my view of that nonpathologizing view of ADHD and the
sort of culturally embeddedkind of view that we have of people
(06:46):
with different neurologies.
So I was just lucky.
I was working with theseclients at a counseling agency who
had several special projects,one in minority mental health.
And they had the first ever,maybe ever adult with learning disability
program in a counseling center.
So not educationally based,not academically, but we were talking
(07:10):
about adults like we wouldanybody else who had difficulties
with their sense of self, with relationships.
They just happened to have alearning disability.
So all of a sudden I had aclient in my minority mental health
project who had a learning disability.
I wound up working in thisspecial project surrounded by books
on disorganization orsearching for answers about disorganization
in the books about learningdisabilities, because that's all
(07:32):
we knew that I.
Because even though I wassuccessful, you know, I was working
and I was a therapist, I nevercould figure out what was that chronic
and severe disorganization.
So I was spending all my timesearching that and I just happened
to be there in the early 90swhen, you know, I had a client bringing
this tape.
He heard someone recording onradio the night before.
It was Hallowell and Rady andthey Were talking about their new
(07:55):
book Driven to Distractions.
It was like the first timeanybody had written a book for adults.
And followed by that.
There was a book by my friendsKate Kelly and Peggy Raimundo called
I'm Not Crazy, Stupid or Lazy.
These are the first books inthe early 90s that helped us understand
that adults continued to haveproblems with attention even if they
(08:21):
lost their hyperactivity.
That was a big breakthroughbecause we thought adults didn't
have ADHD once, but it turnedout they just lost their hyperactivity.
That still left women out inthe cold, mostly because they were
never really had hyperactivity.
So at some point soon afterthat, we began to understand that
(08:41):
people never had to haveactually hyperactivity to have these
other struggles.
And that's when we at thatpoint called the ADD Without Hyperactivity,
which I think is a much bettertitles change Constantly.
So, you know, in those daysthere was a lot of things written
and every article ended like,and women have it too, but it's different,
you know.
And I was hardly any women do.
(09:02):
Yeah.
And so I was seeing men andwomen who had learning disabilities
finally understanding thatmaybe they also had what we were
calling adhd.
And it was just so apparent inmy counseling that women and men,
even if they had the samedisorganization or same potential
problems, the women had such ahigher degree of shame, they internalized
it, they felt bad about it.
(09:22):
They pretended, you know, thatwith other people they withdrew.
It had a much different effecton their core sense of self and on
the men who might have had thesame problems, who probably had more
support from wives or assistants.
But they didn't define them.
They just, you know, you know,like the absent minded professor
type.
So I started really, you know,tracking these differences.
(09:43):
And along with that, I had toget tested to work in this program.
And I saw some amazing thingsthat I never even knew about, like
my incredibly poor short termmemory that I didn't realize I'd
been compensating for all this time.
So I got diagnosed around thesame time.
But that's what led to my, tomy interest in women is actually
(10:04):
seeing them and the effectthis had on their sense of self.
So that's how I started.
Then I wrote the book prettyquickly, which was amazing.
It was just like poured out ofme after several months of watching
the difference andunderstanding it.
It was at that time we startedfor the first time having conferences,
(10:26):
you know, for adults and firsttime that women started to be able
to talk to other women.
The big thing why my book wasa big.
Had a big impact also was thatthe Internet really started to come
into its own in a big way.
So it was the first timereally, women were able to connect
to other women.
So saying that first wave ofthe gatekeepers change, at that point,
(10:48):
the women pushed through the barriers.
You asked me about what'shappening now.
At that time, it was just theInternet and these conferences where
women were pushing doctors andpsychiatrists and psychologists and
everything to, hey, this, thisis what I have.
I'm joining with other women.
We all identify in ways you'veleft us out.
So it was from the bottom upthat things changed.
(11:14):
Because at that time, the bigconferences were just.
Most of ADHD was aboutacademics, white, mostly white male
academics, talking to teachersand parents about this bad thing
that their kid had and telling it.
Then all of a sudden, adultsbroke through and, oh, that was a
huge shift.
Oh, no, we're losing control.
And they didn't like that.
And then women and they said,oh, no, what's happening?
(11:36):
And so it's just such a funny evolution.
So then at one point it waslike, oh, no, we can't let coaches
into this.
I mean, there was.
Coaches were completelyforbidden from.
It was a huge thing.
Coaches could not be involvedin these conferences at all.
That was like a huge thing.
Therapists versus coaches.
And so now when he.
I see now that, like, socialinfluencers, people on TikTok are
(12:00):
becoming like, you know,keynote speakers at this conference.
It's hysterical to me.
You know, it's like a huge difference.
But I see now that probablyjust the gatekeeping thing is just
loosening up more and more andpeople are learning about themselves.
And, you know, the good partabout that is I think the mental
health stigma has really decreased.
(12:21):
Empowerment has increased,awareness has increased.
Then obviously, to get yourother question later was, yeah, you
have to go then and take thatand talk to somebody who knows something.
But I don't think it's a badthing for women to feel connected
and understood.
And the shame.
Because the shame that womenhave about this in the past is intense.
(12:44):
And so I think that this isbecoming less stigmatized now and
women are able to advocate forthemselves more as a result.
Yeah.
So at the very beginning, soyou're one of the first people breaking
through this barrier.
So you're talking about thesebarriers and the gatekeepers.
And there's lots of barriersand lots of gatekeepers.
And I mean, this is across allkinds of fields.
This is across academia.
(13:05):
Like, this is like, this is,you know, not Unique here, but you
have your own unique gatekeepers.
Probably a really positivething actually that you had to go
through like assessment as youbegan your work because that enabled
you to understand personallyas well and probably also go back
and say, oh, okay, so I'vebeen helping these women, thinking
I was just helping them.
And here's my, here's mysimilar experience.
(13:27):
Right, right, right.
Was this something that youhad actually learned about much in
your education or it reallywas just like on the, on the ground.
I'm seeing my clients who areexperiencing this.
Like, I know they wouldn'thave talked about women, but like
talking, nobody, it.
Was just even now, I mean, youknow, I work with a lot of psychiatrists,
clients who have ADHD whojust, they never learned anything
(13:50):
in medical school.
I mean, medical school, theydon't learn about anything.
Yeah, no.
Psychiatrists don't learnabout it.
Psychologists don't learn anything.
So this idea that, you know,there's all these experts out there
who women should turnthemselves over to is not really
true because I mean, maybethey understand hyperactive little
boys, but they don'tunderstand how it looks in women
(14:11):
and inattentive people.
And it's, you know, so thismodel, like Tom Brown, Dr.
Brown's model of executivefunction is a much more nuanced way
of understanding.
I don't even like to talkabout ADHD because it's so stigmatized
and stereotyped and reallydoesn't describe the variety of the
syndrome, executive function difficulties.
(14:33):
So yeah, I can tell you alittle bit why women, just why women
weren't really recognized eventhen, besides us thinking that they
grew out of it, was that,well, women and girls are very well
because of the stereotype.
Most of them are not hyperactive.
Right.
And they even in the name ADHDnow, like hyperactive is in the name.
(14:56):
We changed the name to putthat in.
I know we had to put that inspecifically, you know, so that name
changes all the time.
So but at the beginning, youknow, we always thought it was hyperactive
little boys making trouble.
So those are the little boysthat got referred and those are the
boys, little boys that gotdiagnosed and then studied.
And then it was just like aself perpetuating, self fulfilling
(15:18):
thing.
So that's why we kept thinkingfor a long time.
So little girls we know noware internalizing their difficulties
like getting more depressedand anxious, hiding it, getting perfectionistic
often.
So their difficulties areoften masked for many years until
they often.
Because if they're quietlyfailing or quietly not knowing what's
going on Then they hitpuberty, talking about hormone changes.
(15:42):
Often that's the first time.
Maybe you'll see some difficulties.
At the same time, they havemuch more increased need for executive
function.
You know, changing classes andhaving to track their belongings
more and lockers and all that responsibilities.
Yep.
Yeah.
And so.
And then many really smartgirls don't get diagnosed till much
(16:02):
later when they leave home, goto college.
Executive function increases,needs increase.
Or if you're really smart andyou're compensated or you have a
lot of support, then maybeit's not until you try to get married
or have children or work orall those things.
Then at some point yourdemands overload your executive function
abilities.
By then, often you'rediagnosed as depressed and anxious,
(16:26):
which you often are, but oftenit's secondary to the primary ADHD
symptoms.
And then you're misdiagnosedor underdiagnosed or mismanaged medically.
So, you know, I have women whocome to see me all up through their.
I just had a new client theother day, he was 80, you know, so.
Yeah, and believe it or not,the same thing.
(16:47):
Like I had a client who diedat 85.
And she said those last fiveyears were so important to her to
finally realize, you know,that she wasn't, you know, this bad
person, that it wasn't a moral failing.
Something was gotten differentin her brain.
It's never too late tounderstand, you know, what's really
going on in this nat.
Non pathology in the kind of way.
So, yeah, so girls, women,they're often, by the time you see
(17:11):
a woman who hasn't beendiagnosed, she's very well compensated.
So it's very hard to get diagnosed.
You know, maybe she'seducated, very well educated, maybe
she's doing well in certainareas of her life.
So it, there's a lot of masking.
And so it's very hard for.
Unless you really haveexperience working with women and
inattentive and more subtlekinds of executive function to understand,
(17:33):
you know, and diagnosed correctly.
Yeah.
So like in your book, youcalled it the mask of competency.
And I, and I think now whatI'm seeing kind of just in, in the
world that we're talking aboutthis and is people just talking about
masking and actually maskingfor several different neurodivergent
(17:54):
presentations.
But I think, you know, from myexperience, from experience of other
women close to me, fromclients, from people I'm seeing,
like so many people are.
So many women specifically aredismissed because of some level of
professional attainment oreducational attainment.
So, like, somebody close to mehas a PhD and was actually seeking
(18:16):
out thinking, like, I think Imeet all of these criteria.
Went to a psychiatrist andthey're like.
You'Re in a PhD program.
You couldn't possibly have ADHD.
And so just completely wrotethat off, said you have anxiety.
It's not the same.
You know, like, it's not.
Couldn't possibly be this.
Other women, you know, high,high academic achievement or high
professional achievement.
And my own experience, peopleare saying, like, that couldn't possibly
(18:38):
be you.
Like that.
That isn't right.
And then you feel right.
Then you're in this difficultposition of having to prove to them
how bad things really are.
No, no, you don't understand.
Really, behind the scenes, I'mreally a mess.
You don't know.
You want to be seen ascompetent because you are, but yet
nobody believes that you havethe difficulties behind the scenes.
So that's very common and sucha myth.
(18:59):
And so there's.
If you really talk to women indepth and diagnosis, there's like,
you have to find out all theareas of their life or what price
they're paying are successfulbecause they have no relationships
or they have no fun or theyhave nothing else in their life except
staying, trying to stayorganized and trying to do their
work.
And maybe they do, you know,create a great product, but you don't
(19:20):
see the process behind thescenes of how difficult it was mentally
or emotionally or the pricewith relationships.
So.
And sometimes women, you know,ADD is very, you know, environmentally,
you know, affected.
So you might have a job whereit's structured and it's in your
area of strength or skill, andat home, where it's.
Where there's no routine orit's unstructured or all these things
(19:42):
are coming in at you, then youmight not be able to manage at all.
So you can't.
And people don't believe youbecause they see that.
They only see the one, the mask.
Right?
Or you're doing well.
I mean, it's true, though it'snot true.
It's true that you're doingwell because you have strengths.
So you just also have theseareas that you can't manage because
of the executive function.
But nobody can make sense of that.
(20:04):
You know, we sort of call thattwice exceptional.
You know, there's twiceexceptional learners.
But in adults it means like,do you have great gifts or strengths
or talents or iq, when on theother hand, you have these great,
you know, executive functiondifficulties or learning disabilities,
and there's such a stretchthat it's very demoralizing because
people don't have theorganizational or intentional skills
(20:27):
to manifest their strengths.
And so that's a really demoralizing.
And then that's also like aton of energy, like the amount of
energy required to sustain a mask.
If there's, you know, thatfeeling of hiding you were talking
about in your book, like yourlittle room that you were constantly
trying to organize for years.
I have that very similarexperience of like, just like, could
(20:51):
I organize my books?
And the books are always just.
I have so many books, andthey're always everywhere.
And the degree of difficulty,like you're saying, the energy, the
gap between your ability,everybody has trouble in some of
these areas, but the gapbetween you and other people who
don't have executive functionare tremendous.
And then the energy, like yousaid with women, of hiding.
(21:11):
So that's the biggest compensation.
These women that I deal withuse, which is hiding, pretending,
not letting anybody know.
And that's the hardest partabout ADHD for women is that isolation
or the withdrawal or the lack of.
Or underachievement.
It's the lack of authenticity.
So those are things we work onwith therapy and groups is all the
(21:33):
secondary things for womenbecause this stuff is so core to
women's feelings about whatthey should be able to do or toxic.
Comparing themselves to otherwomen, what they do so easily.
And so it takes a.
You know, in the book RadicalGuide that we wrote, we're trying
to get people to untangletheir brain difficulties from their
(21:53):
sense of self.
And the goal is really one ischronic, you know, and get meds,
you get coaching, you getassistance, but that's chronic.
That's something you're goingalways need support.
Yep.
Yeah.
And then there's you andyourself and your life and your meaning.
And you can't wait to get overthose chronic difficulties before
you start moving toward yourself.
And that's the saddest part.
(22:14):
You know, women who want to,you know, want to wait until they're
fixed, like Michelle and I, Dr.
Frank and I say in the book,you know, only furniture and dogs
need fixing.
And.
But women have value.
Can you.
You know, they want to getover, as one lady said to me, this
case of terminal uniqueness.
(22:36):
Can't I just be back to havinga normal Brit?
Nope.
That's the one you got.
Nobody wants to be normal.
That's irony.
People want to be extraordinary.
They want to stand out, theywant to be special, they want to
shine.
But they're, you know, they'reso afraid of that humiliation or
those Negative messages thatthey just fall back.
Well, and I think, you know,in your initial book, which is.
Is it close to 20 years old atthis point?
(22:58):
It was Originally published in 95.
Wow.
Yeah.
Okay, so we're 30 yearsclosing it on the 30 year mark.
Yeah.
So the.
I think there was perhaps evena deeper level of social expectation
around women and femininity.
I would still guess so.
I do not think even thoughthere is.
(23:18):
There is a lot of outward talkabout, you know, the shifting of
roles and less of the genderstereotyping, I think there's still
a very.
A deep cultural sense of howwomen are supposed to be that is
basically the antithesis of anADHD woman's brain.
Exactly.
It hasn't changed that much.
It's just shocking.
I have clients in their 20s,30s, and in therapy, when push comes
(23:43):
to shove, they feel the samekind of pressure and embarrassment
about how to talk.
Difficulty talking about thisas anybody.
In the 1950s, we used to justlaugh about it.
It's like Desi and Lucy.
It's like the 1950s, deepdown, women that's like, passed on,
you know, and I imagine theworld of social media just really
exacerbates that.
(24:05):
And you see, you thinkeverybody's having these great lives.
Time of their lives.
Yeah.
You know, and then you'recomparing yourself even.
There's probably even moreopportunities to compare yourself.
In those days, it was all, youknow, from TV ads or from magazines.
But now I'm sure it's justlike bombarding women.
So I agree with you.
Like the women I see intherapy, it doesn't matter.
(24:25):
They're young.
Women are still like, sohaving trouble explaining this in
relationships and stillgetting criticized and a lot of toxic
stuff in relationships becauseof this.
And yeah, they still have that cultural.
Kind of the internalizedfeminine, which is like the.
It's like all amazingexecutive function.
(24:46):
Like what we internalize aboutwhat a woman should be.
It's like organized andkeeping the social calendar and like
the perfect mom to the kidsand like just all of that, that classic
stuff that is so challenging.
That's why I wrote the book,because that was what.
That book.
Why that book was so popular,I think is because it wasn't just
about add.
It was about how executivefunction collides with those internalized,
(25:09):
idealized views of what awoman should be or be able to do.
And that stuff is reallydeeply embedded.
And it hasn't gone super far.
It hasn't.
Which is just so shockingdespite, you know, men helping more
or, you know, Intellectually,you're not believing that or women
being success and other areas,that stuff.
Is still, it's still pretty,pretty ingrained.
(25:32):
Yeah.
So you identified four levelsin the book.
(26:55):
So you said surviving, hiding,emerging and embracing.
So can you break down just ata very high level?
I know, tell me you're goingto ask that.
But I'm pretty sure they'restill the same.
So surviving is like, I don'tknow I have anything right.
Or like trying to just muddleyour way through.
But you don't know.
You're like, you don't knowwhat's going on and you're just really
(27:18):
basically trying.
Yeah, you're treading water.
You don't know what's going on.
Yeah, I would have reviewed that.
Go on, what's the next one then?
So then you had hiding, whichI think is where probably undiagnosed
women land maybe the majorityof their life, which is just trying
to hide what they'reperceiving as like a deficiency of
womanhood.
Like, I'm not organized, Ican't keep the social calendar.
(27:38):
I have a hard time, you know,managing these executive skills that
I'm supposed to, supposed toair quotes, right?
Well, I would just say that,yeah, hiding is, but, but especially
maybe more back then hiding.
It doesn't go away with the diagnosis.
So that's the problem.
You know, if I say if you'rejust dealing with ADHD, at the end
of the day, that's great, youcan do that.
But these other things are so,so endemic all the way through now.
(28:03):
I do find that younger women,maybe because of this exposure that
they have to other women allthe time, they, they don't, they
are much more able to advocatefor themselves and they don't hide
as much and at all.
And so, but in those days,that hiding part, that.
And to the older women stilland to a lot of women, hiding keeps
(28:24):
going on, and that's part ofthe therapeutic work or the work
that happens after meetingother women or being in a group with
other women or attending someof these other virtual conferences
or in person.
That that's what has tochange, that you're hiding.
You don't have to go aroundtelling everybody, and you shouldn't
go around telling everybody ofADHD because it's misunderstood.
(28:45):
But hiding your personality,not showing personality, not being
able to be out in the worldwith who you are fully as a person,
doesn't mean you have toreveal everything.
But you have to learn how tobe authentic and connect to your
personality and all Your coretraits, you're not just adhd, you're
sensitive or funny, you'rewarm or resilient.
(29:05):
You're a lot of things.
And that's what you want to beable to show, to reveal your diagnosis.
So hiding is something thatwomen have to work on throughout,
even after diagnosis.
And I think it was in your.
So the Radical Guide is a workbook.
Right?
The Radical Guide for.
Yeah, well, we didn't like thename of the book, but they made us
(29:26):
use it because.
Workbook.
But it's more than a workbook.
It's got a lot of.
Absolutely.
Because it's more.
Because we didn't focusironically on adhd, we focused on.
Okay.
We focus more on becoming yourfull self, shining, taking center
stage in your life, you know,and being entitled to have all these.
The good things in life, even if.
If you have these struggles.
(29:46):
Yeah, I really loved that angle.
I think it's so empowering tonot be thinking.
So if we go on the one handfrom like full on masking to the
other hand and like, okay, Ihave a diagnosis and I'm really hoping
that other people are going to understand.
And either way, we're kind ofidentifying with what's a challenge
for us.
And so the opportunity to kindof go beyond that and say, like,
(30:11):
actually just what's trueabout me as a human is so much more
interesting and.
Fun on what you're saying, youknow, So I call it like, yeah, being
a whole person.
It's.
Yes.
And you know, yes, I havethese struggles and I'm all these
other things too.
And so you are.
This is just some particularway your brain works in these particular
situations.
It's a particular difficultyfor you.
(30:33):
And that's definitely not away to define yourself or measure
you as a human being, youknow, or to deny you the right, believe
it or not, to embrace whateveryou want in life or to have full
relationships.
And so I love the way you said it.
Yeah.
So just to be able to point isnot to be able to say, yes, I have
ADHD and I'm proud of it.
(30:53):
That's not the point.
And I don't think that's madeclearly enough like you just did,
you know, that's not the goal either.
The goal is just to be yourself.
Yeah.
And we all have our uniquechallenges and struggles, and that's
part of it.
And it helps when you understand.
And it's not the only.
The only thing do you thinkthat is related to.
So you said that you take ahumanistic view of neurodiverse people.
(31:17):
Is that kind of what you'retalking about when you say that?
Yes.
And I spent a long time, thelast few years trying to.
We try to change the conversation.
You know, at first it wentfrom all these things were character
flaws before we evenunderstood the brain at all.
Then it became by necessitymedical, and by that it became pathological
(31:38):
because that was to be takenseriously to get insurance coverage.
It became, you know, a medical condition.
Now it had to start movinginto a more humanistic area.
And, you know, in the word andthe concept neurodiversity is not
very old.
And I always like to talkabout neurodiversity.
And instead of adhd, ofcourse, it started with the autistic
community embracing who theyare, and now it's, you know, it talks
(32:02):
about all the variations ofour brains and all of our human lives.
So it just means that we haveto, you know, first of all become
comfortable with, embracedifferences, which I think the younger
generation is much better at doing.
And in terms of all thedifferent brains, they all contribute
something different to theworld instead of looking at it.
(32:25):
So when I say humanistically,I say moving emphasis and treatment
versus basically healing andnot curing because we don't want
to get over who you arehealing from all that pain and then
a whole view.
So all of who you are andmoving to just to center on a person,
person center versus pathologyand on yourself versus just on a
(32:49):
collection of symptoms.
Like, the goal of treatmentand measuring treatment is not symptom
elimination.
It's like having a good life yourself.
And I think that's where theprofessional world has to go to help
you with the shame.
Because as we say in thisbook, because my desk is disorganized
(33:12):
to.
My desk is a mess to become.
I'm a mess to, you know, tolike, oh, I'm a mess and I'm not
good enough for relationshipsand I have to hide.
So there's a whole cycle thathappens when it's just about the
symptoms versus learning towalk alongside your symptoms.
Like it's sort of likeparallel tracks is how I envision
it.
Like there's your difficultiesand then there's you.
(33:33):
And instead of them just beingcompletely fused, which happens when
you're not diagnosed, you haveno idea growing up how to attribute
all these difficulties.
So separating out that is avery freeing experience.
So you need support withsomebody who can help you see that
about yourself.
I love that visual.
That's really powerful.
Like, walking alongside yoursymptoms is.
(33:55):
It's.
It's Much more integrated into.
Just like, this is part of thejourney that I'm on.
And.
And not in that kind ofpathologizing way.
I have to say, I got it fromthis moving, even though ADHD is
not like this at all.
But I remember at the momentwhere I saw clearly and I started
to do that was there's a.
You ever see the movie ABeautiful Mind?
(34:15):
Yes, at some point.
Yeah.
It's a true story for peoplewho don't know about a man who is
really haunted by all these,you know, hallucinations from his
schizophrenia.
And he couldn't get over it.
But at some point he started walking.
They were there.
He knew what they were.
They stopped bothering him.
He went on with his life anyways.
Very powerful.
And that moment, it sort of crystallized.
(34:36):
I said, oh, I can live withall this clutter along.
I can just still have my lifeand have a different path and I can
see all this around me, butit's not going to engulf me.
Yeah, that is beautiful.
I love that so much.
And it's such a powerful wayto think about it in a simple way,
but also pretty profound whenyou're able to, like, let go of that
as something that is going tocontrol your life.
(34:58):
I think it's interesting whatyou just said about kind of the requirement
of a medical diagnosis necessarily.
Like, it's.
It creates some pathology.
And then when we get into amedical model, we are definitely
more in kind of the like, allright, we're just going to.
Here's medication and we don'tneed to do anything else.
And you've talked a lot abouttreatment as a much more broad picture,
like therapy, but also evenjust other life supports.
(35:20):
Right.
Like, we all can use a little support.
And when you have executivefunction challenges, then some of
those supports become evenmore important.
So where do you think there'smaybe an opportunity that's being
missed?
And maybe I'm giving you aleading question here, but if we're
going into this medical modeland we're just like, okay, diagnosis,
(35:41):
this equals here's onetreatment option for everybody, or
here's one thing.
And then people don'tunderstand, especially women maybe
don't look at the big pictureof what other supports they would
need.
So maybe top two or threeother supports that are really helpful
as a woman's looking atwalking alongside her diagnosis.
(36:04):
Well, that's a long roadfirst, just to manage expectations.
I think you sent me thisarticle to read and to comment on,
and I.
It was very interesting tosee, you know, People hung up on
this word diagnosis or not diagnosis.
I mean, I think, I think it'sgood what's happening.
I mean, I'm not in the weeds,so I don't know about that.
But it's good for women tounderstand and resonate, to identify
(36:27):
with and then go to talk tosomebody who actually knows.
Because if it's a verydemoralizing experience for women
who finally get up the courageto go talk to a professional and
they have that experience,recommend, oh, you're wrong.
Like women have to be theexpert on their experience.
I mean, a doctor knows a lotand you don't want to disregard that.
(36:48):
But it's not diagnosisshopping if somebody treats you poorly
or condescends to you to findsomebody who can help you understand
your experience, tell you whatthey know, tell you what might help
them.
You want help.
And maybe it's not thisdiagnosis or that diagnosis, but
you want to work inpartnership in a non hierarchical
way with people who respect you.
(37:09):
And so when people, when yougo in for, you know, to talk about
your life, you know, you wantsomeone who really helps you explore
your life and helps youunderstand how this is related to
some diagnosis you might haveheard about in a much more nuanced
way.
Going over in depth yourexecutive function, how it shows
up in your particular life,not as a recipe or cookbook, you
(37:33):
know, kind of, it's differentin every person.
So you want a partner who can,can help you.
You know, I always, in myfirst book, I called it the Messed
model.
It's easy to understand, butit's medication sometimes, you know,
education, support strategies, therapy.
And so I try to look ateverybody in an individual way.
(37:54):
I wrote that second book,Journeys, because at the beginning
it was sort of easy.
Nobody had any of these things.
But at some point a lot ofpeople had different things and not
everybody needed the same thing.
So you want to always startwith the brain.
Kind of like, how is my brainbeing maximized?
You know, have I tried medication?
What kind of medication have Igiven it?
I've gone to somebody who canhelp me really, you know, make it
(38:17):
work for me.
Because often women are, youknow, given way too strong a dose
and then they just throw thewhole idea out the window.
So really working withsomebody on, you want to be more
yourself, it's not to changeyou, it's not.
And it shouldn't feel bad.
It should just to support yourbrain so you can feel like you're
going to show up every daywith more consistency.
You can trust your brain Alittle bit, but that's just fuel.
(38:37):
You need the fuel, but thenyou need.
There's so many things you need.
But I mean, you want somebodywho can help you.
Like in my book Journeys, youknow, I talk about all the variables.
You have to learn how tooperate your brain in a way that
works for you.
Not to fight it, not to berateit, not to push it, not to ignore
(38:57):
it, but just listen to your brain.
Like this.
This is, you know, this isdifferent for me.
It's not.
Other people can see, youknow, 20 clients in a day.
Maybe I can only see a few,you know, but.
So you have to look at spacingand pacing and everything that's
happening in your life.
Structure, support.
You have to sort of be experton your own brain.
And working with a coach, ifit's the right coach, can help you
(39:18):
do that, or an organizer who'sspecially trained, or a therapist
who's specially trained.
So there's medication, education.
There's a lot of great supportout there online now, you know, from
ADA has a lot of great support groups.
Attitude magazine.
There's a lot of things youcan learn.
You want to understand your strengths.
That's important not to leavethat out.
(39:39):
And then you want to sort of.
The goal of therapy is to helpyou move toward something compelling
in your life.
Like Nat hall says, you know,you just have to be well enough organized.
You don't have to be.
Don't want to spend your lifebeing completely organized.
You want to do it for apurpose, you know, so it's much easier
to get organized well enoughto move towards something that.
That's compelling for yourbrain, to keep it excited, keeping
(40:00):
those dopamine hits coming ina good way from doing good things,
from positive things.
And then often therapy, youreally have a lot of work to do if
you haven't been diagnosed onyour sense of self and who you are,
and this distorted sense ofself you often have that's really
just focused on this negativenarrative about yourself.
(40:20):
And despite any great success,I mean, I had a woman come to see
me.
She just graduated law schoolwith add, with LD Deep, and all she
could do is berate herselfbecause she got off the wrong exit
or something, was five minutes late.
So, I mean, yeah, thisnarrative and the negative stuff
just keeps building insteadof, you know, building something
positive.
So you have a new scaffoldingto move toward.
(40:43):
Groups have been incrediblypowerful, you know, to see other
women who are saying the samechallenges you have, but you can
see their strengths more thanyou can Yours.
And so then you have to sortof shift a little bit your own sense
of self.
So and then, you know,communication is, I would say, boundary
setting.
Communication is something Ido a lot with women with, you know,
(41:06):
setting boundaries is reallyimportant for everybody.
But for women with adhd,knowing what you need, like in journeys
I talked about, you know,knowing who you are is one thing,
protecting yourself, but thenbeing able to do that with other
people and in the world,that's a harder thing.
Like to be able to know howto, you know, protect and connect,
I call it, you know, and tonavigate that balance.
(41:28):
So learning how to connect andprotect through communication in
a way that doesn't putyourself down, but that listens to
the other person but, youknow, really, you know, doesn't put
yourself in a lower downposition or let yourself be abused
or even in a, you know, wayyou might not even recognize, you
know, because of your adhd.
(41:50):
She I talked about in thatbook, you know, mother is coming
to help, you know, adults andsay, how can you live like this looks
like a two year old.
Or, you know, there's a lot oftoxic messages.
Sometimes they're more subtle.
And so, you know, it's reallyabout being in a mutually respectful
relationship with somebody.
They have, and they have theirdifferent, they have their difficulties,
what they do.
(42:10):
They think they're the worstthings that ever happened in a relationship.
They could be married to,alcoholic, abusive, borderline, it
could be anything.
But, you know, because theyhave adhd, they think like they're
the worst.
My challenges are the worst.
Yeah, yeah.
And that I deserve, you know,whatever someone wants to heap on
me, you know.
And so it's very invasive.
(42:31):
You know, women want to getdivorced and they can't, don't.
Because they, how could Isurvive on my own?
I mean, just, it reallyaffects your sense of security in
the world.
And so if you can find atherapist who understands women with
adhd, or it's even moreimportant to find a therapist who
treats, who works in ahumanistic way even more than someone
who just understands adhd,believe it or not, because, you know,
(42:56):
a humanistic kind ofunderstanding person who treats you
as a equal, you know, in arelationship and sees you whole and
values you, they can learnabout adhd.
Right Person who's just goingto see you as like someone who needs
to make a list or something.
Michelle and I talk about thatin the book.
Like, duh, why didn't I thinkof that?
(43:17):
People will give you, hey, geta planner.
Here's a great never Thoughtabout that.
Yeah.
So, you know, there's a lot ofsuperficial kind of things coming
at you, and people don'tunderstand the depth of the difficulty
and the complexity for womenof all these layers.
When I talk, used to talk inthese talks a while ago, I would
(43:39):
talk about just the layers ofcomplexity so that people could understand
that from the neurobiologicalto the developmental, what you grow
up absorbing to thepsychological, the, you know, depression,
rejection to cultural, youknow, what's wrong with you kind
of thing.
So it's.
It's very deep because nobodyunderstands executive function.
Nobody.
(43:59):
People don't understand howyou could be smart and have these
kinds kind of crazy difficulties.
So you have to understand it yourself.
Like women out there.
You have to understand yourbrain really well, and then you can
learn to communicate what youneed and ask for what you need in
all areas of your life.
But you have to understand itfirst because nobody else is going
(44:20):
to understand.
It, which is a thing for womenin general, always.
Anyway, like, I think women are.
I mean, it's already going tobe a challenge for women across the
board to be advocating andcreating boundaries.
And like, that's just a.
Again, like kind of one ofthose, I think, ingrained social
messages, like, be nice.
That's in my book.
Yeah, yeah, be nice.
Don't cause trouble.
Don't create boundaries thatmight disrupt somebody else's life.
(44:42):
And so if that's alreadyingrained and then now there's a
second layer.
Okay, I've got this ADHDchallenge, and it becomes that much
more challenging perhaps, tostart doing that without any sort
of support.
Right.
That's what I read throwing inthat book because, like, the very
things that women need to doto advocate themselves are the, you
know, are those culturalprohibitions about don't make waves.
(45:04):
Don't, you know, don't thinkyou're better than anybody, don't
ask for special favors.
You know, so I used to havewomen like it.
You know, they had their ownoffice, for instance, and they wouldn't
shut the door so they couldconcentrate just because they.
People would think that I waslike, it's rude.
Yeah.
So there's a lot of stuff theycome up against, you know, in trying.
To manage this, figuring outwhere to get your support.
(45:26):
Awesome.
Well, the last thing.
And we've.
We've kind of touched on thisa little bit, but I've seen this,
these two.
Two interesting trends.
And, you know, so your book,again, like your first one, so you've
written several books, butyour first one was 30 years ago and
women were only beginning tostart kind of having this self advocacy
(45:47):
and then would felt that hugesense of relief of seeing themselves
in your words, as I have kindof dove.
Is this the word I'm looking for?
Gotten into we'll say the kindof all of this world myself, you
know, I see the relief andthat was the relief I felt as well.
(46:07):
The validation when you seelike that there is like an actual
thing that describes me, butalso the relief when you talk to
other women who have the same experience.
Right.
So joining for me onlinesupport groups and seeing.
And it's so fascinatingbecause it's not just me saying this.
Like every woman who joins,like the first thing she says is
like, oh my God, the sense ofrelief of seeing all these other
(46:28):
women who have a very similar experience.
And so it's just so profoundto experience that there are other.
It's like, you know, you'rethe last unicorn.
You're like, oh my God, I'mnot the last unicorn.
There's all these unicorns out there.
So there's this I thinkburgeoning like on social media and
in like online groups andthings where women are starting to
(46:49):
self identify or they'restarting to see like I recognize
this in myself.
It's such a huge relief.
And then this reallyinteresting that I have seen kind
of counter to that, peoplemaybe mostly professionals, but kind
of saying it's trendy ordangerous for women to self identify.
You must have a professional.
(47:10):
Which I would agree that thereshould be some professional intervention
here.
But like it's a problem forwomen to be seeing communities where
they feel like they're, youknow, this is like me and self identifying
that it's a problem.
So.
So on the one hand I see thisas like, okay, all of these women
all of a sudden and I'm goingto put myself in this camp of like,
(47:31):
wow, this wasn't even adiagnosis for girls when I was a
child.
So such a huge discovery as anadult to see like this is actually
possible as an adult, as a woman.
And then other people sayinglike don't you go saying, you know
what's going on in there?
And like it's not okay forthis is just a trend.
It's not for real.
It's just trendy.
(47:53):
Interesting, interesting intersection.
Yeah, yeah.
And I think that's been theresince the beginning.
You know, for then it was justlike adults with adhd.
It was exactly the same conversation.
Oh, it's so over diagnosed andyou know, and just people want to
Believe they have this and.
Or it's just everybody's got abusy life now.
It's just like everybody, youknow, and it's not adhd.
Everybody wants to think it's adhd.
(48:15):
And then there was the same,you know, kind of dismissive kind
of thing.
Oh, these people think theyhave this, but it's, you know, they
can't make up what it is.
They.
We know what.
We know what their experience is.
So I think, like I saidbefore, I think it's great.
It's destigmatizing.
It's, you know, it's awareness.
It's.
So many women have gottendiagnosed during the pandemic, you
(48:36):
know, and a lot of women,maybe it hasn't been adhd.
And when they go to get help,they'll get help with something else.
So, you know, you wantsomething that's going on for you
guys, whether.
Whether it's ADHD or something else.
So, you know, even if it'sdepression, it's very hard to tell
depression from inattentive adhd.
You know, you need somebodywho really understands this.
(48:58):
So just this idea that youwould go to a professional and they
would know better isn't true.
But you need to find aprofessional who does know a lot
about how to separate outdepression from an anxiety secondary
or primary or coexisting from adhd.
So you need to find somebody.
Don't go to somebody who youfeel terrible with.
If you feel yucky withsomebody, you know, go to somebody
(49:20):
else.
Find out how many timesthey've worked with women or inattentive
adults and how they go abouthelping you.
So I think it's great.
I mean, I think it'sempowering to be educated and to
feel good and to understand.
You don't want to just go offand say, okay, that's it.
Because you do need help withmedication, needs help understanding
(49:41):
it in a much deeper way.
You need help in case it's not adhd.
You need help with whatever iscausing your problem.
So, you know, it's not aneither or so, but I think it's.
I think it's great that womenare meeting each other and understanding
and resonating and identifyingand breaking stigma.
Yes.
And so I don't like this ideaof this person knows better and how
dare you.
I think he's getting hung upon the word diagnosis.
(50:03):
Yeah, you can self identify,know, recognize, you know, and then
go and, you know, find aperson to help you and work with.
So I don't think it should beeither or thing, but I just think
it's exactly like what'shappened before, but now it's like
even a much deeper level thatpeople my age aren't comfortable
with.
Because, I mean, this idea ofsocial influencers aren't.
(50:26):
It's not a world that we understand.
But obviously, you know, if ithelps people, you know, be.
Feel good about knowingthere's other people like them and
understand it, then figure outwho to go to to help them.
You know, I think that's agood thing to do.
Both.
Right.
You should be the expert onyour own experience.
And you're having a certainexperience, millions of other women
(50:48):
are having it.
You need to find somebody whocan help you understand your experience,
tell you why on the continuumof things, they don't think it's
this or they think it's thisor, you know, so you should be open
to that person if you feelrespected and heard.
Yeah.
I think there's a, you know, along historical trend of, like, not
believing women when they'retalking about anything to do with
(51:10):
their own body or physiology.
Like that.
And so, yeah, it's a pretty.
It's a pretty big shadow thathas hung over women for a long time.
And I think it's potential todo that here as well.
It's still here.
I didn't know because I'm gladyou sent me the article.
I didn't know that was going on.
Of course it was written by a man.
(51:31):
I mean, that was, of course,first thing I noticed.
Yeah.
And people don't like to giveup their power, their authority,
and they know what they knowand women know what they know, and
it's nice to work together.
Yeah.
And especially when, like, Ikind of.
I do believe in women's intuition.
I do think, like, okay, weunderstand and know things about
ourselves and we can trust ourown internal wisdom.
Right.
And that's not recognized.
(51:51):
You know, it's like women, youknow, always pretending that they
don't know what they actually know.
You know, that's a problem.
So.
So part of therapy is reallyknowing, like owning what you know
and how you know it.
Yeah.
Amazing.
Awesome.
Well, I have been.
I've had a wonderful timetalking to you.
Thank you so much, Sari, forthis conversation.
(52:12):
Are we going to do the finalfour questions?
I was going to say I was goingto lead into my final four.
I always just ask my last fun things.
I love they were fun.
I have to find them because Imade notes.
Okay, go on.
So my first one is just what'son your nightstand?
Oh, my Nightstand.
Well, like I said, you know,my nightstand, you know, is several
(52:33):
stands because it spills overto other tables.
Mine just goes to the floor.
Yeah, well, yeah, but so,yeah, they're mostly books, you know,
and they change according towhat I'm interested in at the time.
You know, when I try to movethem around, I really want to find
(52:54):
out my good.
Write these down somewhere.
Oh, and they were just goodanswers too, so I don't want to lose
them.
So here's a good example of mebeing very organized and then.
And then not being organized.
Okay, well, so, yeah, so it'smostly books and a pretty.
(53:15):
I have other pretty littlethings that are important to me,
but nightstands, you know.
Yeah.
Depending what I'm like rightnow, I have, like, books on, well,
biographies of, you know, freespirited women, you know, a lot of
times, you know, or psychologyof older women I'm interested in
now.
And books about counselingwomen and women's experience in therapy.
(53:36):
I'm reading a lot about that.
Read a lot about adversity and people.
So it's much broader thanadhd, about people facing adversity
in different ways.
And books mostly, and a waterbottle and my remote and a.
A pretty notebook with a penin case I want to write something
down.
Yeah.
Awesome.
I love that.
Yeah, I have piles of booksthat are just piles of constantly
(53:58):
rotating.
Rotate.
Yep, that's it.
So I'm a big music fan, so Ijust always am curious about if someone
remembers their first concert.
I do.
I had two amazing concerts.
My first concert was.
I grew up in Detroit, and thefirst concert was a Motown review
of The Fox Theater, 1993.
(54:19):
Not 19, 1963.
So it was like all the bigstars, you know, for a dollar at
the Fox Theater downtown.
Wow.
Stevie Wonder and theTemptations and the Four Tops and
Smokey Robinson.
It was like, that was my first concert.
And the next year, though, in64, was the big Beatles concert,
downtown Detroit.
(54:39):
And I saw that.
Oh, my gosh, that's amazing.
Mass hysteria.
It was crazy.
Everybody just.
Did you experience the feeling?
Did you experience the.
Like, I couldn't hear a thing.
Oh, I was in love with them.
Yeah.
But Paul was my favorite.
But it was like just.
You couldn't hear a thing.
Just screaming.
Mass hysteria.
Literally, people fainting.
So those are my two early concerts.
(54:59):
I love that.
Oh, my gosh.
What a, like, potenthistorical context for that too.
It's super cool.
Do you have a morning routine?
And if you do, what does itlook like too?
Because it's changed you know,with COVID I mean, because I gave
up my office during COVID andso I had one routine then, but now
(55:20):
it's so much easier because Ijust have to go into this next room
here.
So all the add stuff, gettingready to leave the house, I don't
have to do great.
Yeah.
So I just.
After taking my shower and mypill, then I go downstairs and I
have breakfast with my husbandwho makes me breakfast and he works
here too, since COVID it.
And then we do the spelling bee.
(55:41):
It's not wordle spelling beefrom the New York Times.
So that really, you know, getsmy brain going.
We do that for about 20minutes and we compete at that.
And then I have my.
Well, if my assistant's comingthat day, she bring my latte, my
double tall, non fat, non foam latte.
Having that for many years.
And then I read my emails, Ido my brain candy, which is another
(56:03):
little thing that comes to meevery day and then I come upstairs
and go to work.
Awesome.
Super fun.
I do wordle.
I haven't done that.
I do wordle at night.
Wordle at night.
Yeah.
But the other one is spellingbee and it's more relaxing for me.
It doesn't take quite as much.
Brain power.
Yeah, I compete with my 15year old and my husband on that one.
(56:23):
We always like send each otherwho won fastest on word.
All.
Exactly.
Yeah.
And then last question.
Any unusual talents or funthings you're proud of?
Oh, you said talents.
So proud would be a different answer.
But talent was funny.
Unusual talent.
So I was really racking mybrains because they all come from
my same ability to, you know,care about people or write and stuff.
(56:44):
But I really.
My husband thought thatunusual talent.
I asked him last night toanalyze movies from a deep psych.
I analyze movies really greatfrom a deep psychological kind of
point of view.
But I also, I think my gift isa gift giving and card writing.
So I really take my time andgift giving.
(57:05):
Like.
Like I have all these oldthings from my parents and like if
somebody's mother dies I findlike I found their old recipe that
their mother had given mymother or old letter when their father
was like a teenager.
Or I create these song andmusic and videos for people, you
know, for special, you know,special occasions and so those kinds
(57:27):
of.
So someone said I'm a greatgift giver.
And where I.
Or I find a poem that'smounted beautifully about something
that we've experienced, myfriend and I.
So I like.
Yeah.
Or I like creating memorialsor eulogies.
That's a great talent.
I mean, that's probably athing that most people are not excited
about doing.
(57:47):
I like creating verymeaningful events, kind of.
That's beautiful.
So you understand someone'semotional world.
Oh, yeah.
So I just apply that for everything.
Yeah.
Yeah.
How lovely.
That's awesome.
Well, Sari, thank you so muchfor this conversation.
It's been lovely to talk to you.
I'm so grateful for your work.
I know thousands, maybemillions of women are also great
(58:08):
grateful for your work.
I'm going to link to all ofyour books in the show notes.
I know you do have an upcomingworkshop and I will link to that
for professionals as well inthe show notes.
So anyone who wants to connectwith you that way can.
And if you are a woman whosuspects this, I would highly recommend
you go out and buy Sari'sbooks because you may find yourself
(58:31):
in those pages.
Thank you very much.
It was really fun to talk toyou and you have a great understanding,
great take on this whole thing.
So I appreciate that.
Wonderful.
Have a wonderful rest of your week.
Thank you.
Hey, love, thanks for makingit this far.
If you're hearing this, you'reone of the magical statistical few
that listened all the way tothe end and I so appreciate your
(58:51):
engagement.
I hope that means the messagetoday resonated with you and you're
taking away a tool trick oraction step that will help you have
your best feeling brain.
If that's you, I have a favorto ask.
So many more women need tohear this Message and your 30 seconds
seconds to leave a rating orreview will.
Help them hear it.
Just go to the show in yourpodcast player and scroll down until
you see the stars to leave aquick rating and make my day while
(59:12):
you're at it.
Thank you so much.
It wasn't until 1997 that apivotal meta analysis reviewing 16
studies revealed that ADHD ingirls often went undetected by teachers.
This was the turning point foradditional research into understanding
some of the unique differencesexperienced by women, and there's
still a wide gap in the research.
As a woman who graduated highschool in 1996, this was a stunning
(00:21):
revelation.
Welcome to ADHD SmartSolutions for Holistic Women with
Christine McCarroll.
Hi, I'm Christine, and this isthe spot to learn natural strategies
for supporting your ADHD brain.
As a woman with all thehormonal curve balls and unique challenges
that only females face, I'vemade it my mission to uncover the
root causes and little knownsupports for your ADHD brain that
(00:44):
your doctor doesn't know andwon't tell you.
Learn the truth and find your focus.
No prescription required.
Hello friends, and welcomeback to ADHD Naturally.
Today's episode is a bonusepisode of an interview from a couple
of years ago with Sari Soldin,who wrote the very first book on
women with adhd.
And as I just mentioned, thisis a relatively new area of research
(01:08):
and I am so pleased to be ableto bring you this bonus interview
with a pioneer in the field,Sari Soldin.
Okay, so I have an excitinginterview on today's podcast.
So I had the opportunity tointerview Sari Soldin, who I am lovingly
calling the mother of ADHD for women.
(01:31):
So the reason I am saying thatis because she wrote the very first
book specifically about theway that ADHD presents for women.
So this was reallygroundbreaking, Terry.
Several decades ago, actually,she has gone on to write additional
books.
So she's a bestselling author.
(01:51):
She has written Women DeficitDisorder, Journeys, Adulthood, so
ADD Old Hood and A RadicalGuide for Women with adhd.
So all of those books are phenomenal.
I have read all of them and Iwas so excited to be able to have
this interview with Sari Soldin.
(02:11):
So I had reached out to herafter I read, I think, her first
book, and I went and read theother two shortly thereafter.
But when I first was diagnosedand I started looking at, of course,
one of my first questions,being someone who has worked with
women's health for years, ishow is this unique and different
for women?
And everywhere I looked, Icould see that she was the first
(02:35):
voice to begin talking about this.
So I went on to join somedifferent online groups for women
with adhd.
And again, seeing everywherethat everyone just really felt as
they read these books thatSari was describing them.
Exactly.
And I Think it's even in oneof the forwards to one of the books.
(02:56):
Like, the comments that she'sgotten over the years is basically
like, were you filming me inmy kitchen?
Like, it's.
It's just uncanny how similarthe experience is and how well she
captured this.
So we talked a lot aboutdifferent topics, specifically for
women, of course, with ADHD onthis episode.
We talked about the history,because, again, I am coming into
(03:16):
this decades after.
After Sari has been doingthis, and she has a lot of insight
into how this field haschanged, how the work has changed.
I was curious about herinitial experience, kind of breaking
down the barriers, talkingabout this, first of all for adults,
then for adult women.
Really interested in herthought on some of the kind of.
I don't know if I'm gonna callit a controversy exactly.
(03:37):
Maybe it is this controversyI've seen lately where, first of
all, a lot of women.
There's this beautiful thingwhere lots of women are becoming
aware of this as even adiagnosis, potential diagnosis for
them.
At the same time, thispushback from some people saying,
oh, this is just a fad, orsuddenly every woman has adhd, and,
like, this is like, basicallytrying to put women in their place
for their lived experience.
(03:58):
And so I was really interested in.
Her thoughts on that.
We had a great conversationthere, and it was just so wonderful
to be able to talk to someonewho has been in this field looking
at women, looking at ourunique presentation of ADHD again,
for decades.
So, per her professional bio,Sari Soldin is a psychotherapist,
and she has been a pioneer,again, in the field of counseling
(04:19):
women and men with thestrengths and struggles of ADHD for
over 30 years.
She also serves on theprofessional advisory board of the
association for Adults with adhd.
And she again, has writtenthose three books, and those books
have been translated andpublished in Europe and Asia.
So her groundbreakingprofessional work and her personal
(04:40):
story have been featured invarious media, including cnn, Time,
People, Parade, and Prevention.
So I'm so excited to welcomeSari Soldin to the podcast.
Sari Sullivan, welcome to the podcast.
Well, thank you, Christine.
It's lovely to talk to you.
Lovely to talk to you, too.
(05:00):
I'm so excited to have this conversation.
We were talking a little bitbefore we started recording, and
yours was one of the veryfirst books that I read when I started
going down and trying tounderstand ADHD in my own.
And my experience was what Ihave seen in numerous group chats
(05:20):
that I've seen, that I've been.
Now that I'm kind of swirled,which is so many people saying, like
she was in my head, she wasfollowing me around, reading.
She must have had a hiddencamera in my kitchen.
Because you do such abeautiful job of describing this
experience for women.
And I love that you were likepretty much the groundbreaker.
(05:40):
I think I'm like calling youthe mother of this ADHD for women
topic because you were thefirst to write this book.
So how did you decide youwanted to write a book about the
specifics of women with adhd?
That's a good question.
And that was a very powerfulexperience for many women to read
those things because this wasbefore the Internet, a long time
(06:03):
ago.
And so people really wereisolated and had no idea.
So they felt like that becausethey had no idea how I would know
this.
And so when they read, I couldwrite a book based on all the experiences.
It must be real that theremust be a lot of other women out
there like this.
So yeah, well, this was not intentional.
I just happened to be in theright place at the right time.
I started out in the early,well the late 80s.
(06:24):
I was in studying minoritymental health and cross cultural
counseling.
I didn't come from the medicalbackground or any interest in adhd,
but I think these intereststhat I had in counseling really have
affected my view of that nonpathologizing view of ADHD and the
sort of culturally embeddedkind of view that we have of people
(06:46):
with different neurologies.
So I was just lucky.
I was working with theseclients at a counseling agency who
had several special projects,one in minority mental health.
And they had the first ever,maybe ever adult with learning disability
program in a counseling center.
So not educationally based,not academically, but we were talking
(07:10):
about adults like we wouldanybody else who had difficulties
with their sense of self, with relationships.
They just happened to have alearning disability.
So all of a sudden I had aclient in my minority mental health
project who had a learning disability.
I wound up working in thisspecial project surrounded by books
on disorganization orsearching for answers about disorganization
in the books about learningdisabilities, because that's all
(07:32):
we knew that I.
Because even though I wassuccessful, you know, I was working
and I was a therapist, I nevercould figure out what was that chronic
and severe disorganization.
So I was spending all my timesearching that and I just happened
to be there in the early 90swhen, you know, I had a client bringing
this tape.
He heard someone recording onradio the night before.
It was Hallowell and Rady andthey Were talking about their new
(07:55):
book Driven to Distractions.
It was like the first timeanybody had written a book for adults.
And followed by that.
There was a book by my friendsKate Kelly and Peggy Raimundo called
I'm Not Crazy, Stupid or Lazy.
These are the first books inthe early 90s that helped us understand
that adults continued to haveproblems with attention even if they
(08:21):
lost their hyperactivity.
That was a big breakthroughbecause we thought adults didn't
have ADHD once, but it turnedout they just lost their hyperactivity.
That still left women out inthe cold, mostly because they were
never really had hyperactivity.
So at some point soon afterthat, we began to understand that
(08:41):
people never had to haveactually hyperactivity to have these
other struggles.
And that's when we at thatpoint called the ADD Without Hyperactivity,
which I think is a much bettertitles change Constantly.
So, you know, in those daysthere was a lot of things written
and every article ended like,and women have it too, but it's different,
you know.
And I was hardly any women do.
(09:02):
Yeah.
And so I was seeing men andwomen who had learning disabilities
finally understanding thatmaybe they also had what we were
calling adhd.
And it was just so apparent inmy counseling that women and men,
even if they had the samedisorganization or same potential
problems, the women had such ahigher degree of shame, they internalized
it, they felt bad about it.
(09:22):
They pretended, you know, thatwith other people they withdrew.
It had a much different effecton their core sense of self and on
the men who might have had thesame problems, who probably had more
support from wives or assistants.
But they didn't define them.
They just, you know, you know,like the absent minded professor
type.
So I started really, you know,tracking these differences.
(09:43):
And along with that, I had toget tested to work in this program.
And I saw some amazing thingsthat I never even knew about, like
my incredibly poor short termmemory that I didn't realize I'd
been compensating for all this time.
So I got diagnosed around thesame time.
But that's what led to my, tomy interest in women is actually
(10:04):
seeing them and the effectthis had on their sense of self.
So that's how I started.
Then I wrote the book prettyquickly, which was amazing.
It was just like poured out ofme after several months of watching
the difference andunderstanding it.
It was at that time we startedfor the first time having conferences,
(10:26):
you know, for adults and firsttime that women started to be able
to talk to other women.
The big thing why my book wasa big.
Had a big impact also was thatthe Internet really started to come
into its own in a big way.
So it was the first timereally, women were able to connect
to other women.
So saying that first wave ofthe gatekeepers change, at that point,
(10:48):
the women pushed through the barriers.
You asked me about what'shappening now.
At that time, it was just theInternet and these conferences where
women were pushing doctors andpsychiatrists and psychologists and
everything to, hey, this, thisis what I have.
I'm joining with other women.
We all identify in ways you'veleft us out.
So it was from the bottom upthat things changed.
(11:14):
Because at that time, the bigconferences were just.
Most of ADHD was aboutacademics, white, mostly white male
academics, talking to teachersand parents about this bad thing
that their kid had and telling it.
Then all of a sudden, adultsbroke through and, oh, that was a
huge shift.
Oh, no, we're losing control.
And they didn't like that.
And then women and they said,oh, no, what's happening?
(11:36):
And so it's just such a funny evolution.
So then at one point it waslike, oh, no, we can't let coaches
into this.
I mean, there was.
Coaches were completelyforbidden from.
It was a huge thing.
Coaches could not be involvedin these conferences at all.
That was like a huge thing.
Therapists versus coaches.
And so now when he.
I see now that, like, socialinfluencers, people on TikTok are
(12:00):
becoming like, you know,keynote speakers at this conference.
It's hysterical to me.
You know, it's like a huge difference.
But I see now that probablyjust the gatekeeping thing is just
loosening up more and more andpeople are learning about themselves.
And, you know, the good partabout that is I think the mental
health stigma has really decreased.
(12:21):
Empowerment has increased,awareness has increased.
Then obviously, to get yourother question later was, yeah, you
have to go then and take thatand talk to somebody who knows something.
But I don't think it's a badthing for women to feel connected
and understood.
And the shame.
Because the shame that womenhave about this in the past is intense.
(12:44):
And so I think that this isbecoming less stigmatized now and
women are able to advocate forthemselves more as a result.
Yeah.
So at the very beginning, soyou're one of the first people breaking
through this barrier.
So you're talking about thesebarriers and the gatekeepers.
And there's lots of barriersand lots of gatekeepers.
And I mean, this is across allkinds of fields.
This is across academia.
(13:05):
Like, this is like, this is,you know, not Unique here, but you
have your own unique gatekeepers.
Probably a really positivething actually that you had to go
through like assessment as youbegan your work because that enabled
you to understand personallyas well and probably also go back
and say, oh, okay, so I'vebeen helping these women, thinking
I was just helping them.
And here's my, here's mysimilar experience.
(13:27):
Right, right, right.
Was this something that youhad actually learned about much in
your education or it reallywas just like on the, on the ground.
I'm seeing my clients who areexperiencing this.
Like, I know they wouldn'thave talked about women, but like
talking, nobody, it.
Was just even now, I mean, youknow, I work with a lot of psychiatrists,
clients who have ADHD whojust, they never learned anything
(13:50):
in medical school.
I mean, medical school, theydon't learn about anything.
Yeah, no.
Psychiatrists don't learnabout it.
Psychologists don't learn anything.
So this idea that, you know,there's all these experts out there
who women should turnthemselves over to is not really
true because I mean, maybethey understand hyperactive little
boys, but they don'tunderstand how it looks in women
(14:11):
and inattentive people.
And it's, you know, so thismodel, like Tom Brown, Dr.
Brown's model of executivefunction is a much more nuanced way
of understanding.
I don't even like to talkabout ADHD because it's so stigmatized
and stereotyped and reallydoesn't describe the variety of the
syndrome, executive function difficulties.
(14:33):
So yeah, I can tell you alittle bit why women, just why women
weren't really recognized eventhen, besides us thinking that they
grew out of it, was that,well, women and girls are very well
because of the stereotype.
Most of them are not hyperactive.
Right.
And they even in the name ADHDnow, like hyperactive is in the name.
(14:56):
We changed the name to putthat in.
I know we had to put that inspecifically, you know, so that name
changes all the time.
So but at the beginning, youknow, we always thought it was hyperactive
little boys making trouble.
So those are the little boysthat got referred and those are the
boys, little boys that gotdiagnosed and then studied.
And then it was just like aself perpetuating, self fulfilling
(15:18):
thing.
So that's why we kept thinkingfor a long time.
So little girls we know noware internalizing their difficulties
like getting more depressedand anxious, hiding it, getting perfectionistic
often.
So their difficulties areoften masked for many years until
they often.
Because if they're quietlyfailing or quietly not knowing what's
going on Then they hitpuberty, talking about hormone changes.
(15:42):
Often that's the first time.
Maybe you'll see some difficulties.
At the same time, they havemuch more increased need for executive
function.
You know, changing classes andhaving to track their belongings
more and lockers and all that responsibilities.
Yep.
Yeah.
And so.
And then many really smartgirls don't get diagnosed till much
(16:02):
later when they leave home, goto college.
Executive function increases,needs increase.
Or if you're really smart andyou're compensated or you have a
lot of support, then maybeit's not until you try to get married
or have children or work orall those things.
Then at some point yourdemands overload your executive function
abilities.
By then, often you'rediagnosed as depressed and anxious,
(16:26):
which you often are, but oftenit's secondary to the primary ADHD
symptoms.
And then you're misdiagnosedor underdiagnosed or mismanaged medically.
So, you know, I have women whocome to see me all up through their.
I just had a new client theother day, he was 80, you know, so.
Yeah, and believe it or not,the same thing.
(16:47):
Like I had a client who diedat 85.
And she said those last fiveyears were so important to her to
finally realize, you know,that she wasn't, you know, this bad
person, that it wasn't a moral failing.
Something was gotten differentin her brain.
It's never too late tounderstand, you know, what's really
going on in this nat.
Non pathology in the kind of way.
So, yeah, so girls, women,they're often, by the time you see
(17:11):
a woman who hasn't beendiagnosed, she's very well compensated.
So it's very hard to get diagnosed.
You know, maybe she'seducated, very well educated, maybe
she's doing well in certainareas of her life.
So it, there's a lot of masking.
And so it's very hard for.
Unless you really haveexperience working with women and
inattentive and more subtlekinds of executive function to understand,
(17:33):
you know, and diagnosed correctly.
Yeah.
So like in your book, youcalled it the mask of competency.
And I, and I think now whatI'm seeing kind of just in, in the
world that we're talking aboutthis and is people just talking about
masking and actually maskingfor several different neurodivergent
(17:54):
presentations.
But I think, you know, from myexperience, from experience of other
women close to me, fromclients, from people I'm seeing,
like so many people are.
So many women specifically aredismissed because of some level of
professional attainment oreducational attainment.
So, like, somebody close to mehas a PhD and was actually seeking
(18:16):
out thinking, like, I think Imeet all of these criteria.
Went to a psychiatrist andthey're like.
You'Re in a PhD program.
You couldn't possibly have ADHD.
And so just completely wrotethat off, said you have anxiety.
It's not the same.
You know, like, it's not.
Couldn't possibly be this.
Other women, you know, high,high academic achievement or high
professional achievement.
And my own experience, peopleare saying, like, that couldn't possibly
(18:38):
be you.
Like that.
That isn't right.
And then you feel right.
Then you're in this difficultposition of having to prove to them
how bad things really are.
No, no, you don't understand.
Really, behind the scenes, I'mreally a mess.
You don't know.
You want to be seen ascompetent because you are, but yet
nobody believes that you havethe difficulties behind the scenes.
So that's very common and sucha myth.
(18:59):
And so there's.
If you really talk to women indepth and diagnosis, there's like,
you have to find out all theareas of their life or what price
they're paying are successfulbecause they have no relationships
or they have no fun or theyhave nothing else in their life except
staying, trying to stayorganized and trying to do their
work.
And maybe they do, you know,create a great product, but you don't
(19:20):
see the process behind thescenes of how difficult it was mentally
or emotionally or the pricewith relationships.
So.
And sometimes women, you know,ADD is very, you know, environmentally,
you know, affected.
So you might have a job whereit's structured and it's in your
area of strength or skill, andat home, where it's.
Where there's no routine orit's unstructured or all these things
(19:42):
are coming in at you, then youmight not be able to manage at all.
So you can't.
And people don't believe youbecause they see that.
They only see the one, the mask.
Right?
Or you're doing well.
I mean, it's true, though it'snot true.
It's true that you're doingwell because you have strengths.
So you just also have theseareas that you can't manage because
of the executive function.
But nobody can make sense of that.
(20:04):
You know, we sort of call thattwice exceptional.
You know, there's twiceexceptional learners.
But in adults it means like,do you have great gifts or strengths
or talents or iq, when on theother hand, you have these great,
you know, executive functiondifficulties or learning disabilities,
and there's such a stretchthat it's very demoralizing because
people don't have theorganizational or intentional skills
(20:27):
to manifest their strengths.
And so that's a really demoralizing.
And then that's also like aton of energy, like the amount of
energy required to sustain a mask.
If there's, you know, thatfeeling of hiding you were talking
about in your book, like yourlittle room that you were constantly
trying to organize for years.
I have that very similarexperience of like, just like, could
(20:51):
I organize my books?
And the books are always just.
I have so many books, andthey're always everywhere.
And the degree of difficulty,like you're saying, the energy, the
gap between your ability,everybody has trouble in some of
these areas, but the gapbetween you and other people who
don't have executive functionare tremendous.
And then the energy, like yousaid with women, of hiding.
(21:11):
So that's the biggest compensation.
These women that I deal withuse, which is hiding, pretending,
not letting anybody know.
And that's the hardest partabout ADHD for women is that isolation
or the withdrawal or the lack of.
Or underachievement.
It's the lack of authenticity.
So those are things we work onwith therapy and groups is all the
(21:33):
secondary things for womenbecause this stuff is so core to
women's feelings about whatthey should be able to do or toxic.
Comparing themselves to otherwomen, what they do so easily.
And so it takes a.
You know, in the book RadicalGuide that we wrote, we're trying
to get people to untangletheir brain difficulties from their
(21:53):
sense of self.
And the goal is really one ischronic, you know, and get meds,
you get coaching, you getassistance, but that's chronic.
That's something you're goingalways need support.
Yep.
Yeah.
And then there's you andyourself and your life and your meaning.
And you can't wait to get overthose chronic difficulties before
you start moving toward yourself.
And that's the saddest part.
(22:14):
You know, women who want to,you know, want to wait until they're
fixed, like Michelle and I, Dr.
Frank and I say in the book,you know, only furniture and dogs
need fixing.
And.
But women have value.
Can you.
You know, they want to getover, as one lady said to me, this
case of terminal uniqueness.
(22:36):
Can't I just be back to havinga normal Brit?
Nope.
That's the one you got.
Nobody wants to be normal.
That's irony.
People want to be extraordinary.
They want to stand out, theywant to be special, they want to
shine.
But they're, you know, they'reso afraid of that humiliation or
those Negative messages thatthey just fall back.
Well, and I think, you know,in your initial book, which is.
Is it close to 20 years old atthis point?
(22:58):
It was Originally published in 95.
Wow.
Yeah.
Okay, so we're 30 yearsclosing it on the 30 year mark.
Yeah.
So the.
I think there was perhaps evena deeper level of social expectation
around women and femininity.
I would still guess so.
I do not think even thoughthere is.
(23:18):
There is a lot of outward talkabout, you know, the shifting of
roles and less of the genderstereotyping, I think there's still
a very.
A deep cultural sense of howwomen are supposed to be that is
basically the antithesis of anADHD woman's brain.
Exactly.
It hasn't changed that much.
It's just shocking.
I have clients in their 20s,30s, and in therapy, when push comes
(23:43):
to shove, they feel the samekind of pressure and embarrassment
about how to talk.
Difficulty talking about thisas anybody.
In the 1950s, we used to justlaugh about it.
It's like Desi and Lucy.
It's like the 1950s, deepdown, women that's like, passed on,
you know, and I imagine theworld of social media just really
exacerbates that.
(24:05):
And you see, you thinkeverybody's having these great lives.
Time of their lives.
Yeah.
You know, and then you'recomparing yourself even.
There's probably even moreopportunities to compare yourself.
In those days, it was all, youknow, from TV ads or from magazines.
But now I'm sure it's justlike bombarding women.
So I agree with you.
Like the women I see intherapy, it doesn't matter.
(24:25):
They're young.
Women are still like, sohaving trouble explaining this in
relationships and stillgetting criticized and a lot of toxic
stuff in relationships becauseof this.
And yeah, they still have that cultural.
Kind of the internalizedfeminine, which is like the.
It's like all amazingexecutive function.
(24:46):
Like what we internalize aboutwhat a woman should be.
It's like organized andkeeping the social calendar and like
the perfect mom to the kidsand like just all of that, that classic
stuff that is so challenging.
That's why I wrote the book,because that was what.
That book.
Why that book was so popular,I think is because it wasn't just
about add.
It was about how executivefunction collides with those internalized,
(25:09):
idealized views of what awoman should be or be able to do.
And that stuff is reallydeeply embedded.
And it hasn't gone super far.
It hasn't.
Which is just so shockingdespite, you know, men helping more
or, you know, Intellectually,you're not believing that or women
being success and other areas,that stuff.
Is still, it's still pretty,pretty ingrained.
(25:32):
Yeah.
So you identified four levelsin the book.
(26:55):
So you said surviving, hiding,emerging and embracing.
So can you break down just ata very high level?
I know, tell me you're goingto ask that.
But I'm pretty sure they'restill the same.
So surviving is like, I don'tknow I have anything right.
Or like trying to just muddleyour way through.
But you don't know.
You're like, you don't knowwhat's going on and you're just really
(27:18):
basically trying.
Yeah, you're treading water.
You don't know what's going on.
Yeah, I would have reviewed that.
Go on, what's the next one then?
So then you had hiding, whichI think is where probably undiagnosed
women land maybe the majorityof their life, which is just trying
to hide what they'reperceiving as like a deficiency of
womanhood.
Like, I'm not organized, Ican't keep the social calendar.
(27:38):
I have a hard time, you know,managing these executive skills that
I'm supposed to, supposed toair quotes, right?
Well, I would just say that,yeah, hiding is, but, but especially
maybe more back then hiding.
It doesn't go away with the diagnosis.
So that's the problem.
You know, if I say if you'rejust dealing with ADHD, at the end
of the day, that's great, youcan do that.
But these other things are so,so endemic all the way through now.
(28:03):
I do find that younger women,maybe because of this exposure that
they have to other women allthe time, they, they don't, they
are much more able to advocatefor themselves and they don't hide
as much and at all.
And so, but in those days,that hiding part, that.
And to the older women stilland to a lot of women, hiding keeps
(28:24):
going on, and that's part ofthe therapeutic work or the work
that happens after meetingother women or being in a group with
other women or attending someof these other virtual conferences
or in person.
That that's what has tochange, that you're hiding.
You don't have to go aroundtelling everybody, and you shouldn't
go around telling everybody ofADHD because it's misunderstood.
(28:45):
But hiding your personality,not showing personality, not being
able to be out in the worldwith who you are fully as a person,
doesn't mean you have toreveal everything.
But you have to learn how tobe authentic and connect to your
personality and all Your coretraits, you're not just adhd, you're
sensitive or funny, you'rewarm or resilient.
(29:05):
You're a lot of things.
And that's what you want to beable to show, to reveal your diagnosis.
So hiding is something thatwomen have to work on throughout,
even after diagnosis.
And I think it was in your.
So the Radical Guide is a workbook.
Right?
The Radical Guide for.
Yeah, well, we didn't like thename of the book, but they made us
(29:26):
use it because.
Workbook.
But it's more than a workbook.
It's got a lot of.
Absolutely.
Because it's more.
Because we didn't focusironically on adhd, we focused on.
Okay.
We focus more on becoming yourfull self, shining, taking center
stage in your life, you know,and being entitled to have all these.
The good things in life, even if.
If you have these struggles.
(29:46):
Yeah, I really loved that angle.
I think it's so empowering tonot be thinking.
So if we go on the one handfrom like full on masking to the
other hand and like, okay, Ihave a diagnosis and I'm really hoping
that other people are going to understand.
And either way, we're kind ofidentifying with what's a challenge
for us.
And so the opportunity to kindof go beyond that and say, like,
(30:11):
actually just what's trueabout me as a human is so much more
interesting and.
Fun on what you're saying, youknow, So I call it like, yeah, being
a whole person.
It's.
Yes.
And you know, yes, I havethese struggles and I'm all these
other things too.
And so you are.
This is just some particularway your brain works in these particular
situations.
It's a particular difficultyfor you.
(30:33):
And that's definitely not away to define yourself or measure
you as a human being, youknow, or to deny you the right, believe
it or not, to embrace whateveryou want in life or to have full
relationships.
And so I love the way you said it.
Yeah.
So just to be able to point isnot to be able to say, yes, I have
ADHD and I'm proud of it.
(30:53):
That's not the point.
And I don't think that's madeclearly enough like you just did,
you know, that's not the goal either.
The goal is just to be yourself.
Yeah.
And we all have our uniquechallenges and struggles, and that's
part of it.
And it helps when you understand.
And it's not the only.
The only thing do you thinkthat is related to.
So you said that you take ahumanistic view of neurodiverse people.
(31:17):
Is that kind of what you'retalking about when you say that?
Yes.
And I spent a long time, thelast few years trying to.
We try to change the conversation.
You know, at first it wentfrom all these things were character
flaws before we evenunderstood the brain at all.
Then it became by necessitymedical, and by that it became pathological
(31:38):
because that was to be takenseriously to get insurance coverage.
It became, you know, a medical condition.
Now it had to start movinginto a more humanistic area.
And, you know, in the word andthe concept neurodiversity is not
very old.
And I always like to talkabout neurodiversity.
And instead of adhd, ofcourse, it started with the autistic
community embracing who theyare, and now it's, you know, it talks
(32:02):
about all the variations ofour brains and all of our human lives.
So it just means that we haveto, you know, first of all become
comfortable with, embracedifferences, which I think the younger
generation is much better at doing.
And in terms of all thedifferent brains, they all contribute
something different to theworld instead of looking at it.
(32:25):
So when I say humanistically,I say moving emphasis and treatment
versus basically healing andnot curing because we don't want
to get over who you arehealing from all that pain and then
a whole view.
So all of who you are andmoving to just to center on a person,
person center versus pathologyand on yourself versus just on a
(32:49):
collection of symptoms.
Like, the goal of treatmentand measuring treatment is not symptom
elimination.
It's like having a good life yourself.
And I think that's where theprofessional world has to go to help
you with the shame.
Because as we say in thisbook, because my desk is disorganized
(33:12):
to.
My desk is a mess to become.
I'm a mess to, you know, tolike, oh, I'm a mess and I'm not
good enough for relationshipsand I have to hide.
So there's a whole cycle thathappens when it's just about the
symptoms versus learning towalk alongside your symptoms.
Like it's sort of likeparallel tracks is how I envision
it.
Like there's your difficultiesand then there's you.
(33:33):
And instead of them just beingcompletely fused, which happens when
you're not diagnosed, you haveno idea growing up how to attribute
all these difficulties.
So separating out that is avery freeing experience.
So you need support withsomebody who can help you see that
about yourself.
I love that visual.
That's really powerful.
Like, walking alongside yoursymptoms is.
(33:55):
It's.
It's Much more integrated into.
Just like, this is part of thejourney that I'm on.
And.
And not in that kind ofpathologizing way.
I have to say, I got it fromthis moving, even though ADHD is
not like this at all.
But I remember at the momentwhere I saw clearly and I started
to do that was there's a.
You ever see the movie ABeautiful Mind?
(34:15):
Yes, at some point.
Yeah.
It's a true story for peoplewho don't know about a man who is
really haunted by all these,you know, hallucinations from his
schizophrenia.
And he couldn't get over it.
But at some point he started walking.
They were there.
He knew what they were.
They stopped bothering him.
He went on with his life anyways.
Very powerful.
And that moment, it sort of crystallized.
(34:36):
I said, oh, I can live withall this clutter along.
I can just still have my lifeand have a different path and I can
see all this around me, butit's not going to engulf me.
Yeah, that is beautiful.
I love that so much.
And it's such a powerful wayto think about it in a simple way,
but also pretty profound whenyou're able to, like, let go of that
as something that is going tocontrol your life.
(34:58):
I think it's interesting whatyou just said about kind of the requirement
of a medical diagnosis necessarily.
Like, it's.
It creates some pathology.
And then when we get into amedical model, we are definitely
more in kind of the like, allright, we're just going to.
Here's medication and we don'tneed to do anything else.
And you've talked a lot abouttreatment as a much more broad picture,
like therapy, but also evenjust other life supports.
(35:20):
Right.
Like, we all can use a little support.
And when you have executivefunction challenges, then some of
those supports become evenmore important.
So where do you think there'smaybe an opportunity that's being
missed?
And maybe I'm giving you aleading question here, but if we're
going into this medical modeland we're just like, okay, diagnosis,
(35:41):
this equals here's onetreatment option for everybody, or
here's one thing.
And then people don'tunderstand, especially women maybe
don't look at the big pictureof what other supports they would
need.
So maybe top two or threeother supports that are really helpful
as a woman's looking atwalking alongside her diagnosis.
(36:04):
Well, that's a long roadfirst, just to manage expectations.
I think you sent me thisarticle to read and to comment on,
and I.
It was very interesting tosee, you know, People hung up on
this word diagnosis or not diagnosis.
I mean, I think, I think it'sgood what's happening.
I mean, I'm not in the weeds,so I don't know about that.
But it's good for women tounderstand and resonate, to identify
(36:27):
with and then go to talk tosomebody who actually knows.
Because if it's a verydemoralizing experience for women
who finally get up the courageto go talk to a professional and
they have that experience,recommend, oh, you're wrong.
Like women have to be theexpert on their experience.
I mean, a doctor knows a lotand you don't want to disregard that.
(36:48):
But it's not diagnosisshopping if somebody treats you poorly
or condescends to you to findsomebody who can help you understand
your experience, tell you whatthey know, tell you what might help
them.
You want help.
And maybe it's not thisdiagnosis or that diagnosis, but
you want to work inpartnership in a non hierarchical
way with people who respect you.
(37:09):
And so when people, when yougo in for, you know, to talk about
your life, you know, you wantsomeone who really helps you explore
your life and helps youunderstand how this is related to
some diagnosis you might haveheard about in a much more nuanced
way.
Going over in depth yourexecutive function, how it shows
up in your particular life,not as a recipe or cookbook, you
(37:33):
know, kind of, it's differentin every person.
So you want a partner who can,can help you.
You know, I always, in myfirst book, I called it the Messed
model.
It's easy to understand, butit's medication sometimes, you know,
education, support strategies, therapy.
And so I try to look ateverybody in an individual way.
(37:54):
I wrote that second book,Journeys, because at the beginning
it was sort of easy.
Nobody had any of these things.
But at some point a lot ofpeople had different things and not
everybody needed the same thing.
So you want to always startwith the brain.
Kind of like, how is my brainbeing maximized?
You know, have I tried medication?
What kind of medication have Igiven it?
I've gone to somebody who canhelp me really, you know, make it
(38:17):
work for me.
Because often women are, youknow, given way too strong a dose
and then they just throw thewhole idea out the window.
So really working withsomebody on, you want to be more
yourself, it's not to changeyou, it's not.
And it shouldn't feel bad.
It should just to support yourbrain so you can feel like you're
going to show up every daywith more consistency.
You can trust your brain Alittle bit, but that's just fuel.
(38:37):
You need the fuel, but thenyou need.
There's so many things you need.
But I mean, you want somebodywho can help you.
Like in my book Journeys, youknow, I talk about all the variables.
You have to learn how tooperate your brain in a way that
works for you.
Not to fight it, not to berateit, not to push it, not to ignore
(38:57):
it, but just listen to your brain.
Like this.
This is, you know, this isdifferent for me.
It's not.
Other people can see, youknow, 20 clients in a day.
Maybe I can only see a few,you know, but.
So you have to look at spacingand pacing and everything that's
happening in your life.
Structure, support.
You have to sort of be experton your own brain.
And working with a coach, ifit's the right coach, can help you
(39:18):
do that, or an organizer who'sspecially trained, or a therapist
who's specially trained.
So there's medication, education.
There's a lot of great supportout there online now, you know, from
ADA has a lot of great support groups.
Attitude magazine.
There's a lot of things youcan learn.
You want to understand your strengths.
That's important not to leavethat out.
(39:39):
And then you want to sort of.
The goal of therapy is to helpyou move toward something compelling
in your life.
Like Nat hall says, you know,you just have to be well enough organized.
You don't have to be.
Don't want to spend your lifebeing completely organized.
You want to do it for apurpose, you know, so it's much easier
to get organized well enoughto move towards something that.
That's compelling for yourbrain, to keep it excited, keeping
(40:00):
those dopamine hits coming ina good way from doing good things,
from positive things.
And then often therapy, youreally have a lot of work to do if
you haven't been diagnosed onyour sense of self and who you are,
and this distorted sense ofself you often have that's really
just focused on this negativenarrative about yourself.
(40:20):
And despite any great success,I mean, I had a woman come to see
me.
She just graduated law schoolwith add, with LD Deep, and all she
could do is berate herselfbecause she got off the wrong exit
or something, was five minutes late.
So, I mean, yeah, thisnarrative and the negative stuff
just keeps building insteadof, you know, building something
positive.
So you have a new scaffoldingto move toward.
(40:43):
Groups have been incrediblypowerful, you know, to see other
women who are saying the samechallenges you have, but you can
see their strengths more thanyou can Yours.
And so then you have to sortof shift a little bit your own sense
of self.
So and then, you know,communication is, I would say, boundary
setting.
Communication is something Ido a lot with women with, you know,
(41:06):
setting boundaries is reallyimportant for everybody.
But for women with adhd,knowing what you need, like in journeys
I talked about, you know,knowing who you are is one thing,
protecting yourself, but thenbeing able to do that with other
people and in the world,that's a harder thing.
Like to be able to know howto, you know, protect and connect,
I call it, you know, and tonavigate that balance.
(41:28):
So learning how to connect andprotect through communication in
a way that doesn't putyourself down, but that listens to
the other person but, youknow, really, you know, doesn't put
yourself in a lower downposition or let yourself be abused
or even in a, you know, wayyou might not even recognize, you
know, because of your adhd.
(41:50):
She I talked about in thatbook, you know, mother is coming
to help, you know, adults andsay, how can you live like this looks
like a two year old.
Or, you know, there's a lot oftoxic messages.
Sometimes they're more subtle.
And so, you know, it's reallyabout being in a mutually respectful
relationship with somebody.
They have, and they have theirdifferent, they have their difficulties,
what they do.
(42:10):
They think they're the worstthings that ever happened in a relationship.
They could be married to,alcoholic, abusive, borderline, it
could be anything.
But, you know, because theyhave adhd, they think like they're
the worst.
My challenges are the worst.
Yeah, yeah.
And that I deserve, you know,whatever someone wants to heap on
me, you know.
And so it's very invasive.
(42:31):
You know, women want to getdivorced and they can't, don't.
Because they, how could Isurvive on my own?
I mean, just, it reallyaffects your sense of security in
the world.
And so if you can find atherapist who understands women with
adhd, or it's even moreimportant to find a therapist who
treats, who works in ahumanistic way even more than someone
who just understands adhd,believe it or not, because, you know,
(42:56):
a humanistic kind ofunderstanding person who treats you
as a equal, you know, in arelationship and sees you whole and
values you, they can learnabout adhd.
Right Person who's just goingto see you as like someone who needs
to make a list or something.
Michelle and I talk about thatin the book.
Like, duh, why didn't I thinkof that?
(43:17):
People will give you, hey, geta planner.
Here's a great never Thoughtabout that.
Yeah.
So, you know, there's a lot ofsuperficial kind of things coming
at you, and people don'tunderstand the depth of the difficulty
and the complexity for womenof all these layers.
When I talk, used to talk inthese talks a while ago, I would
(43:39):
talk about just the layers ofcomplexity so that people could understand
that from the neurobiologicalto the developmental, what you grow
up absorbing to thepsychological, the, you know, depression,
rejection to cultural, youknow, what's wrong with you kind
of thing.
So it's.
It's very deep because nobodyunderstands executive function.
Nobody.
(43:59):
People don't understand howyou could be smart and have these
kinds kind of crazy difficulties.
So you have to understand it yourself.
Like women out there.
You have to understand yourbrain really well, and then you can
learn to communicate what youneed and ask for what you need in
all areas of your life.
But you have to understand itfirst because nobody else is going
(44:20):
to understand.
It, which is a thing for womenin general, always.
Anyway, like, I think women are.
I mean, it's already going tobe a challenge for women across the
board to be advocating andcreating boundaries.
And like, that's just a.
Again, like kind of one ofthose, I think, ingrained social
messages, like, be nice.
That's in my book.
Yeah, yeah, be nice.
Don't cause trouble.
Don't create boundaries thatmight disrupt somebody else's life.
(44:42):
And so if that's alreadyingrained and then now there's a
second layer.
Okay, I've got this ADHDchallenge, and it becomes that much
more challenging perhaps, tostart doing that without any sort
of support.
Right.
That's what I read throwing inthat book because, like, the very
things that women need to doto advocate themselves are the, you
know, are those culturalprohibitions about don't make waves.
(45:04):
Don't, you know, don't thinkyou're better than anybody, don't
ask for special favors.
You know, so I used to havewomen like it.
You know, they had their ownoffice, for instance, and they wouldn't
shut the door so they couldconcentrate just because they.
People would think that I waslike, it's rude.
Yeah.
So there's a lot of stuff theycome up against, you know, in trying.
To manage this, figuring outwhere to get your support.
(45:26):
Awesome.
Well, the last thing.
And we've.
We've kind of touched on thisa little bit, but I've seen this,
these two.
Two interesting trends.
And, you know, so your book,again, like your first one, so you've
written several books, butyour first one was 30 years ago and
women were only beginning tostart kind of having this self advocacy
(45:47):
and then would felt that hugesense of relief of seeing themselves
in your words, as I have kindof dove.
Is this the word I'm looking for?
Gotten into we'll say the kindof all of this world myself, you
know, I see the relief andthat was the relief I felt as well.
(46:07):
The validation when you seelike that there is like an actual
thing that describes me, butalso the relief when you talk to
other women who have the same experience.
Right.
So joining for me onlinesupport groups and seeing.
And it's so fascinatingbecause it's not just me saying this.
Like every woman who joins,like the first thing she says is
like, oh my God, the sense ofrelief of seeing all these other
(46:28):
women who have a very similar experience.
And so it's just so profoundto experience that there are other.
It's like, you know, you'rethe last unicorn.
You're like, oh my God, I'mnot the last unicorn.
There's all these unicorns out there.
So there's this I thinkburgeoning like on social media and
in like online groups andthings where women are starting to
(46:49):
self identify or they'restarting to see like I recognize
this in myself.
It's such a huge relief.
And then this reallyinteresting that I have seen kind
of counter to that, peoplemaybe mostly professionals, but kind
of saying it's trendy ordangerous for women to self identify.
You must have a professional.
(47:10):
Which I would agree that thereshould be some professional intervention
here.
But like it's a problem forwomen to be seeing communities where
they feel like they're, youknow, this is like me and self identifying
that it's a problem.
So.
So on the one hand I see thisas like, okay, all of these women
all of a sudden and I'm goingto put myself in this camp of like,
(47:31):
wow, this wasn't even adiagnosis for girls when I was a
child.
So such a huge discovery as anadult to see like this is actually
possible as an adult, as a woman.
And then other people sayinglike don't you go saying, you know
what's going on in there?
And like it's not okay forthis is just a trend.
It's not for real.
It's just trendy.
(47:53):
Interesting, interesting intersection.
Yeah, yeah.
And I think that's been theresince the beginning.
You know, for then it was justlike adults with adhd.
It was exactly the same conversation.
Oh, it's so over diagnosed andyou know, and just people want to
Believe they have this and.
Or it's just everybody's got abusy life now.
It's just like everybody, youknow, and it's not adhd.
Everybody wants to think it's adhd.
(48:15):
And then there was the same,you know, kind of dismissive kind
of thing.
Oh, these people think theyhave this, but it's, you know, they
can't make up what it is.
They.
We know what.
We know what their experience is.
So I think, like I saidbefore, I think it's great.
It's destigmatizing.
It's, you know, it's awareness.
It's.
So many women have gottendiagnosed during the pandemic, you
(48:36):
know, and a lot of women,maybe it hasn't been adhd.
And when they go to get help,they'll get help with something else.
So, you know, you wantsomething that's going on for you
guys, whether.
Whether it's ADHD or something else.
So, you know, even if it'sdepression, it's very hard to tell
depression from inattentive adhd.
You know, you need somebodywho really understands this.
(48:58):
So just this idea that youwould go to a professional and they
would know better isn't true.
But you need to find aprofessional who does know a lot
about how to separate outdepression from an anxiety secondary
or primary or coexisting from adhd.
So you need to find somebody.
Don't go to somebody who youfeel terrible with.
If you feel yucky withsomebody, you know, go to somebody
(49:20):
else.
Find out how many timesthey've worked with women or inattentive
adults and how they go abouthelping you.
So I think it's great.
I mean, I think it'sempowering to be educated and to
feel good and to understand.
You don't want to just go offand say, okay, that's it.
Because you do need help withmedication, needs help understanding
(49:41):
it in a much deeper way.
You need help in case it's not adhd.
You need help with whatever iscausing your problem.
So, you know, it's not aneither or so, but I think it's.
I think it's great that womenare meeting each other and understanding
and resonating and identifyingand breaking stigma.
Yes.
And so I don't like this ideaof this person knows better and how
dare you.
I think he's getting hung upon the word diagnosis.
(50:03):
Yeah, you can self identify,know, recognize, you know, and then
go and, you know, find aperson to help you and work with.
So I don't think it should beeither or thing, but I just think
it's exactly like what'shappened before, but now it's like
even a much deeper level thatpeople my age aren't comfortable
with.
Because, I mean, this idea ofsocial influencers aren't.
(50:26):
It's not a world that we understand.
But obviously, you know, if ithelps people, you know, be.
Feel good about knowingthere's other people like them and
understand it, then figure outwho to go to to help them.
You know, I think that's agood thing to do.
Both.
Right.
You should be the expert onyour own experience.
And you're having a certainexperience, millions of other women
(50:48):
are having it.
You need to find somebody whocan help you understand your experience,
tell you why on the continuumof things, they don't think it's
this or they think it's thisor, you know, so you should be open
to that person if you feelrespected and heard.
Yeah.
I think there's a, you know, along historical trend of, like, not
believing women when they'retalking about anything to do with
(51:10):
their own body or physiology.
Like that.
And so, yeah, it's a pretty.
It's a pretty big shadow thathas hung over women for a long time.
And I think it's potential todo that here as well.
It's still here.
I didn't know because I'm gladyou sent me the article.
I didn't know that was going on.
Of course it was written by a man.
(51:31):
I mean, that was, of course,first thing I noticed.
Yeah.
And people don't like to giveup their power, their authority,
and they know what they knowand women know what they know, and
it's nice to work together.
Yeah.
And especially when, like, Ikind of.
I do believe in women's intuition.
I do think, like, okay, weunderstand and know things about
ourselves and we can trust ourown internal wisdom.
Right.
And that's not recognized.
(51:51):
You know, it's like women, youknow, always pretending that they
don't know what they actually know.
You know, that's a problem.
So.
So part of therapy is reallyknowing, like owning what you know
and how you know it.
Yeah.
Amazing.
Awesome.
Well, I have been.
I've had a wonderful timetalking to you.
Thank you so much, Sari, forthis conversation.
(52:12):
Are we going to do the finalfour questions?
I was going to say I was goingto lead into my final four.
I always just ask my last fun things.
I love they were fun.
I have to find them because Imade notes.
Okay, go on.
So my first one is just what'son your nightstand?
Oh, my Nightstand.
Well, like I said, you know,my nightstand, you know, is several
(52:33):
stands because it spills overto other tables.
Mine just goes to the floor.
Yeah, well, yeah, but so,yeah, they're mostly books, you know,
and they change according towhat I'm interested in at the time.
You know, when I try to movethem around, I really want to find
(52:54):
out my good.
Write these down somewhere.
Oh, and they were just goodanswers too, so I don't want to lose
them.
So here's a good example of mebeing very organized and then.
And then not being organized.
Okay, well, so, yeah, so it'smostly books and a pretty.
(53:15):
I have other pretty littlethings that are important to me,
but nightstands, you know.
Yeah.
Depending what I'm like rightnow, I have, like, books on, well,
biographies of, you know, freespirited women, you know, a lot of
times, you know, or psychologyof older women I'm interested in
now.
And books about counselingwomen and women's experience in therapy.
(53:36):
I'm reading a lot about that.
Read a lot about adversity and people.
So it's much broader thanadhd, about people facing adversity
in different ways.
And books mostly, and a waterbottle and my remote and a.
A pretty notebook with a penin case I want to write something
down.
Yeah.
Awesome.
I love that.
Yeah, I have piles of booksthat are just piles of constantly
(53:58):
rotating.
Rotate.
Yep, that's it.
So I'm a big music fan, so Ijust always am curious about if someone
remembers their first concert.
I do.
I had two amazing concerts.
My first concert was.
I grew up in Detroit, and thefirst concert was a Motown review
of The Fox Theater, 1993.
(54:19):
Not 19, 1963.
So it was like all the bigstars, you know, for a dollar at
the Fox Theater downtown.
Wow.
Stevie Wonder and theTemptations and the Four Tops and
Smokey Robinson.
It was like, that was my first concert.
And the next year, though, in64, was the big Beatles concert,
downtown Detroit.
(54:39):
And I saw that.
Oh, my gosh, that's amazing.
Mass hysteria.
It was crazy.
Everybody just.
Did you experience the feeling?
Did you experience the.
Like, I couldn't hear a thing.
Oh, I was in love with them.
Yeah.
But Paul was my favorite.
But it was like just.
You couldn't hear a thing.
Just screaming.
Mass hysteria.
Literally, people fainting.
So those are my two early concerts.
(54:59):
I love that.
Oh, my gosh.
What a, like, potenthistorical context for that too.
It's super cool.
Do you have a morning routine?
And if you do, what does itlook like too?
Because it's changed you know,with COVID I mean, because I gave
up my office during COVID andso I had one routine then, but now
(55:20):
it's so much easier because Ijust have to go into this next room
here.
So all the add stuff, gettingready to leave the house, I don't
have to do great.
Yeah.
So I just.
After taking my shower and mypill, then I go downstairs and I
have breakfast with my husbandwho makes me breakfast and he works
here too, since COVID it.
And then we do the spelling bee.
(55:41):
It's not wordle spelling beefrom the New York Times.
So that really, you know, getsmy brain going.
We do that for about 20minutes and we compete at that.
And then I have my.
Well, if my assistant's comingthat day, she bring my latte, my
double tall, non fat, non foam latte.
Having that for many years.
And then I read my emails, Ido my brain candy, which is another
(56:03):
little thing that comes to meevery day and then I come upstairs
and go to work.
Awesome.
Super fun.
I do wordle.
I haven't done that.
I do wordle at night.
Wordle at night.
Yeah.
But the other one is spellingbee and it's more relaxing for me.
It doesn't take quite as much.
Brain power.
Yeah, I compete with my 15year old and my husband on that one.
(56:23):
We always like send each otherwho won fastest on word.
All.
Exactly.
Yeah.
And then last question.
Any unusual talents or funthings you're proud of?
Oh, you said talents.
So proud would be a different answer.
But talent was funny.
Unusual talent.
So I was really racking mybrains because they all come from
my same ability to, you know,care about people or write and stuff.
(56:44):
But I really.
My husband thought thatunusual talent.
I asked him last night toanalyze movies from a deep psych.
I analyze movies really greatfrom a deep psychological kind of
point of view.
But I also, I think my gift isa gift giving and card writing.
So I really take my time andgift giving.
(57:05):
Like.
Like I have all these oldthings from my parents and like if
somebody's mother dies I findlike I found their old recipe that
their mother had given mymother or old letter when their father
was like a teenager.
Or I create these song andmusic and videos for people, you
know, for special, you know,special occasions and so those kinds
(57:27):
of.
So someone said I'm a greatgift giver.
And where I.
Or I find a poem that'smounted beautifully about something
that we've experienced, myfriend and I.
So I like.
Yeah.
Or I like creating memorialsor eulogies.
That's a great talent.
I mean, that's probably athing that most people are not excited
about doing.
(57:47):
I like creating verymeaningful events, kind of.
That's beautiful.
So you understand someone'semotional world.
Oh, yeah.
So I just apply that for everything.
Yeah.
Yeah.
How lovely.
That's awesome.
Well, Sari, thank you so muchfor this conversation.
It's been lovely to talk to you.
I'm so grateful for your work.
I know thousands, maybemillions of women are also great
(58:08):
grateful for your work.
I'm going to link to all ofyour books in the show notes.
I know you do have an upcomingworkshop and I will link to that
for professionals as well inthe show notes.
So anyone who wants to connectwith you that way can.
And if you are a woman whosuspects this, I would highly recommend
you go out and buy Sari'sbooks because you may find yourself
(58:31):
in those pages.
Thank you very much.
It was really fun to talk toyou and you have a great understanding,
great take on this whole thing.
So I appreciate that.
Wonderful.
Have a wonderful rest of your week.
Thank you.
Hey, love, thanks for makingit this far.
If you're hearing this, you'reone of the magical statistical few
that listened all the way tothe end and I so appreciate your
(58:51):
engagement.
I hope that means the messagetoday resonated with you and you're
taking away a tool trick oraction step that will help you have
your best feeling brain.
If that's you, I have a favorto ask.
So many more women need tohear this Message and your 30 seconds
seconds to leave a rating orreview will.
Help them hear it.
Just go to the show in yourpodcast player and scroll down until
you see the stars to leave aquick rating and make my day while
(59:12):
you're at it.
Thank you so much.
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