July 22, 2025 • 38 mins
Do you find yourself replaying conversations, second-guessing decisions, not getting started because you're still figuring out how you should do it or getting stuck in a loop of “what ifs,” you’re not alone.
In this episode, Renee explores why overanalyzing is so common—especially for women with ADHD—and whether it’s helping or holding you back.
Discover why you might be doing this and get simple strategies to shift from overthinking to a more relaxed, productive mind.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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Sa
(00:30):
hello, hello, hello. Welcome to Inspiring Women with adhd.
I'm Renee Allen, the host of this podcast.
I am so excited to be here. I have been trying for
weeks to get the audio to work again for my podcast.
And for some reason, some strange reason, it got weird
and had this buzzing noise. And so I've been playing with
(00:51):
all these things and reading different things.
And unless I recorded it at a much lower
level, which I tried in the last few, I did, but then
I had to lower the music levels. When I got into the audio,
it was just kind of a mess. And I thought, I need to get this
back to normal. So I just went into my audio recording
without going to the video recording for YouTube.
(01:13):
So this is not going to go to YouTube, except for just like with
a picture of me, a show art picture of me.
Because I want to record and I can figure this
other thing out later. I can, I can, I can.
So, hello, I'm excited to be here and thanks for being
patient. So I'm debating as I talk to you
(01:34):
which topic to talk about, because I actually planned ahead.
I came up with the next four episodes and which
one should we talk about? Because I've spent so much time working
on the audio today, I only have 25 minutes before
my yoga class. I guess I could pause and come back.
But thank you for listening to me while I verbally process this.
(01:57):
This decision. Decision. I think I'm going to talk about why
women with adhd, maybe children, maybe people in general,
but women with adhd, because that's who we are, overanalyze,
overanalyze, analyze things. It could be psychoanalyzing.
It could be just rethinking. It could be
(02:20):
how something went yesterday and thinking it over and over and
over, thinking it through. I especially do this now, now that
I ADHD and analyzing why I respond to things
like I do. Because now I'm learning more about adhd.
I'm learning more about my brand. We each have our own
brand of adhd. Meaning, even though there are a plethora
(02:41):
of symptoms, I mean, maybe technically there are
a certain number of symptoms, but there are a certain number
that they use to diagnose adhd. There are a lot of other
symptoms that happen, and it shows up in
so many ways. So whatever your way of having ADHD is,
(03:02):
one of the ways it may manifest is overanalyzing.
And then if you have recently learned that you have ADHD and
you want to figure out, oh, is this why I'm responding like this?
Or is this why this bothers me so much, or is
this why it's hard for me to function?
And in some ways it's very exciting.
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It's fabulous. Because we have a reason.
We can say it's an excuse. We can say there's a
logical, scientific, actual reason for the way
that our brains are causing us to act.
It doesn't mean that we don't have free choice or free will,
(03:44):
that there are some things that you're fighting against.
Like if you're riding a bike, especially if you've ridden a bike
in the wind, when you're going against the wind, it's harder
to ride the bike because something is pushing against you.
If you're kayaking and it's windy and the
wind is in your favor, it's pushing you.
Or if you're sailing. I'm not a sailor.
(04:05):
My husband used to have a little Hobie cat, like a tiny
catamaran or something, I don't know.
But anyway, I have kayaked. And when you
kayak, when the wind is with you, you can
get to where you're going much faster.
If the wind is going in a direction that you don't want to
go in, you have to steer slightly to the right or
(04:27):
slightly to the left to fight going out further from the shore.
I live in Florida now, new still to Florida.
And they have keys here, which is like an island, but
it's not actually an island. It's actually still connected to
land. It doesn't look like it. And in the Florida Keys.
I've actually been to the Florida Keys down at the of Florida,
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but I've been to Cedar Key. We don't live too terribly far from
Cedar Key. And when you are there, you can get
on a kayak or you can actually pay to get on a boat
and they'll take you to this key. It's called Odie something.
I never remember any specific. I'll look it up.
But you. Let's see. Odikey at Cena, Odie
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Key. And it's this island that used to.
Well, not island, a key that used to, but it looks like
an island. Atsina Odiki. That used to be Cedar.
It used to be the little town of Cedar Key until a hurricane
in the 1800s that wiped it out. And now all
that really exists there, evidence of life there
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before, is the cemetery, the headstones, and even
the fence around it. There might be a few other things,
but you get there and it's like you're on Gilgans Island.
You get to walk through Jungly stuff.
And there's a raised wooden sidewalk, and you can Google
it, you can look it up, and it's pretty cool.
(05:53):
There's probably some other things, but when I went on my birthday
a couple years ago after we moved here, my daughter and I paddled
out there, and it took. It seemed like it took
forever to get out there, and we had to keep looking at the key
and keep paddling toward it. Keep your eye on the
pride and keep going and going and going and resist the wind
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that was trying to make it harder for you to get there and
trying to take you further away from shore instead of toward
that key. So you had to really course correct constantly to
get there. On the way back, the wind just took us right back
where we wanted to go. It was so fast and easy, but we ended
up there, you know, took longer. It was worth it, for sure.
(06:35):
It was fun. And, you know, at times I think, was
that really safe that we were on that little.
I'll call it an island alone? Probably not.
The last people there were getting a little boat to leave.
At least I think they're the last people.
But, yeah, so we are fighting against a current, literally, or
you're riding a bike against the wind.
And I think of that with adhd, when your brain has executive
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dysfunction, all the things that can come with adhd,
you are pushing against something, or course correcting against
something, or just dealing with something that's different than
what a lot of people deal with. It makes it harder to function.
And because it is hereditary, it's highly hereditary.
(07:20):
And I've been around other people in life that
are this way too. At times, I think you're really not
much difference, you know, like, what's the big deal?
You should be able to handle this. And other times, it's so
on display that it's not the same as everyone else in
the room or anyone but the children.
(07:40):
A few children in the room. So, yeah, it can be hard.
It can be really hard. And what was my topic?
Overanalyzing. A lot of people overanalyze, but do
you ruminate and ruminate and ruminate?
Do you replay a conversation? Do you not only
(08:01):
replay it in your mind because you maybe wish it went
different or something, but now that you're starting to understand
your brain, do you think, oh, I responded in this way because
of this, or, you know, you're just analyzing the whole thing?
And my daughter recently had. Do they still call them memes?
You know, it's hard to keep up with, with social media.
(08:22):
Lingo. I'm still like. I'm still a little lost on
how TikTok works, but I think it was a meme and she
had it in her Instagram story, and it said something like,
I have two modes. It's either romanticizing everything or
psychoanalyzing everything. And when I read that,
I thought, yeah, because you're kind of like, oh, this is so
(08:43):
amazing. It's so wonderful. That person is so.
Oh, you know, you can. So you can really get lost in
that line of thought and just take it, you
know, get really stuck in that direction.
Or you can get stuck in another direction of just really
analyzing it. So then when I saw that, I thought, oh, that's
(09:04):
so me too. And I have to connect with her.
And then actually, my cousin's wife had the same meme in
her story, so I had to tell her too, because you have to connect.
It's my form of adhd. But then for a
few days after that, I was analyzing why I psychoanalyze.
What is it about adhd? What is it about me that loves to
(09:27):
do that? Is that a good thing? Can it be
positive? Why is it connected to adhd?
The curiosity piece of ADHD is very, very huge.
While I'm thinking of that, I am.
I know you're probably sick of me talking about my website, but
(09:47):
I am making a guide. It's called Understanding adhd, A Quick
Guide to adhd. It's actually free, but I know other
people have guides. I know there are websites that have things
like this, but they are not always easy to look through.
They're not very basic and a lot of them have ads.
This one, you don't have to pay anything.
It's got some pretty colors. It's pretty simple.
(10:08):
But I not only have the types of ADHD on here and
the things that you struggle with or you tend to do when
you have inattentive ADHD or hyperactive, impulsive ADHD or
combined adhd, which is all of the above, and the two
lesser known or lesser diagnosed forms, which I actually
(10:31):
learned on the fly. While I was podcasting several episodes again
ago called unspecified Presentation, I was reading an article
that said there was another kind. They said there were four
types after so many articles said three types.
Well, when I actually read the diagnostical.
Is that what it's called? Diagnostic Manual dsm?
(10:54):
Yeah, it's. It's where they. It's how the psychiatrist, psychologists,
doctors, therapists, whoever it is, that determined
you have adhd. It's what they use. It's The American Psychological
Psychiatric Associations Diagnostic and Statistical Manual
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and they now are in the fifth edition.
The ADD diagnosis that is from quite a
few editions ago. I could even look that up.
I know it was a long time ago and I know a lot of people still
think that that is a diagnosis. It is
not and it hasn't been in a long time.
And I'm just repeating this to you if you haven't heard it before
(11:37):
or if you have. Because if you're like me, do you keep that
information in your mind or those facts maybe.
Especially if you have odd. Oddie. See, I can't even
say that. Odd. Adhd. Yeah. That if you have that
autism link as well, you may have
(11:59):
the ability to maintain to keep track of that kind of
information better. But yeah, I can't find that at the tip of
my finger. Not going to try to. I guess I'll do that.
I am. That's another reason I'm making things like this because
I need my own little resource where I can look it
up and just see like I was just able to say
American Psychiatric Associations Diagnostic and Statistical
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Manual, 5th Edition, DSM 5 because I wrote
it down. And even if I wrote it down and looked at it every day,
I would still need to find that resource and figure out
what it was. But let's see, I'll just do this.
When did ADD diagnosis change? I think it
was in the 80s. 1987 in the DSM 3.
(12:46):
So long time ago, some of you may not have even
been born yet. The year my husband and I were married, 1987,
ADD was changed to ADHD. I am, I know I
am off track, but that is okay. Just wanted to throw that
little piece out there that. Oh, that was my sidetrack.
Is okay. So when I have a listed. Because you can't
(13:07):
put too many things on one page, that's another thing.
Not to criticize people, but I get emails from people telling
me I can help you with your online business, I can
help you write better emails. And I'm already signed up with
somebody that I absolutely adore. That helps me with that.
And so I'm not looking for someone else to do that.
But it's surprising to me that when I see these emails from these
(13:29):
other people, their emails are not very concise and there's
no way that I'm going to read it because there's just
too much there graphically. Like artistic.
You know, the graphic art. Yeah, all that.
It's just too much there. So I'm trying to keep this simple So
I have the basic struggles for the inattentive adhd,
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the hyperactive, impulsive type, and then I have
some other things. But I also have other common ADHD
conditions. And the one that I just said, and I thought,
I have to do this right now because I totally will forget.
And I'm already forgetting what it is.
(14:12):
I'm going to write it down. When I remember again, okay?
I'm going to go back to what I was talking about, and I'll find
it. Do you ever do that? Do you loop back?
Oh, my goodness. The thinking, thinking, thinking.
Overanalyzing, psychoanalyzing. Oh, oh, oh.
Hope that wasn't too much of a. Of a burst in the microphone,
but curiosity. So when you have adhd,
(14:36):
your brain can be very curious. That is
a symptom that many, many people with ADHD have, and some
people aren't as curious as others, believe it or not.
You might learn about something, and you dive deep.
You want to learn more, you have more questions, you learn something,
and you realize what you don't know, or you.
(15:00):
Because you learn one thing, you have five more things that come
up. And that's how my next four topics came up.
Because as I talked about overthinking, as I was
writing notes and ideas for this episode, the
overthinking, overthinking, the overanalyzing, all of that I
got more curious about, well, then, why does my brain do this
(15:20):
and why does my brain do that? Why do we do these things?
Why do we struggle with it? How can it be a strength?
How can it not be? So you just keep connecting dots.
You keep finding more ways to kind of satisfy that
brain that wants to learn, wants to learn.
And if you have any children with ADHD or, or, you know, maybe
(15:43):
they've already grown up, and maybe this happened with
my older son. And then I could totally spot it in my youngest
son is he had to be learning to
be able to not be bored, to not be able to not get
up and disrupt other people,
whatever it was that was disruptive.
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If he. If his brain was occupied, if he was
learning, he was fine. If he wasn't, if he was
bored and because he was more advanced and could learn so
quickly,
then he did get curious about other things, and he found
other things for his brain to do or for his body to do.
And that doesn't always fit in a classroom.
(16:26):
So having a teacher that spotted that and saw that in him
was super, super helpful. It can also be helpful
for you if
you have questions, you have questions.
And you can't get those questions satisfied or you
want to learn something, and then later you've forgotten, because
(16:46):
that can be. Another ADHD trait is forgetting things.
You want to figure something out, and then a few days later,
oh, I still haven't figured that out.
Sometimes just jotting down a note, having a journal where you
can write these things, these things that you can't do now it's
your do later list. Look into that, look into that.
Research that, Order this book, read about that, do a
(17:07):
little Google searching. Because that's one of the problems is
when you have questions and then you think, I'm just going to
get on the computer or on my phone for half a second to figure
it out, to get an answer, to quench that brain that
wants to know. You can get so distracted, but you also
get distracted in your own body when things build up and
(17:28):
you don't have an answer. I don't know if this has
ever happened to you, but I've been in situations before, like
a meeting. If you have the hyperactive component of adhd,
and I've been told not as many women do, but I think it
shows up in different ways. Maybe my way is a
little extreme, but if you have a really
(17:52):
hard time waiting in line, if you don't have the patience
to wait
or it just builds up in your body, yes, you may be waiting, but
are you going crazy inside? And I feel that way when I
have a question and I can't get an answer.
So, like, if you're watching a movie and you see an
(18:13):
actor and you think, I know who that actor is, but I don't know
who that actor is. If you're at home, you can look it up
on your phone. If you're in a movie theater, I hope you're not
pulling out your phone. I'm sure you're not, but you want to.
You're kind of dying to know. And if you have kids like mine
that don't want you to talk to her in the movie, you can't say,
what mov are they on? So you have to wait.
You have to wait. You're like that child that's just like.
(18:33):
Or Pee Wee Herman. So this is totally Pee Wee Herman.
Probably had adhd. Have you seen Pee Wee's Big Adventure?
If you haven't, if you're too young to know that that's an amazing
movie, or you only watched it once and thought, why do people
like this? Go watch it again. Because he goes to the Alamo
because he is told that he needs to go to the basement in
the Alamo in Texas. I can't even remember why I
(18:56):
watched that movie. I don't know, at least 20 times, probably
more. But he goes on a tour. And the tour guide
is one of the comedians, actresses from Saturday Night Live from
long ago. And she was the tour guide, absolutely fabulous at
a role. She has her Texas accent. She's doing the tour
and he wants to know, where's the basement?
(19:17):
She hasn't said where the basement is.
He tries to raise her hand. She's like, let's save that for the
end of the day tour. And that has been me, even as
an adult in a meeting where I ask a question and I'm
told, oh, that's something we'll talk about later, or we're not
going to cover that today. And I think, oh, my gosh, I'm going
to go crazy because my brain wants to know.
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And so Pee Wee is sitting there and his whole body is standing
there like, and he's looking around, going crazy and he's shaking
and everything. And then he finally, it's question time.
And he says, where's the basement? She says, there's no basement
in the Alamo. And everyone laughs because a silly movie, it's
Tim Burton's, one of his earliest movies, and it was
(19:59):
a comedy, but it was bizarre. You know, Tim Burton's bizarre
and you know, he has that Halloween style, whatever
you call it. This was just bizarre and colorful.
But you might have that need to know why.
And that might be why you overanalyze.
You might be curious. You might also be driven
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by anxiety if something didn't go the way you
wanted it to go. This is totally different than just
being curious. It's more that was upsetting.
I didn't like how that went,
you know, and just overanalyzing. And it can even be
(20:43):
in the preparation of something, like kind of going through
something, of, okay, this is what I saw before, this is what
needs to happen this time. And, and just kind of analyzing
it to bits. And it could be to make
sure that something doesn't go wrong again, or you don't want
it to go wrong, or you're worried that things are going to go
(21:04):
wrong, or you just have some kind of
fear in that. Will it be good enough?
Will everyone be happy? It might be a people pleasing
thing. I want it to go right, or I want it to, you know, be
just right. And so you go over things and over things and over
things. I think of overanalyzing more of something that happened
(21:25):
in the past. But it can also be analyzing something that needs
to happen. And if you have the RSD
aspect of adhd, which is the rejection sensitive dysphoria,
whether you have that or just you are sensitive, hopefully you
don't think you're too sensitive because that's what people who
(21:47):
are sensitive are told often. You're too sensitive.
Yeah, that's not very nice, is it? You're too sensitive.
Sensitivity, that's the thing. Some people feel physical pain
more than someone else. One of my children did not
feel physical pain. Have six kids. He did not feel physical pain
(22:07):
like the rest of us. And he would get injured quite
badly, like really cut up. And I won't say things to, you
know, I don't want to make anybody think why is she talking
about that? I don't want to hear about things like that.
But where we would have to see the injury, we'd have to spot
it even getting burned, second degree burns and say, oh
(22:28):
my goodness, are you okay? And he wouldn't scream, he
wouldn't yell, he wouldn't draw that attention to himself.
But he also wouldn't express it because he wasn't feeling that
which was, which was new. You know, he was not my
first, second or third child, so it was like, this is new.
My second child felt pain more intensively and I've
(22:49):
been told even by medical professionals that red haired people
feel pain more than other colored haired people.
I don't know if you've heard that, but even in surgery rooms
that they have to give them more anesthesia, that it's a
real thing and it was a real thing with her that a finger
prick to take blood or to test for iron levels
(23:12):
or shots. Totally, totally different response in
her body than in someone else's. So yeah, so there
can be that same thing with how we feel emotionally.
You can feel pain emotionally, deeper, heavier and you
can worry about that. That can cause you to rethink things
(23:35):
afterwards. I wish I hadn't said that.
If I'd only done this, da da da da da.
Or even, even if it's not
that kind of thing, it can even just be a disappointment in yourself.
And I've done this a lot recently as a yoga teacher.
Someone will come and talk to me about, oh, I went to this
class and this and that. And I react more judgmental than
(23:59):
I wish I would. Like, why would they even teach like
that? I think you should not be doing that.
And I'm not actually criticizing an actual person.
It's not Getting to know the person.
But yeah, they shouldn't do that at all, you know.
Yeah, I question that too. But I think stop acting like you're
a know it all with that. Like that's you should have a calmer
response, you know. So I over analyze that, I think
(24:23):
it through again and there can be positivity to this, especially
if you've done something that you think I would like to be react
better than that, I would like to do better than that.
I would like to be a person that could sound less critical and
there's positivity in that. But it can be driven by
a lot of things. It can be driven by being hard on
(24:46):
yourself or just being in a different emotional state
in the middle of the night or trying to fall asleep.
You might overanalyze what happened in the day.
Things might fall kind of come up to the surface
where they might not. So when you're not as physically tired
or emotionally tired. Another part of ADHD for
(25:10):
a lot of us is having a deep need to be understood.
And everyone has a need to be loved 100%.
Everyone has a need to be loved. Not everyone has a
need to explain themselves all the time or often
or as much as maybe I do. I have a
(25:31):
deep need to be understood and I love to share things like
that.
And sometimes I analyze something afterwards, like should I
have explained as much that sounded more like
an argument or should I have explained more?
So there's always that analyzing, there's always that
(25:53):
rehashing a situation, the going back.
And I know people, you know, have all those sayings about not
going back, being happy, no regrets.
But this is what my brain does and I'm learning the
positive things about that when it's helpful.
And there might be times I need to slow it down a bit,
(26:16):
but it can, it can be helpful for sure when,
when there's reflection, there's growth.
It can be also helpful to learn when you're analyzing stuff.
You can learn because you have a self awareness.
Self awareness is amazing. A lot of people do not have self
awareness. I don't know if you've noticed that, but I've noticed
(26:37):
that especially in the things that I am self aware
that I aware of myself where I think I do this,
but I know I'm doing it. I just have a harder time
stopping it. But a lot of people don't know they're
doing it. And it's not like I need to tell
them or anything. But it can help you
(27:02):
just satisfy your brain. It can just satisfy the need
to do that just like verbal processing, just like journal writing.
I remember when I was in high school, I was told so many times,
it's important to write in a journal.
It's important to write things down.
It's really good for your brain. And so I did that.
And I have journals in this library right now.
I think I have about 10 of them from high school and college
(27:24):
where I just wrote every day, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And people would even say, this will be good for your children,
your grandchildren, and for your posterity to read.
And honestly, no one's going to want to read.
And it was just a lot of. What do they call
it when you just do the brain dump or something?
You just let go in your brain. And that was what a lot
of it was. A lot of it was, oh, this boy is cute, or
(27:46):
things like that. Or it was talking in the voice that I talked
in school. Well, anyway, or, you know, whatever it was, I'd
probably still say anyway, but the processing things that
are in your brain. Writing is wonderful.
Playing music is wonderful. Running, hiking, physical activity,
all of those help us process things that happened in our lives,
(28:09):
help our brains kind of settle with it, help our
body settle with it. So is talking, verbal processing.
Experience is as important. And thinking, Just thinking.
Processing can be helpful too. You don't want to get
stuck there. You don't want it to build up anxiety.
You don't want it to disrupt your life.
(28:31):
But if it plays a part in your life, then it
doesn't mean that it's not bad. It's not something you need to
say, I shouldn't be doing this anymore.
Sometimes it does get in the way. If you're not able to
come up with solutions, you can't stop thinking about it.
But you don't really come to any conclusion or it causes you
(28:53):
to feel more guilty or shameful or just indecisive because
you have that paralysis by analysis.
You analyze, you analyze, you analyze, but you can't come up
with a decision or a solution. And that is a
before thing, for sure. You avoid deciding.
You avoid coming to a conclusion because you can't.
(29:15):
You can't, and that's okay. I do love that X
button on my computer, on a tab. Sometimes I
think, I can't do this anymore. I can't finish it now.
I can't decide. I can't come to the conclusion.
And if I stay here, I'll keep having that conversation
in my mind that's trying to come up with the best you
(29:37):
Know the best answer and the best answer is not always available.
And sometimes that's why we use the okay answer.
We have to do that instead. Also, if it's giving you
self doubt, it's keeping you awake at night, sleepless, having
a hard time sleeping, then yeah, we need to
(29:58):
find something to do to help it. So anytime that you recognize
you're overanalyzing, you might say, oh, this is fun.
You know, you might just keep going.
You might find this is driven by stress or I'm really tired.
What can I do to quiet this? Sometimes it is exhausting.
It's like having someone else's conversation that you just think,
(30:18):
I can't listen to this anymore. And you have to say goodbye and
hang up. Or if you're on a phone call or in a conversation,
you just know, it's okay, I gotta go now.
And sometimes you need to do that with those patterns that are
going on in your mind. A change of pace, going outside,
doing something different. TV show. If you need to
(30:40):
go to sleep, putting on something in your ear that can
help with that white noise helps some people.
For me it's to listen to a podcast or an audiobook
that has a calming voice. No commercials, and I can
set a timer on it and it causes me to think a little
bit, but not too much. And that really helps me because it
(31:01):
puts other ideas in my mind that are somewhat entertaining.
Some what make me think, I'm very picky about it.
But I found something that works and it's really, really wonderful
so that can quiet my mind by hearing someone else's thoughts.
But I did this one podcast that I like to listen to.
It's legal cases and when they talk about the ones
with a lot of financial issues, I find, you know what,
(31:24):
sometimes that's not very calming because.
Because it brings up my own financial issues or if it's,
you know, about domestic abuse or something.
I think, okay, that wasn't helping me fall asleep.
I don't want to listen to that. Yeah, so it's finding the
things that can help and recognizing what doesn't.
And even just having a time that maybe
(31:45):
you do process things like that, you know, like, I'm going to
go for a walk with my friend and we'll talk.
These are things through. I used to do yoga with a
friend who would come over twice a week.
It started out as me inviting a bunch of friends, but it
turned out just being us two. And when it was only the
two of us, it was. We would talk the whole time instead of me
teaching and everyone else quietly doing yoga tends to happen
(32:08):
when there's just one person there. But.
And sometimes I say, oh, if you don't want to talk, that's okay.
We don't have to. But we tend to talk more when there's two of
us. And she would always end by saying, oh, that was
so fun. We solved all the problems in the world because we could.
We could talk them all through and have our opinions.
But yeah, even using a pen and paper, just
writing a few things down, saying for me works to just say
(32:31):
things out loud like, this is crazy.
I need to stop talking about it. Tell yourself something like
that and you can stop doing that. Put on music, sing instead.
And hopefully not music that makes you think about what you're
analyzing or doesn't make you analyze someone's voice or something
like that, why they're so popular. But yeah, there's a
(32:52):
lot of things that you could do. Reframing is a psychology or
coaching term for taking what's in your mind and looking
at it a different way. And there's whole courses on
that and stuff. But yeah, lots of ways to
do this and just knowing that if you are thinking a
(33:15):
lot and you enjoy thinking a lot, that's okay.
You know, it's one of the things that happens with everybody
ADHD that overthinking. But if it's getting in the way
of your life and
you're trying to get other things done and you keep thinking
about these things or you're processing it by texting a
friend or Marco Poloing, videoing, whatever, back and
(33:38):
forth with someone and it's constantly on your mind.
If it's disruptive, then maybe turn your phone off for
a little bit and give yourself a smaller window to do that.
Because it can be nice. It can be nice to think things through
with the people. It's very helpful to me.
I've had people say to me when I've tried to think out loud
(33:59):
with them, and I'm not sure what to do because of this, this,
this, this, this. I had one friend say, it sounds like,
you know, you've come to your decision.
And I thought, what? It surprised me so much when she
said that it wasn't. It wasn't bothersome or anything that I
just thought, did I come to my decision because I don't feel
settled about this. I could talk about it for three more hours,
(34:20):
but I think she was saying, you have so many pros to stopping
what you're doing. And I think she didn't Know how
much the cons tugged at my heart because I have a hard time making
schedule changes and stuff when I teach because I get really
attached to the people or I feel like I don't want to let them
down. You know, the drama of it all.
I feel the same way when I'm not here on the podcast because
I think I've told them I'd be back and I'm not.
(34:43):
And you guys are just fine. I'm sure.
I'm sure you're not thinking about it as much as I am, but.
But I think that's going to be it for today.
I actually talked longer than I thought because I got a message
from my private yoga people and they needed to push it back an
hour. So that gave me plenty of time to continue recording
here today to analyze. Overanalyzing paralysis by analysis.
(35:07):
Overthinking, thinking, curiosity. All those things are part
of adhd. Having lots of ideas. And yet other times
you feel like I don't have a single idea.
That happens to me sometimes, too. Like.
Like my brain is stumped. And I think that maybe sometimes that
is my period of forgetfulness. Like I had an
idea and now I have no idea what it is.
(35:29):
Oh, the joys of life, huh? Yeah. Thank you for being here.
And it was fun. It was fun. I was
saying Marco Poling. It was fun recording this just on
audio. The video is fun too, but it's.
There's so much more setup and it's distracting and I don't have
as much control over it, but I spent a lot of money
(35:51):
on different things to make it happen, so I'm going to keep
trying. But I might do this where I make one audio
and the one with audio and video. And it's not like very
many people are watching on YouTube anyway.
But one of my friends only watches on YouTube because she
likes it better that way. And she wasn't really.
She's not really a podcast listener, but she's a YouTube watcher,
(36:13):
so it just made it more convenient for her.
So the people pleaser that I am, I want to keep
going. And there's other reasons, too.
But again, thank you so much for being here.
Feel free to get in touch with me if you want.
Renee Inspiring Women with ADHD. Is that
(36:33):
what it is? Renee at Inspiring Women with ADHD?
No, there's no. With reneeinspiringwomenadhd.com that's one of
my Gmails. I have way too many. It's another thing where
I can't make a decision. So I have a whole bunch of them.
That's life. That's my craziness. But thank you for being
(36:56):
here. Feel free to share with me your challenges and your craziness
too, because it bonds us. We all
have a bit of it. If you have adhd, there's just little things
in life that they're crazy to deal with, for sure.
And challenging at times, too. But thanks so much.
I will be back again. Bye.
(37:23):
Frozen dreams are left for tomorrow
Time for a party
(37:56):
and harmonies I'm cut short the silence of
sound has yet been found but not by me.
Sa
(00:30):
hello, hello, hello. Welcome to Inspiring Women with adhd.
I'm Renee Allen, the host of this podcast.
I am so excited to be here. I have been trying for
weeks to get the audio to work again for my podcast.
And for some reason, some strange reason, it got weird
and had this buzzing noise. And so I've been playing with
(00:51):
all these things and reading different things.
And unless I recorded it at a much lower
level, which I tried in the last few, I did, but then
I had to lower the music levels. When I got into the audio,
it was just kind of a mess. And I thought, I need to get this
back to normal. So I just went into my audio recording
without going to the video recording for YouTube.
(01:13):
So this is not going to go to YouTube, except for just like with
a picture of me, a show art picture of me.
Because I want to record and I can figure this
other thing out later. I can, I can, I can.
So, hello, I'm excited to be here and thanks for being
patient. So I'm debating as I talk to you
(01:34):
which topic to talk about, because I actually planned ahead.
I came up with the next four episodes and which
one should we talk about? Because I've spent so much time working
on the audio today, I only have 25 minutes before
my yoga class. I guess I could pause and come back.
But thank you for listening to me while I verbally process this.
(01:57):
This decision. Decision. I think I'm going to talk about why
women with adhd, maybe children, maybe people in general,
but women with adhd, because that's who we are, overanalyze,
overanalyze, analyze things. It could be psychoanalyzing.
It could be just rethinking. It could be
(02:20):
how something went yesterday and thinking it over and over and
over, thinking it through. I especially do this now, now that
I ADHD and analyzing why I respond to things
like I do. Because now I'm learning more about adhd.
I'm learning more about my brand. We each have our own
brand of adhd. Meaning, even though there are a plethora
(02:41):
of symptoms, I mean, maybe technically there are
a certain number of symptoms, but there are a certain number
that they use to diagnose adhd. There are a lot of other
symptoms that happen, and it shows up in
so many ways. So whatever your way of having ADHD is,
(03:02):
one of the ways it may manifest is overanalyzing.
And then if you have recently learned that you have ADHD and
you want to figure out, oh, is this why I'm responding like this?
Or is this why this bothers me so much, or is
this why it's hard for me to function?
And in some ways it's very exciting.
(03:22):
It's fabulous. Because we have a reason.
We can say it's an excuse. We can say there's a
logical, scientific, actual reason for the way
that our brains are causing us to act.
It doesn't mean that we don't have free choice or free will,
(03:44):
that there are some things that you're fighting against.
Like if you're riding a bike, especially if you've ridden a bike
in the wind, when you're going against the wind, it's harder
to ride the bike because something is pushing against you.
If you're kayaking and it's windy and the
wind is in your favor, it's pushing you.
Or if you're sailing. I'm not a sailor.
(04:05):
My husband used to have a little Hobie cat, like a tiny
catamaran or something, I don't know.
But anyway, I have kayaked. And when you
kayak, when the wind is with you, you can
get to where you're going much faster.
If the wind is going in a direction that you don't want to
go in, you have to steer slightly to the right or
(04:27):
slightly to the left to fight going out further from the shore.
I live in Florida now, new still to Florida.
And they have keys here, which is like an island, but
it's not actually an island. It's actually still connected to
land. It doesn't look like it. And in the Florida Keys.
I've actually been to the Florida Keys down at the of Florida,
(04:47):
but I've been to Cedar Key. We don't live too terribly far from
Cedar Key. And when you are there, you can get
on a kayak or you can actually pay to get on a boat
and they'll take you to this key. It's called Odie something.
I never remember any specific. I'll look it up.
But you. Let's see. Odikey at Cena, Odie
(05:09):
Key. And it's this island that used to.
Well, not island, a key that used to, but it looks like
an island. Atsina Odiki. That used to be Cedar.
It used to be the little town of Cedar Key until a hurricane
in the 1800s that wiped it out. And now all
that really exists there, evidence of life there
(05:33):
before, is the cemetery, the headstones, and even
the fence around it. There might be a few other things,
but you get there and it's like you're on Gilgans Island.
You get to walk through Jungly stuff.
And there's a raised wooden sidewalk, and you can Google
it, you can look it up, and it's pretty cool.
(05:53):
There's probably some other things, but when I went on my birthday
a couple years ago after we moved here, my daughter and I paddled
out there, and it took. It seemed like it took
forever to get out there, and we had to keep looking at the key
and keep paddling toward it. Keep your eye on the
pride and keep going and going and going and resist the wind
(06:13):
that was trying to make it harder for you to get there and
trying to take you further away from shore instead of toward
that key. So you had to really course correct constantly to
get there. On the way back, the wind just took us right back
where we wanted to go. It was so fast and easy, but we ended
up there, you know, took longer. It was worth it, for sure.
(06:35):
It was fun. And, you know, at times I think, was
that really safe that we were on that little.
I'll call it an island alone? Probably not.
The last people there were getting a little boat to leave.
At least I think they're the last people.
But, yeah, so we are fighting against a current, literally, or
you're riding a bike against the wind.
And I think of that with adhd, when your brain has executive
(06:57):
dysfunction, all the things that can come with adhd,
you are pushing against something, or course correcting against
something, or just dealing with something that's different than
what a lot of people deal with. It makes it harder to function.
And because it is hereditary, it's highly hereditary.
(07:20):
And I've been around other people in life that
are this way too. At times, I think you're really not
much difference, you know, like, what's the big deal?
You should be able to handle this. And other times, it's so
on display that it's not the same as everyone else in
the room or anyone but the children.
(07:40):
A few children in the room. So, yeah, it can be hard.
It can be really hard. And what was my topic?
Overanalyzing. A lot of people overanalyze, but do
you ruminate and ruminate and ruminate?
Do you replay a conversation? Do you not only
(08:01):
replay it in your mind because you maybe wish it went
different or something, but now that you're starting to understand
your brain, do you think, oh, I responded in this way because
of this, or, you know, you're just analyzing the whole thing?
And my daughter recently had. Do they still call them memes?
You know, it's hard to keep up with, with social media.
(08:22):
Lingo. I'm still like. I'm still a little lost on
how TikTok works, but I think it was a meme and she
had it in her Instagram story, and it said something like,
I have two modes. It's either romanticizing everything or
psychoanalyzing everything. And when I read that,
I thought, yeah, because you're kind of like, oh, this is so
(08:43):
amazing. It's so wonderful. That person is so.
Oh, you know, you can. So you can really get lost in
that line of thought and just take it, you
know, get really stuck in that direction.
Or you can get stuck in another direction of just really
analyzing it. So then when I saw that, I thought, oh, that's
(09:04):
so me too. And I have to connect with her.
And then actually, my cousin's wife had the same meme in
her story, so I had to tell her too, because you have to connect.
It's my form of adhd. But then for a
few days after that, I was analyzing why I psychoanalyze.
What is it about adhd? What is it about me that loves to
(09:27):
do that? Is that a good thing? Can it be
positive? Why is it connected to adhd?
The curiosity piece of ADHD is very, very huge.
While I'm thinking of that, I am.
I know you're probably sick of me talking about my website, but
(09:47):
I am making a guide. It's called Understanding adhd, A Quick
Guide to adhd. It's actually free, but I know other
people have guides. I know there are websites that have things
like this, but they are not always easy to look through.
They're not very basic and a lot of them have ads.
This one, you don't have to pay anything.
It's got some pretty colors. It's pretty simple.
(10:08):
But I not only have the types of ADHD on here and
the things that you struggle with or you tend to do when
you have inattentive ADHD or hyperactive, impulsive ADHD or
combined adhd, which is all of the above, and the two
lesser known or lesser diagnosed forms, which I actually
(10:31):
learned on the fly. While I was podcasting several episodes again
ago called unspecified Presentation, I was reading an article
that said there was another kind. They said there were four
types after so many articles said three types.
Well, when I actually read the diagnostical.
Is that what it's called? Diagnostic Manual dsm?
(10:54):
Yeah, it's. It's where they. It's how the psychiatrist, psychologists,
doctors, therapists, whoever it is, that determined
you have adhd. It's what they use. It's The American Psychological
Psychiatric Associations Diagnostic and Statistical Manual
(11:15):
and they now are in the fifth edition.
The ADD diagnosis that is from quite a
few editions ago. I could even look that up.
I know it was a long time ago and I know a lot of people still
think that that is a diagnosis. It is
not and it hasn't been in a long time.
And I'm just repeating this to you if you haven't heard it before
(11:37):
or if you have. Because if you're like me, do you keep that
information in your mind or those facts maybe.
Especially if you have odd. Oddie. See, I can't even
say that. Odd. Adhd. Yeah. That if you have that
autism link as well, you may have
(11:59):
the ability to maintain to keep track of that kind of
information better. But yeah, I can't find that at the tip of
my finger. Not going to try to. I guess I'll do that.
I am. That's another reason I'm making things like this because
I need my own little resource where I can look it
up and just see like I was just able to say
American Psychiatric Associations Diagnostic and Statistical
(12:20):
Manual, 5th Edition, DSM 5 because I wrote
it down. And even if I wrote it down and looked at it every day,
I would still need to find that resource and figure out
what it was. But let's see, I'll just do this.
When did ADD diagnosis change? I think it
was in the 80s. 1987 in the DSM 3.
(12:46):
So long time ago, some of you may not have even
been born yet. The year my husband and I were married, 1987,
ADD was changed to ADHD. I am, I know I
am off track, but that is okay. Just wanted to throw that
little piece out there that. Oh, that was my sidetrack.
Is okay. So when I have a listed. Because you can't
(13:07):
put too many things on one page, that's another thing.
Not to criticize people, but I get emails from people telling
me I can help you with your online business, I can
help you write better emails. And I'm already signed up with
somebody that I absolutely adore. That helps me with that.
And so I'm not looking for someone else to do that.
But it's surprising to me that when I see these emails from these
(13:29):
other people, their emails are not very concise and there's
no way that I'm going to read it because there's just
too much there graphically. Like artistic.
You know, the graphic art. Yeah, all that.
It's just too much there. So I'm trying to keep this simple So
I have the basic struggles for the inattentive adhd,
(13:51):
the hyperactive, impulsive type, and then I have
some other things. But I also have other common ADHD
conditions. And the one that I just said, and I thought,
I have to do this right now because I totally will forget.
And I'm already forgetting what it is.
(14:12):
I'm going to write it down. When I remember again, okay?
I'm going to go back to what I was talking about, and I'll find
it. Do you ever do that? Do you loop back?
Oh, my goodness. The thinking, thinking, thinking.
Overanalyzing, psychoanalyzing. Oh, oh, oh.
Hope that wasn't too much of a. Of a burst in the microphone,
but curiosity. So when you have adhd,
(14:36):
your brain can be very curious. That is
a symptom that many, many people with ADHD have, and some
people aren't as curious as others, believe it or not.
You might learn about something, and you dive deep.
You want to learn more, you have more questions, you learn something,
and you realize what you don't know, or you.
(15:00):
Because you learn one thing, you have five more things that come
up. And that's how my next four topics came up.
Because as I talked about overthinking, as I was
writing notes and ideas for this episode, the
overthinking, overthinking, the overanalyzing, all of that I
got more curious about, well, then, why does my brain do this
(15:20):
and why does my brain do that? Why do we do these things?
Why do we struggle with it? How can it be a strength?
How can it not be? So you just keep connecting dots.
You keep finding more ways to kind of satisfy that
brain that wants to learn, wants to learn.
And if you have any children with ADHD or, or, you know, maybe
(15:43):
they've already grown up, and maybe this happened with
my older son. And then I could totally spot it in my youngest
son is he had to be learning to
be able to not be bored, to not be able to not get
up and disrupt other people,
whatever it was that was disruptive.
(16:05):
If he. If his brain was occupied, if he was
learning, he was fine. If he wasn't, if he was
bored and because he was more advanced and could learn so
quickly,
then he did get curious about other things, and he found
other things for his brain to do or for his body to do.
And that doesn't always fit in a classroom.
(16:26):
So having a teacher that spotted that and saw that in him
was super, super helpful. It can also be helpful
for you if
you have questions, you have questions.
And you can't get those questions satisfied or you
want to learn something, and then later you've forgotten, because
(16:46):
that can be. Another ADHD trait is forgetting things.
You want to figure something out, and then a few days later,
oh, I still haven't figured that out.
Sometimes just jotting down a note, having a journal where you
can write these things, these things that you can't do now it's
your do later list. Look into that, look into that.
Research that, Order this book, read about that, do a
(17:07):
little Google searching. Because that's one of the problems is
when you have questions and then you think, I'm just going to
get on the computer or on my phone for half a second to figure
it out, to get an answer, to quench that brain that
wants to know. You can get so distracted, but you also
get distracted in your own body when things build up and
(17:28):
you don't have an answer. I don't know if this has
ever happened to you, but I've been in situations before, like
a meeting. If you have the hyperactive component of adhd,
and I've been told not as many women do, but I think it
shows up in different ways. Maybe my way is a
little extreme, but if you have a really
(17:52):
hard time waiting in line, if you don't have the patience
to wait
or it just builds up in your body, yes, you may be waiting, but
are you going crazy inside? And I feel that way when I
have a question and I can't get an answer.
So, like, if you're watching a movie and you see an
(18:13):
actor and you think, I know who that actor is, but I don't know
who that actor is. If you're at home, you can look it up
on your phone. If you're in a movie theater, I hope you're not
pulling out your phone. I'm sure you're not, but you want to.
You're kind of dying to know. And if you have kids like mine
that don't want you to talk to her in the movie, you can't say,
what mov are they on? So you have to wait.
You have to wait. You're like that child that's just like.
(18:33):
Or Pee Wee Herman. So this is totally Pee Wee Herman.
Probably had adhd. Have you seen Pee Wee's Big Adventure?
If you haven't, if you're too young to know that that's an amazing
movie, or you only watched it once and thought, why do people
like this? Go watch it again. Because he goes to the Alamo
because he is told that he needs to go to the basement in
the Alamo in Texas. I can't even remember why I
(18:56):
watched that movie. I don't know, at least 20 times, probably
more. But he goes on a tour. And the tour guide
is one of the comedians, actresses from Saturday Night Live from
long ago. And she was the tour guide, absolutely fabulous at
a role. She has her Texas accent. She's doing the tour
and he wants to know, where's the basement?
(19:17):
She hasn't said where the basement is.
He tries to raise her hand. She's like, let's save that for the
end of the day tour. And that has been me, even as
an adult in a meeting where I ask a question and I'm
told, oh, that's something we'll talk about later, or we're not
going to cover that today. And I think, oh, my gosh, I'm going
to go crazy because my brain wants to know.
(19:39):
And so Pee Wee is sitting there and his whole body is standing
there like, and he's looking around, going crazy and he's shaking
and everything. And then he finally, it's question time.
And he says, where's the basement? She says, there's no basement
in the Alamo. And everyone laughs because a silly movie, it's
Tim Burton's, one of his earliest movies, and it was
(19:59):
a comedy, but it was bizarre. You know, Tim Burton's bizarre
and you know, he has that Halloween style, whatever
you call it. This was just bizarre and colorful.
But you might have that need to know why.
And that might be why you overanalyze.
You might be curious. You might also be driven
(20:23):
by anxiety if something didn't go the way you
wanted it to go. This is totally different than just
being curious. It's more that was upsetting.
I didn't like how that went,
you know, and just overanalyzing. And it can even be
(20:43):
in the preparation of something, like kind of going through
something, of, okay, this is what I saw before, this is what
needs to happen this time. And, and just kind of analyzing
it to bits. And it could be to make
sure that something doesn't go wrong again, or you don't want
it to go wrong, or you're worried that things are going to go
(21:04):
wrong, or you just have some kind of
fear in that. Will it be good enough?
Will everyone be happy? It might be a people pleasing
thing. I want it to go right, or I want it to, you know, be
just right. And so you go over things and over things and over
things. I think of overanalyzing more of something that happened
(21:25):
in the past. But it can also be analyzing something that needs
to happen. And if you have the RSD
aspect of adhd, which is the rejection sensitive dysphoria,
whether you have that or just you are sensitive, hopefully you
don't think you're too sensitive because that's what people who
(21:47):
are sensitive are told often. You're too sensitive.
Yeah, that's not very nice, is it? You're too sensitive.
Sensitivity, that's the thing. Some people feel physical pain
more than someone else. One of my children did not
feel physical pain. Have six kids. He did not feel physical pain
(22:07):
like the rest of us. And he would get injured quite
badly, like really cut up. And I won't say things to, you
know, I don't want to make anybody think why is she talking
about that? I don't want to hear about things like that.
But where we would have to see the injury, we'd have to spot
it even getting burned, second degree burns and say, oh
(22:28):
my goodness, are you okay? And he wouldn't scream, he
wouldn't yell, he wouldn't draw that attention to himself.
But he also wouldn't express it because he wasn't feeling that
which was, which was new. You know, he was not my
first, second or third child, so it was like, this is new.
My second child felt pain more intensively and I've
(22:49):
been told even by medical professionals that red haired people
feel pain more than other colored haired people.
I don't know if you've heard that, but even in surgery rooms
that they have to give them more anesthesia, that it's a
real thing and it was a real thing with her that a finger
prick to take blood or to test for iron levels
(23:12):
or shots. Totally, totally different response in
her body than in someone else's. So yeah, so there
can be that same thing with how we feel emotionally.
You can feel pain emotionally, deeper, heavier and you
can worry about that. That can cause you to rethink things
(23:35):
afterwards. I wish I hadn't said that.
If I'd only done this, da da da da da.
Or even, even if it's not
that kind of thing, it can even just be a disappointment in yourself.
And I've done this a lot recently as a yoga teacher.
Someone will come and talk to me about, oh, I went to this
class and this and that. And I react more judgmental than
(23:59):
I wish I would. Like, why would they even teach like
that? I think you should not be doing that.
And I'm not actually criticizing an actual person.
It's not Getting to know the person.
But yeah, they shouldn't do that at all, you know.
Yeah, I question that too. But I think stop acting like you're
a know it all with that. Like that's you should have a calmer
response, you know. So I over analyze that, I think
(24:23):
it through again and there can be positivity to this, especially
if you've done something that you think I would like to be react
better than that, I would like to do better than that.
I would like to be a person that could sound less critical and
there's positivity in that. But it can be driven by
a lot of things. It can be driven by being hard on
(24:46):
yourself or just being in a different emotional state
in the middle of the night or trying to fall asleep.
You might overanalyze what happened in the day.
Things might fall kind of come up to the surface
where they might not. So when you're not as physically tired
or emotionally tired. Another part of ADHD for
(25:10):
a lot of us is having a deep need to be understood.
And everyone has a need to be loved 100%.
Everyone has a need to be loved. Not everyone has a
need to explain themselves all the time or often
or as much as maybe I do. I have a
(25:31):
deep need to be understood and I love to share things like
that.
And sometimes I analyze something afterwards, like should I
have explained as much that sounded more like
an argument or should I have explained more?
So there's always that analyzing, there's always that
(25:53):
rehashing a situation, the going back.
And I know people, you know, have all those sayings about not
going back, being happy, no regrets.
But this is what my brain does and I'm learning the
positive things about that when it's helpful.
And there might be times I need to slow it down a bit,
(26:16):
but it can, it can be helpful for sure when,
when there's reflection, there's growth.
It can be also helpful to learn when you're analyzing stuff.
You can learn because you have a self awareness.
Self awareness is amazing. A lot of people do not have self
awareness. I don't know if you've noticed that, but I've noticed
(26:37):
that especially in the things that I am self aware
that I aware of myself where I think I do this,
but I know I'm doing it. I just have a harder time
stopping it. But a lot of people don't know they're
doing it. And it's not like I need to tell
them or anything. But it can help you
(27:02):
just satisfy your brain. It can just satisfy the need
to do that just like verbal processing, just like journal writing.
I remember when I was in high school, I was told so many times,
it's important to write in a journal.
It's important to write things down.
It's really good for your brain. And so I did that.
And I have journals in this library right now.
I think I have about 10 of them from high school and college
(27:24):
where I just wrote every day, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And people would even say, this will be good for your children,
your grandchildren, and for your posterity to read.
And honestly, no one's going to want to read.
And it was just a lot of. What do they call
it when you just do the brain dump or something?
You just let go in your brain. And that was what a lot
of it was. A lot of it was, oh, this boy is cute, or
(27:46):
things like that. Or it was talking in the voice that I talked
in school. Well, anyway, or, you know, whatever it was, I'd
probably still say anyway, but the processing things that
are in your brain. Writing is wonderful.
Playing music is wonderful. Running, hiking, physical activity,
all of those help us process things that happened in our lives,
(28:09):
help our brains kind of settle with it, help our
body settle with it. So is talking, verbal processing.
Experience is as important. And thinking, Just thinking.
Processing can be helpful too. You don't want to get
stuck there. You don't want it to build up anxiety.
You don't want it to disrupt your life.
(28:31):
But if it plays a part in your life, then it
doesn't mean that it's not bad. It's not something you need to
say, I shouldn't be doing this anymore.
Sometimes it does get in the way. If you're not able to
come up with solutions, you can't stop thinking about it.
But you don't really come to any conclusion or it causes you
(28:53):
to feel more guilty or shameful or just indecisive because
you have that paralysis by analysis.
You analyze, you analyze, you analyze, but you can't come up
with a decision or a solution. And that is a
before thing, for sure. You avoid deciding.
You avoid coming to a conclusion because you can't.
(29:15):
You can't, and that's okay. I do love that X
button on my computer, on a tab. Sometimes I
think, I can't do this anymore. I can't finish it now.
I can't decide. I can't come to the conclusion.
And if I stay here, I'll keep having that conversation
in my mind that's trying to come up with the best you
(29:37):
Know the best answer and the best answer is not always available.
And sometimes that's why we use the okay answer.
We have to do that instead. Also, if it's giving you
self doubt, it's keeping you awake at night, sleepless, having
a hard time sleeping, then yeah, we need to
(29:58):
find something to do to help it. So anytime that you recognize
you're overanalyzing, you might say, oh, this is fun.
You know, you might just keep going.
You might find this is driven by stress or I'm really tired.
What can I do to quiet this? Sometimes it is exhausting.
It's like having someone else's conversation that you just think,
(30:18):
I can't listen to this anymore. And you have to say goodbye and
hang up. Or if you're on a phone call or in a conversation,
you just know, it's okay, I gotta go now.
And sometimes you need to do that with those patterns that are
going on in your mind. A change of pace, going outside,
doing something different. TV show. If you need to
(30:40):
go to sleep, putting on something in your ear that can
help with that white noise helps some people.
For me it's to listen to a podcast or an audiobook
that has a calming voice. No commercials, and I can
set a timer on it and it causes me to think a little
bit, but not too much. And that really helps me because it
(31:01):
puts other ideas in my mind that are somewhat entertaining.
Some what make me think, I'm very picky about it.
But I found something that works and it's really, really wonderful
so that can quiet my mind by hearing someone else's thoughts.
But I did this one podcast that I like to listen to.
It's legal cases and when they talk about the ones
with a lot of financial issues, I find, you know what,
(31:24):
sometimes that's not very calming because.
Because it brings up my own financial issues or if it's,
you know, about domestic abuse or something.
I think, okay, that wasn't helping me fall asleep.
I don't want to listen to that. Yeah, so it's finding the
things that can help and recognizing what doesn't.
And even just having a time that maybe
(31:45):
you do process things like that, you know, like, I'm going to
go for a walk with my friend and we'll talk.
These are things through. I used to do yoga with a
friend who would come over twice a week.
It started out as me inviting a bunch of friends, but it
turned out just being us two. And when it was only the
two of us, it was. We would talk the whole time instead of me
teaching and everyone else quietly doing yoga tends to happen
(32:08):
when there's just one person there. But.
And sometimes I say, oh, if you don't want to talk, that's okay.
We don't have to. But we tend to talk more when there's two of
us. And she would always end by saying, oh, that was
so fun. We solved all the problems in the world because we could.
We could talk them all through and have our opinions.
But yeah, even using a pen and paper, just
writing a few things down, saying for me works to just say
(32:31):
things out loud like, this is crazy.
I need to stop talking about it. Tell yourself something like
that and you can stop doing that. Put on music, sing instead.
And hopefully not music that makes you think about what you're
analyzing or doesn't make you analyze someone's voice or something
like that, why they're so popular. But yeah, there's a
(32:52):
lot of things that you could do. Reframing is a psychology or
coaching term for taking what's in your mind and looking
at it a different way. And there's whole courses on
that and stuff. But yeah, lots of ways to
do this and just knowing that if you are thinking a
(33:15):
lot and you enjoy thinking a lot, that's okay.
You know, it's one of the things that happens with everybody
ADHD that overthinking. But if it's getting in the way
of your life and
you're trying to get other things done and you keep thinking
about these things or you're processing it by texting a
friend or Marco Poloing, videoing, whatever, back and
(33:38):
forth with someone and it's constantly on your mind.
If it's disruptive, then maybe turn your phone off for
a little bit and give yourself a smaller window to do that.
Because it can be nice. It can be nice to think things through
with the people. It's very helpful to me.
I've had people say to me when I've tried to think out loud
(33:59):
with them, and I'm not sure what to do because of this, this,
this, this, this. I had one friend say, it sounds like,
you know, you've come to your decision.
And I thought, what? It surprised me so much when she
said that it wasn't. It wasn't bothersome or anything that I
just thought, did I come to my decision because I don't feel
settled about this. I could talk about it for three more hours,
(34:20):
but I think she was saying, you have so many pros to stopping
what you're doing. And I think she didn't Know how
much the cons tugged at my heart because I have a hard time making
schedule changes and stuff when I teach because I get really
attached to the people or I feel like I don't want to let them
down. You know, the drama of it all.
I feel the same way when I'm not here on the podcast because
I think I've told them I'd be back and I'm not.
(34:43):
And you guys are just fine. I'm sure.
I'm sure you're not thinking about it as much as I am, but.
But I think that's going to be it for today.
I actually talked longer than I thought because I got a message
from my private yoga people and they needed to push it back an
hour. So that gave me plenty of time to continue recording
here today to analyze. Overanalyzing paralysis by analysis.
(35:07):
Overthinking, thinking, curiosity. All those things are part
of adhd. Having lots of ideas. And yet other times
you feel like I don't have a single idea.
That happens to me sometimes, too. Like.
Like my brain is stumped. And I think that maybe sometimes that
is my period of forgetfulness. Like I had an
idea and now I have no idea what it is.
(35:29):
Oh, the joys of life, huh? Yeah. Thank you for being here.
And it was fun. It was fun. I was
saying Marco Poling. It was fun recording this just on
audio. The video is fun too, but it's.
There's so much more setup and it's distracting and I don't have
as much control over it, but I spent a lot of money
(35:51):
on different things to make it happen, so I'm going to keep
trying. But I might do this where I make one audio
and the one with audio and video. And it's not like very
many people are watching on YouTube anyway.
But one of my friends only watches on YouTube because she
likes it better that way. And she wasn't really.
She's not really a podcast listener, but she's a YouTube watcher,
(36:13):
so it just made it more convenient for her.
So the people pleaser that I am, I want to keep
going. And there's other reasons, too.
But again, thank you so much for being here.
Feel free to get in touch with me if you want.
Renee Inspiring Women with ADHD. Is that
(36:33):
what it is? Renee at Inspiring Women with ADHD?
No, there's no. With reneeinspiringwomenadhd.com that's one of
my Gmails. I have way too many. It's another thing where
I can't make a decision. So I have a whole bunch of them.
That's life. That's my craziness. But thank you for being
(36:56):
here. Feel free to share with me your challenges and your craziness
too, because it bonds us. We all
have a bit of it. If you have adhd, there's just little things
in life that they're crazy to deal with, for sure.
And challenging at times, too. But thanks so much.
I will be back again. Bye.
(37:23):
Frozen dreams are left for tomorrow
Time for a party
(37:56):
and harmonies I'm cut short the silence of
sound has yet been found but not by me.
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