November 27, 2025 • 45 mins
CONTENT WARNING: direct references to self-harm throughout
Cate and Erik get honest about their history with self harm, how it started, and where they are now.
Key topics: how ADHD can lead to self-harm, how poor-impulse control can lead to unhealthy coping mechanisms for boredom.
Perfect for adults with ADHD who love genuine, unfiltered conversations about neurodivergent childhood experiences and how our scattered minds connect memories. Subscribe for more ADHD-friendly storytelling!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:07):
Hey everybody, it's me, Katie Soros.
Yes, hi. Hello.
It's BA good. I was just swallowing right
before I said that. It was good.
Hey, just as an FYI, before we get to today's episode, we do
have two slight content warningsfor you.
The 1st is that today's episode is going to be about self harm
and self harm adjacent conversations.
(00:28):
So if you are not in a place to hear that, don't want to listen
around the kids, we love you, wesupport you, take care of
yourself, be kind to yourself. We know that these conversations
might not be right for you rightnow, but we hope that you will
come back when they are. The second thing is you might be
thinking, hey, didn't you guys just come back?
Why are you dropping such a heavy topic like just just brand
(00:49):
new? And the truth is, dear listener,
is that a little bit of our hiatus surrounded the fact that
we want to have more difficult conversations.
We want to we want to talk aboutsome of these heavier topics,
but we've kind of been putting them off.
We've kind of been avoiding thembecause, you know, they can,
they can be difficult to navigate.
They can be difficult to work through.
(01:11):
And so Eric and I kind of sat down and we talked about the
fact that it, it's really important to us that we maintain
the authenticity of the show. And, and you know, the show
started with like very open and honest conversations and we've,
we've done that. But I think we've also become
aware of the fact that, like with the size of our platform
(01:31):
and the impact that we have on the audience, we just want to be
careful about the topics that wechoose.
But this week's episode and thisweek's topic is really important
to both of us. And so we just want to let you
know the how's and the whys before we get in.
But with all that being said, how?
How? Hi, Eric.
Hello. Hi.
Great freaking disclaimer right there.
(01:53):
That was crushed it I. Feel good about it.
It was like a one take wonder, but you know.
It was awesome, but no, I I do I.
I think there are certain thingsthat are hard to bring up just
apropos of nothing. Yeah.
And the old, the old SH is definitely one of those things
we'd be like, by the way, let's talk about this.
Yeah, but never. Tell you about the time like
(02:14):
you're like, Oh no. Yeah, like, Oh my gosh.
But I think this is something that affects our our
neurodivergent community like sosignificantly.
And, and it's one of those things I think that is so
prevalent it's it's hard to talkabout.
It reminds me of that that DavidFoster Wallace joke that I
(02:36):
brought up before, whether they're two young fish swimming
along in the ocean and an older fish swims past them and says,
hey, boys, how's the water? And after a second, one of the
young fish turns to the other and says, what the hell is
water? Like?
Sometimes the things that are soomnipresent, they're the hard,
they're the hardest things to notice and talk about.
And I think for a lot of people,you know, SH and self harm, they
(02:59):
don't, but it's not really the water that they swim through.
But I think for a lot of us, it is the water that we we often
swim through. And it's really hard to like
sort of bring up. And I feel like part of our
responsibility as as content creators and podcast people is
to just be that, that crystallization point.
We're like, we're just going to bring it up.
We're just going to bring it up and the and.
(03:20):
The thing is, is like the says Kate, the academic there, there
has been a significant amount ofstudy about the rates of self
harm in the populations with ADHD.
And the rates are much higher and the experiences are much
longer. And so if you look at the actual
science, if you look at the actual studies, what we're
(03:40):
seeing is that there is a huge correlation between people with
ADHD and people who struggle with self harm or, you know,
suicidality. And we don't talk about it
because it can be a very stigmatizing and a very
uncomfortable topic to discuss. But the literature is there.
And the literature is saying like, no, maybe we do need to
(04:00):
bring this up. Maybe we do need to have these
conversations because not only is it an issue, but it is a much
larger issue in our community especially.
And so I don't know, like I, I feel like at some point this is
like a weird tangent. I'm sorry, can I go off on a
tangent? But it's, I feel the same way
about it as I feel about like the bullying conversation.
(04:22):
Because the, the research aroundbullying and ADHD is really
interesting because what we see is that like, yes, kids with
ADHD often get bullied, but alsothere's a big population of kids
with ADHD who tend to be the bullies and, and like the
science is there around that. And that's a really
uncomfortable topic. It's really uncomfortable to
broach the topic. Like, hey, sometimes, sometimes
(04:44):
we're the asshole. And so I feel like recognizing
those things and naming those things and, and talking about
these things is not only destigmatizing the topic, but
it's also just a part of the ADHD conversation as a whole.
Do you know kind of what I'm trying to say?
Yeah, absolutely, totally. And it I think both with
(05:05):
bullying and self harm, they canthey require us to notice and
talk about things about ourselves that we might not like
super much and not like in a a frustrated, I wish I could get
out of bed easier way. But like, in a sense as like a,
an understanding of your own personal morality, you know,
(05:25):
like I would never deliberately hurt someone unless that person
was me, in which case absolutelyI would just clearly I would.
But so I guess to get started, like, yeah, I'd love to.
I, I, I talked about this in thebook, but I'm realizing I've
never really talked about it on the podcast or like in my
content, but just like my history with self harm and where
(05:46):
it started for me. And if you're comfortable, I'd
love if you know to hear your history with it as well.
After I after I go, because where it started with me was not
depression. I was not like, I deserve to be
hurt. Therefore I'm going to.
It was just boredom. It was just out of boredom.
(06:07):
I was in 7th grade or so and I first started like thinking
school was interesting, but realizing that I was not going
to be the type of student that I, you know, would like to
because I got this ADHD brain. And even when I want to do the
work, I don't or have a hard time doing it.
And so a lot of my days in classwas spent like checking in,
(06:30):
getting frustrated, checking back out because I would get
frustrated that I couldn't read as fast as everybody else, or I
couldn't read my notes because my handwriting was so bad or I
forgot the thing that I was supposed to bring.
So I would start to sort of deliberately dissociate and
detach from from class learning stuff because I was just
thinking, what's the point anyways?
And so I would just be bored a lot of the time, refusing to
(06:52):
engage with school. I would just be bored.
And so I discovered, and I guessI'm going to get specific here.
I won't get gross, but I'll get specific.
I discovered that the rulers in our 7th grade classrooms that
like we're just around those wooden rulers had a metal strip
(07:12):
going down the length of it. Yeah.
So you could draw like a straight edge.
And the wood, if there was like bumps in the wood, it wouldn't
mess with the straight edge. And you could pry those out
really easily. And you could pry them out and
you could bend them in a way to make a little tool thing that
would scratch me quite effectively.
And so just out of boredom, not out of I hate myself.
(07:33):
I deserve, I deserve to be hurt.Just I was fiddling around with
stuff and I was like, Oh, I can make a little thing like, oh,
and then Ouch, that hurts. And when you're in pain like
that, it's it's less boring thannot doing it.
You know what's something is nowhappening.
And so it sort of became this game of one.
(07:56):
How far can I go with this, withthis tool that I've made?
But then also, once it started to become a regular thing that I
would do, it became a whole gameof hiding it and then getting
caught and then hiding it again and then getting caught and
hiding it again. So it was.
What was that like? Like how would that play out?
Like somebody would be like and like send you to the guidance
counselor. Like what did that look like for
(08:17):
you? Yeah, it was usually.
It was usually had something to do with another classmate seeing
me, which I both wanted them to do and not wanted them.
Like I, I didn't want people to notice, but I also did because
that was also just adding to thegame of it all, you know?
But it was usually a classmate noticing and then telling a
(08:39):
teacher. And then the teacher would tell
a guidance counselor and the guidance counselor would call me
in to the guidance counselor's office and my parents would be
there and, and that kind of stuff.
And that was a whole thing. And it sucked, but it was, it
wasn't boring, you know, it was something, something was
happening. It was.
Like this game? What would your parents say?
(09:00):
What would they say? I'm trying to like, what was
their lot? There was a reaction.
Well, I think sadness. I don't, they were never, you
know, mad at me, but they were sad that their kid was doing
this. And I could see it in their
eyes, particularly my mom, because my mom has depression
and she felt like, you know, well, she passed that down to
me. So that really sucked seeing
(09:21):
that look in their eyes. But of course, my parents are
great. And so it was also matched with,
you know, you can always talk tous if, if, about whatever you
need to if you want, which I'm very grateful for.
That was awesome. But at the time I really wasn't
super crazy depressed. I mean, I was in 7th grade and
7th grade sucks, but I, I hadn'tlike gotten into that real
(09:44):
chemical depression fully yet orI hadn't it, it hadn't become a
daily part of my life like it was always there, but it hadn't
become like serious long bouts of depression.
So that would happen to guidancecounselor, the parents, the
whole thing. And then I just had to get
sneakier about it. It was, you know, Round 2 where
(10:06):
I did it, what I used to do whathow I hid the things that I used
to do it. But still, it wasn't about like
self punishment. It was just something to do.
It was physically stimulating, you know, it was, it was an
interesting sensation in my body, but it was also a, a way
of interacting with the world, you know, I didn't, I was in 7th
grade. I didn't quite know who I was
(10:26):
yet, but I knew who I was now. I was that kid that self harm,
self harms, you know. But after a while, once the
depression did start to hit harder and the depression did
start making me want to punish myself, my body and felt, you
know, feeling like I deserved it.
I was already practiced. I already had the literal
(10:50):
physical tools. I was already good at hiding it.
I already knew what language to use to sort of to quell concern,
that kind of thing. So it didn't at all start as a
self punishment. It's so it started as just
something to do. But then when my brain switched
around and was like, well, maybeyou should do some self
(11:10):
punishment. I, I, I already had a massive
amount of momentum in that category.
And I think that's why it was sodangerous for me to just start
doing it out of boredom. I think that's why it can be
really dangerous for us ADHD folks to do things thoughtlessly
when we're bored to, to, I thinkit's very important,
(11:32):
particularly when we're younger,but but all the time to focus on
what is our response to boredom,boredom.
And even if it's not harmful in that moment, can it become
harmful? So for me it would the insidious
it was insidious it was, it was this subtle thing to do just so
I wasn't bored. And then suddenly the
motivations got switched. And rather than, you know, have
(11:54):
to start that process later on, I was already well under way of
being a practiced self Harmer. And so I did for many, many,
many, many years after that. I'm in different ways and
different things, but it was already a part of my life.
So it wasn't particularly hard to, you know, to, to, to
incorporate into whatever situation I found myself in.
(12:15):
But I, I just, I, I, I wanted totell that story particularly
because I think, I think a lot of times self harm is seemed as
this very simple A to B of I feel like I deserve punishment
or I feel unworthy. Therefore I will harm myself.
And particularly with, with us ADHD folks, because I, I knew
(12:36):
other people who did exactly thesame thing at the time.
And I've heard from people sinceabout them or I've heard from
people saying that this was the case for them since then.
But for us ADHD folks, it doesn't always start that way.
It can be much more subtle. It can be for much a much more
convoluted reasons and I just think that's worth bringing up.
And I don't know if any of the you, dear listeners identify
(12:59):
with that, then I hope that thatwould be worth it.
I just talked for a really long time.
You got to like tell the story, you know what I mean?
Like, it's fine. Sometimes we talk for a long
time. But yeah, but yeah, I think that
focusing on paying attention to what we do when we're trying to
remedy boredom I think is reallyimportant.
I'm thinking a lot about like, Idon't know, my story isn't even
(13:21):
that interesting. Do you know what I mean?
Like, I don't know, it's just not interesting.
Especially like when you look atmy experience and then you look
at like the studies that have been done and it just lines up.
So like teen girls who are not diagnosed with ADHD because they
(13:41):
are like high academic achieversand like intellectually gifted,
but they're struggling with ADHD.
Guess what they fucking love is self harm.
And so it's like, yeah, that's that was that.
And that's what happened. But I don't know, like I
remember, I haven't thought about it honestly in a really
long time. Not from like, I can't.
It's just like, I just haven't, you know, But I, I, I remember
(14:04):
for me it was always, it was always like a, like an action to
end the panic. It was always an action to end
like the thought spiral or the anxiety or this is a terrible,
terrible fucking way to say it. Holy shit.
I I'm so sorry, dear listener. This might be inappropriate, I'm
(14:26):
not sure, but it was like it waslike the the violin bow flourish
at like the end of the cadenza. Do you know what I mean?
I would just I would get so in my head and I would get so
upset. I would, I would be just like
racked with anxiety and guilt and like, oh, what a piece of
shit I am or whatever. And then I was like, ah, but I
have this like flourish, this thing that I can do the end that
then like shuts all of that off.And so then like that's I
(14:48):
started relying on that. I started relying on like, well,
I have this like neat little trick that I can use in order to
like get out of this thought spiral or like ease the anxiety.
But what I was doing was I was conditioning myself.
I was conditioning myself to like not have actually healthy
coping mechanisms. I was having very bad coping
mechanisms. But then on top of that, there
(15:13):
is the secondary sort of like more difficult layer of when do
like body focus, repetitive behaviors, BFR BS are are our
favorites. When do those become self harm?
Right? Because there's like a certain
level to which like, OK, you're,you're picking your fingernails
or whatever, but when they're bleeding and broken and like
they're causing infection and like this kind of thing like
(15:35):
that, that qualifies as self harm.
So you've got this whole category of like BFR BS that are
like kind of in the self harm category, but like kind of not.
And, and similarly eating disorders like at what heart?
Like at what point is eating disorders just self harm in like
a fun hat? Do you know what I mean?
And so it's like, because my, myexperience with self harm, like
(15:58):
yes, I, I, I cut like right. I like, I injured my, my
physical body in different ways,but the, but the bulk of my self
harm history is around like binging and purging and, and
around like punishing my body inthat way for being the wrong
size or the wrong shape or you know, that kind of thing.
(16:21):
And so I have self harm scars. You know, I have scars.
They're not remarkable, you knowwhat I mean?
They're not remarkable to behold, But I think the, the,
the sort of legacy of self harm,the, the this fucking camera.
I can't the legacy of self harm in me and like my body and like
(16:47):
my body's memory is the is is much more centered around like
eating disorder behaviors and how less of a hassle it is.
You know what I mean? I don't it's fucked.
It's a little fucked up, I think.
Well, I, I, I also think there'sthere's, and it sounds like
yours is sort of analogous to this too.
(17:07):
It sounds like there is a relationship between and I don't
mean to make this claim for you,but I but I'm noticing in my own
life and and some of the things you're talking about, it sounds
like there is some sort of relationship between self harm
and self sabotage in a way in that they're both harming you.
(17:32):
Well, so let me paint a picture real quick.
Like I when I was self harming out of, let's not say like for
deliberately for for, you know, self flagellation.
But when I was self harming out of an abundance of an emotion
that needed some sort of release, frustration, fear,
(17:54):
anger, self harm is a very good not.
I mean, it's not good, but it is.
At the time it felt like a good flourish.
At the end, at the end of the cadenza, you know, a bum, but a
bum. Like it sort of was this
terminus or terminating thing that gave conclusion to that
feeling. That's ultimately why I did it,
(18:16):
not to punish myself. But the only reason I would
consider that to be an option ofharming myself, such to feel
that sense of finality, was because I was in fact a person
worth punishing. Because fuck that guy.
So it wasn't, I'm doing it to punish you, it's I'm doing it
because I like it. It's just I don't have enough
(18:36):
respect for you to care that it's harming you.
So I'm going to do it anyways. In much the same way that if I
get invited to some schmoozy event or career opportunity or
something that's at 8:00 in the morning, when I get up at 7:30
or 7, let's say, if I'm being responsible, I'm not staying in
bed to deliberately self sabotage myself.
(18:58):
I'm staying in bed because I want to and I don't have enough
respect for myself to not harm myself by not going to the
thing. I'm willing to harm myself to do
the thing that I want in this moment out of, I suppose a lack
of self respect, maybe, I don't know.
But so there's like a an immediate want to do it because
it is satisfying to you in the moment, but the only reason that
(19:19):
you're capable of doing it. And then I feel like I'll say I
was capable of doing it was because I didn't particularly
care about that guy me getting hurt.
So I don't know. I mean, perhaps the self
sabotage analogy is a bit stretched out, but I think
there, there, there's a there there I think like a mixture of
immediate gratification matched with a lack of caring about the
(19:43):
effects that it has on your physical body or life.
I mean, you're going to be mad at me for saying this, but like,
I think one of the things that Ifind really frustrating about
conversations around self harm is that we, you have to like
really apply a narrow definition, right?
(20:04):
Like are we like we like, let's say cutting, right?
Like cutting is self harm, but starving yourself is self harm.
Binging and purging is self harm.
Alcoholism is self harm. And so like, I look at the way
that like our lives have. Shake it out right, The the
(20:28):
paths that we have gone down. And yeah, you know, I stopped
cutting myself because I don't like, I don't want to say like I
got over it, like it was like I was just so easy to do.
But it's that I think I replacedone negative coping mechanism
with another. And then I replaced that coping
(20:48):
mechanism when that didn't serveme anymore with another and
another. And so my being in recovery from
an eating disorder is at its root treating self harm the same
way that like going to therapy, because I was like, you know,
cutting myself or whatever is. And I, I feel like it's, it's
(21:11):
difficult to navigate those kindof conversations because there's
a lot of things that we do in our, in our lives that harm us.
There's a lot of things that we do that aren't necessarily good
for us that we use as ADHD yearsto cope.
And I think part of the conversation around self harm
(21:32):
has to be am I harming myself? It it doesn't have to just be
like, oh, I'm burning myself, I'm cutting myself, whatever.
But is, is my reliance on this thing?
Is my reliance on this, this negative coping mechanism?
Am I, is this another manifestation of self harm?
But I don't know, like where theline falls, right?
(21:53):
Because I, I feel like not exercising, you could argue, is
like a form of self harm, but it's not.
You know, like it is, but it's not.
Yeah, yeah. Or like, you know, if you, you
know, binge eating to to to an unhealthy extent could be argued
to be self harm. But eating the foods that one
might binge eat on occasionally isn't self.
(22:16):
Harm, Yeah. There's whereas cutting yourself
once would be seen as self harm.It's not a frequency thing.
It's it's, it's an if if you do it on purpose.
One like that is an instance of self harm.
Whereas like having a beer or eating a doughnut or eating a
whatever is not an instance of self harm.
It's it's the frequency of it. So yeah, I agree.
I think there's there's a graduation to it.
(22:38):
And I don't know. And I, I want to be cognizant
because like, this is a place where we are definitely lived
experienced people. We're not, you know, experts in
this capacity, especially like from a therapeutic way.
And so I think that there has tobe caution around discussions
(23:00):
like this because obviously, dear listener, we're not
recommending that you do anything.
Please treat yourself with love and compassion and kindness
because you are worthy of it. But I mean, there's, there's so
many places in my life where my reaction to a big emotion was to
engage in some type of self harm, whether it be drinking or
(23:24):
overeating or like I keep saying, cutting myself like I'm
so fucking edge Lord. But because I, I didn't learn
how to navigate those big emotions, those big feelings,
those that emotional dysregulation.
That was always the uncomfortable thing.
It was never, you know what I mean?
(23:46):
Like that. That at its core is what what
the issue always was, was my lack of coping skills around
emotional dysregulation. And how do I make this deeply
uncomfortable, deeply awful feeling that I'm sure is going
to feel this way forever and ever and ever if I don't act on
it right now. And that is, that's how I got
(24:08):
there. And so then learning how to get
out of that in those moments like that took a very long time.
That took a a lot of work in therapy and a lot of like
combining different types of therapies and somatic work and
journaling and, and all of this different stuff.
And I still don't do it perfectly.
You know what I mean? I still don't.
(24:30):
I don't, I don't know where I was going with that.
What? What types of things do you
think helped you? I don't want to say get out of
it, but what types of things helped you sort of move along,
move forward in in your relationship to to self harm?
I think the biggest thing was building in an interruption
(24:51):
because for me it was always a big emotion.
Here it comes. Oh no, I have to do what?
I can't do that. That's uncomfortable, that's
scary. That's a lot.
And I can't sitting in that emotion, especially because I
didn't know how to like feel emotions or process emotions.
And so it was all going on in myhead.
And so it's, it's very difficultto move emotions through your
(25:14):
body if you were just living in your head.
And so the, the most important thing was I had to say, OK, we
have to take a break. We have, we have to take a beat.
And it would just be like a moment.
It would just be a momentary thing.
And maybe it's, you know, like, oh, I really want to binge.
I really want to like eat this whole fucking cake, you know,
(25:35):
And a lot of times it, it's a, it's an all or nothing thinking.
It's a black and white thinking mentality of like, I had the
totally reasonable slice of cake.
I'm a piece of shit. I've ruined everything, all of
this work that I've done. I might as well just eat the
whole cake because like, like I can't, I have no self-control.
I ate a piece of cake and it's like, well, no, eating a piece
of cake is a is a morally neutral thing to do.
(25:58):
And you were enjoying yourself and you were at a birthday party
and it's completely reasonable for you to have a piece of cake.
Why are you why is this the thing that is setting you off?
You know, So then it becomes OK,I'm feeling this urge, I'm
feeling this like impulse to binge or, or harm myself in like
whatever way. And so then I would, I would
(26:19):
have to do something. I'd have to like get up.
I would leave the room, I would go outside.
I would, I would journal, I would, I would draw a little
picture. I would do a little dance, like
whatever the thing was. And that was annoying.
It's, it's annoying. It's annoying to do that.
And that's, and that is I think the part that I wish we talked
about more in terms of like recovery stuff is just how
(26:40):
goddamn annoying it is because you're like, oh, look at me,
this bastion of like, look at me.
I'm in recovery for my eating disorder.
I'm a success story. And like, it's fucking annoying.
It's annoying to have to do that.
Like only need a piece of cake. And now I'm feeling shit about
it. So I have to go right in my
fucking notebook. But that's what I had to do is I
had to like insert the pause. And then once I inserted the
(27:02):
pause and I was like, OK, I'm not going to die.
You're going to die immediately.I'm not going to like spiral
into panic. Then, OK, so then what's the
next step? And sometimes the next step was
like, just don't eat more cake. Sometimes the next step is just
nothing is inaction, right? Sometimes it's OK, I'm going to
call a friend, I'm going to callmy sponsor, I'm going to call my
(27:22):
therapist, whatever. I'm like really struggling.
But sometimes it's just inaction.
Sometimes just just say, hey, don't, don't, don't do that.
They're like, I'm going to go over watch.
I'm still thinking about cake, so I'm going to go watch The
Great British Bake Off. You know, it's not, I don't know
it it and it all. And then it just all sounds so
silly when you say it out loud. You sound so goofy.
(27:43):
You're like, yeah, I write in mynotebook and watch The Great
British Bake Off. Aren't IA bastion of recovery
like a dub? Well, I think that relates back
to something we talked about in a previous episode of
embarrassment in front of yourself.
Yeah, always. And I think that that's a huge
part of it for me too, is that Ithink, I think within all of us,
(28:04):
there is still that teenager that wants to like, not do what
the teacher says. And so like self harm, it was
always like, that is the exact opposite of what the teacher
would want you to do, you know? And so writing in your journal
instead or like, go take a walk,like it.
I can feel that, you know, pathological demand avoidance,
(28:26):
applause of like, good job, you didn't do that thing.
I think engaging with that and and accepting that like nobody
is, you know, you're Miss Rosenswag isn't applauding you
for doing what she said. Right now you're just trying to
become a different type. You know you're you're, you're
amending your behavior because you want to, not because
somebody told you you should. Yeah.
(28:47):
Hey Eric, what's up? Have you written any books
lately? I've written one book lately.
Yeah. What was it called?
Oh, what's called the ADHD fieldguide for adults.
Wow, sounds like a really good book.
What's it about? Oh.
It's just about how to more comfortably live as yourself as
(29:09):
a person with ADHD, and how knowing yourself and being
honest about who you are as a person can help you develop
systems for managing your ADHD in your own life.
It's, I think it's a pretty good.
It's, I think it's pretty good. I think it's pretty good, yeah.
That sounds great, I would love to order it.
How do I do that? Well dude, you can order it or
you can pre-order right now fromwherever you get your books.
(29:29):
We highly recommend you get it from independent booksellers
because you know, screw mega corporations.
But Eric, how do I, how do I find it?
How do I find it on bookshop.orgor Amazon or wherever I purchase
my books? You're.
Going to go to your favorite search engine, my friend, and
you're going to type in the ADHD.
That's the one. The very same.
(29:50):
That's the exactly the one I wastalking about.
Yeah. Type in the ADHD field Guide for
adults or Kate Osborne. That's me or Eric Goode.
That's you. And it'll come, It'll it'll come
up. And you click it.
It's a big yellow cover. Big, bright and yellow.
Cool. I guess I'll go do that.
End of end of AD. This is terrible.
That's fine. I think we just leave it.
(30:11):
I think that's fine. Well, that was a lie.
Yes. I, I, I don't know, like, I, I
know that sometimes we have big hard conversations on the show
and I like that we're able to dothat.
But I think that this is one in particular where it's also
(30:33):
important that we perhaps specifically name some tools,
some strategies, some things that our dear listeners can take
away if they are struggling or looking for support.
So what do you got? Sure.
Well, a couple ones right off the bat that a lot of people
probably heard before, but just in case they haven't, I, well,
(30:57):
I'll bring them up. But at the end of the day,
tissue damage is is is is a bad thing.
Tissue damage can cause infection or you could hit
something you didn't mean to hit.
So we want to start with stopping that as soon as
possible and then work on stopping the actual behavior
(31:18):
itself. So holding onto an ice cube for
a long period of time, it startsto hurt a wee bit, sometimes a
lot of it, depending on how big the ice cube is.
But it doesn't do tissue damage.So you're not going to have a
big scar or a, or risk injuring a, you know, a ligament or
something like that. There's the old rubber band.
Snappy keeping a rubber band on your wrist and snapping it.
(31:40):
As long as you're not doing it as part of the self arm, that's
something that my therapist had to specifically talk to me about
'cause I was, I started like getting bruises, 'cause I was
like, wow, just do this instead.So you have to be careful about
that one 'cause sometimes it canbe like a fun fun.
Replacement, so you got to be careful.
You got to use that one response.
Through that, through that. So yes, so yeah, keeping in mind
that it's, it's, it's meant to be a lower order thing.
(32:03):
So don't escalate it to the point where it's actually self
harm, but it can sort of check that box in your head for a
second, like just the snap feeling.
Those can help a lot. But in terms of like weird ADHD
hacks, convince yourself that it's really hard because it is.
Convince yourself that it's a it's a whole freaking thing
because it is. It might not be hard to actually
(32:25):
do the behavior, but the the repercussions, the days after it
ends up being a whole thing. So play the tape through, think
about what it's going to be liketomorrow when your leg hurts or
if you have to, if you're trying, if you have to go
shopping or something and think,well, I got to make sure I wear
certain shorts or certain pants or whatever to cover up whatever
(32:46):
it is. Just so remember, it's not just
right now, it's a whole set of things that's then going to
happen after that. So remembering that sort of
stuff can sort of make it feel like more, more So what it
really is in your brain than just a, an immediate satiation
of your feelings in this moment.Add interruptions, try to
distract yourself, try to keep alog of things that you're liable
(33:10):
to get distracted by. This can be anything from like a
hobby that you are into or just like ATV show that you really
like. Any way you can get your brain
to be pointed at something else in that moment is is a total
win. This one can take some practice.
You kind of have to let yourselfdo it, but it can help a lot.
(33:30):
I'm just having stock distractions in place.
Yeah, for me, the, my biggest thing was learning one like to
name what was going on, right, Because so often my patterns of
self harm were absolutely based in like overwhelm or anxiety or
panic or like, Oh no, I forgot the important meeting.
(33:53):
And so like now I'm going to like punish myself for being a
fuck up, right. So like sometimes like the first
step was just sort of asking thequestion of like, what am I
feeling? Like what is the actual feeling
that I'm feeling and how am I trying to like solve that with
hurting myself? And then after I sort of had an
answer, sometimes it was like, OK, it's about like, I want, I
(34:17):
want to sort of like stop the thought spiral or I, you know, I
want to be feel like I can control something.
So once I kind of had the tool set to sort of interrogate where
the feeling was coming from, like what emotion I was
attaching to it, that was when Icould be like, OK, if I'm, if
I'm worried about like the chaos, then maybe a better
solution would be making a list of things that I need to do.
(34:37):
Sometimes that's not the case because then I would get even
more overwhelmed. So it's like, you know, your
results may vary there. But the other part for me was
really like the somatic stuff, like really working somatically
to get reconnected to my body. And I cannot stress this enough.
It's such a fucking pain in the ass.
It's a fucking pain in the ass to do that.
(34:59):
But once I started doing that, once I started being like, OK,
I'm feeling this urge to self harm.
I'm going to like do like hold aplank for as long as I can or
I'm going to like lift head, like lifting heavy weights, game
changer. Like the like I just started
keeping like weights around and I would just like, you know,
like 10 LB weights. They're not super heavy, but I
would just pick them up and crank out a bunch of reps, you
(35:21):
know what I mean? And that sometimes would be the
that motion and that like physicality of like engaging
your muscles and engaging my body.
That would be the thing that would like help the emotion move
through. And sometimes it was just like,
you know, I'm feeling overwhelmed or whatever.
So I'm going to make like a little nest.
I'm going to get my like weighted blanket and a bunch of
pillows and cuddle up and like eat French fries under a
(35:43):
blanket, you know. And so, yeah, like I, I didn't
ever really do well with like the, the ice or the, the, the
rubber band snappies or that kind of stuff.
For me, it was very much moving my body and giving and allowing
that movement to create a pathway where the emotion could
(36:05):
come through, which is interesting because it took me a
really long time to be able to even sort of like name that.
Like that was the need that I had.
Does that make sense a little bit?
Yeah, it's interesting. I feel like my, my, my little
bits and bobs of advice was moreso how to how to steer away from
the behavior, whereas yours was more to how to address what's
really going on. And I think that's way more
(36:27):
useful. I mean, I think they're useful
in different ways, right, because it's like, if you are
like actively in crisis, my advice is like eat really sour
candy or eat really spicy candy or like make yourself a cup of
tea and like feel the hot on your hands, like really like
sensory based interruptive activities.
But once you're like out of thatmoment of like, Oh fuck, this is
a thing that I really want to doand I'm struggling with it.
(36:49):
That's when it becomes like, I like I I would get curious like
that, like that. I don't know.
That's relate in curiosity is the thing that always like gets
me through, but I'd be like, I wonder why like it?
Can I trace it back? Like what was the triggering
event? And a lot of times, a lot of
times this is what got me all the way fucked up was that it's
not the thing that happened. It was like 5 things before
(37:10):
that, you know, like my mom would call in the middle of the
day and be a bitch and I'd be like God, and I wouldn't like
think anything of it. But then by like, you know, 7
PMI had all of this other stuff.And so it was never the like,
all this like minor inconvenience is the thing that
set me off. It was, no, I had this thing and
that thing and that thing and that thing.
And so starting to like make connections and track those
(37:34):
moments of like, I was feeling inadequate while talking to my
mom or like I was feeling embarrassed in front of my boss.
I felt out of control at work today because I didn't have a
say on the final product or like, whatever.
Those were the things that I wasactively responding to.
I was just telling myself that it was like, oh, because I
dropped an egg on the floor or oh, because I spilled the milk.
(37:54):
But it it's it was never about the inciting incident.
It was always like 5 incidents before.
That's fascinating. Wow, that really is.
That took me some time. Wow.
And I I also just want to echo my also my support of using
curiosity as as your foremost ally.
(38:15):
And I mean in any of like the self discovery, learning to live
happily as yourself things. But I also just in my own mind
when I feel the urge to self harm, my curiosity often comes
from every single part of my brain exists because it's kept
my ancestors alive. Like that's just how our brains
(38:36):
came to be. Isn't it fascinating that my
brain can actively want to do the opposite of that like to not
keep my life? Why is that?
That's really interesting. And just considering it like an
almost like an anthropological like case study of like, wow, I
wonder what happens there. And it, it's for me, it takes up
some of like the, the anger and the, the, the, the raw emotion
(38:58):
of it and just becomes like, oh wow, isn't it interesting to be
a person, if sometimes unpleasant.
Yeah, yeah. I don't, I don't know.
I, I got one of the most useful things for me was just really
realizing that there were, it was and how do I say this in a
way that makes sense? Like any and all large emotions
(39:21):
or like moments of frustration could be a thing, but there was
like a very specific set like subset of, of emotions that were
the ones that were more likely to make me want to engage in
those behaviors. And so once I figured out like
what my personal sort of triggers were, whether it was
(39:41):
like feelings of inadequacy or like I didn't have my shit
together or I was embarrassed because I like had forgotten
something and everybody was going to know I was a fuck up,
like that kind of thing. Those were always the moments
where I felt those urges. The the strong, the most
strongly, the strongest. I don't know grammatically
what's correct. And so once I started noticing
that, then it was like if I had one of those moments, then I
(40:03):
would go, oh, I had that. So now at 7:00 PM, when I knock
over my coffee or whatever, I'm going to remember that I had
this today and we can interrogate that instead of like
collapsing and spiraling downwards because of the spilled
tea or whatever. Yeah, what a weird, what a weird
thing it is to have a human brain that does human brain
(40:24):
stuff. Dumb.
It's so. Dumb.
It's exhausting being human. I'd rather not.
I'd rather be a dog a lot of thetimes.
I will. I would like to be a or a tiger,
I think. It would be a really cool dude.
You'd be a fucking amazing. Tiger big old paws walk around
just. Like shoulder blades strutting
around, all cool. Like with the I would be such a
(40:45):
good tiger and I like cooled like dope ass claws like nobody
would fuck with me and when I yawn I look really scary but I'm
still like really cuddly and I'mfriends with a Princess named
Jasmine and we go on a magic carpet together.
Specifically, I am the tiger. I'm Raja which?
Other one would have you possibly been of course.
Well sweets, thanks for talking to me and with me about self
(41:08):
harm. That's hard to do, but I'm glad.
I'm glad we did it. I feel like I don't know, I
think it's important and I thinkI think sometimes you just got
to have the hard conversation ifyou want to be the change that
you want to see in the world. You know what I mean?
Research is there, studies are there, we've lived it.
So like and also dear listener, if you're interested in learning
(41:29):
more, we do talk about this in the book, So.
That's right, we do talk about it in.
The book Do we have any announcements?
I have one announcement. You definitely do, yeah.
My announcement is that y'all, it's it's happening.
It's happening tomorrow. We are taping the live holiday
special of the Turkey in A Christmas Carol with a slightly
(41:52):
new ending. A slightly new ending.
That has changed, but a lot has changed since the original essay
was written, both in my life andin society Comma man.
So I'm very excited about that. It'll be hopefully dropping on
Thanksgiving, but I think if we're being real, it's probably
going to be closer to like Friday or Saturday because
(42:12):
there's a lot of cameras. I was, I would was not aware how
many cameras were being brought.I thought it was going to be
like a guy with a camera. There's significantly more
cameras than that. So I don't we'll see how it
goes. But so yeah, new holiday special
is dropping. If you could do me a favor, dear
listener, if you haven't subscribed to my newsletter,
(42:34):
that would be amazing. I'd really appreciate it.
Newsletter is where you're goingto be able to get all the
updates about the book and the book tour and book signings and
my comedy tour and all of that kind of stuff.
So I'd appreciate that. I don't have any events or
anything coming up. So oh, we're recording the audio
book next week, you know, in like 2 weeks.
Two weeks. Two weeks?
(42:55):
That's crazy. That's going to be fun.
So we'll be making content and stuff about that.
So look for that on these socials.
Demystified the process. Have you ever wondered what it's
like to sit in a booth and read your own words for 8 hours a
day, several days in a row? Also were.
You aware that the producer is not going to be in the room with
us? He's like zooming in.
(43:15):
Really. Yeah, I thought there was going
to be like a guy in the booth, but then in the e-mail they were
talking about how he's, it's going to be, he's going to be
like virtual. I thought that, well, there's
still going to be like a technician there, though.
It's not like we're just going to walk into the.
Building I I assume I don't know, I really don't know how
it's going to work. So I'm like really curious to
see it will like what like day one is.
Going to look, I know. Stay tuned folks.
(43:36):
We'll pull the old curtain back.And then if you do review our
book, we will comment on every review.
Yes, we. Will we love you, Elise Myers.
We're sorry. We're sorry that happened to
you, Elise Myers. People are bullshit, but yeah,
So I think that's all the news. Yeah.
(43:58):
Yeah. Rock'n'roll.
Awesome. Thanks for being here folks.
Thanks for listening this week y'all.
This one was heavy but it feels good to talk about it.
In the meantime, remember to eata snack.
Remember the Alamo? Remember to take your meds.
The 5th of November as well. Remember to drink some water.
(44:22):
To turn the stove off after you finish using it.
Remember to be kind to yourself.I said the fifth of the 5th of
November already, right? Yeah, I did.
And. Remember to be kind to others,
and I'm sorry about Eric. And remember that we love you.
We'll see you again next week. Love you.
Bye everybody. Take care of yourself.
(44:43):
Bye, be nice to yourself. Music.
Hey everybody, it's me, Katie Soros.
Yes, hi. Hello.
It's BA good. I was just swallowing right
before I said that. It was good.
Hey, just as an FYI, before we get to today's episode, we do
have two slight content warningsfor you.
The 1st is that today's episode is going to be about self harm
and self harm adjacent conversations.
(00:28):
So if you are not in a place to hear that, don't want to listen
around the kids, we love you, wesupport you, take care of
yourself, be kind to yourself. We know that these conversations
might not be right for you rightnow, but we hope that you will
come back when they are. The second thing is you might be
thinking, hey, didn't you guys just come back?
Why are you dropping such a heavy topic like just just brand
(00:49):
new? And the truth is, dear listener,
is that a little bit of our hiatus surrounded the fact that
we want to have more difficult conversations.
We want to we want to talk aboutsome of these heavier topics,
but we've kind of been putting them off.
We've kind of been avoiding thembecause, you know, they can,
they can be difficult to navigate.
They can be difficult to work through.
(01:11):
And so Eric and I kind of sat down and we talked about the
fact that it, it's really important to us that we maintain
the authenticity of the show. And, and you know, the show
started with like very open and honest conversations and we've,
we've done that. But I think we've also become
aware of the fact that, like with the size of our platform
(01:31):
and the impact that we have on the audience, we just want to be
careful about the topics that wechoose.
But this week's episode and thisweek's topic is really important
to both of us. And so we just want to let you
know the how's and the whys before we get in.
But with all that being said, how?
How? Hi, Eric.
Hello. Hi.
Great freaking disclaimer right there.
(01:53):
That was crushed it I. Feel good about it.
It was like a one take wonder, but you know.
It was awesome, but no, I I do I.
I think there are certain thingsthat are hard to bring up just
apropos of nothing. Yeah.
And the old, the old SH is definitely one of those things
we'd be like, by the way, let's talk about this.
Yeah, but never. Tell you about the time like
(02:14):
you're like, Oh no. Yeah, like, Oh my gosh.
But I think this is something that affects our our
neurodivergent community like sosignificantly.
And, and it's one of those things I think that is so
prevalent it's it's hard to talkabout.
It reminds me of that that DavidFoster Wallace joke that I
(02:36):
brought up before, whether they're two young fish swimming
along in the ocean and an older fish swims past them and says,
hey, boys, how's the water? And after a second, one of the
young fish turns to the other and says, what the hell is
water? Like?
Sometimes the things that are soomnipresent, they're the hard,
they're the hardest things to notice and talk about.
And I think for a lot of people,you know, SH and self harm, they
(02:59):
don't, but it's not really the water that they swim through.
But I think for a lot of us, it is the water that we we often
swim through. And it's really hard to like
sort of bring up. And I feel like part of our
responsibility as as content creators and podcast people is
to just be that, that crystallization point.
We're like, we're just going to bring it up.
We're just going to bring it up and the and.
(03:20):
The thing is, is like the says Kate, the academic there, there
has been a significant amount ofstudy about the rates of self
harm in the populations with ADHD.
And the rates are much higher and the experiences are much
longer. And so if you look at the actual
science, if you look at the actual studies, what we're
(03:40):
seeing is that there is a huge correlation between people with
ADHD and people who struggle with self harm or, you know,
suicidality. And we don't talk about it
because it can be a very stigmatizing and a very
uncomfortable topic to discuss. But the literature is there.
And the literature is saying like, no, maybe we do need to
(04:00):
bring this up. Maybe we do need to have these
conversations because not only is it an issue, but it is a much
larger issue in our community especially.
And so I don't know, like I, I feel like at some point this is
like a weird tangent. I'm sorry, can I go off on a
tangent? But it's, I feel the same way
about it as I feel about like the bullying conversation.
(04:22):
Because the, the research aroundbullying and ADHD is really
interesting because what we see is that like, yes, kids with
ADHD often get bullied, but alsothere's a big population of kids
with ADHD who tend to be the bullies and, and like the
science is there around that. And that's a really
uncomfortable topic. It's really uncomfortable to
broach the topic. Like, hey, sometimes, sometimes
(04:44):
we're the asshole. And so I feel like recognizing
those things and naming those things and, and talking about
these things is not only destigmatizing the topic, but
it's also just a part of the ADHD conversation as a whole.
Do you know kind of what I'm trying to say?
Yeah, absolutely, totally. And it I think both with
(05:05):
bullying and self harm, they canthey require us to notice and
talk about things about ourselves that we might not like
super much and not like in a a frustrated, I wish I could get
out of bed easier way. But like, in a sense as like a,
an understanding of your own personal morality, you know,
(05:25):
like I would never deliberately hurt someone unless that person
was me, in which case absolutelyI would just clearly I would.
But so I guess to get started, like, yeah, I'd love to.
I, I, I talked about this in thebook, but I'm realizing I've
never really talked about it on the podcast or like in my
content, but just like my history with self harm and where
(05:46):
it started for me. And if you're comfortable, I'd
love if you know to hear your history with it as well.
After I after I go, because where it started with me was not
depression. I was not like, I deserve to be
hurt. Therefore I'm going to.
It was just boredom. It was just out of boredom.
(06:07):
I was in 7th grade or so and I first started like thinking
school was interesting, but realizing that I was not going
to be the type of student that I, you know, would like to
because I got this ADHD brain. And even when I want to do the
work, I don't or have a hard time doing it.
And so a lot of my days in classwas spent like checking in,
(06:30):
getting frustrated, checking back out because I would get
frustrated that I couldn't read as fast as everybody else, or I
couldn't read my notes because my handwriting was so bad or I
forgot the thing that I was supposed to bring.
So I would start to sort of deliberately dissociate and
detach from from class learning stuff because I was just
thinking, what's the point anyways?
And so I would just be bored a lot of the time, refusing to
(06:52):
engage with school. I would just be bored.
And so I discovered, and I guessI'm going to get specific here.
I won't get gross, but I'll get specific.
I discovered that the rulers in our 7th grade classrooms that
like we're just around those wooden rulers had a metal strip
(07:12):
going down the length of it. Yeah.
So you could draw like a straight edge.
And the wood, if there was like bumps in the wood, it wouldn't
mess with the straight edge. And you could pry those out
really easily. And you could pry them out and
you could bend them in a way to make a little tool thing that
would scratch me quite effectively.
And so just out of boredom, not out of I hate myself.
(07:33):
I deserve, I deserve to be hurt.Just I was fiddling around with
stuff and I was like, Oh, I can make a little thing like, oh,
and then Ouch, that hurts. And when you're in pain like
that, it's it's less boring thannot doing it.
You know what's something is nowhappening.
And so it sort of became this game of one.
(07:56):
How far can I go with this, withthis tool that I've made?
But then also, once it started to become a regular thing that I
would do, it became a whole gameof hiding it and then getting
caught and then hiding it again and then getting caught and
hiding it again. So it was.
What was that like? Like how would that play out?
Like somebody would be like and like send you to the guidance
counselor. Like what did that look like for
(08:17):
you? Yeah, it was usually.
It was usually had something to do with another classmate seeing
me, which I both wanted them to do and not wanted them.
Like I, I didn't want people to notice, but I also did because
that was also just adding to thegame of it all, you know?
But it was usually a classmate noticing and then telling a
(08:39):
teacher. And then the teacher would tell
a guidance counselor and the guidance counselor would call me
in to the guidance counselor's office and my parents would be
there and, and that kind of stuff.
And that was a whole thing. And it sucked, but it was, it
wasn't boring, you know, it was something, something was
happening. It was.
Like this game? What would your parents say?
(09:00):
What would they say? I'm trying to like, what was
their lot? There was a reaction.
Well, I think sadness. I don't, they were never, you
know, mad at me, but they were sad that their kid was doing
this. And I could see it in their
eyes, particularly my mom, because my mom has depression
and she felt like, you know, well, she passed that down to
me. So that really sucked seeing
(09:21):
that look in their eyes. But of course, my parents are
great. And so it was also matched with,
you know, you can always talk tous if, if, about whatever you
need to if you want, which I'm very grateful for.
That was awesome. But at the time I really wasn't
super crazy depressed. I mean, I was in 7th grade and
7th grade sucks, but I, I hadn'tlike gotten into that real
(09:44):
chemical depression fully yet orI hadn't it, it hadn't become a
daily part of my life like it was always there, but it hadn't
become like serious long bouts of depression.
So that would happen to guidancecounselor, the parents, the
whole thing. And then I just had to get
sneakier about it. It was, you know, Round 2 where
(10:06):
I did it, what I used to do whathow I hid the things that I used
to do it. But still, it wasn't about like
self punishment. It was just something to do.
It was physically stimulating, you know, it was, it was an
interesting sensation in my body, but it was also a, a way
of interacting with the world, you know, I didn't, I was in 7th
grade. I didn't quite know who I was
(10:26):
yet, but I knew who I was now. I was that kid that self harm,
self harms, you know. But after a while, once the
depression did start to hit harder and the depression did
start making me want to punish myself, my body and felt, you
know, feeling like I deserved it.
I was already practiced. I already had the literal
(10:50):
physical tools. I was already good at hiding it.
I already knew what language to use to sort of to quell concern,
that kind of thing. So it didn't at all start as a
self punishment. It's so it started as just
something to do. But then when my brain switched
around and was like, well, maybeyou should do some self
(11:10):
punishment. I, I, I already had a massive
amount of momentum in that category.
And I think that's why it was sodangerous for me to just start
doing it out of boredom. I think that's why it can be
really dangerous for us ADHD folks to do things thoughtlessly
when we're bored to, to, I thinkit's very important,
(11:32):
particularly when we're younger,but but all the time to focus on
what is our response to boredom,boredom.
And even if it's not harmful in that moment, can it become
harmful? So for me it would the insidious
it was insidious it was, it was this subtle thing to do just so
I wasn't bored. And then suddenly the
motivations got switched. And rather than, you know, have
(11:54):
to start that process later on, I was already well under way of
being a practiced self Harmer. And so I did for many, many,
many, many years after that. I'm in different ways and
different things, but it was already a part of my life.
So it wasn't particularly hard to, you know, to, to, to
incorporate into whatever situation I found myself in.
(12:15):
But I, I just, I, I, I wanted totell that story particularly
because I think, I think a lot of times self harm is seemed as
this very simple A to B of I feel like I deserve punishment
or I feel unworthy. Therefore I will harm myself.
And particularly with, with us ADHD folks, because I, I knew
(12:36):
other people who did exactly thesame thing at the time.
And I've heard from people sinceabout them or I've heard from
people saying that this was the case for them since then.
But for us ADHD folks, it doesn't always start that way.
It can be much more subtle. It can be for much a much more
convoluted reasons and I just think that's worth bringing up.
And I don't know if any of the you, dear listeners identify
(12:59):
with that, then I hope that thatwould be worth it.
I just talked for a really long time.
You got to like tell the story, you know what I mean?
Like, it's fine. Sometimes we talk for a long
time. But yeah, but yeah, I think that
focusing on paying attention to what we do when we're trying to
remedy boredom I think is reallyimportant.
I'm thinking a lot about like, Idon't know, my story isn't even
(13:21):
that interesting. Do you know what I mean?
Like, I don't know, it's just not interesting.
Especially like when you look atmy experience and then you look
at like the studies that have been done and it just lines up.
So like teen girls who are not diagnosed with ADHD because they
(13:41):
are like high academic achieversand like intellectually gifted,
but they're struggling with ADHD.
Guess what they fucking love is self harm.
And so it's like, yeah, that's that was that.
And that's what happened. But I don't know, like I
remember, I haven't thought about it honestly in a really
long time. Not from like, I can't.
It's just like, I just haven't, you know, But I, I, I remember
(14:04):
for me it was always, it was always like a, like an action to
end the panic. It was always an action to end
like the thought spiral or the anxiety or this is a terrible,
terrible fucking way to say it. Holy shit.
I I'm so sorry, dear listener. This might be inappropriate, I'm
(14:26):
not sure, but it was like it waslike the the violin bow flourish
at like the end of the cadenza. Do you know what I mean?
I would just I would get so in my head and I would get so
upset. I would, I would be just like
racked with anxiety and guilt and like, oh, what a piece of
shit I am or whatever. And then I was like, ah, but I
have this like flourish, this thing that I can do the end that
then like shuts all of that off.And so then like that's I
(14:48):
started relying on that. I started relying on like, well,
I have this like neat little trick that I can use in order to
like get out of this thought spiral or like ease the anxiety.
But what I was doing was I was conditioning myself.
I was conditioning myself to like not have actually healthy
coping mechanisms. I was having very bad coping
mechanisms. But then on top of that, there
(15:13):
is the secondary sort of like more difficult layer of when do
like body focus, repetitive behaviors, BFR BS are are our
favorites. When do those become self harm?
Right? Because there's like a certain
level to which like, OK, you're,you're picking your fingernails
or whatever, but when they're bleeding and broken and like
they're causing infection and like this kind of thing like
(15:35):
that, that qualifies as self harm.
So you've got this whole category of like BFR BS that are
like kind of in the self harm category, but like kind of not.
And, and similarly eating disorders like at what heart?
Like at what point is eating disorders just self harm in like
a fun hat? Do you know what I mean?
And so it's like, because my, myexperience with self harm, like
(15:58):
yes, I, I, I cut like right. I like, I injured my, my
physical body in different ways,but the, but the bulk of my self
harm history is around like binging and purging and, and
around like punishing my body inthat way for being the wrong
size or the wrong shape or you know, that kind of thing.
(16:21):
And so I have self harm scars. You know, I have scars.
They're not remarkable, you knowwhat I mean?
They're not remarkable to behold, But I think the, the,
the sort of legacy of self harm,the, the this fucking camera.
I can't the legacy of self harm in me and like my body and like
(16:47):
my body's memory is the is is much more centered around like
eating disorder behaviors and how less of a hassle it is.
You know what I mean? I don't it's fucked.
It's a little fucked up, I think.
Well, I, I, I also think there'sthere's, and it sounds like
yours is sort of analogous to this too.
(17:07):
It sounds like there is a relationship between and I don't
mean to make this claim for you,but I but I'm noticing in my own
life and and some of the things you're talking about, it sounds
like there is some sort of relationship between self harm
and self sabotage in a way in that they're both harming you.
(17:32):
Well, so let me paint a picture real quick.
Like I when I was self harming out of, let's not say like for
deliberately for for, you know, self flagellation.
But when I was self harming out of an abundance of an emotion
that needed some sort of release, frustration, fear,
(17:54):
anger, self harm is a very good not.
I mean, it's not good, but it is.
At the time it felt like a good flourish.
At the end, at the end of the cadenza, you know, a bum, but a
bum. Like it sort of was this
terminus or terminating thing that gave conclusion to that
feeling. That's ultimately why I did it,
(18:16):
not to punish myself. But the only reason I would
consider that to be an option ofharming myself, such to feel
that sense of finality, was because I was in fact a person
worth punishing. Because fuck that guy.
So it wasn't, I'm doing it to punish you, it's I'm doing it
because I like it. It's just I don't have enough
(18:36):
respect for you to care that it's harming you.
So I'm going to do it anyways. In much the same way that if I
get invited to some schmoozy event or career opportunity or
something that's at 8:00 in the morning, when I get up at 7:30
or 7, let's say, if I'm being responsible, I'm not staying in
bed to deliberately self sabotage myself.
(18:58):
I'm staying in bed because I want to and I don't have enough
respect for myself to not harm myself by not going to the
thing. I'm willing to harm myself to do
the thing that I want in this moment out of, I suppose a lack
of self respect, maybe, I don't know.
But so there's like a an immediate want to do it because
it is satisfying to you in the moment, but the only reason that
(19:19):
you're capable of doing it. And then I feel like I'll say I
was capable of doing it was because I didn't particularly
care about that guy me getting hurt.
So I don't know. I mean, perhaps the self
sabotage analogy is a bit stretched out, but I think
there, there, there's a there there I think like a mixture of
immediate gratification matched with a lack of caring about the
(19:43):
effects that it has on your physical body or life.
I mean, you're going to be mad at me for saying this, but like,
I think one of the things that Ifind really frustrating about
conversations around self harm is that we, you have to like
really apply a narrow definition, right?
(20:04):
Like are we like we like, let's say cutting, right?
Like cutting is self harm, but starving yourself is self harm.
Binging and purging is self harm.
Alcoholism is self harm. And so like, I look at the way
that like our lives have. Shake it out right, The the
(20:28):
paths that we have gone down. And yeah, you know, I stopped
cutting myself because I don't like, I don't want to say like I
got over it, like it was like I was just so easy to do.
But it's that I think I replacedone negative coping mechanism
with another. And then I replaced that coping
(20:48):
mechanism when that didn't serveme anymore with another and
another. And so my being in recovery from
an eating disorder is at its root treating self harm the same
way that like going to therapy, because I was like, you know,
cutting myself or whatever is. And I, I feel like it's, it's
(21:11):
difficult to navigate those kindof conversations because there's
a lot of things that we do in our, in our lives that harm us.
There's a lot of things that we do that aren't necessarily good
for us that we use as ADHD yearsto cope.
And I think part of the conversation around self harm
(21:32):
has to be am I harming myself? It it doesn't have to just be
like, oh, I'm burning myself, I'm cutting myself, whatever.
But is, is my reliance on this thing?
Is my reliance on this, this negative coping mechanism?
Am I, is this another manifestation of self harm?
But I don't know, like where theline falls, right?
(21:53):
Because I, I feel like not exercising, you could argue, is
like a form of self harm, but it's not.
You know, like it is, but it's not.
Yeah, yeah. Or like, you know, if you, you
know, binge eating to to to an unhealthy extent could be argued
to be self harm. But eating the foods that one
might binge eat on occasionally isn't self.
(22:16):
Harm, Yeah. There's whereas cutting yourself
once would be seen as self harm.It's not a frequency thing.
It's it's, it's an if if you do it on purpose.
One like that is an instance of self harm.
Whereas like having a beer or eating a doughnut or eating a
whatever is not an instance of self harm.
It's it's the frequency of it. So yeah, I agree.
I think there's there's a graduation to it.
(22:38):
And I don't know. And I, I want to be cognizant
because like, this is a place where we are definitely lived
experienced people. We're not, you know, experts in
this capacity, especially like from a therapeutic way.
And so I think that there has tobe caution around discussions
(23:00):
like this because obviously, dear listener, we're not
recommending that you do anything.
Please treat yourself with love and compassion and kindness
because you are worthy of it. But I mean, there's, there's so
many places in my life where my reaction to a big emotion was to
engage in some type of self harm, whether it be drinking or
(23:24):
overeating or like I keep saying, cutting myself like I'm
so fucking edge Lord. But because I, I didn't learn
how to navigate those big emotions, those big feelings,
those that emotional dysregulation.
That was always the uncomfortable thing.
It was never, you know what I mean?
(23:46):
Like that. That at its core is what what
the issue always was, was my lack of coping skills around
emotional dysregulation. And how do I make this deeply
uncomfortable, deeply awful feeling that I'm sure is going
to feel this way forever and ever and ever if I don't act on
it right now. And that is, that's how I got
(24:08):
there. And so then learning how to get
out of that in those moments like that took a very long time.
That took a a lot of work in therapy and a lot of like
combining different types of therapies and somatic work and
journaling and, and all of this different stuff.
And I still don't do it perfectly.
You know what I mean? I still don't.
(24:30):
I don't, I don't know where I was going with that.
What? What types of things do you
think helped you? I don't want to say get out of
it, but what types of things helped you sort of move along,
move forward in in your relationship to to self harm?
I think the biggest thing was building in an interruption
(24:51):
because for me it was always a big emotion.
Here it comes. Oh no, I have to do what?
I can't do that. That's uncomfortable, that's
scary. That's a lot.
And I can't sitting in that emotion, especially because I
didn't know how to like feel emotions or process emotions.
And so it was all going on in myhead.
And so it's, it's very difficultto move emotions through your
(25:14):
body if you were just living in your head.
And so the, the most important thing was I had to say, OK, we
have to take a break. We have, we have to take a beat.
And it would just be like a moment.
It would just be a momentary thing.
And maybe it's, you know, like, oh, I really want to binge.
I really want to like eat this whole fucking cake, you know,
(25:35):
And a lot of times it, it's a, it's an all or nothing thinking.
It's a black and white thinking mentality of like, I had the
totally reasonable slice of cake.
I'm a piece of shit. I've ruined everything, all of
this work that I've done. I might as well just eat the
whole cake because like, like I can't, I have no self-control.
I ate a piece of cake and it's like, well, no, eating a piece
of cake is a is a morally neutral thing to do.
(25:58):
And you were enjoying yourself and you were at a birthday party
and it's completely reasonable for you to have a piece of cake.
Why are you why is this the thing that is setting you off?
You know, So then it becomes OK,I'm feeling this urge, I'm
feeling this like impulse to binge or, or harm myself in like
whatever way. And so then I would, I would
(26:19):
have to do something. I'd have to like get up.
I would leave the room, I would go outside.
I would, I would journal, I would, I would draw a little
picture. I would do a little dance, like
whatever the thing was. And that was annoying.
It's, it's annoying. It's annoying to do that.
And that's, and that is I think the part that I wish we talked
about more in terms of like recovery stuff is just how
(26:40):
goddamn annoying it is because you're like, oh, look at me,
this bastion of like, look at me.
I'm in recovery for my eating disorder.
I'm a success story. And like, it's fucking annoying.
It's annoying to have to do that.
Like only need a piece of cake. And now I'm feeling shit about
it. So I have to go right in my
fucking notebook. But that's what I had to do is I
had to like insert the pause. And then once I inserted the
(27:02):
pause and I was like, OK, I'm not going to die.
You're going to die immediately.I'm not going to like spiral
into panic. Then, OK, so then what's the
next step? And sometimes the next step was
like, just don't eat more cake. Sometimes the next step is just
nothing is inaction, right? Sometimes it's OK, I'm going to
call a friend, I'm going to callmy sponsor, I'm going to call my
(27:22):
therapist, whatever. I'm like really struggling.
But sometimes it's just inaction.
Sometimes just just say, hey, don't, don't, don't do that.
They're like, I'm going to go over watch.
I'm still thinking about cake, so I'm going to go watch The
Great British Bake Off. You know, it's not, I don't know
it it and it all. And then it just all sounds so
silly when you say it out loud. You sound so goofy.
(27:43):
You're like, yeah, I write in mynotebook and watch The Great
British Bake Off. Aren't IA bastion of recovery
like a dub? Well, I think that relates back
to something we talked about in a previous episode of
embarrassment in front of yourself.
Yeah, always. And I think that that's a huge
part of it for me too, is that Ithink, I think within all of us,
(28:04):
there is still that teenager that wants to like, not do what
the teacher says. And so like self harm, it was
always like, that is the exact opposite of what the teacher
would want you to do, you know? And so writing in your journal
instead or like, go take a walk,like it.
I can feel that, you know, pathological demand avoidance,
(28:26):
applause of like, good job, you didn't do that thing.
I think engaging with that and and accepting that like nobody
is, you know, you're Miss Rosenswag isn't applauding you
for doing what she said. Right now you're just trying to
become a different type. You know you're you're, you're
amending your behavior because you want to, not because
somebody told you you should. Yeah.
(28:47):
Hey Eric, what's up? Have you written any books
lately? I've written one book lately.
Yeah. What was it called?
Oh, what's called the ADHD fieldguide for adults.
Wow, sounds like a really good book.
What's it about? Oh.
It's just about how to more comfortably live as yourself as
(29:09):
a person with ADHD, and how knowing yourself and being
honest about who you are as a person can help you develop
systems for managing your ADHD in your own life.
It's, I think it's a pretty good.
It's, I think it's pretty good. I think it's pretty good, yeah.
That sounds great, I would love to order it.
How do I do that? Well dude, you can order it or
you can pre-order right now fromwherever you get your books.
(29:29):
We highly recommend you get it from independent booksellers
because you know, screw mega corporations.
But Eric, how do I, how do I find it?
How do I find it on bookshop.orgor Amazon or wherever I purchase
my books? You're.
Going to go to your favorite search engine, my friend, and
you're going to type in the ADHD.
That's the one. The very same.
(29:50):
That's the exactly the one I wastalking about.
Yeah. Type in the ADHD field Guide for
adults or Kate Osborne. That's me or Eric Goode.
That's you. And it'll come, It'll it'll come
up. And you click it.
It's a big yellow cover. Big, bright and yellow.
Cool. I guess I'll go do that.
End of end of AD. This is terrible.
That's fine. I think we just leave it.
(30:11):
I think that's fine. Well, that was a lie.
Yes. I, I, I don't know, like, I, I
know that sometimes we have big hard conversations on the show
and I like that we're able to dothat.
But I think that this is one in particular where it's also
(30:33):
important that we perhaps specifically name some tools,
some strategies, some things that our dear listeners can take
away if they are struggling or looking for support.
So what do you got? Sure.
Well, a couple ones right off the bat that a lot of people
probably heard before, but just in case they haven't, I, well,
(30:57):
I'll bring them up. But at the end of the day,
tissue damage is is is is a bad thing.
Tissue damage can cause infection or you could hit
something you didn't mean to hit.
So we want to start with stopping that as soon as
possible and then work on stopping the actual behavior
(31:18):
itself. So holding onto an ice cube for
a long period of time, it startsto hurt a wee bit, sometimes a
lot of it, depending on how big the ice cube is.
But it doesn't do tissue damage.So you're not going to have a
big scar or a, or risk injuring a, you know, a ligament or
something like that. There's the old rubber band.
Snappy keeping a rubber band on your wrist and snapping it.
(31:40):
As long as you're not doing it as part of the self arm, that's
something that my therapist had to specifically talk to me about
'cause I was, I started like getting bruises, 'cause I was
like, wow, just do this instead.So you have to be careful about
that one 'cause sometimes it canbe like a fun fun.
Replacement, so you got to be careful.
You got to use that one response.
Through that, through that. So yes, so yeah, keeping in mind
that it's, it's, it's meant to be a lower order thing.
(32:03):
So don't escalate it to the point where it's actually self
harm, but it can sort of check that box in your head for a
second, like just the snap feeling.
Those can help a lot. But in terms of like weird ADHD
hacks, convince yourself that it's really hard because it is.
Convince yourself that it's a it's a whole freaking thing
because it is. It might not be hard to actually
(32:25):
do the behavior, but the the repercussions, the days after it
ends up being a whole thing. So play the tape through, think
about what it's going to be liketomorrow when your leg hurts or
if you have to, if you're trying, if you have to go
shopping or something and think,well, I got to make sure I wear
certain shorts or certain pants or whatever to cover up whatever
(32:46):
it is. Just so remember, it's not just
right now, it's a whole set of things that's then going to
happen after that. So remembering that sort of
stuff can sort of make it feel like more, more So what it
really is in your brain than just a, an immediate satiation
of your feelings in this moment.Add interruptions, try to
distract yourself, try to keep alog of things that you're liable
(33:10):
to get distracted by. This can be anything from like a
hobby that you are into or just like ATV show that you really
like. Any way you can get your brain
to be pointed at something else in that moment is is a total
win. This one can take some practice.
You kind of have to let yourselfdo it, but it can help a lot.
(33:30):
I'm just having stock distractions in place.
Yeah, for me, the, my biggest thing was learning one like to
name what was going on, right, Because so often my patterns of
self harm were absolutely based in like overwhelm or anxiety or
panic or like, Oh no, I forgot the important meeting.
(33:53):
And so like now I'm going to like punish myself for being a
fuck up, right. So like sometimes like the first
step was just sort of asking thequestion of like, what am I
feeling? Like what is the actual feeling
that I'm feeling and how am I trying to like solve that with
hurting myself? And then after I sort of had an
answer, sometimes it was like, OK, it's about like, I want, I
(34:17):
want to sort of like stop the thought spiral or I, you know, I
want to be feel like I can control something.
So once I kind of had the tool set to sort of interrogate where
the feeling was coming from, like what emotion I was
attaching to it, that was when Icould be like, OK, if I'm, if
I'm worried about like the chaos, then maybe a better
solution would be making a list of things that I need to do.
(34:37):
Sometimes that's not the case because then I would get even
more overwhelmed. So it's like, you know, your
results may vary there. But the other part for me was
really like the somatic stuff, like really working somatically
to get reconnected to my body. And I cannot stress this enough.
It's such a fucking pain in the ass.
It's a fucking pain in the ass to do that.
(34:59):
But once I started doing that, once I started being like, OK,
I'm feeling this urge to self harm.
I'm going to like do like hold aplank for as long as I can or
I'm going to like lift head, like lifting heavy weights, game
changer. Like the like I just started
keeping like weights around and I would just like, you know,
like 10 LB weights. They're not super heavy, but I
would just pick them up and crank out a bunch of reps, you
(35:21):
know what I mean? And that sometimes would be the
that motion and that like physicality of like engaging
your muscles and engaging my body.
That would be the thing that would like help the emotion move
through. And sometimes it was just like,
you know, I'm feeling overwhelmed or whatever.
So I'm going to make like a little nest.
I'm going to get my like weighted blanket and a bunch of
pillows and cuddle up and like eat French fries under a
(35:43):
blanket, you know. And so, yeah, like I, I didn't
ever really do well with like the, the ice or the, the, the
rubber band snappies or that kind of stuff.
For me, it was very much moving my body and giving and allowing
that movement to create a pathway where the emotion could
(36:05):
come through, which is interesting because it took me a
really long time to be able to even sort of like name that.
Like that was the need that I had.
Does that make sense a little bit?
Yeah, it's interesting. I feel like my, my, my little
bits and bobs of advice was moreso how to how to steer away from
the behavior, whereas yours was more to how to address what's
really going on. And I think that's way more
(36:27):
useful. I mean, I think they're useful
in different ways, right, because it's like, if you are
like actively in crisis, my advice is like eat really sour
candy or eat really spicy candy or like make yourself a cup of
tea and like feel the hot on your hands, like really like
sensory based interruptive activities.
But once you're like out of thatmoment of like, Oh fuck, this is
a thing that I really want to doand I'm struggling with it.
(36:49):
That's when it becomes like, I like I I would get curious like
that, like that. I don't know.
That's relate in curiosity is the thing that always like gets
me through, but I'd be like, I wonder why like it?
Can I trace it back? Like what was the triggering
event? And a lot of times, a lot of
times this is what got me all the way fucked up was that it's
not the thing that happened. It was like 5 things before
(37:10):
that, you know, like my mom would call in the middle of the
day and be a bitch and I'd be like God, and I wouldn't like
think anything of it. But then by like, you know, 7
PMI had all of this other stuff.And so it was never the like,
all this like minor inconvenience is the thing that
set me off. It was, no, I had this thing and
that thing and that thing and that thing.
And so starting to like make connections and track those
(37:34):
moments of like, I was feeling inadequate while talking to my
mom or like I was feeling embarrassed in front of my boss.
I felt out of control at work today because I didn't have a
say on the final product or like, whatever.
Those were the things that I wasactively responding to.
I was just telling myself that it was like, oh, because I
dropped an egg on the floor or oh, because I spilled the milk.
(37:54):
But it it's it was never about the inciting incident.
It was always like 5 incidents before.
That's fascinating. Wow, that really is.
That took me some time. Wow.
And I I also just want to echo my also my support of using
curiosity as as your foremost ally.
(38:15):
And I mean in any of like the self discovery, learning to live
happily as yourself things. But I also just in my own mind
when I feel the urge to self harm, my curiosity often comes
from every single part of my brain exists because it's kept
my ancestors alive. Like that's just how our brains
(38:36):
came to be. Isn't it fascinating that my
brain can actively want to do the opposite of that like to not
keep my life? Why is that?
That's really interesting. And just considering it like an
almost like an anthropological like case study of like, wow, I
wonder what happens there. And it, it's for me, it takes up
some of like the, the anger and the, the, the, the raw emotion
(38:58):
of it and just becomes like, oh wow, isn't it interesting to be
a person, if sometimes unpleasant.
Yeah, yeah. I don't, I don't know.
I, I got one of the most useful things for me was just really
realizing that there were, it was and how do I say this in a
way that makes sense? Like any and all large emotions
(39:21):
or like moments of frustration could be a thing, but there was
like a very specific set like subset of, of emotions that were
the ones that were more likely to make me want to engage in
those behaviors. And so once I figured out like
what my personal sort of triggers were, whether it was
(39:41):
like feelings of inadequacy or like I didn't have my shit
together or I was embarrassed because I like had forgotten
something and everybody was going to know I was a fuck up,
like that kind of thing. Those were always the moments
where I felt those urges. The the strong, the most
strongly, the strongest. I don't know grammatically
what's correct. And so once I started noticing
that, then it was like if I had one of those moments, then I
(40:03):
would go, oh, I had that. So now at 7:00 PM, when I knock
over my coffee or whatever, I'm going to remember that I had
this today and we can interrogate that instead of like
collapsing and spiraling downwards because of the spilled
tea or whatever. Yeah, what a weird, what a weird
thing it is to have a human brain that does human brain
(40:24):
stuff. Dumb.
It's so. Dumb.
It's exhausting being human. I'd rather not.
I'd rather be a dog a lot of thetimes.
I will. I would like to be a or a tiger,
I think. It would be a really cool dude.
You'd be a fucking amazing. Tiger big old paws walk around
just. Like shoulder blades strutting
around, all cool. Like with the I would be such a
(40:45):
good tiger and I like cooled like dope ass claws like nobody
would fuck with me and when I yawn I look really scary but I'm
still like really cuddly and I'mfriends with a Princess named
Jasmine and we go on a magic carpet together.
Specifically, I am the tiger. I'm Raja which?
Other one would have you possibly been of course.
Well sweets, thanks for talking to me and with me about self
(41:08):
harm. That's hard to do, but I'm glad.
I'm glad we did it. I feel like I don't know, I
think it's important and I thinkI think sometimes you just got
to have the hard conversation ifyou want to be the change that
you want to see in the world. You know what I mean?
Research is there, studies are there, we've lived it.
So like and also dear listener, if you're interested in learning
(41:29):
more, we do talk about this in the book, So.
That's right, we do talk about it in.
The book Do we have any announcements?
I have one announcement. You definitely do, yeah.
My announcement is that y'all, it's it's happening.
It's happening tomorrow. We are taping the live holiday
special of the Turkey in A Christmas Carol with a slightly
(41:52):
new ending. A slightly new ending.
That has changed, but a lot has changed since the original essay
was written, both in my life andin society Comma man.
So I'm very excited about that. It'll be hopefully dropping on
Thanksgiving, but I think if we're being real, it's probably
going to be closer to like Friday or Saturday because
(42:12):
there's a lot of cameras. I was, I would was not aware how
many cameras were being brought.I thought it was going to be
like a guy with a camera. There's significantly more
cameras than that. So I don't we'll see how it
goes. But so yeah, new holiday special
is dropping. If you could do me a favor, dear
listener, if you haven't subscribed to my newsletter,
(42:34):
that would be amazing. I'd really appreciate it.
Newsletter is where you're goingto be able to get all the
updates about the book and the book tour and book signings and
my comedy tour and all of that kind of stuff.
So I'd appreciate that. I don't have any events or
anything coming up. So oh, we're recording the audio
book next week, you know, in like 2 weeks.
Two weeks. Two weeks?
(42:55):
That's crazy. That's going to be fun.
So we'll be making content and stuff about that.
So look for that on these socials.
Demystified the process. Have you ever wondered what it's
like to sit in a booth and read your own words for 8 hours a
day, several days in a row? Also were.
You aware that the producer is not going to be in the room with
us? He's like zooming in.
(43:15):
Really. Yeah, I thought there was going
to be like a guy in the booth, but then in the e-mail they were
talking about how he's, it's going to be, he's going to be
like virtual. I thought that, well, there's
still going to be like a technician there, though.
It's not like we're just going to walk into the.
Building I I assume I don't know, I really don't know how
it's going to work. So I'm like really curious to
see it will like what like day one is.
Going to look, I know. Stay tuned folks.
(43:36):
We'll pull the old curtain back.And then if you do review our
book, we will comment on every review.
Yes, we. Will we love you, Elise Myers.
We're sorry. We're sorry that happened to
you, Elise Myers. People are bullshit, but yeah,
So I think that's all the news. Yeah.
(43:58):
Yeah. Rock'n'roll.
Awesome. Thanks for being here folks.
Thanks for listening this week y'all.
This one was heavy but it feels good to talk about it.
In the meantime, remember to eata snack.
Remember the Alamo? Remember to take your meds.
The 5th of November as well. Remember to drink some water.
(44:22):
To turn the stove off after you finish using it.
Remember to be kind to yourself.I said the fifth of the 5th of
November already, right? Yeah, I did.
And. Remember to be kind to others,
and I'm sorry about Eric. And remember that we love you.
We'll see you again next week. Love you.
Bye everybody. Take care of yourself.
(44:43):
Bye, be nice to yourself. Music.
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