April 15, 2024 • 29 mins
In this episode, Dr. Obadan and guest Dr. Diana Mercado delve into ADHD, discussing its stigma, acceptance, and the role of coaching. They explore the genetic aspect, misinterpretation of symptoms, and the importance of proper diagnosis. The episode concludes with Dr. Diana's empowering ADHD journey.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Record.
Hello.
Hello.
Hello, everyone.
It's so good to be here.
So glad to be talking to you all today.
My name is Doctor Ndidiamaka Obadan.
I'm the CEO and founder of younger self MD.
Medical clinic health and wellness located herein Kennesaw, Georgia.
(00:23):
And today, I have an amazing guest.
The in Doctor Diana Mercado, who's going to bejoining us today and telling us all about ADHD,
and she has a lot of interesting nuggets toshare with us.
I will let her introduce herself.
Thank you so much for having me today.
(00:45):
I'm so excited to be here and chat.
It's always a pleasure to chat with you.
I know we've, hang out for hours and hours andamazing retreat.
And, where we have both grown and, you know, myjourney is start there.
In the last 3 years in realizing that investingin myself, and in my personal growth and in my
(01:10):
professional growth, could really tap into my,potential and more importantly into my time
management.
I never thought I would be somebody who isstanding here in front of you talking to you
about, like, ADHD and much less time managementbecause 3 years ago, I was too embarrassed to
(01:33):
tell anybody I had ADHD because I was making itmean that there was something wrong with me.
Right.
Right.
Preventing me from really getting help in thetools that I needed to understand myself.
Well, that's a good point.
I mean, you raise this very important point,the stigma You know, what you're describing
(01:56):
here is the stigma associated with many of allthese conditions, all these diagnoses, we all
feel like we we can't share.
It's too much information.
We feel embarrassed.
We feel ashamed, especially when you areworking in a high, you know, professional job,
like you, you know, your physician andeverything, And now you get this diagnosis, and
(02:21):
now you feel ashamed.
Meanwhile, it's preventing you from reachingout for help.
So so what happened?
What was your moment?
What made you decide?
You know what?
I'm gonna just come out.
I'm gonna, you know, do this whole thing.
Yeah.
So thank you for that question.
(02:41):
During the pandemic, I think and I'm a familymedicine, physician.
And the norm for me was always to have 2 to 300chart open and to have a graveyard of
unfinished projects, whether at work or at thehouse because of course, I would get mega
(03:02):
excited about this new idea, and I would start,but then I would never finish because then I
got distracted or and something else was moreexciting.
And and I didn't realize that that was theproblem because I thought, okay.
Well, it's a small price to pay 20 to 30 hoursoutside of work.
(03:25):
Not getting compensated, but that's a smallprice to pay to have the privilege to take care
of my patients.
And to me, it was a love hate relationship.
Like, I love my pay but then I would hate,like, the administrative part of it, which was,
like, sitting down to look through all those,like, labs or to do
all those.
(03:46):
No.
No.
Anyone who wants
to do that, especially when coming after yourwork day or during the weekend when you're
supposed to be spending quality time, yourfamily, your day.
Who wants to do that?
Like, seriously?
And and because I thought I was the only onewho was probably having to do that, like, I was
(04:06):
too embarrassed to ask other people, hey.
What are you doing?
Because I would see them, like, kinda doingtheir thing and, like, they went.
And I didn't want to be labeled as a baddoctor.
And I didn't, at that point, I didn't realizethat my bedside manner, and my administrative
(04:30):
thing, like, like one or the other, like, wouldnot, quote, unquote, equal my my care.
And so I didn't realize that you know, I hadalready delivered amazing care for the patient,
and I had ordered some of the labs, and I hadordered the meds and everything.
But all that took a lot of, like, executivefunction to do.
(04:52):
And and then I didn't realize that that's whybecause I we had an amazing conversation.
Like, why did I then have to do theadministrative stuff?
And and so and I was so embarrassed that I hadto, like, do all that like, so much.
So, anyway, with the pandemic, I think itreally came to head that whatever systems I was
(05:13):
doing would no longer be sustainable, and itwas gonna need straight to burn out.
And I didn't even know what burnout was at thatpoint.
I remember I joined a program called EWP, whichmeans empowering women, physicians, And it was
the first introduction to coaching.
Yeah.
And I remember they Obadan to do, like, aquestionnaire, and you were supposed to, like,
(05:37):
and then with the burnout questionnaire.
And I was like, no.
How many burnout?
And then when I got the results, I was like,oh, So I didn't realize I was burned out
because I thought that was my norm.
I thought, like, every female physician who haslittle kiddos probably feels this and
especially in the pandemic where you have to beso careful who you were around because you
(06:00):
didn't wanna accidentally get anybody else sickif you were you know, a carrier because you're
a physician and you're working with so manypatients.
You do wanna get anybody else sick.
Like, you do wanna get your elderly neighborsick.
You didn't wanna get your cancer, neighborssay, you know, you have to be very careful.
And so I realized that the community or thestructures that I probably was having were no
(06:24):
longer there.
And all of a sudden, I had to do everything,and and I really never had to do everything.
My mind just told me I had to do everything.
And I think that's where I started to realize,okay.
Maybe there has to be a different way And so Igot diagnosed during my 1st year of med school,
but when I became an attending, I got told,okay, stop coming to the student clinic.
(06:47):
Like, go get your regular, like, PCP orpsychiatrist.
And so when I did it, unfortunately, thatpsychiatrist told me that I was a physician
that I should know better that I outgrew ADHD.
And, yeah, and that That, like, nailed theshame into, like, my heart and to embarrassment
(07:12):
because I was like, oh my god.
At the PCP.
I don't even know that I have grown ADHD and itand it was just so embarrassing for me and,
like, And so that's why I ignored it for 10years.
And I tried really hard, but, you know, duringthe pandemic, I couldn't keep ignoring it.
(07:32):
And because of that, I started to invest inlive coaching, and then I started to invest
specifically ADHD coaching.
I didn't even know there was an ADHD coaching.
And when I started to understand so many thingsthat I was labeled them as character defects,
(07:53):
like my timeline is, my chronicprocrastination.
I started to realize, oh, okay.
Well, I have time blindness because 5 or 10minutes or 40 minutes feel the same, but it's
probably because I am so engulfed.
It's not that I don't I don't I can'tconcentrate.
Sometimes I rave over concentrate on what I'mdoing that I get lost because I enjoy it.
(08:19):
I enjoyed having the conversations with thepatients, and it was so weird because I could
remember all that conversation even days laterbecause I was so engulfed in it.
You know?
But if you looked at the note, there wasnothing there.
So but so that's that's the problem when you'rewalking around with all that information in
(08:40):
your brain, and your brain is not meant tocarry all that information.
It's meant to process it.
And when we accidentally are not using it theright way sometimes, and you don't know any
better.
You're just trying your best because this iswhat has gotten you here.
Right?
Then you realize, oh my god.
I I've been doing it wrong.
(09:02):
And not in a judge way, but in a, like, uh-huh.
Like, now I get it.
Now I see it.
And and, actually, there's a study that showsthat came out in 2016 from the, AMA, saying
that about 30% of medical students at thatpoint had disclosed that they had ADHD, and and
(09:25):
I'm pretty sure it's probably underreported andunder diagnosed because of the stigma that
you're talking about.
And probably most of us know the colleague ormaybe ourselves who can personally identify you
know, with a time where they've been pulledaside or received an email or being recommended
by administrative or being late or seemingdistract it or being, like, all over the place
(09:48):
or just
not Then, I mean, I don't wanna interrupt you,but that's the next question that I have for
you, you know, because you just said somethingthat I was just thinking about as you were
talking about it.
A lot of these symptoms that you're describing,who has not gotten so interested and so focused
in something they really like, especially ifit's a patient that they've been able to
(10:09):
establish a rapport with, and then you go onchatting and you forget about the time, or who
doesn't have a 1000 and one tasks that theyhave not finished?
Like, you know, and then you just mentioned nowthe statistics that showed about 30% of medical
students, going through some form of this orthe other.
So how do we know when you what you have is anormal behavior that somebody who's just busy
(10:38):
is experiencing versus somebody who is, youknow, needs to be diagnosed with this condition
so that they can seek further help?
Like, how can you differentiate between the 2?
Yes.
You bring up a a very good point that,residency or attending hood I mean, even
(11:03):
medical school, like, you're pulled in 10,000directions.
Right?
And sometimes some of the things that weexperience can be traumatic because we are not
taught to put ourselves first.
We are taught to always put our patients firstabove everything, above your food, above your
sleeve, above your family time, above, like, wename it.
(11:27):
Right?
Yes.
And so when you described in all those things,you can develop something like post traumatic
stress disorder.
And that can sometimes be misinterpreted fromADHD.
And sometimes it it's hard to differentiate,like, is it that your undiagnosed ADHD is
(11:48):
causing you to feel like you have posttraumatic stress disorder, a d, anxiety, and
depression or if your anxiety and depression isdecreasing your executive function, and
therefore, you appear to have ADHD.
Right?
And so it it has to be ceased out, and andthat's why we don't usually Unfortunately,
(12:14):
females get diagnosed with ADHD later in agebecause of multiple issues.
One is that most females tend to be, like, havethe inattentive type symptom and usually the
kids, the males, like, younger in age, they'regonna have the hyperactive, And so you usually
(12:38):
associate that and the females are inattentive.
They get labeled as shy and may and the thingis it doesn't have anything to do with
intelligence.
And so for some reason, people think, oh, she'ssmart.
She's just shy.
There's no way that she has ADHD.
And and so that's where, like, because you as afemale, some well, most of us, I'm making a
(13:03):
characteristic here.
But at the female, some of us that are motherssome of them that are wives, some or some of us
who don't have kids, but but we feel likestrong urgency, like, to take care of her
parents or or whatever.
Like, we would do whatever it takes for, to getthe stuff done, and it might mean, like,
(13:26):
literally cutting up our limb because that'swhat we have felt is like what we need to do,
and we don't realize that we are working, like,ten times as hard as somebody else.
And the thing here is that Unfortunately,sometimes like immigrants, or 2nd generation,
like Yeah.
(13:46):
People have color.
Again, most of us probably have some sort of,like, 80%.
Yeah.
Exactly.
I was just gonna say that, you know, this isprobably common amongst your cultural
upbringing.
And, you know, your circumstances, likeimmigrants who feel like they need to prove
Exactly wrong.
Something.
You know, they didn't just immigrate into thiscountry to come and, you know, be nothing.
(14:10):
So they have Exactly.
They they have they they input a lot of weighton their own shoulders.
And, you know, or maybe, I mean, intentionallyor unintentionally because you know, for some
people that their family sold all theirproperty to get this person to America, You
know, when this person gets to the UnitedStates of America, they're gonna do everything
(14:33):
they can to be successful so they can feedtheir family back home.
Yeah.
So, you know, so they they impose all thosepressure on themselves.
They have to succeed, and now they're doing youknow, a 1000 and one things and acting like 1,
the job for one human being, they do it.
I mean, for 10, one human being is trying to doit.
Right?
Exactly.
Exactly.
(14:54):
And that's the thing.
Right?
Like, you have to think that person who came toAmerica or who came from wherever, like, they
have to have some big cojones to be like, I'mgonna I don't speak that language.
I'm gonna learn it, or I speak it a little, butI am gonna make this work.
Right?
Yes.
Yeah.
And so it's genetic, and you don't realize thatADHD can be genetic.
(15:18):
And and you don't realize that the buying'sgonna get what it needs because ADHD is a
neurodevelopmental disorder that has lowdopamine.
And where do we find dopamine in colds, insugar, in drinking, in smoking, in cocaine.
And, of course, you can still find it inexercise Yeah.
(15:41):
In in, meditation, And and but most of us don'tgo for, like, the exercise and meditation.
Like, most of us are using the other thingssometimes.
And you don't realize Yeah.
My diabetes could be because of my ADHD.
Oh, you don't realize, oh, I am smoking becauseof my ADHD you or I am and again, I'm not
(16:03):
trying to give people, like, a free card perse, but I want you to realize that if we miss
the diagnosis, it can really have like animpact on your relationship that you might have
going forward because you might not realizethat you are impulsive or you don't have this
(16:28):
emotional regulation that all your peers havebecause emotional regulation is an executive
function.
And And it's just not about, like, controllingyour emotions because, again, if you're not a
based on what your strengths are, you mighthave low initiation task or in or task
completion or task switching or or planning ortime management or, you know, and and then you
(16:53):
might look disorganized.
You might look unprofessional.
You might be labeled short, tempered.
You might be labeled rude because you'reinterrupting the meeting or you're the only one
who's, like, raising your hand and saying,excuse me, like, that show don't make sense.
Right?
I'm sorry.
Use my language.
But Very bold.
Yeah.
(17:14):
No, Mary.
Yeah.
What you are thinking, and and and it lookslike you it looks like you have no emotional
regulation or no response inhibition.
Right?
We can talk about look.
Let me tell you.
I feel diff I feel kind of different about thatbecause, this person who you're describing who
may feel like in one environment, they may seemthey may stick out like a sore thumb But in
(17:38):
another environment, like, let's say in adifferent country where the behavior is for
everybody to talk the same, they will fit rightin.
So, again, we have to kind of, you know, bemindful about that, but that's a separate
discussion, but, you know, so we're talking inthe context where this is now becoming
problematic.
And we've gone through the fact that ADHDmanifests differently in women and in men and
(18:03):
it can be imposed.
I mean, generally, you can have some baseline,susceptibility you know, like you were saying,
if if you inherited it, right, is there somegenetic component?
But there are also some environmental factorsthat can make him manifest Exactly.
Force.
So and there's help.
(18:23):
There's this is not something that we shouldstigmatize, and this is not there's a lot of
things that can do about it.
So I would like you to share with our audience.
Now that they've decided, you know, they'vegotten the diagnosis or they've come up upon
the awareness that this might be a problem.
What are three things that they can do to makethings better?
(18:43):
Yes.
So one of the things that they can do is reallybecome curious about the diagnosis.
Like
Yeah.
Because if you're not curious, you're alreadyin self judgment.
And when you're in self judgment, that'sparalyzing.
That that is like that's like no hope.
(19:06):
Right?
Right.
I think you're curious.
You wonder, like, how is this different?
How can this be a superpower?
How can this be a gift that I just have tolearn to unwrap.
And who can help me to do that?
Like, is there a physician?
Is there a therapist?
Is there a coach?
(19:27):
Can I go exercise?
I just love what you said.
I love it.
I love how you said it.
Naive identity.
Become curious about it.
And decide that this is going to become yourpower, your superpower.
Ask all these questions and ask the mostimportant question, which is How is this going
to become my superpower?
And who is going to help me manifests mysuperhero ability.
(19:51):
I just love it.
I just love it.
That's a great tip.
The first one, become curious and figure out away to turn this into a superpower.
And what's the second one?
And then the second one is being open mindedenough to try it all because What might work
with one person
(20:12):
Yeah.
Might not with the other because it's like aspectrum.
And the last thing I wanna say is like, youthink the right way to do it because then it
almost becomes like gaslighting you because,you know, if somebody who didn't have ADA is
telling you do it this way, and then somebodythat has ADHD is telling you do it this way,
(20:32):
and none of those ways work for you Then youthink you really are broken and there's no hope
for you, but that's not the case.
The case is that it's a spectrum.
And that's where when you do become curious,you start to make connections and you start to
see oh, okay.
When I put on my head phones, I am able to tuneup people.
(20:56):
Or when I turn on my candle, the smell of thecandle helps me to focus or when I, jump around
for 3 minutes before doing a task that I'm notso, like, keen in doing, but that gets my flow,
my oxygen to my brain that gets me pumped upbecause I'm visualizing the end result, but you
(21:20):
just start wondering what would it look likefor you?
Like, when you're engaging in something, youstart to ask yourself, okay.
What worked?
What didn't, and it sounds like easy enough,but most of us never slowed down enough to
wonder Why am I happy today?
(21:40):
Why am I not today?
Like, most of us just give away that emotionbecause, we just think, or because that patient
didn't show up today or because too manypatients showed up today or because my husband
sent me or because my best friend is, right,like, we never realized that we somewhere had a
(22:00):
thought about that.
Right?
We never realized that.
And because of that, we keep, like, giving awayall our energy And then that prevents us again
from being empowered with information becausewe think it's something outside of us that is
(22:21):
gonna create that result.
So we have to stay open minded and realize thatthis is a disease spectrum and figure out
different ways, identify different things thatmight help us be in better control of the of
how we are manifesting this medical condition.
Yeah.
That's a great question.
Realize that, you know, your sleep your food,your relationships, like, all those play a
(22:47):
role.
It's not like it's okay.
Today, I got it right.
Everything's Awesome.
And tomorrow, I'm gonna replicate it.
You might if you have the insight, but everyday might be different.
Yeah.
Obadan.
And knowing okay.
When I am feeling 80% charge, I could probablytap into this and this.
When I am feeling 20% charge, yeah, I am reallygonna use this other thing because I'm not
(23:14):
gonna self judge myself that I'm not at 80where I want it, but I'm gonna meet my so where
I'm at so that can I have a system to help mestill get to the other side of who can I tap on
for help without judging myself?
Right.
Right.
Don't be afraid to ask for help.
And create systems to make it easier for you tocomplete your tasks.
(23:38):
That's great.
That is great.
Well, thank you so much.
This has been so wonderful.
We're about to reach out at the end of ourtime, but I before we go, I wanted you to share
something really interesting that, you know,made you feel empowered or something exciting
that you would want to share with our audience.
(23:58):
I know you have your trip in Costa Rica comingup.
And I've been seeing all the wonderful videos.
Oh my gosh.
I wish I could come.
But, you know, you don't have to share aboutthat.
You can just share anything you wanna tell usabout.
Sure.
Yes.
I mean, I do wanna share about that becausethat that is really something that makes me
(24:19):
proud that I feel like show showcases ourability to create something out of nothing.
Like, our ability to dream up Like, I went toCosta Rica in September, and I was like, oh my
god.
This is Paradise.
Can I practice from here?
Like, I was literally glued in.
Can I practice from here?
(24:39):
Because it was like, I was walking around inparadise.
Like, eating food that I could, and I waslosing weight.
I was like, how is this possible?
But because you're in nature, because you aremore present, like, you're not just, you know,
in your computer or whatever.
(24:59):
It makes you wonder and it makes you dream andit makes you believe that if I feel this good,
I wonder if I can extract other physicians whomaybe don't feel as good, and I wonder if I
could get them to see what it was like beforethey went into medicine?
Like, that dream state that they were at, like,what would it be like to on purpose create your
(25:22):
life.
On purpose, like, level up your, your executivefunction, your emotional regulation, your
question all these, like, limiting beliefs thatwe don't even know where are limiting beliefs
because most of us, like, a 100% thing.
Oh, I'm too slow.
Come to blah blah blah blah.
Right?
But what if, like, that's not the case, andit's the story that you think is true, but it's
(25:47):
not.
And And so I am super excited about thispossibility.
It is 10 days away.
And, you know, have some, Bot open.
So if anybody's listening to this before that,please jump in because, look, I've had four
people sign up in the last 24 hours.
And 2 of them are sisters that are comingtogether and one is giving a retired internal
(26:11):
medicine doc and but they want to, like,reconnect with themselves.
You know?
And so I tell people, come and, you know, enjoy10% of it or come and eat you know, you come
and you put
it out, and then you do what happened.
Right?
Oh, wow.
That's amazing.
Well, You have to send me the link, and I'llput it in the bio when we post this up.
(26:36):
And, you know, how can people find you if theywanna work with you?
Yes.
So I am an ADHD life coach, for physicians andhealth care professionals.
But, again, you don't have to have ADHD toreach out to me.
If you're somebody who wants to just, createbetter systems to give you, freedom so that you
(26:57):
can leave work at work and you can have thattime back so that you can use it to read a book
to go on vacation to start your own book or tostart your own business or do whatever you need
to do or want to do, reach out at ADHD dashlivecoach.com.
And on there, you can schedule a strategy callor you can contact me if you want me to do a
(27:23):
workshop for your institution or group coachingprogram for them.
I've done, 10 cohorts already, and I've beenable to help about 90 2 physicians now.
And so I'll I'll walk the line.
You think ADHD people are just in the ER or infamily medicine?
No.
We're everywhere.
And so, we the thing is we are driven by whatlights us up.
(27:45):
So there's pathologists, there's psychiatrists,there's radiologists.
There's no attorneys.
There's, pediatricians, OBGYNs, PMNR, you nameit.
Like, they've all been insurgents too.
In my group.
And for some reason, female tend to reach outmore than males.
I'm I'm still working on that piece.
So if you know a male that needs help sendingmy way, I don't know why they're not coming,
(28:08):
but, I'm not, you know, discriminated againsttheir rate.
I'm a info opportunity.
We all need to change this executive function.
Those are always in denial about everything.
Nothing is ever wrong, and everything is alwaysperfect.
But that's we'll leave that for a separatepodcast.
Oh, yeah.
That that may be helpful, though.
(28:28):
We also have some mail so that they can explainto us exactly what's going on because right
now, we are just we're making assumptions basedon our own observations.
But In English, Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, this was really nice.
Thank you so much for coming.
And, for anyone who's interested in getting aprimary care, service or for a practices,
(28:52):
primary care physicians who are looking forspecialists.
We are currently accepting patients.
I'm a nephrologist, and I'm based here inKennesaw.
You can schedule appointments on, youngerselfmd.com.
Give us a call.
404-566-4623, and I will be happy to see you.
(29:12):
Thank you so much, Doctor Diana.
It was amazing to have you on board.
Thank you.
Thank you for having me.
Bye.
Record.
Hello.
Hello.
Hello, everyone.
It's so good to be here.
So glad to be talking to you all today.
My name is Doctor Ndidiamaka Obadan.
I'm the CEO and founder of younger self MD.
Medical clinic health and wellness located herein Kennesaw, Georgia.
(00:23):
And today, I have an amazing guest.
The in Doctor Diana Mercado, who's going to bejoining us today and telling us all about ADHD,
and she has a lot of interesting nuggets toshare with us.
I will let her introduce herself.
Thank you so much for having me today.
(00:45):
I'm so excited to be here and chat.
It's always a pleasure to chat with you.
I know we've, hang out for hours and hours andamazing retreat.
And, where we have both grown and, you know, myjourney is start there.
In the last 3 years in realizing that investingin myself, and in my personal growth and in my
(01:10):
professional growth, could really tap into my,potential and more importantly into my time
management.
I never thought I would be somebody who isstanding here in front of you talking to you
about, like, ADHD and much less time managementbecause 3 years ago, I was too embarrassed to
(01:33):
tell anybody I had ADHD because I was making itmean that there was something wrong with me.
Right.
Right.
Preventing me from really getting help in thetools that I needed to understand myself.
Well, that's a good point.
I mean, you raise this very important point,the stigma You know, what you're describing
(01:56):
here is the stigma associated with many of allthese conditions, all these diagnoses, we all
feel like we we can't share.
It's too much information.
We feel embarrassed.
We feel ashamed, especially when you areworking in a high, you know, professional job,
like you, you know, your physician andeverything, And now you get this diagnosis, and
(02:21):
now you feel ashamed.
Meanwhile, it's preventing you from reachingout for help.
So so what happened?
What was your moment?
What made you decide?
You know what?
I'm gonna just come out.
I'm gonna, you know, do this whole thing.
Yeah.
So thank you for that question.
(02:41):
During the pandemic, I think and I'm a familymedicine, physician.
And the norm for me was always to have 2 to 300chart open and to have a graveyard of
unfinished projects, whether at work or at thehouse because of course, I would get mega
(03:02):
excited about this new idea, and I would start,but then I would never finish because then I
got distracted or and something else was moreexciting.
And and I didn't realize that that was theproblem because I thought, okay.
Well, it's a small price to pay 20 to 30 hoursoutside of work.
(03:25):
Not getting compensated, but that's a smallprice to pay to have the privilege to take care
of my patients.
And to me, it was a love hate relationship.
Like, I love my pay but then I would hate,like, the administrative part of it, which was,
like, sitting down to look through all those,like, labs or to do
all those.
(03:46):
No.
No.
Anyone who wants
to do that, especially when coming after yourwork day or during the weekend when you're
supposed to be spending quality time, yourfamily, your day.
Who wants to do that?
Like, seriously?
And and because I thought I was the only onewho was probably having to do that, like, I was
(04:06):
too embarrassed to ask other people, hey.
What are you doing?
Because I would see them, like, kinda doingtheir thing and, like, they went.
And I didn't want to be labeled as a baddoctor.
And I didn't, at that point, I didn't realizethat my bedside manner, and my administrative
(04:30):
thing, like, like one or the other, like, wouldnot, quote, unquote, equal my my care.
And so I didn't realize that you know, I hadalready delivered amazing care for the patient,
and I had ordered some of the labs, and I hadordered the meds and everything.
But all that took a lot of, like, executivefunction to do.
(04:52):
And and then I didn't realize that that's whybecause I we had an amazing conversation.
Like, why did I then have to do theadministrative stuff?
And and so and I was so embarrassed that I hadto, like, do all that like, so much.
So, anyway, with the pandemic, I think itreally came to head that whatever systems I was
(05:13):
doing would no longer be sustainable, and itwas gonna need straight to burn out.
And I didn't even know what burnout was at thatpoint.
I remember I joined a program called EWP, whichmeans empowering women, physicians, And it was
the first introduction to coaching.
Yeah.
And I remember they Obadan to do, like, aquestionnaire, and you were supposed to, like,
(05:37):
and then with the burnout questionnaire.
And I was like, no.
How many burnout?
And then when I got the results, I was like,oh, So I didn't realize I was burned out
because I thought that was my norm.
I thought, like, every female physician who haslittle kiddos probably feels this and
especially in the pandemic where you have to beso careful who you were around because you
(06:00):
didn't wanna accidentally get anybody else sickif you were you know, a carrier because you're
a physician and you're working with so manypatients.
You do wanna get anybody else sick.
Like, you do wanna get your elderly neighborsick.
You didn't wanna get your cancer, neighborssay, you know, you have to be very careful.
And so I realized that the community or thestructures that I probably was having were no
(06:24):
longer there.
And all of a sudden, I had to do everything,and and I really never had to do everything.
My mind just told me I had to do everything.
And I think that's where I started to realize,okay.
Maybe there has to be a different way And so Igot diagnosed during my 1st year of med school,
but when I became an attending, I got told,okay, stop coming to the student clinic.
(06:47):
Like, go get your regular, like, PCP orpsychiatrist.
And so when I did it, unfortunately, thatpsychiatrist told me that I was a physician
that I should know better that I outgrew ADHD.
And, yeah, and that That, like, nailed theshame into, like, my heart and to embarrassment
(07:12):
because I was like, oh my god.
At the PCP.
I don't even know that I have grown ADHD and itand it was just so embarrassing for me and,
like, And so that's why I ignored it for 10years.
And I tried really hard, but, you know, duringthe pandemic, I couldn't keep ignoring it.
(07:32):
And because of that, I started to invest inlive coaching, and then I started to invest
specifically ADHD coaching.
I didn't even know there was an ADHD coaching.
And when I started to understand so many thingsthat I was labeled them as character defects,
(07:53):
like my timeline is, my chronicprocrastination.
I started to realize, oh, okay.
Well, I have time blindness because 5 or 10minutes or 40 minutes feel the same, but it's
probably because I am so engulfed.
It's not that I don't I don't I can'tconcentrate.
Sometimes I rave over concentrate on what I'mdoing that I get lost because I enjoy it.
(08:19):
I enjoyed having the conversations with thepatients, and it was so weird because I could
remember all that conversation even days laterbecause I was so engulfed in it.
You know?
But if you looked at the note, there wasnothing there.
So but so that's that's the problem when you'rewalking around with all that information in
(08:40):
your brain, and your brain is not meant tocarry all that information.
It's meant to process it.
And when we accidentally are not using it theright way sometimes, and you don't know any
better.
You're just trying your best because this iswhat has gotten you here.
Right?
Then you realize, oh my god.
I I've been doing it wrong.
(09:02):
And not in a judge way, but in a, like, uh-huh.
Like, now I get it.
Now I see it.
And and, actually, there's a study that showsthat came out in 2016 from the, AMA, saying
that about 30% of medical students at thatpoint had disclosed that they had ADHD, and and
(09:25):
I'm pretty sure it's probably underreported andunder diagnosed because of the stigma that
you're talking about.
And probably most of us know the colleague ormaybe ourselves who can personally identify you
know, with a time where they've been pulledaside or received an email or being recommended
by administrative or being late or seemingdistract it or being, like, all over the place
(09:48):
or just
not Then, I mean, I don't wanna interrupt you,but that's the next question that I have for
you, you know, because you just said somethingthat I was just thinking about as you were
talking about it.
A lot of these symptoms that you're describing,who has not gotten so interested and so focused
in something they really like, especially ifit's a patient that they've been able to
(10:09):
establish a rapport with, and then you go onchatting and you forget about the time, or who
doesn't have a 1000 and one tasks that theyhave not finished?
Like, you know, and then you just mentioned nowthe statistics that showed about 30% of medical
students, going through some form of this orthe other.
So how do we know when you what you have is anormal behavior that somebody who's just busy
(10:38):
is experiencing versus somebody who is, youknow, needs to be diagnosed with this condition
so that they can seek further help?
Like, how can you differentiate between the 2?
Yes.
You bring up a a very good point that,residency or attending hood I mean, even
(11:03):
medical school, like, you're pulled in 10,000directions.
Right?
And sometimes some of the things that weexperience can be traumatic because we are not
taught to put ourselves first.
We are taught to always put our patients firstabove everything, above your food, above your
sleeve, above your family time, above, like, wename it.
(11:27):
Right?
Yes.
And so when you described in all those things,you can develop something like post traumatic
stress disorder.
And that can sometimes be misinterpreted fromADHD.
And sometimes it it's hard to differentiate,like, is it that your undiagnosed ADHD is
(11:48):
causing you to feel like you have posttraumatic stress disorder, a d, anxiety, and
depression or if your anxiety and depression isdecreasing your executive function, and
therefore, you appear to have ADHD.
Right?
And so it it has to be ceased out, and andthat's why we don't usually Unfortunately,
(12:14):
females get diagnosed with ADHD later in agebecause of multiple issues.
One is that most females tend to be, like, havethe inattentive type symptom and usually the
kids, the males, like, younger in age, they'regonna have the hyperactive, And so you usually
(12:38):
associate that and the females are inattentive.
They get labeled as shy and may and the thingis it doesn't have anything to do with
intelligence.
And so for some reason, people think, oh, she'ssmart.
She's just shy.
There's no way that she has ADHD.
And and so that's where, like, because you as afemale, some well, most of us, I'm making a
(13:03):
characteristic here.
But at the female, some of us that are motherssome of them that are wives, some or some of us
who don't have kids, but but we feel likestrong urgency, like, to take care of her
parents or or whatever.
Like, we would do whatever it takes for, to getthe stuff done, and it might mean, like,
(13:26):
literally cutting up our limb because that'swhat we have felt is like what we need to do,
and we don't realize that we are working, like,ten times as hard as somebody else.
And the thing here is that Unfortunately,sometimes like immigrants, or 2nd generation,
like Yeah.
(13:46):
People have color.
Again, most of us probably have some sort of,like, 80%.
Yeah.
Exactly.
I was just gonna say that, you know, this isprobably common amongst your cultural
upbringing.
And, you know, your circumstances, likeimmigrants who feel like they need to prove
Exactly wrong.
Something.
You know, they didn't just immigrate into thiscountry to come and, you know, be nothing.
(14:10):
So they have Exactly.
They they have they they input a lot of weighton their own shoulders.
And, you know, or maybe, I mean, intentionallyor unintentionally because you know, for some
people that their family sold all theirproperty to get this person to America, You
know, when this person gets to the UnitedStates of America, they're gonna do everything
(14:33):
they can to be successful so they can feedtheir family back home.
Yeah.
So, you know, so they they impose all thosepressure on themselves.
They have to succeed, and now they're doing youknow, a 1000 and one things and acting like 1,
the job for one human being, they do it.
I mean, for 10, one human being is trying to doit.
Right?
Exactly.
Exactly.
(14:54):
And that's the thing.
Right?
Like, you have to think that person who came toAmerica or who came from wherever, like, they
have to have some big cojones to be like, I'mgonna I don't speak that language.
I'm gonna learn it, or I speak it a little, butI am gonna make this work.
Right?
Yes.
Yeah.
And so it's genetic, and you don't realize thatADHD can be genetic.
(15:18):
And and you don't realize that the buying'sgonna get what it needs because ADHD is a
neurodevelopmental disorder that has lowdopamine.
And where do we find dopamine in colds, insugar, in drinking, in smoking, in cocaine.
And, of course, you can still find it inexercise Yeah.
(15:41):
In in, meditation, And and but most of us don'tgo for, like, the exercise and meditation.
Like, most of us are using the other thingssometimes.
And you don't realize Yeah.
My diabetes could be because of my ADHD.
Oh, you don't realize, oh, I am smoking becauseof my ADHD you or I am and again, I'm not
(16:03):
trying to give people, like, a free card perse, but I want you to realize that if we miss
the diagnosis, it can really have like animpact on your relationship that you might have
going forward because you might not realizethat you are impulsive or you don't have this
(16:28):
emotional regulation that all your peers havebecause emotional regulation is an executive
function.
And And it's just not about, like, controllingyour emotions because, again, if you're not a
based on what your strengths are, you mighthave low initiation task or in or task
completion or task switching or or planning ortime management or, you know, and and then you
(16:53):
might look disorganized.
You might look unprofessional.
You might be labeled short, tempered.
You might be labeled rude because you'reinterrupting the meeting or you're the only one
who's, like, raising your hand and saying,excuse me, like, that show don't make sense.
Right?
I'm sorry.
Use my language.
But Very bold.
Yeah.
(17:14):
No, Mary.
Yeah.
What you are thinking, and and and it lookslike you it looks like you have no emotional
regulation or no response inhibition.
Right?
We can talk about look.
Let me tell you.
I feel diff I feel kind of different about thatbecause, this person who you're describing who
may feel like in one environment, they may seemthey may stick out like a sore thumb But in
(17:38):
another environment, like, let's say in adifferent country where the behavior is for
everybody to talk the same, they will fit rightin.
So, again, we have to kind of, you know, bemindful about that, but that's a separate
discussion, but, you know, so we're talking inthe context where this is now becoming
problematic.
And we've gone through the fact that ADHDmanifests differently in women and in men and
(18:03):
it can be imposed.
I mean, generally, you can have some baseline,susceptibility you know, like you were saying,
if if you inherited it, right, is there somegenetic component?
But there are also some environmental factorsthat can make him manifest Exactly.
Force.
So and there's help.
(18:23):
There's this is not something that we shouldstigmatize, and this is not there's a lot of
things that can do about it.
So I would like you to share with our audience.
Now that they've decided, you know, they'vegotten the diagnosis or they've come up upon
the awareness that this might be a problem.
What are three things that they can do to makethings better?
(18:43):
Yes.
So one of the things that they can do is reallybecome curious about the diagnosis.
Like
Yeah.
Because if you're not curious, you're alreadyin self judgment.
And when you're in self judgment, that'sparalyzing.
That that is like that's like no hope.
(19:06):
Right?
Right.
I think you're curious.
You wonder, like, how is this different?
How can this be a superpower?
How can this be a gift that I just have tolearn to unwrap.
And who can help me to do that?
Like, is there a physician?
Is there a therapist?
Is there a coach?
(19:27):
Can I go exercise?
I just love what you said.
I love it.
I love how you said it.
Naive identity.
Become curious about it.
And decide that this is going to become yourpower, your superpower.
Ask all these questions and ask the mostimportant question, which is How is this going
to become my superpower?
And who is going to help me manifests mysuperhero ability.
(19:51):
I just love it.
I just love it.
That's a great tip.
The first one, become curious and figure out away to turn this into a superpower.
And what's the second one?
And then the second one is being open mindedenough to try it all because What might work
with one person
(20:12):
Yeah.
Might not with the other because it's like aspectrum.
And the last thing I wanna say is like, youthink the right way to do it because then it
almost becomes like gaslighting you because,you know, if somebody who didn't have ADA is
telling you do it this way, and then somebodythat has ADHD is telling you do it this way,
(20:32):
and none of those ways work for you Then youthink you really are broken and there's no hope
for you, but that's not the case.
The case is that it's a spectrum.
And that's where when you do become curious,you start to make connections and you start to
see oh, okay.
When I put on my head phones, I am able to tuneup people.
(20:56):
Or when I turn on my candle, the smell of thecandle helps me to focus or when I, jump around
for 3 minutes before doing a task that I'm notso, like, keen in doing, but that gets my flow,
my oxygen to my brain that gets me pumped upbecause I'm visualizing the end result, but you
(21:20):
just start wondering what would it look likefor you?
Like, when you're engaging in something, youstart to ask yourself, okay.
What worked?
What didn't, and it sounds like easy enough,but most of us never slowed down enough to
wonder Why am I happy today?
(21:40):
Why am I not today?
Like, most of us just give away that emotionbecause, we just think, or because that patient
didn't show up today or because too manypatients showed up today or because my husband
sent me or because my best friend is, right,like, we never realized that we somewhere had a
(22:00):
thought about that.
Right?
We never realized that.
And because of that, we keep, like, giving awayall our energy And then that prevents us again
from being empowered with information becausewe think it's something outside of us that is
(22:21):
gonna create that result.
So we have to stay open minded and realize thatthis is a disease spectrum and figure out
different ways, identify different things thatmight help us be in better control of the of
how we are manifesting this medical condition.
Yeah.
That's a great question.
Realize that, you know, your sleep your food,your relationships, like, all those play a
(22:47):
role.
It's not like it's okay.
Today, I got it right.
Everything's Awesome.
And tomorrow, I'm gonna replicate it.
You might if you have the insight, but everyday might be different.
Yeah.
Obadan.
And knowing okay.
When I am feeling 80% charge, I could probablytap into this and this.
When I am feeling 20% charge, yeah, I am reallygonna use this other thing because I'm not
(23:14):
gonna self judge myself that I'm not at 80where I want it, but I'm gonna meet my so where
I'm at so that can I have a system to help mestill get to the other side of who can I tap on
for help without judging myself?
Right.
Right.
Don't be afraid to ask for help.
And create systems to make it easier for you tocomplete your tasks.
(23:38):
That's great.
That is great.
Well, thank you so much.
This has been so wonderful.
We're about to reach out at the end of ourtime, but I before we go, I wanted you to share
something really interesting that, you know,made you feel empowered or something exciting
that you would want to share with our audience.
(23:58):
I know you have your trip in Costa Rica comingup.
And I've been seeing all the wonderful videos.
Oh my gosh.
I wish I could come.
But, you know, you don't have to share aboutthat.
You can just share anything you wanna tell usabout.
Sure.
Yes.
I mean, I do wanna share about that becausethat that is really something that makes me
(24:19):
proud that I feel like show showcases ourability to create something out of nothing.
Like, our ability to dream up Like, I went toCosta Rica in September, and I was like, oh my
god.
This is Paradise.
Can I practice from here?
Like, I was literally glued in.
Can I practice from here?
(24:39):
Because it was like, I was walking around inparadise.
Like, eating food that I could, and I waslosing weight.
I was like, how is this possible?
But because you're in nature, because you aremore present, like, you're not just, you know,
in your computer or whatever.
(24:59):
It makes you wonder and it makes you dream andit makes you believe that if I feel this good,
I wonder if I can extract other physicians whomaybe don't feel as good, and I wonder if I
could get them to see what it was like beforethey went into medicine?
Like, that dream state that they were at, like,what would it be like to on purpose create your
(25:22):
life.
On purpose, like, level up your, your executivefunction, your emotional regulation, your
question all these, like, limiting beliefs thatwe don't even know where are limiting beliefs
because most of us, like, a 100% thing.
Oh, I'm too slow.
Come to blah blah blah blah.
Right?
But what if, like, that's not the case, andit's the story that you think is true, but it's
(25:47):
not.
And And so I am super excited about thispossibility.
It is 10 days away.
And, you know, have some, Bot open.
So if anybody's listening to this before that,please jump in because, look, I've had four
people sign up in the last 24 hours.
And 2 of them are sisters that are comingtogether and one is giving a retired internal
(26:11):
medicine doc and but they want to, like,reconnect with themselves.
You know?
And so I tell people, come and, you know, enjoy10% of it or come and eat you know, you come
and you put
it out, and then you do what happened.
Right?
Oh, wow.
That's amazing.
Well, You have to send me the link, and I'llput it in the bio when we post this up.
(26:36):
And, you know, how can people find you if theywanna work with you?
Yes.
So I am an ADHD life coach, for physicians andhealth care professionals.
But, again, you don't have to have ADHD toreach out to me.
If you're somebody who wants to just, createbetter systems to give you, freedom so that you
(26:57):
can leave work at work and you can have thattime back so that you can use it to read a book
to go on vacation to start your own book or tostart your own business or do whatever you need
to do or want to do, reach out at ADHD dashlivecoach.com.
And on there, you can schedule a strategy callor you can contact me if you want me to do a
(27:23):
workshop for your institution or group coachingprogram for them.
I've done, 10 cohorts already, and I've beenable to help about 90 2 physicians now.
And so I'll I'll walk the line.
You think ADHD people are just in the ER or infamily medicine?
No.
We're everywhere.
And so, we the thing is we are driven by whatlights us up.
(27:45):
So there's pathologists, there's psychiatrists,there's radiologists.
There's no attorneys.
There's, pediatricians, OBGYNs, PMNR, you nameit.
Like, they've all been insurgents too.
In my group.
And for some reason, female tend to reach outmore than males.
I'm I'm still working on that piece.
So if you know a male that needs help sendingmy way, I don't know why they're not coming,
(28:08):
but, I'm not, you know, discriminated againsttheir rate.
I'm a info opportunity.
We all need to change this executive function.
Those are always in denial about everything.
Nothing is ever wrong, and everything is alwaysperfect.
But that's we'll leave that for a separatepodcast.
Oh, yeah.
That that may be helpful, though.
(28:28):
We also have some mail so that they can explainto us exactly what's going on because right
now, we are just we're making assumptions basedon our own observations.
But In English, Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, this was really nice.
Thank you so much for coming.
And, for anyone who's interested in getting aprimary care, service or for a practices,
(28:52):
primary care physicians who are looking forspecialists.
We are currently accepting patients.
I'm a nephrologist, and I'm based here inKennesaw.
You can schedule appointments on, youngerselfmd.com.
Give us a call.
404-566-4623, and I will be happy to see you.
(29:12):
Thank you so much, Doctor Diana.
It was amazing to have you on board.
Thank you.
Thank you for having me.
Bye.
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