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ADHDtime on Air with Tamara Rosier · ADHDtime On Air

• Tamara Rosier: ⁓ Daniella Karidi, PhD: Hi everyone. Thank you for joining Time On Air. ⁓ Today I have a colleague, a friend, an author, educator, ⁓ an amazing parent, ⁓ and ⁓ a founder of the Center of West Michigan. ⁓ Also, the author of these two amazing books behind me, which I'm doing my best not to hold because apparently you guys in the audience told me I fidget with them. So I'm going to let Tamara go figure, right? I'm going to Tamara introduce herself and tell us a bit more about what we want, what we should know about you. Tamara Rosier: Go figure! Well, I've been looking forward to talking to you because I love going on podcasts with really smart women. just really, this is so much fun. And smart ADHD women. And so I've been looking forward to this. Okay, so here's something new. ⁓ I am now officially a grandmother. So thank you. And ⁓ my grandma name in case you guys are wondering, because I get Daniella Karidi, PhD: Thank you. Mazel tov, congratulations! Tamara Rosier: is Gran, just kind of G-R-A-N, you know, no silliness for this one. Yeah. And if everyone's like, ⁓ but if he calls you Gigi or, and I'm like, nope, I send it back. So I have strict rules, no silliness with my names. No, I'm being tongue in cheek. ⁓ It's a little boy named Harris and it's just been amazing watching my daughter become a mother. Daniella Karidi, PhD: There you go. I love it. That's a great choice. you Tamara Rosier: it's it's lovely and I'm just so happy. So that's the new thing about me. Daniella Karidi, PhD: That is so exciting. I'm going to go on a total tandem, but I did once a podcast about how grandparents can support their kids with ADHD because I think there's an amazing space we have and knowing how genetic this is. I'm sure you think about these things ⁓ deeply because you look at families and this is your cup of tea. But ⁓ think a lot about that, things we can do better. that wasn't given to us, those conversations around the table and those opportunities to support our children and our grandchildren in a different way. So how are you approaching this grandparent stage of life? Tamara Rosier: Yeah. Yes. Well, ⁓ now my son-in-law does not have ADHD. So this kid has a shot. Yep. I'm always like, you married well, kiddo. But mom has ADHD ⁓ ⁓ daughter has ADHD, obviously, you know, donated by my genetics. And I've been just trying to support her right now. ⁓ I know that... Daniella Karidi, PhD: Jackpot. Tamara Rosier: A lot of times new mothers, she had a very difficult birth and she is the kind who really prepared almost like it was an athletic event. She's a former athlete. So she was a little sad that it didn't go the way she had expected. The baby was face up, which is a very difficult birth. So she was a little disappointed in herself. And I think you know this, we have expectations when they go unmet. Daniella Karidi, PhD: Mmm. Yeah. Tamara Rosier: we start to create the stories, right? ⁓ She had a lot of damage from birth and so she started to create the story like, I ever feel better? ⁓ I do this wrong somehow? ⁓ so I've been really just trying to support mom through all this right now. Because I got to tell you, little boy, he has ⁓ aunts who are just in love with him ⁓ he's already kind of, he's just ⁓ five weeks old. Daniella Karidi, PhD: Hmm. That's amazing. Tamara Rosier: And already he's clocking the socialness of it. And it's just, he's gonna be a little prince. So that boy's gonna be fine, but ⁓ I wanted to make sure my daughter just felt loved and supported. Daniella Karidi, PhD: love that. The love and support is ⁓ great kind of thing to put in the equation and a number one kind of in front of you. ⁓ I felt that through, ⁓ felt that love and support you have for your people and your family throughout all your books. And I feel that also just seeing you interacting, like I know I met you and your daughter once and ⁓ seeing live also, that compassion coming first. Tamara Rosier: Yeah. ⁓ thank you. Daniella Karidi, PhD: as your first emotion, as your first response. And I love it. And I know you tried to teach us to switch blame with compassion. So I'm going to go out with one of the hardest questions. What tricks do you have to suggest to others to put that compassion ⁓ front of them and switch the shame and the blame with that feeling? Tamara Rosier: Yeah. Yeah. Well, first of all, I have to tell you that is the best compliment you could ever give me. So thank you from the bottom of my heart. That is the sweetest thing, almost brought me to tears. Because I do want to live a life that's kind ⁓ compassionate. ⁓ I didn't realize was I was trying to be kind and compassionate to everyone except one person. And you know who that person was? Yep. I wasn't kind and compassionate to me. Daniella Karidi, PhD: yourself. Tamara Rosier: So, I really, the first book, Your Brain's Not Broken, I wrote, that was, really felt compelled to write to all the clients I'll never meet and go, you're not broken, it's okay. And the second book was, okay, so now you're in a family and it feels like a Drunken Goat rodeo, how are you going to be okay in this Drunken Goat rodeo? So it's not a parenting book. It's a, do you calm yourself in the midst of this drunk and go rodeo? And so now I'm going to actually answer your question, okay? So the whole way, it's not easy to switch compassion for yourself because you've used really bad motivation to get you this far. So you're a smart woman, you have a PhD with ADHD, you know you've learned some bad tricks, right? Daniella Karidi, PhD: Mmm. for sure. Tamara Rosier: very naughty, like yelling at yourself, screaming at yourself, and some days just downright hating yourself. Yeah? So I can't just say, yeah, just stop using that. Just don't do that anymore. That's not going to work, it? So in the second book, I talk about this difference between survival and transformational thinking. Daniella Karidi, PhD: Yep, for sure. Tamara Rosier: Do you mind if we go into that? Daniella Karidi, PhD: No, I love it. I loved it. I highlighted half that episode. I had to buy another book, by the way, because I highlighted so much that I couldn't read it anymore. Tamara Rosier: Okay. my goodness. ⁓ thank you. That's so sweet. if this is kind of, this isn't for ⁓ It's for the people who truly want to grow. Daniella Karidi, PhD: you Tamara Rosier: and grow out of this horrible thing that they do to themselves. And I'm saying not everyone is ready to do that growth and that's okay. But when you're really ready to go, I don't like how I'm treating myself. ⁓ and by the way, I used to think, well, it's okay if I treat myself poorly, I treat other people kindly, except it oozes out, that self-loathing will ooze out. And it does splash on other people. Daniella Karidi, PhD: Mm-hmm. Tamara Rosier: So I had to figure that out. So there's two kinds of ways of thinking. There's the survival mindset and everything is about you when you have this survival mindset. And you're like, how am I responding? How am I reacting? And then for ⁓ transformational thinking, you start to realize it's not really all about me and it's a different mindset. Daniella Karidi, PhD: Okay. Tamara Rosier: And so... That was a really long way to answer your question, but we really have to start to get into transformational mindset. Daniella Karidi, PhD: Okay, I like that. I like the idea that there's something we can do, because my default is this is what I am. I mean to myself, but nice to others. And that switch is a lot about, ⁓ I read your books with my book club. have a book club called Focus on ADHD Books. It's a free book club that I started as an accountability because I kept them buying these books at the conference and not reading them. ⁓ I'm talking about the ADHD International Conference, which you're very much involved in. And I love to attend and will be in December if anyone put the link in there. But I started the book and ⁓ the club to help me read these books. And one of the things that came up from it is that I collect the questions they give me. So some of the questions I'm gonna give to you now coming from other people that read the book. And one of the readers, ⁓ their question was, so where do I start? if I have a family that is in overwhelm, I live in an overwhelmed family. ⁓ of us have ADHD, half of us doesn't, or all of us, ⁓ who you ask. ⁓ he's like, so, so I got it. He's like, I read the whole book and I don't know where to start. So what would you recommend to him? Tamara Rosier: Yep. Yeah. Yep. Yep. So I work with, I do a lot of family coaching. And so this is what I do. I work with really overwhelmed families and they're like, listen, if you just sat in our house, you'd think we were all just crazy people running around like we're on fire. And so this is what I do. ⁓ First, I work with the parents and I teach them a metaphor and it's the pool metaphor because you've read the second book and the pool metaphor is just very simply. We have to imagine we have a big pool of emotions. those of us with ADHD, now, first of all, everyone has that pool, right? But those of us with ADHD, we don't have a fence up around the pool. We don't have a lifeguard on duty. And so what happens for us is we fall into the pool and Daniella Karidi, PhD: Mmm. Tamara Rosier: We fall into the pool about dumb things. And so we have to be careful about that. So I teach the metaphor to the parents and we don't go into pool rules. We don't go into all the details. We just teach pool awareness at that point. Then their assignment is they go home, call a family meeting and say, listen, we're meeting with this really weird woman who talks about pools. depending on the age of the kids, we talk about how to do it. If it's teenagers, we talk about it one way. If it's little kids who love Legos, we use Legos. ⁓ One family had a great big blue blanket they put down as a pool and they acted out how they fall into the pool. we really workshop, how do you teach this metaphor? And then for three to four weeks, all we're doing is we're just noticing. Daniella Karidi, PhD: ⁓ that's cool. Tamara Rosier: Whoa, I fell into the pool. Ugh, I did it again. And then we start to learn, how do we get out of the pool? Once we're in it, what is our pool plan? And again, we just want to go very, very slowly through this. So what's our pool plan? So our 12 year old falls into the pool because his sister wouldn't give him a chocolate chip cookie. And so how do we get the kid out of the pool? And you know this answer. You don't. You teach the child to swim to the side of the pool. But that takes slow building of skills. So we talk about pool plans. All right, it looks like you're in the pool. What do you need to do? Because when people are in the pool, and we can be in the pool of big emotions for great things and for bad things, right? Like I was in the swimming pool. Daniella Karidi, PhD: Right. Tamara Rosier: after my grandchild was born. It's like I forgot what I did for a living. ⁓ I was so far behind an email, I think I still am to be honest. ⁓ I was just so joyous. That's big emotion, right? And it's so big that it shut down everything else I do in life. So that's an example of happy, right? Or I can fall into the pool. because I got into my car on a hot summer's day and it's too hot and I'm already angry that it's too hot. Right? That's falling into the pool. Or I could fall into the pool because I'm angry at someone too. Right? So, yeah. Daniella Karidi, PhD: Yeah. So I love that metaphor. And I'm going to add that ⁓ when we were talking in the group, I was saying to one of the parents that was saying, well, I don't know how not to help my kid. And I said, well, did you build stairs or a ladder in your pool? Is there a way out? If you did that, if you built that base that there's a ladder, there's a step, there's something, then you as a parent did the foundation. Now you need to let them use it. If you showed them. once or twice how to make it to the stairs. You need to maybe show them 10 times. So we're not telling you to push your kid in the pool and let them swim by themselves because that's not what you're saying. I just want to make sure that the listeners understand that that is not the metaphor here. The metaphor here is you build a good pool. You teach them how to sit in the shallows and then go deeper slowly. You teach them how to come out and then you give them opportunities to figure it out. But you don't push them in the pool and you Tamara Rosier: Love that. Daniella Karidi, PhD: Definitely, definitely just don't stand outside if they're really drowning. So yes, this is where you get a professional. If your kid keeps on drowning, maybe there's an initial problem. Go to a therapist, go to a, you know, take medication. Don't just, so, so the pool as a metaphor does have a lot of, and we loved it. We, think we ended up talking about these pools so much that some, something in one of the AIs thought we had a pool like that we were talking about professional. Tamara Rosier: ⁓ yeah. Yes. Yeah. That's too funny. Yeah. Thank you for adding that because I am not just saying, hey, sink or swim, kiddo. I am a Gen Xer, I understand, but I am not that kind of Gen Xer. In fact, we don't want to do that. What we would do, it's interesting you say that if you see your child drowning and you're not a trade expert, go get expert help. Daniella Karidi, PhD: Yeah. No. No. 100%. Tamara Rosier: Right? And however I work with people, and you know this from reading the book, who over function for their children. And in other words, their child is feeling in the pool of emotions over a cookie and they jump in that pool and try to drag the kid out of the pool. Right? Or there's dad screaming at the kid for being in the pool. Okay. Now dad just fell in the pool. So we get these unfortunate pool parties where the whole family's in the pool. ⁓ I live in Michigan and something people do this time of year in Michigan is they drive to Florida. Okay? It's a big spot for Michigan people. You can literally run into a neighbor in Florida. ⁓ And so it's actually kind of nice staying back in Grand Rapids because everyone's gone to Florida. Daniella Karidi, PhD: Mm-hmm. Right. Tamara Rosier: But sometimes people fly and sometimes they take four kids and cram them in a van and drive for 21 hours. I love, I tell my friends in other countries this, they're like, 21 hours? Who can even drive for that long? Well, we do that in the States, right? Well, pool parties happen in that fan because everyone's tired, cranky. If they're like my kids, they start to smell after about 10 hours. I mean, I had all girls and I was just shocked at how gross that van was, right? That was pool party central. Like, ⁓ stop touching me. ⁓ my gosh, your breath is bad. And then people get closer and closer to the pool. We all fall in. Now, ⁓ I was coaching one such family who crammed people in their van. they literally ⁓ ⁓ And I think it was like a Bob Evans or ⁓ restaurant. And they're like, all right, everyone, we have to talk about the pool. We're all in the pool right now. And even just talking about the pool kind of lightened the mood. And they're like, yeah, we're just all splashing each other. Like, how are we going to get out? You can't tell someone else to get out of the pool, ⁓ Daniella Karidi, PhD: Right. Tamara Rosier: You can't stand on the sidelines screaming, get out of the pool, without falling in yourself. So everyone took a responsibility for themselves, talked about their pool plan, and the rest of the time, the mom said was at least non-hostile, which I'll take. ⁓ That's a good start, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Daniella Karidi, PhD: Yes, a hundred percent. Yeah. For family trips, a hundred percent. We have a dog, we have a dog that ⁓ loves to jump into the pool. he, whenever my son is, he tries to save him. He thinks his job as the dog is to save my son, even though my son's a great swimmer and is, you know, in the water, he thinks his job is to save him. And we, as a family members, each have a different strategy. Some of us just don't let the dog out when we're in the pool. Other of us just put him in the water with us. Tamara Rosier: Ha ha ha, yup. Daniella Karidi, PhD: Like, join the pool on purpose. So we realized when I read the book and we had a conversation at our dinner table about it, we realized that that metaphor of like how we react to the dog is also, because it was a good example about how each of us reacts differently to each other's pools. Kind of like how we each have a different strategy to cope with each other's emotions. Tamara Rosier: Yeah. Yeah. yeah. Daniella Karidi, PhD: And to cope with each other, trying, I might help, like be happy when you come to help me out of the pool, but my kid would push you away because he's a teenager and wants to get out of the pool by himself. So it was a really good opportunity to take the matter for one step, one step ahead and kind of talk about how we react to each other's pools. I do have to say that we all concluded that he needs a shorter haircut because when he goes in the pool, he gets us all wet. so. Tamara Rosier: Yeah. Right. Daniella Karidi, PhD: My action after that conversation was now he has a, we gave up, a person comes to my house once a month and gives him a haircut. Cause we just can't like, so ⁓ that I to say thank you to the book because that led to the dog. Like it was this side effect that we didn't think about, right? That you would have never thought your book would lead to. ⁓ Okay. Tamara Rosier: love that. a haircut. You know what? I love those stories so much. ⁓ that's awesome. Daniella Karidi, PhD: So, I'm going to take this question ⁓ to you wrote these books and they led somewhere to different people. What did it lead you? How do you feel now about your books and where did it lead you? Tamara Rosier: you know, it's funny. ⁓ I told you the first book was kind of that love letter to all the people. And that first book, what almost kind of released some anxiety that I have over people, just I need them to know they're not broken. Because I was, I was actually internalizing a lot of anxiety. Like everyone needs to understand they're fine. Even when you don't feel fine. We have a quirky brain and you need to understand that. The second book was actually, and I'll be really honest, I prefer the second book. ⁓ It's a deeper book. That was actually a personal journey for me because ⁓ wrote a lot about my family growing up. ⁓ ⁓ was the first time I did that publicly. ⁓ so, Daniella Karidi, PhD: Mmm. Tamara Rosier: some of the stuff was difficult for me. ⁓ For example, I had a mother who was a young diverse with ADHD and she really was emotionally abusive. ⁓ I don't think she wanted to be. ⁓ See, now that I'm old, I have kindness for her. She didn't do it right. But now I can see she had the emotional turbulence of ADHD. This was the 70s being divorced. That's scary, right? The 70s, were just getting the ability to have credit cards, right? So it was very scary for her. and then later towards the end of the book, I write about how my dad disowned me. Daniella Karidi, PhD: Mmm. Right. Tamara Rosier: because I got a divorce. ⁓ And he hasn't talked to me in almost 20 years. It literally acts like I'm dead to him. And I've gotten to a place with that. And it was hard writing about, but I have gotten to a place, a peace with that too. ⁓ And so that book was like a real, it was like, okay, How can I help a family figure out the things that I figured out, but wish I would have done differently? Like the pool metaphor, how cool would that have been to have when I had kids? ⁓ How cool would it have been to understand that disowning people wasn't appropriate behavior and that I wasn't a horrible person? ⁓ Daniella Karidi, PhD: Right. Tamara Rosier: cool would it have been to understand how to repair relationships differently? So, ⁓ Me, and Our ADHD Family is the book of my personal journey, really. I don't know if it ran like that for you, but it was a deeply personal experience. Daniella Karidi, PhD: Yeah, yes. And one of the questions that I had here, and that will be appropriate now, because you gave me the lead for it, was ⁓ how did your family react to this kind of window that you opened to the world about yourself and your family? Tamara Rosier: Well, my children are absolutely loving. I always ask their permission. ⁓ I do write about them in the first book, but I use a code. So anytime you see certain characters with certain names, it's referring to an experience that child had. My second book, I named names. So I talk about my daughter Brooke and observations she made. And they're just proud of me. And they're just, Daniella Karidi, PhD: Mm-hmm. Tamara Rosier: They're awesome. They're just these wonderful humans. We're all ride or die for each other. And I feel that in my family, so that's great. ⁓ I'll be really honest. I haven't said this out loud, let alone on a podcast, but I'll say it anyway. Before you, and our ADHD family came out, ⁓ my Daniella Karidi, PhD: As they should be. Tamara Rosier: editor, the acquisitions editor called me and she's like, Hey, I love what you're doing here. For the preface you write about your mother, do you have to get her permission? And by the way, I didn't say anything unkind. always like, was making sure. And I just said, you know what, truthfully, she hasn't talked to me in, I don't know, 15, 16 years. She's not part of my life. ⁓ I don't talk about it in the book, but that was a hard thing. ⁓ And I really softened what happened in my life as a kid there. So, if it was at a nine, I really softened the story to like a four. And the editor is like, ⁓ and she was quiet for a little bit. Daniella Karidi, PhD: Sure. Tamara Rosier: how did you turn out normal? And I just laughed because I didn't turn out normal guys. This is just a lot of work and a lot ⁓ of self development and therapy. So, and I just share all that to your readers because sometimes when we're talking about families, we're not related to the nicest people and it's hard for us and we feel broken because we're not. Daniella Karidi, PhD: you Mm. Tamara Rosier: happy in our families. So I just want to give you guys hope that that it starts with you. Daniella Karidi, PhD: Love it. I love the hope. ⁓ You remind me that, you know, the Japanese technique where there's like a broken bowl and they fill it with gold. So I think that you're working very hard to fill those cracks with really good therapy and thoughtfulness and kindness and helping others. And that's your gold. ⁓ And it's not that perfection that creates this amazing piece. It's the hard work that... Tamara Rosier: Yes, yes. Daniella Karidi, PhD: you have to build from the cracks. Tamara Rosier: That's exactly it. That's exactly it. And I love you adding that insight there because that's truly my belief. The first 40 years of my life was really difficult. And I've spent the second half of my life trying to help people learn the things I had to learn the hard way and to walk beside people who are scared, who are lonely, and who aren't very kind to themselves. Yeah, thanks Danielle for pointing that out. Daniella Karidi, PhD: Well, thank you for sharing that with the rest of the world, because it's not an easy thing to expose and we do much appreciate it. And it leads me to one of my next questions, ⁓ are, what would be the smallest shift someone can do to switch from focusing on the person and the shame to ⁓ to the cycle of problem solving that you talk about? with like small shifts some listener can take from here. If they read the book or didn't read the book, they can take to their life to be able to do what you're doing, shifting from the shame and the stuck into the problem solving. Tamara Rosier: yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So the biggest thing you can do is just be aware of your emotional state. Because when we have ADHD, look, we have big feelings galore. I have feelings about everything, right? I didn't even thought, I mean, when I was growing up, I didn't know that was abnormal, right? Both my parents have ADHD. They had big feelings about everything. And so I have big feelings like, Daniella Karidi, PhD: Hmm. Tamara Rosier: I have this little squishy ball on my desk, right? And sometimes I just don't like the end of this squishy ball. I'm like, gosh, I wish they would have finished this differently, right? I have a feeling about a squishy ball and how it was manufactured. Yeah, I just admitted that. So I have feelings about dumb things, but now I'm like, ⁓ I have a big feeling. And then I'm like, well, that's, it's kind of silly that I'm having a big feeling about this squishy ball. Tamara, you don't even have to have it on your desk. ⁓ right, I don't. Well, I still like squishing it, so I guess I can get over that feeling. So notice I'm aware that I'm having a big feeling. I'm questioning it. And then I'm like, I think I could move on from that big feeling. Now, my technique is to kind of tease myself to go, ⁓ you have a big feeling about a squishy ball, huh? Daniella Karidi, PhD: Mm-hmm. Tamara Rosier: Like, or, you know, when I get angry when I stub my toe, by the way, I'm always barefoot. I break so many toes. I think it's part of my ADHD experience. instead of getting so angry at the couch for sticking its leg out and tripping me, I'm like, well, that just happened and it hurts like heck. Let's keep moving on. So I acknowledge it. I don't stuff my feelings. I just acknowledge what's happening. ⁓ And then I tried to shift as quickly as long as I stay in this emotion, I'm not going to be able to shift to problem solving. And sometimes I want to sit down and pout. You know what? I just want to pout and gripe and blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. And so I'm like, ⁓ then I'm not ready to problem solve yet. And so I kind of enter this metacognitive process of eventually though you will have to enter problem solving. Right, Tam? and I do a lot of talking to myself. Daniella Karidi, PhD: I love talking to myself. My grandma used to say it's the best conversation I have. ⁓ Tamara Rosier: ⁓ yeah. That be that joke. Yes. Daniella Karidi, PhD: Yeah. And she used to get so mad when anyone interrupts because she's like, like, you know, I'm having a great conversation. On the other hand, she, she would talk to herself negatively so much that you sometimes need someone to interrupt the cycle. and someone, right. we need to do. Tamara Rosier: we can't afford that. ⁓ Daniella Karidi, PhD: once was in the house preparing for a party and there was a little girl visiting and I was in the kitchen and I was like telling to myself, I'm doing my fucking best, excuse my French, ⁓ doing my best, I'm doing my best. And this cute little kid turned around to me, I think she was about five and she's like, yes, you are. Tamara Rosier: ⁓ I love it. Daniella Karidi, PhD: So I try to take that voice with me now when I go back to like, you know, talking negative, I'm like, what would that little five-year-old tell me? Tamara Rosier: Okay, can we talk about that as a strategy? Because I use this a lot with my clients. So in the first half of your Braids I Broke, or you, me and our ADHD, I talk about the monkey voices. But sometimes you don't have to go through all the symptoms. It's kind of an internal family systems way of looking at your symptoms. But I worked with one client who I said, well, let's just try to get... Daniella Karidi, PhD: Yes, yes. Right, I remember. Tamara Rosier: your ADHD as a whole to have a voice. And I've worked with her now for about six or seven years and about a year or two, she's like, you know who my ADHD voices is? It's Captain Jack from Pirates of the Caribbean. Yep. so I'm like, ⁓ and so Captain Jack has stayed with her through this entire time. And she also has another voice in her head and it's Dr. Tamara. Daniella Karidi, PhD: Caribbean. Tamara Rosier: And Dr. Tamara, she's internalized my voice. I'm like, ⁓ get rid of my Midwestern accent. Would you in the voice? She goes, nope, you have to have the... So sometimes ⁓ the rule is in her brain, they can't talk to each other. She has to be the mediator. So Captain Jack, know, imagine Captain Jack from Pirates of Caribbean. Like he gets that smile, that swagger. And he's like, you can stay up late. You can do whatever you want. Daniella Karidi, PhD: No. Tamara Rosier: And then Dr. Tamara says, but is that what you want to do? And, and then she, ⁓ this client said, well, then I have to decide, like, am I going to let Captain Jack convince me? And so she has this conversation. Whenever we can have a conversation in our head, even imaginary, that really works, for many of us with ADHD. And here's why. It engages the DMN network and our DMN network is usually quite lively when you have ADHD. And so that's why ⁓ many people, it can work for many. Daniella Karidi, PhD: Mmm. I love that. I really love it. And talking about things to work with, ⁓ for many I was wondering what you would say is the worst thing that you heard that doesn't work, that you wish people stop telling people with ADHD. Tamara Rosier: Okay, here's, here's, all right, here's my little soap box, okay? ⁓ A lot of people have ADHD or a lot people have anxiety when you have ADHD, okay? And we use ADHD as a motivator, you know, the gasoline that we would pour onto a fire, right? A lot of women are Daniella Karidi, PhD: There you go, ⁓ Mmm. Okay. Tamara Rosier: diagnosed only with anxiety because they don't see what's running the anxiety. That's called ADHD. Exactly. Here's my pet peeve. When people are helping, now this isn't generalized anxiety disorder that we're talking about. This is, we're trying to use it as an artificial, well, it's a motivational technique that's gone wrong, right? So people would say, you know, imagine anxiety. Daniella Karidi, PhD: Right, because that's what's externalized. Yes. Mm-hmm. Tamara Rosier: you know, what would you say to anxiety? And I've heard therapists say, just scream, get out of here and yell at the anxiety. Okay. You'd never yell at anxiety. So what you want to do is you imagine anxiety sitting down and you're like, ⁓ anxiety, you're here. What are you trying to do? Because the anxiety is trying to help you in some way. So just be curious and ask why she's there instead of trying to yell at it. When you yell at parts of yourself, you're actually hating yourself, right? Instead if we say, well, you're here to help me. What are you trying to help me to do? ⁓ anxiety, can we do that differently? I see what you're trying to do. Let's do it differently. So that's... Daniella Karidi, PhD: Mmm. I love it. And I think that could apply for a lot of emotions that we're trying to artificially kick those emotion out instead of processing them and understanding why they're there and what they serve. Even shame, even shame has a social purpose originally and understanding that we're using it wrong at this point to overusing it. Yeah. Tamara Rosier: Yes. Yeah. We're overusing it, yeah. So the other thing is... I don't like when people believe all of their emotions. Daniella Karidi, PhD: Okay. Elaborate. Tamara Rosier: All right, this is where millennials and gen Zs don't really, they're like, whoa, I don't think I agree what you're talking about. But when you have ADHD, you have a surplus of emotions. Not all of them are believable. Daniella Karidi, PhD: Okay. Tamara Rosier: Okay, not all of them should be acted on. Some of them are unreliable witnesses. And so it doesn't mean we yell at them or get mad at them. It just doesn't mean we take them for truth tellers. So we have to be careful with our emotions. Go, did that really irritated you? But that just irritated you because of this. maybe that whole situation doesn't need to be addressed. So I am saying we play the doubting and believing game with our emotions. Daniella Karidi, PhD: I get it. Not all emotions are reliable sources of information. And unfortunately, ⁓ our media stream or our news, unfortunately, it's very hard to tell sometimes what is reliable and what is not. But I think that putting that grain of salt ⁓ saying our ADHD brain can distort some information and distort our emotions too is a really good point that I really appreciate. Tamara Rosier: Right. Yeah. And I feel an emotion and you know what I do? I write a beautiful story where I'm the hero. I'm the victim of this story, right? I'm the one who the couch did something wrong to. And so I really want people to question their emotions and question the story they're writing about the emotion. Maybe you're interpreting it. You had the emotion, but maybe you interpret it wrong. Not wrong, but Daniella Karidi, PhD: shoot. Tamara Rosier: in an unhelpful manner. Daniella Karidi, PhD: ⁓ I'll take this as an opportunity to ask you a few more questions before we run out of time and lose everyone's attention because a lot of our people our audience have limited capacities. I know if everyone knows, but you know for sure that ⁓ my big thing is memory. Tamara Rosier: Yeah. Daniella Karidi, PhD: And specifically, love ⁓ perspective memory. It's like how we remember the future. And I wanted your little insight of how these memory challenges affect the ADHD family dynamic. How do you see this in your everyday with your clients? Tamara Rosier: Yes! Crying out loud. That's one thing that I would change with my ADHD. Short term working memory is really bad. And guess what? Emotions trumpet. we can have this, no, you never told me this. Well, yes, I did. No, I didn't. Now we're in an emotional battle, right? Instead of going, ⁓ you did? where was I? Maybe I can ⁓ episodically where I was. So this causes huge problems for families. For people who don't have ADHD, they look at us and go, how can she be smart in this area, but not have a working memory? Right? ⁓ maybe she just refuses to this ⁓ because she doesn't love me. You're the story that even your own vocals can create. That's not the right story. It means that I went to get a glass and then I went over to the sink. I just didn't take time to shut the door. So this really does for our families. also, parents really want to know that the kids are okay. And so they'll say things like, okay, so next year we have to play in their classes. Well, that ADHD kid really cannot conceptualize next year ⁓ many times, right? And then the parent kind of is infused with anger and anxiety going, you have to think better. You know, what about your future? And so our lack of vision into the future is hard. ⁓ dear, just even trying to get out of the house at the same time, right? Think of all the times getting out of the house requires memory, requires fore-planning, and we're bad at all of it. And that causes struggles, and we bring those to the emotional realm. So that's how we end up not talking on the car ride to church because we're all angry with each other. Daniella Karidi, PhD: Hmm. Right. And I feel that ⁓ one of my book readers in the book club, said like, well, if I just remember this book Tamara wrote and I would remember it. And I'm like, well, put it where you can see it. ⁓ Use it, assume that you're not going to remember it and just give yourself permission to reread it. Because every time you're going to reread it, you're going to be exposing yourself as a new person and it's great. And then remember that Tamara Rosier: Yeah. Yeah. Daniella Karidi, PhD: our memory is the default system is to forget. And a lot of people don't remember that, that our brain is designed to forget. So ⁓ that is like hard for us to remember. Tamara Rosier: Yeah. So yeah, well, and here's the thing. Honestly, it's one thing I wish I could change about myself is my memory. And I get so envious when I'm with psychiatrists who can rattle off like, well, 15 % of blah, blah, blah, blah, and 25, you know, and I cannot do that. I just really have no memory to do that. And so I get frustrated with myself, but here's what I do when I want to learn something or remember something. I do the see one, do one, teach one method. So see one is I read it and then I do something with the information. So either I write it down in a different place, I post it somewhere, but I have to do something with the information that I'm actually changing the information a little bit. Daniella Karidi, PhD: Mm-hmm. Tamara Rosier: And then the teach one is my poor husband has to hear what I learned. ⁓ My dogs are in ⁓ the room with me today. They've learned a lot too, because that's my teach one. So I'm like, hey guys, I just read this chapter. And this is what this chapter is really saying. Here's how I think I'm going to apply this. So that's my secret of trying to get information to stick in my bean head. Daniella Karidi, PhD: Love it. love that. Active learning basically is what you're talking about and I love it, love it, love it. So since we're going to run out of time, I'm going to take this opportunity to first, before you tell us what next you're doing, ⁓ I want you to tell me if you could go back and talk to your past self, what would you share from what you learned now about ADHD and about life to your past self? Tamara Rosier: It is, yes. Okay, it's interesting you say this. I've actually done this. And I'm going to get a little woo-woo, but I have gone back in my mind and told six-year-old self that the big feeling she's feeling is actually called hopelessness, because I felt hopeless when I was around six and seven. ⁓ just to say life is going to get easier. And it's going to get easier because you keep showing up and you're going to be okay. It will get better. And then I visited myself when I'm 12. And at 12, that's when I did run away from home because it was not a good situation. I ran away to a friend's house though, so I wasn't homeless. just, I wasn't that brave, but I just refused to go home. ⁓ until my mother signed over custody to my dad. And so for that 12 year old, I say, you know what? That was your first time standing up for yourself and you're going to have to learn that and get better at it because you have, you wanted people please, but that's okay. I see that glimmer of hope. And so I would, I suggest people actually do this. Just go back at different times and go at a girl, I see you, or at a boy, I see you. And you're going to need this in the future. And the biggest thing, and I know this is going to sound corny, is at every age, I'd say, your brain's not broken. You're okay. You're not dumb. I thought I was dumb. Your brain's not broken. You're going to be okay. Daniella Karidi, PhD: I love it. I love it. And ⁓ agree. Your brain isn't broken and you are going to be okay. What would you tell to your future self? Tamara Rosier: Yeah. Okay, now this is where, and you know why, this is why I'm like, future self? Who's she? I don't even know her yet. ⁓ And so what I have to do is I have to reverse into a time capsule. So if future me pulled off a time capsule, I'd say, hey listen, you're old now, and I hope you are loving life. And I hope you're just, you still are embracing the adventure of life every day. And don't let your world get that small. Daniella Karidi, PhD: Love it, love it. I would tell your future self, continue sharing your gifts with the rest of us because they're meaningful. They are meaningful, so keep on sharing them. Tamara Rosier: course. ⁓ thank you, that's so kind of you. That's so kind. Daniella Karidi, PhD: So where can people find you and what are you working on? Tamara Rosier: Well, I do have a new book coming out in the fall and it's the teen version of Your Not Broken. So it's written to teens and young adults and my assignment was simple. Take the original book, Your Braids Not Broken, and just make a few changes. You know where this is going, don't you? Daniella Karidi, PhD: Ooh. So how much did you overwork it? Of course, of course, of course. Tamara Rosier: I rewrote everything. It follows. I love it. You're like, yeah, I know where this is going from a off. It follows ⁓ book of Your Brains Not Broken, the adult version. But I go, ⁓ you you and I both know that ⁓ teens ⁓ really of work through identity development. So I kind of applied some theories of that ⁓ from ⁓ So. No, I reworked a lot and it's a new book to me, but it was a lot of fun. I'm grateful it's coming out. I just saw the interior design of it today and ⁓ they a ⁓ a serif ⁓ font, know, without the little hooks at the end and that's going to make it easier for readers. ⁓ So have a wonderful publisher who, when I said, listen, Daniella Karidi, PhD: Mm-hmm. Tamara Rosier: teens have to have these things, they're really listening and they laid the book out beautifully. There's illustrations in there, so I'm very happy with it. Daniella Karidi, PhD: I love it. Well, I can't wait to read it and hopefully maybe have you back here to talk about it. where can people find you? Tamara Rosier: Anytime. You can find me in two places. My author website is www.tararosier.com and I run the ADHD Center of West Michigan. That's www.msmigueliadhd.com. Daniella Karidi, PhD: Perfect. And I'm going to remind people in the audience, if you're listening, that you can find me at ADHDtime.com. And if you left this podcast, follow, share, leave comments and reviews because that's how I grow. And if you hated it, don't tell anyone. ⁓ Tamara Rosier: Ha ha ha! Keep it yourself! Daniella Karidi, PhD: Exactly. Thank you.