The ADHD Struggle is Real
ADHD PART 2
Episode 020
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TRANSCRIPT
Welcome to the Plan for Wonder podcast. I'm Crystal, the talking head, founder, and creator of myLifePlanners.ca. I'm back this week with a bit of an improved voice with the second in my ADHD series with Liz Tizzard, where she's illuminating what organization looks like in her pre and post-diagnosis of ADHD.
And we are back this week with Liz Tizzard.
Well, hello!
What's your little bio again? You're the wanderer.
Wandering world traveller, wife to one handy Andy of a man, mom to two next-gen boys and then I kind of paused on it, but I'm also, I love building community, I love being involved with non for profits, and yeah, spend a lot of time and energy advocating for ADHD and physical and mental health.
Awesome. Okay. So for this episode, we kind of want to really focus on the fact that the struggle was real and is still real, you know, when, when, when you are having, when you do have ADHD and what I loved, what we talked about last episode was that understanding for me, which gave me huge clarity was that pendulum of hyper-focus versus.
Spontaneity because you're just bored. Yeah.
Then, we can also look at the pendulum as hyper-focus and spontaneity at one end and the crash cart at the other. Crash card. Oh no. It is like, and I'm not exaggerating whatsoever. So the pendulum swing to me isn't, isn't hyper focused on one side?
Spontaneity? My hyper-focus is typically on engaging or spontaneous things, like fun. If you guys search for me on social media and Fun Girls Fit Club, I do dance parties and murals. I've done them all over the world, specifically across the country. I'm almost thinking that it's not really a pendulum.
I'm just imagining you said cart, a go cart. So, when you're hyper-focused, you're in the go-cart going up a hill and working your ass off and so focused to get out there, and then you're like, fuck it, I'm tired. Yeah. And then you just let go and your cart goes flying backwards.
Totally. Or like if we look at that pendulum swing.
The crash cart is how do you cap the downside? So, for a lot of people, when you're running as an ADHD or, and you don't know it, even if you're diagnosed, most people don't know if you're running on this like impulse and hyper-focus and all the things you love, boredom is your kryptonite, right? So, as we know, especially around organization, most things are boring.
Laundry is boring. Cooking is boring. Meal planning is boring.
I must imagine pre-diagnosis how did you deal with that? Like being bored. Did it affect you? Like, how did you, I didn't,
no, it's, it's, it's, it's funny and it's not funny and it's sad and it's true. And I won't cry because I've shed enough tears over my years, but I didn't deal, and I think that's the biggest.
The reason why I got to this idea of the pendulum swing is when everybody would see me out in this world as like the Tazmanian devil, the Tigger, you know, that big bounding energy, but, you know, I call it Robin Williams syndrome. Nobody really knows what's behind closed doors. For my immediate family growing up as a kid, specifically after that, like, you know, probably grade six or like 11, 12 ish, not even teenager.
I would close the door and scream at my family, cry, slamming my door in my room, and like me and my husband, God bless his soul, Andy. He's been my rock, and he's been able to handle this emotionally. Call it a mood swing. It's not a mood swing. I get those monthly as well. But this is a full-blown pendulum swing.
Which, once again, I dabbled in yoga. It's why when yoga, mindfulness, and being grounded came into my life, it was like, oh, I don't have to close the door and scream and cry and hide and not understand. ADHD has almost like these two sides, like introverted, extroverted personality. We need the downside to recharge.
So, the way I like to view it, you refer to me as an energizer buddy. So, for any of you guys, I'm 42. So, for anybody knows, Back in the day on the Energizer Bunny commercials when we had commercials on TV to get our potato chips and take a washroom break, the Energizer Bunny would like to bash around on the drums.
I'm doing the action right now, sitting at my table, but then he would always go back to a docking station. Yeah. So, if you are managing your ADHD well, your pendulum swing is more like hyperfocus, excitement, and spontaneity. And then a docking station and a solid grounded practice in keeping your feet on the ground.
And most of that comes around organization, routine, and structures and strategies. So, it's like you were self-treating yourself without realizing you were self-treatment. Except mine was in a crash. I was constantly emotionally charged and couldn't regulate to the point that it was like depleting. My body and energy and right were presented a lot of times, although undiagnosed I've been to my therapist office a few therapists ago and said You have to change my story or medicate me because I can't do this anymore, But I bound it in with a big smile.
So she's like, no, sit on the couch, right? Like that's the pendulum swing.
Okay, so we understand where you were pre-diagnosis. So, let's talk about your organizational systems at this time. So my lack thereof, dot, dot, dot.
How did you get shit done?
I didn't. I didn't get anything done. Like I never got anything done.
And going back to what I touched on with that, like wallow, that was the worst loop because it felt every day that I didn't get anything done, and it was purely, and I got stuff done. Of course, I got stuff done. I have two kids. I have been. You know, before I took on a bazillion jobs, life was in front of me, so I had to do it. That's right.
But I never felt good about it. I never felt successful in it. And I would loop back into the long. So yes, I had used, you know, my day and my week. Well, we helped, I helped create my day, but my week and like, did this like really stimulating cover. Crystal did me a custom cover and all that. And it worked for a bit until it didn't because I was always chasing perfection, perfection, perfection, perfection in the day, perfection in the week. And then, you know, with my family calendar, I would forget to put things on because they were all written in blue or black pen. I never saw them because my brain wasn't stimulated.
Okay. So, let's, that's, I think it leads us into kind of post-diagnosis, and you’re understanding. So, let's talk about that. What kind of tools did you find helped? For example, did you create an organizational system?
Yeah. So, first and foremost, the best tool that worked was reading and researching about ADHD. So, I had to learn who I was and what was normal.
Here's the cool thing that I want to share with you. You have so many resources, everything from Attitude Magazine to ADHD, Uppercase Magazine, which is online. It's also a podcast. ADHD 2. 0 is one of my favorites. But then you also have things like Instagram and TikTok. And I don't think we talk. I think there is, but there's not a lot of conversation with millennials.
I'm a very proud elder millennial. Are you? Ah, she's a Gen Xer, but there's not, but you have. Teenage daughters, right? Yes.
Yes. They do have tendencies for ADHD, right?
So, a lot of our youth are learning about ADHD and learning like, oh, It's not a me thing. It's an ADHD thing because of social media because of TikTok, they're learning things where they can differentiate, like that seems like me.
Well, that doesn't mean I have a diagnosis. Not well, because I've spent six years on Instagram influencing the wellness space and people getting more active and integrating a home-based workout into their life and hydration and all those good things. I, too, started to go on Instagram and look at different things.
So, then the beauty of the research. is then you go back to that, what, 15-minute doctor's appointment? Right. If that, and you say, So, when it comes to ADHD, this is what's presenting to me.
Mm hmm.
This is where I'm having challenges. And then you and your doctor can have a conversation about medication or not.
Okay. Which I've done both. Okay. Outside of medication, but let's focus in on the organization. Yes. Element. So, once I learned about what was and what wasn't, then I could start applying those skills to organization. That might be a better segue. Well,
that and kind of for yourself, what have you been learning?
What are good attributes for a planning system? What are the key elements that are required?
Yeah. So a big, big thing would be pen to paper. So I've tried digital calendars. I know work for a lot of people and I think that there's still value, but that'll be like Super Mario Brothers, Liz. I'm at about level four and what we're talking about right now is when, how I got from like level one up to level two, right?
Or level three. So pen-to-paper was a big one. I started looking at my family calendar and thinking, okay, what if I integrated colored pens? Okay, that doesn't work. What if I integrate highlighters? So then my family each has a color highlighter. If you look at my calendar right now, we have a color for each of us.
We also have a color for family
things. I actually have a shared calendar, digital calendar with my family in iCloud and each one has their own color. Cause I can, and I, I'm not on the extreme as you, but I kind of, and that's where I kind of really related to the ADHD or was, yeah, I can relate. Like I think I'm on a spectrum, just not as extreme, especially since my kids kind of have, have had it.
But yeah, and then, and then a big thing to the last thing was I at this like level one, level two, I would say, so then I started to use a daytimer. But then it was that perfection mindset, sticky notes. Have always been a big help or appear to be a help, but we all know we lose sticky notes And unless there's a centralized spot that I can actually put Those sticky notes and use them as a tool Whether that's on my family calendar whether that's in a planner to give me the opportunity to brain dump when my brain is full It doesn't work and I had to you know, go through the growing pains of that as well.
Well, that's amazing.
And I think you've really given us a good sense of kind of the struggles and the perspective that you have when it comes to organization. And I love that idea of pen and paper and creating that centralized location for stuff. It's been a game changer. So that's it for today. In the next week, we're going to kind of.
But dive into what exactly your own structure is and what you've developed that you're finding success with. Awesome. Don't forget to check out mylifeplanners.ca/liztizzard for Liz's ADHD toolkit and special affiliate promotion links are in the episode notes. And with that, thanks so much for spending time listening to plan for wonder.
And remember the space you take up in the world matters to me, but even more importantly, you matter the most in your own life.
