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203. ADHD Myths Exposed · Radically Genuine

• Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (00:01.474) Welcome to the Radically Genuine Podcast. I am Dr. Roger McFillin. If you follow my work, you understand that I clearly believe ADHD is an illegitimate medical condition. It's a label that's harmful because I believe it not only pathologizes a range of normal behaviors that do not fit into the constraints of modern classroom and society, but they also limit the investigat- investigation into potential legitimate root causes and other problems that do exist. In many cases, the very traits that were drugging out of children, their restlessness, their inability to sit still, the need to explore, these are the exact qualities that kept our species alive for 300,000 years. Today we're joined by Roman Wyden, who's starting a movement called ADHD is Over. A book, a great podcast. He's in the process of creating a, in the middle of a documentary film. He dares to ask these critical questions, like how did we get to a place where we're giving children the same class of drugs as cocaine, schedule two controlled substances, simply because they won't sit still in a classroom? You that was designed to train factory workers, obedient children to follow rules without movement? I think this is about a discussion about the 6.1 million American children, probably more, currently labeled with the diagnosis. It's about the $13 billion ADHD drug market. And it's about a radical proposition that these children that we're calling disordered could be possibly showing us what human evolution looks like in real time. When his son Kai was diagnosed at seven, doctors handed him a prescription and a label. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (02:04.322) that could potentially follow him for life. Instead, as a father, he chose to question everything. What he discovered changed not just his son's trajectory, but the entire family's understanding of what it means to be a human in the 21st century. These are the conversations that we must have. Roman Wide and welcome to the Radically Genuine Podcast. Roman Wyden (02:27.478) Thank you, Roger. Thanks for having me. And what an intro I love. You have to become my intro writer. you know, follow like following you and seeing you on X, that's how we connected. just, you know, there's like an intuitive resonance. It was like, this guy gets it. Okay. We got to have a conversation. So I just really welcome that opportunity, to have these conversations like, like with you, this, this is why I get up in the morning. This is why can we die? deeper can we make a difference with these conversations and I think we can. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (03:02.964) agree. That's why I'm very grateful that you did reach out. Obviously, from the place that I'm coming from as a mental health professional, as a clinical psychologist, I skew outside what is the standard. I question something that almost everyone in my field accepts. But I've also dug into the science. I know that what they're doing is they're distorting brain science to create it as a legitimate medical condition to push an industry. And with diagnostic expansion and the misrepresentation of what ADHD is, it's led to a huge market to drug and ultimately try to sedate the energy of very active people who have amazing capabilities that are needed. my personal belief is that this is crime against humanity. I know that sounds extreme to people, but I want to first understand your story. How did you get here as a father where it's really taken over your life, where you're writing, you're creating a documentary, you're running a podcast. You've been able to speak with some of the most profound experts in this area. And so I have to learn also what you're learning in your process. Roman Wyden (04:21.804) Yeah. And thanks for saying that crime against humanity, you know, that could sound extreme, but really I think it is. I think we're waking up to it. And, know, I didn't want to do this. Like I don't, I didn't at some point in my life say, Oh, I want to wake up every morning and think about ADHD and have people email me and text me and send me stuff. But when our son was, um, seven, this is about almost 10 years ago, the school he was at, which we thought was fairly alternative and somewhat chill, you know, at the time, it was a private school and affordable private school in a small town. And the school said, the teacher and the principal said, what we should talk, you know, we got some concerns about your son. And look, I knew my son was very active. He was very curious. He was very strong willed. I could tell he was like, I would always say like, It's like a little mini Elon Musk, you know, it's like whether whether you're a pro Musk or anti Musk, it doesn't matter the guy's intelligent committed. You know, he's, he gets shit done. Right. And so I always thought, okay, well, I mean, that's he's a boy. He's my son. He's I was intense as a kid. I was called sports Billy. it's a reference to a, anime animation that I grew up in. grew up in Switzerland. So it was this little kid with a giant bag and inside of the bag was like every single sports equipment ever. Cause he just needed to play all these different sports when he wanted to play them. Right. So He always had this bag with him. That was me and that was my son. And so we went into the school one day and this was with my boy's mom, my ex, my co parent, we went in there and they sat us down and I said, look, we're just going to be straight with you guys. We think he has ADHD and you should get him tested. And I remember their mom started crying and you know, it was a shock to her and Roman Wyden (06:16.264) I just felt, I don't know, something came back to me from the, days of being a Catholic schoolboy growing up in Switzerland, where I would sit in, you know, in church and I would hear all this stuff. And again, this is not an anti-religion thing. This is more of a pro me trusting my intuition. was just sitting there going like, I don't know. It sounds like rhetoric. sounds like just a story being told. It sounds like there's more than meets the eye. Like I'm not, I'm not resonating with this. So I remember, remember telling her after we left, said, I don't buy it. I really don't buy it, but let's get them diagnosed. So I know what they think they being the experts, right? So we got them diagnosed and this was crazy. This was a three day, four hours a day session with this evaluator and every 20 minutes as a, you know, reward, the evaluator would give him sugary and gluten snacks. Right. And so of course my son's even more like hyper and Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (07:12.398) . Roman Wyden (07:20.0) We waited for, I don't know what it was, three weeks maybe or a month, and then we got the evaluation. And I pulled it up again, just to, I just want to read this because it was a cocktail of diagnosis. Basically, first of all, they said, autism spectrum disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, specific learning disorder with impairment in reading, specific learning disorder with impairment in writing, provisional TIC disorder and developmental coordination disorder. So I'm just my head spinning. like, which, how do I research all of that? Right. And she said, don't worry, mainly ADHD. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (08:03.151) Hmm. Roman Wyden (08:03.572) I was like, okay, well, that helps a little. But anyway, I didn't buy the autism anyway, with my son, I just knew he was he was allergic to buttons. He didn't like buttons. Because once when he was a little kid, we tried to remove like a polo shirt. And you know, the buttons got stuck in his neck here. And he almost felt like he's suffocating. So naturally, he didn't want to wear buttons, which by the way, once he turned 15. suddenly now he wears buttons, right? It was a phase. It was a sort of a little trauma there. But anyway, my point is that I was like, it's not autism, all the other stuff, he can outgrow it ticks, tick disorder, I believe you get ticks because you're, you have anxiety, you have reactions, you have traumas, you have, it's not a disorder again. So I focused on ADHD and What happened was somebody gave us a book. This was Tom Hartman's Hunter in a Farmer's World. And that kind of kicked off my research. At first I thought, that's it. I'm going to make a documentary about the hunter farmer kind of thing. And Tom Hartman was excited. We met a couple of times. But then I realized that's only one part. You know, like you said earlier, this sort of like, the evolutionary kind of genetic makeup of the hunter who needs to take in more information to be safe. Right. And so then the brain gets wired that way. So now you're a hunter, but if you're a farmer and you're never exposed to that kind of danger, you have a different wiring. So it all made sense, but I was like, okay, well that's, let's keep going. And so I kept reading all these books. I came across lots of them. saw we had a mutual. you interviewed someone, Patrick Hahn with the book obedience pills, right? Great guy, great conversation. Gabor Matei is somebody I was fortunate enough to be introduced through a mutual friend. And he was really the one he was really sort of the main driver that pointed towards trauma or what I now believe, I like to call it stressors. stressors is a big, it's it's a wide spectrum, right? You can have stressors from food dyes to vaccines to Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (09:35.823) Mm-hmm. Roman Wyden (10:03.456) childhood trauma, rough birth, jaundice, circumcision, like you name it. There's a giant spectrum of stressors. And I'm a believer if we're going to point at something, it is a combination of stressors that were enough for your particular child to have them check out, to have them sort of form this coping mechanism, this stress response. That's, you know, in a nutshell, where I've arrived when people say, what do you think causes ADHD? And I said, I don't know the truth. It's not one thing. But I know that stressors is for me after 10 years of research, the one thing, right? Whether you call it traumas or childhood, what is it? Traumatic, what is it? CPSD, I can never say it. Not PTSD, but childhood PTSD, right? Essentially. To me, is the closest to scientific medical logical explanation of why a child would tune out. So that's kind of how you know, in a nutshell, that's how we got here 10 years later, I will just say for our listeners that my son Kai who's now about to turn 17 is an outstanding guy. He was never medicated. We chose not to medicate him. We tried a lot of lot of lot of alternative modalities and It was it was like a process of elimination, right? People would say, Oh, this, this helps ADHD. And, know, after a while, I'm like, well, yes, let's try it out. Maybe not for our son. Maybe it worked for your child, right? Or maybe it's overhyped this supplement. Oh my God, if you take saffron extract, it's over no ADHD, right? So we would try things. But ultimately, he was never medicated. And now almost 17, he's doing a year of high school in Ecuador, where his mom is from. He's thriving. He's got good grades in a highly, you know, challenging, academically challenging school, great social network. He had two jobs before he left here in California, where we live, two jobs, busing tables. They loved him. He was attentive. He was engaged. You know, he made money. He spent his money well. He saved money. Roman Wyden (12:26.016) He was like a little bit of an entrepreneur, you know? And so he is no longer hyperactive. He's not more impulsive than a 16, 17 year old is growing up. Not more impulsive than I am, you know, at 55. And he's just not, he can focus and he can focus when he sees that there's a reason to focus. When there's something he loves or when he needs to show up for the you know, at the, at the restaurant, right? For the guests or, you know, the customers, he's there, right? When he's dealing with money, he's good. When he listens to his favorite music, when he designs, he loves clothing. He designs, he's designed clothes before like shirts and stuff. He's so focused, right? They call it hyper-focus. I just call it focused driven by passion or need, you know, need or intention. And so just for our listeners, it's possible. Again, this is my son. This may not. work out the same way for you. But taking the hard road, the 10 year patients and trial by error alternative road has paid off for us. I could have given him medication 10 years ago, and who knows where we would be today. I will never know. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (13:41.361) I'm so glad that you spoke about him today because there's a lot of fear mongering out there. Untreated ADHD would lead to this. And what is treatment? Treatment overwhelmingly is take this pill. And they never talk about the adverse consequences of taking that drug. They don't talk about the adverse consequences of the label and what that does to a developing identity and the way they view themselves. So... This offers us such an opportunity to talk about alternatives because what you did is you chose an alternative. If ADHD didn't necessarily exist for you. And it's interesting, we're recording this podcast. Yesterday, President Trump, Bobby Kennedy, were talking about autism and even ADHD came up because we're talking about the control group is, you know, those who've lived different lifestyles who aren't in the U S modern. culture, like the Amish, for example, who don't subject themselves to vaccines, aren't in public schools, are engaged with nature, eat real food that they farm themselves, generally speaking, right? So it's a great control group to what is modern society, because we are seeing an epidemic of chronic disease, including conditions that we label as ADHD. And it almost appears that there's a bit of a mismatch between what we've evolved to become versus what modern society is providing us. And it is multiple factors that can contribute to what we label as ADHD. And that's what I like to describe this as today and make sure that all the listeners understand that if we took away ADHD as a discrete medical illness, like you experienced this because you have ADHD. Now that's a lie, right? All ADHD is a label. It's like saying, well, you have a fever because you have fever disorder. instead of understanding that that's your body's reaction to some underlying cause. So a symptom of inactivity or inattention may be a problem in a particular environment, and it may be a skill at another one, but also hyperactivity, inattention, any of these other symptoms could also be, as you communicated, could be a reaction or response Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (16:01.072) to stressors, those stressors could be physiological in nature. They could be related to an underlying pathology or health related condition. They could also be related to another condition like trauma, as you well said, because one of the things that you see in the modern American school system is kids who are coming from violent backgrounds where they're exposed to trauma, neglect, they go into the system. Obviously it's much more difficult to focus on school. They might have... relationships with adults and caregivers there, where it's a little bit more adversarial given what they're learning in their own home environments, and the subsequent behavior then meets the criteria. So ADHD is in its own condition. ADHD is just a label. And there could be a range of problems with adhering and over identifying with this label. But here's my follow up question of what you shared. what age was he again when he went through that evaluation? Roman Wyden (17:00.076) Seven. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (17:01.616) And do you know who, what were the credentials of the evaluation and do you know specific aspects of what were done in the evaluation? Roman Wyden (17:11.186) You know, it's been so long, I haven't focused on that. I just remember, this person was one of, you know, we were in Los Angeles at the time, she was one of the top evaluators with all the credentials. You know, I looked her up later, and there was no question she was, you know, the woman for the job, right? The test. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (17:35.984) probably a developmental psychologist of some sort, right? So there was probably the administration of like cognitive and learning assessments. There was checklists probably that you had to fill out as parents. And then there. Roman Wyden (17:39.55) Yeah. Yeah. Roman Wyden (17:45.161) Absolutely. Yep. Roman Wyden (17:49.547) Yep. But not, I will say, sorry to interrupt, but as parents, I felt like we were a really small part of it. You know, it wasn't like somebody really tried to look under the hood of our family system and understand it. was very, yeah, very small portion of it and very almost surfacey, you know? Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (18:12.037) which is really unfortunate because how do you evaluate something without full context, right? Like how does a kid at seven get a label without fully understanding everything he may be reacting to, the foods that he's eating, the environment he lives in, the parents that he has, his day to day, what he loves to do, observing him in his quote unquote natural environment, observing him in his school environment. Like, and that's the thing about these evaluations, you go to an office, And now this is a unique setting. Now all you're doing is you're observing a seven-year-old in a four-hour session. And in that four-hour session, you are observing how he responds to being placed under a stressful condition with a, with a stranger and he's being evaluated on how to do various tasks, right? And we don't really know what he ate that morning or how much sleep he got the night before. and then you reward him with sugar and then you reward him with gluten. None of it seems to meet the scientific standard for me, the threshold of empirical scrutiny, right? And how easy it is to obtain that. And let's face it, most people aren't going to get their evaluation over multiple days by a highly credentialed evaluator who's likely a psychologist. Roman Wyden (19:26.049) Yeah. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (19:38.446) Really people are getting the label now in their primary care centers. They get the label quickly by meeting with a psychiatrist. They may even do a quick screener on a telehealth company like HIMSS in order to get the prescription. I wonder what you think that says about the legitimacy of the condition and the evaluative process. Roman Wyden (20:05.194) I mean, I, I totally agree with you and maybe even the unspoken words there behind what you just said. It's like, we're realizing that it's so easy to get an ADHD diagnosis and medication nowadays, because parents are now so influenced already, before the visit that they come in and they say, I think, or we think our son has this disorder because they've heard about it on Reddit or social media or you know, through a TV commercial. So it's it's backwards. It's turned around because it's supposed to be the expert that's evaluating your child and says, by the way, I think with what I've seen here in the past, you know, they may qualify for this disorder and medication. But parents are now leading it. I've I hear this all the time where they go, Well, I just think, you know, I read something and I think that's my son. And it's sad to me. It's really sad to me because, the reason why I wrote my book was I needed this wedge. wanted to insert this wedge between, for parents between diagnosis and their first action, right? Cause it was originally going to be called ADHD is not an emergency because it's not, you know, and, I stuck with the ADHD is over kind of brand title. But it was really important to me for parents to know like, look, this is not a life or death, unless it is 3 % of the population, maybe a single mom has three jobs and she just can't function. Right. I get it. Use the bandaid. It's temporary, but it's not an emergency. It's not a life destroying. As you said, it's guilt mongering future. you know, for experts telling the parents that you're going to mess up your child's future. It's not an emergency and it's also not a life sentence. And so. It's important for me to let the listeners know that like it, you know, because it's not an emergency, we can take a deep breath and we can do more research and we can start looking into what is this diagnosis? Like, let's look at it. ADHD four letters. it's an abbreviation of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Okay. How did that term come about? Cause it wasn't always called that. there's a thing called the DSM, like the diagnostic statistical manual, mental, mental disorders. Roman Wyden (22:24.47) there's experts, eight to 15 vote on what is a disorder, what is the symptom for disorder, right? So in other words, when I say in my book, my subtitle is the struggle is real, the label is not it's because it was made up, it was voted on, right? So you have this label, the ADHD, that's an abbreviation, and it's basically the label for a bunch of symptoms. And what are symptoms are observed behaviors. So what they do is they look at like these behaviors, How far from the norm does this person deviate? And then now you say, okay, so they're not normal. So these symptoms that we decided on that would be the behavior we look for that's off the norm. Now we're going to label you. Well, if you look at that, it's ridiculous. Cause when I ask people sometimes they say, I have ADHD and they say, well, no one has it. It's not a thing. It's not like a tumor in your brain. not a medical disorder. It's like, It's a psychiatric disorder. It's invented medical disorders are discovered, right? There's a big difference. I'm splitting hairs here for a good reason. But when I say, well, why do you have ADHD? They go, well, I'm hyperactive, impulsive and attentive. And I go, why are you hyperactive and attentive and impulsive? Because I have ADHD. Well, you cannot use the, the, the label that we've given to a bunch of symptoms as the explanation, the cause that makes no sense. It's like, well, But why do you have, why do you behave that way? Let's start there. Let's go deeper. Why do you react? Why do you check out? Why do you have this stress response? Why do you feel unsafe and you need to be over there versus over here? That shiny thing is more exciting than this boring thing or this unsafe moment is not good. So I want to be over there or outside, right? If we look, if we start there, now we're going to look under the hood. always use my metaphor of the check engine light. The diagnosis is like a check engine light. And if you're just going to medicate a child, that's like putting a piece of duct tape on a check engine light and going like, we're good. We can keep driving and you drive it into the ground. But if we open the hood and we look inside of the hood of what could use some fixing, some adjusting. Now we're actually making sure this vehicle runs well, right? I hate to compare kids with vehicles, but ultimately we are a machine. are a human machine. And if it's not running well, if we're not behaving well, if there's friction with the environment. Roman Wyden (24:47.116) wouldn't it make sense to see why we behave that way and not to label it and say, I have this thing that doesn't actually exist. It's not a thing. So it blows my mind still every day when I explain it to people, they're like, well, yeah, but it is real. It's like, yeah, yes and no. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (25:06.928) You bring up some really good points because I've had these debates and these conversations with other people previously, and it gets to deep dive into like what actually is attention. So what I would see, and I've worked in schools and I've been in various clinics, in my training I did ADHD evaluations as a way of being able to become a clinical psychologist. That's what clinical psychologists do. I always thought direct observation was important. often these label, it's like a pipeline from school into the medical system. And then you get the label because the inattention or the hyperactivity is viewed in that context. think technically you require two contexts, contextual environments in order to, so like home or school, but really you could be tasked with doing the same things at home that you're doing in school. So it's not like it's two separate environments really matter. You're trying to do homework at home and you know, you have a hard time tolerating it, this is going to get you the label. But then I would observe these kids being able to like be on the baseball field or football field or soccer field, for example, and they have like laser focus attention, like they are engaged in the flow of the game and they can be incredible athletes. It's not like they're out there picking down the lions and staring up at the clouds. And I might see them in another environment where there's constant stimulation, like a video game, for example. And then they can like focus on the video game for hours. So it's like, it's not that they don't have the capacity to attend to stimuli. They're choosing what is most relevant to them. And they may be thriving in that. And then you put them into another environment and now they're struggling. But then I would reflect on myself and other people. Roman Wyden (26:49.099) Yeah. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (27:05.062) Wait a second, isn't that all of us? Like, first of all, I could, as an adult, I could focus in school, but as a kid, I couldn't. So it's not like it's a static kind of issue or problem, like you'd never obtain the ability to focus in school. You put me in another environment, like I'm not that that handy or mechanical. Like you have me like trying to build a house or try to dissect a car. I'm going to get bored. I'm not going to. I'm going to. My attention is not going to focus on it. And so we all have this great variability. Like it's what's wonderful about the world works is is like you have. Different skills and talents for different people like your filmmaker. There's probably like a very artistic side to you. You're also writing and maybe you have technical aspects in creating. you put you in another environment and you might be bored to tears and it'd be very difficult for you to focus. So we've created this false kind of understanding about what is normal and expected, right? And then anything that deviates from that norm and that's expected, of course, is then disordered. But it really seems purposeful, right? Like it's... It miscommunicates to us about who we should be and what we should be doing and what leads to success. It feels like it's very cultural and it's like filtered into have a very rigid and limited way of defining what it means to be successful in this life. Roman Wyden (28:38.068) Yeah, well said. And I love there's this, this, you probably have seen it, but there's this video, I think it was out of Florida University somewhere research where they put a kid in a swiveling office chair in front of a screen and then he had to do math. And so they sped up the footage and he keeps swiveling and he keeps, you know, going back to it and And then same kid, same chair, same screen. He was watching Star Wars, I believe. And I think he swiveled once, right? And the footage was next to each other. One was sped up, swiveling. The other one is sitting still trying to make the same argument. Like, well, the kid's paying attention, isn't he now that he's watching a movie? And here's the funny thing. When I listen to experts, like I always use Russell Barkley as the example, because he's the loudest, what I call the angriest. supposedly that advocate for people with ADHD, but he used to say, well, whoop dee doo. the world, you know, out there isn't all about playing video games and watching movies. And I go, hold on, but that's telling me. that you're acknowledging that it's the environment that actually has a child be able to pay attention or not. maybe we live in a world that is not, or I should say that child isn't, isn't aligned with that part of his environment or the world right now. Therefore he's, he can pay attention. It's boring. He checks out, but if it's aligned, like you said, playing baseball or watching video, playing video games, Now there's attention. So to me, that alone is a very simple, logical way of saying, guys, you have it wrong. I'm sorry. It's not an attention deficit, first of all, but no one admits that not even Barkley would ever say, Hey guys, we should change it away from deficit because it's not true. Right. Cause they would risk the legacy of their credentials and their work and all that stuff before they died. They don't want to admit that they were maybe wrong. You know, Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (30:34.067) And I think there's significant financial conflicts of interest with Russell Barkley, which we do see in the industry. I'm wondering if, did you get a chance to interview him at all or did you attempt to interview him at all for your film or book? Roman Wyden (30:38.406) yeah. Roman Wyden (30:44.392) I did. Yeah. I reached out to him early on and he said, well, I'm already doing another ADHD documentary, which I saw that wasn't that great. It was okay. I forgot the name now. This is a while back. And he said, I, I'm not going to do two at a time. Uh, and I was like, okay, fine. So, you know, that was that at the time. And honestly, over the years, like I almost, um, I'm sure you're familiar with Stephen Farone, who's the, uh, I think he's the president of the world federation of ADHD. Um, he reached out to me this was a weird I'll make a long story short but We had created a free downloadable PDF that was called the ADHD Diagnosis Survival Guide. And for parents, they could just download it and everything was well-researched, documented. There wasn't a lot of science in there. If there was, there was a link and all that, right? So was a very interactive, fun thing for parents to download. had thousands of downloads, which was great. And so a friend of mine who's been an activist in this space since the eighties, she had like a 600 people email list that she said, hey, I'll send this to all my ADHD contacts if you'd like. And I'm like, amazing. So she did. And one morning she told me I just sent it out. And three hours later, I get an email from Dr. Steven Farone saying, got your survival guide, disagree with it. And there's a lot of misinformation. I was like, wait a minute. there's this like top expert that takes his time to not only look at it, but then to email me this dad, right? To say this, I'm like, great, I'm going to write back and saying, hey, thanks for, you know, reading it. I agree to disagree, whatever, but could you just point me towards misinformation, please? He wrote back, he did not address that question. He just said, well, Roman Wyden (32:36.812) your theory about co regulation, like parent and child co regulation as a way to bring more, you know, peace into the household. He said, it certainly warrants more research, you know, studies. And that's all he said. And I'm thinking, well, buddy, that's been researched. That's not like a new thing. co regulation, attachment and all that stuff, right. But it just left me thinking, wow, like what what was this interaction really about? What was actually said? I mean, he was definitely threatened. He couldn't back anything up that he said was misinformation. And in a way, he credited me with having something in there that's good that should, you know, that we should look into, but also not being aware of that it has been looked into. And so it just felt like, man, these guys are just like winging it. They're just blinded by money and interest groups and their credentials and So yeah, there's a lot of money, a lot of financial interests and people can look that up on Wikipedia. In my book, I have a link to, it was a study or sort of a list of mental health experts that receive money from pharmaceutical companies. And it's not just ADHD, it's everywhere. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (33:51.615) course, Misinformation, it's like code word for saying, you're outside of our established narrative, sir. Get back into our established, you're not an expert. Only we can define what this is and no one else can. And if they do and it threatens our entire foundation of who we are and what we do, well, then it is misinformation. that's, at this point, know, Roman Wyden (33:59.021) you Yeah. That's right. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (34:19.752) post-COVID and so forth, we understand that that's an attack word that's used to be part of the mass conditioning. And you might as well just wear a label on your head that says, listen, I'm part of the expert class and I benefit from this diagnosis and don't threaten what we've established. Roman Wyden (34:38.57) Yeah. It's, it's really interesting. I, and that was my point earlier. You just reminded me is that I over the years, I decided not to interview people that are so intensely in the mainstream narrative, because I don't want it, my movement to be about arguing who's right and who's wrong. I wanted it to be more of a resonance type of project for parents to go like, you know what, what that guy's saying feels right. Or I like Gabor Maté, he resonates with me and I'm gonna, these are my people. I'm gonna go down that route. Cause that's what we did. I just don't want it to be this like, you know, my degree is bigger than your degree. It's like, I don't wanna play that game. It's so exhausting and no one will ever win because it's always like, there's a new study that came out and then in your study, that's actually not true. Like who's gonna judge that who's gonna actually sit down and go, okay, guys, based on this, you're right, there is no there's no winning, you know, it's all It's all resonance and yes, parents do your research and, know, but if you looked at the amount of studies I have and you have as well, Roger, mean, our heads are spinning. And if you're a parent who's not necessarily that interested in mental health or psychiatry or whatever, there's no way you're going to find any sanity in what you're looking at. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (36:03.646) There was a great moment in these Senate hearings a few weeks ago on vaccines and autism. And Aaron Seary, who is a attorney, was asked a question by one of the Democratic senators. Are you a doctor, sir? Are you an expert, sir? And he says, I've deposed the experts. I've deposed the doctors. And since I can't rely on a credential, I have to come with evidence. And I thought that was just the best line because you can fall back on your credentials and then what you state is supposed to be automatically assumed fall in line. It's truth because I have these credentials and this level of expertise, which hurts a society. It hurts a culture when you can't enter into critical analysis and debate. Roman Wyden (36:34.88) Yeah Roman Wyden (36:52.811) Yeah. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (36:58.962) and you're just supposed to say, I'm sorry, I defer to you, Mr. Expert, I must just have misinformation because it's not what you are telling me. And I think we've grown, I think we're evolving past that when you take a step back and you see the thin veil between, you know, what is actual empirical scrutiny in science versus pharmaceutical promotion, industry corruption, you start to say, we have to take our independence back here, we have to take our own health authorities back. So my follow up question here is, you chose to go a different route with your son. Obviously, there were some challenges that you needed to address. And I think the audience is going to ask themselves the question, Okay, well, what did you do to be able to achieve that better outcome that he becomes 17? And he's, he's thriving in different ways. How did you solve the problems when problems did exist? Roman Wyden (37:31.04) That's it. Roman Wyden (37:55.463) Great question. Thank you for bringing us back to really what I think parents want to know, which is what I wanted to know, right. And so the first thing I'm going to say here, again, this is our personal story. This disappoints a lot of parents because they don't think it's possible in their lives. But I in my book, spell it out that there's where there's a will, there's a way. So the first thing, and I'm trying to remember how we got there, I do believe it was the book. nature deficit disorder, nature deficit syndrome, Richard Louv, I think, or vitamin N. I'm trying to remember it's been so long ago. Anyway, the point is that we realized there's a misalignment between our son and the school that he's at. That's not his school. That teaching style, the teachers, the philosophy. just it just didn't work for him. And it was simple because we asked him, do you like your school? What do you what do you love? What do you hate? Right? Tell us. And so we decided early on, like, we're gonna switch schools, we have to try this out. We can't just continue because if the school said, if you want to continue here, you have to medicate him, well, we're not going to medicate him. So look for another school. So friends of ours had their child at what's called a child led humanistic education kind of school, where no grades, no homework, the kids can do whatever they want to do, whatever. And I was like, well, how are they going to learn? That's that scares me. That freaks me out. What do mean? How are they going to learn to write and read and all that stuff? And I remember meeting with the principal and she was just so grounded and so wonderful. And she said, that's how they learn what they love. And that's how they get a passion for wanting to learn. And I was like, OK, let's try it out. So we did. And by the way, it was a private school, but wasn't that expensive. And they had Roman Wyden (40:02.816) financial aid and you know, there was a lot of, there's a variety of different kind of parents, economic groups and all that. So it was wonderful. So our son went there for a year. And by sort of traditional educational standards, he was behind in reading. And we were getting worried, you know, cause you hear from other parents that are in, have their kids in other schools. Like, how's your son doing? as he reading, then not yet. Ooh, ooh, okay. Well, you know, and one day I remember walking and I'll, finish this point. I'll move on to the second one, but with this beautiful example of walking into the classroom one day, just to kind of see how he's doing. And he's sitting down there with a bunch of kids playing Pokemon cards. Most parents know what Pokemon cards are right. Or Yu-Gi-Oh cards. And he's playing. And I see him read off the card. And I was like, Whoa, wait, my son reads what? And he literally learned how to read from playing a game. And why? Because he needed to know what's on the card because he loved playing the game. So there was a necessity, right for him to learn this thing called reading. And so that's how he learned how to read. He's still not a big book, a big book reader. but he knows how to read and he learned how to write for, you know, for other reasons. So it's just a little example to show that if we let our kids unfold and instead of trying to mold them to become who we think they should be, they should go down the Ivy league track, cause that's what we did. And that's what success tells us to do. If we just let them unfold and give them a safe space where they can choose to learn about what they want to learn about. our minds will be blown. mean, my mind was blown. And so first thing I will say is try to change the school. If the school is a point of friction, I always say there's a friction between your child and a certain part of the environment. And if we can eliminate all that stress and friction, there's going to be a calm sense of home life, school life, whatever, right? It's never going to be not stressful. There's always stress as part of life. Roman Wyden (42:12.896) But the more as parents we can reduce the friction and bring peace to every area of life, right? Like school is the one we started. Then we decided to move and move closer to nature. We changed our, our, you know, diets, not diets, but nutrition. We made, I guess, better meals or more delicious meals. We watched more for organic foods and stuff. And at the beginning it was like, well, that's going to be expensive, but Again, where there's a will, there's a way. just figured out how to do it. And then screens were an issue. So I don't want to go too much into detail on any of those, but school is the biggest one because most kids are diagnosed as a result of some kind of friction between, you know, them, the kid and the school environment. So that's number one. I will just throw in another very inconvenient truth here, which is that Our marriage was on the rocks, my ex and I, I was emotionally not very available. wasn't a very present father. had my own addictions. had my own ways to not be present and to be over there and not here. Right. And perhaps if we have time later, we can talk about addiction and ADHD, because there's definitely a, a dance between the two, but I can now look back and Gabor Mate pointed this out in one of our calls. that that's a huge stressor that makes the child feel unsafe, especially when they're young. If one or both parents aren't very present. His mom was very much into her work. She was busy, busy, busy, called it workaholism, right? We all have an addiction in some way or shape or form. so we weren't as available as our son needed us to be. Not every child is the same. So you may say, well, our kids are fine. They don't have ADHD. We're busy. For our son, it really had to do with, I think, just not having his parents that available, right? Physically, we were there. Well, there was a nanny also at some point, a child care, you know, it was a mess. And I know that that had a huge impact on our son. So again, school, home life, right? How are the parents? How is that relationship? Or is there divorce? Is it nasty? Is it, there's so many things that... Roman Wyden (44:35.968) the more peace we can bring to it, the more stress we can, you know, take out of those environments, the better the result. That's my, my take on it. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (44:47.926) Yeah, I'm glad that you shared that because it often requires radical honesty on part of parents to recognize where they could be playing a role in their child's development. And you mentioned this earlier that there are many parents who are driving this label, this diagnosis, and in some ways it can alleviate shame and guilt, because their child may be struggling in various contexts. And instead of then engaging in that radical honesty, to where they can change or maybe where they're at least part of a complex picture. It's much easier to say, well, my child's struggling because they have ADHD versus saying, well, we haven't been present. We don't actually have a very structured home that's child centered and we have laxed in discipline. Or maybe we're using screens as a crutch too often to parent our own kids. All legitimate problems that exist in modern society. There are lot of complex factors, Economically, we require often dual incomes, which removes one parent from the home. And all these are issues that we aren't always willing to fully identify, face, and try to solve. And this label can just protect parents. Roman Wyden (45:45.089) Yep. Roman Wyden (46:07.016) Absolutely. I'm glad you brought this up. There's so many things obviously, I'd love to say and you've had really great questions and you keep bringing us to these, these awesome corners. And I love that. You know, Dr. Gabor Mate and also Dr. Erica Commissar, who I've been fortunate to interview as well. They both always get accused for parent blaming. And it blows my mind because I've talked to them for hours, both of them. There's not a blaming particle in their being like there's not and they keep saying it again and again this is not to blame parents but the word is responsibility and I think and I know you know this really well just from seeing your posts and you know I love I love reading your posts as well on X and you know being responsible for something doesn't mean it's your fault or you're to blame it means that you can respond powerfully to a situation in life and say you know what I had something to do with this I'm gonna I'm gonna fix it or I'm gonna take care of I'm gonna do my part whatever that is right and look around the world divorce rates and war and all that stuff I believe is a direct result of people just not being responsible for their side of the street and it's not 50-50 it's a hundred a hundred right we don't go well you have to do your part and I do mine it's like no a hundred percent being responsible means you get power You can now say, I have a child with ADHD or they call it ADHD. I have a child with these struggles, right? These behaviors that cause friction and I don't want my child to go through life with that much friction. So what can we, parents do first before we label and Medicaid? Let me tell you, I work with parents. I'm really fortunate to work with lot of Australians as well as Americans. Those are the two bigger markets for my coaching. And they're so eager. Like the Australians are like in the, second coaching session, the, the wife will say, well, you know, I wish I could do an Australian accent, but I can't, you know, we, we, we were just going to be straight with you. Like, you know, we're both alcoholics. I'm like, great. mean, meaning yes, now we can work with something here, right? Roman Wyden (48:14.122) Whereas I've had American couples that took like seven sessions. They're like, well, we kind of drink, you know, glass a night and two maybe sometimes we're not alcoholics, but you know, and you're like, okay, can we just be straight because all of that affects the child. mean, you know, alcoholic parents like walking on eggshells, stress, anxiety, overworked. All of that is what I called earlier, the stressors on a child's young, fragile nervous system, right? That the jolts, the prods. And so it's interesting because when parents say, Oh, you know what? Yeah, we could, we could, we could get into a 12 step program and maybe we need some counseling around parenting and our marriage, right? And maybe I've had parents fairly soon realize we're stuck in careers that pay well, but we hate it. We are stressed. It's toxic. My coaching is like, get out. Of course. Well, it's not that easy. I got it. But I'm just saying, get out. You can get out tomorrow or in five years. There's no expectation here. I'd love to coach you for five years, but why would you want to wait five years? So it's almost like when all that work gets done first, when the parents take responsibility and they do whatever they can to clean up, I always call it like put your house in order first, before you consider medication and labeling your child. I would bet my money on it that, that 85 % of the cases would just dissolve. It'd be like, no, they're not, they're actually not behaving that way anymore. I saw it in our family. You know, I took radical responsibility for the infidelity I had in my marriage that caused the divorce, but it became a very peaceful divorce because I worked hard at it. I, I, owned it. I showed up. I did full disclosure. I was hiding nothing. I took care of my kids and my ex during during the divorce. I knew that I had to step it up. And it's radical honesty. And to me, I claim to this day, I can't prove it that that we have two boys, but one of them was the one diagnosed Kai. His nervous system, you could feel it, you know, it's it's all in the field, we're all connected, especially in the family unit. And so that like, peace and ease and strength. Roman Wyden (50:40.054) that I brought to the table that I couldn't previously bring to the table, in my opinion, formed the young man he is today, you know, and we're role models, they watch us not just their nervous systems co regulate, but they're watching, they're listening, they're learning. And so I know that's a long winded answer to say, I urge parents to really, like, lift up the doormat and look at the dirt underneath, you know, like, put your house in order first, like your child's not the problem. You know, we as parents, need to heal our shit first. That's my philosophy. We got to go first. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (51:15.573) Well said. And it's the best example to say that this label is illegitimate. It's only a series of symptoms or behaviors that one is observing. And it provides us no information about causal factors. And until there would be radical honesty and a full understanding and context and things that you just described, there's no way that person can be helped. Really, and you're just creating a false identity and a false kind of narrative about what your life is by adhering to that. That was actually a great commentary on personal responsibility, empowerment, and choice in your life, your freedom to be able to, regardless of what the adverse conditions are in front of you or the challenges, that your freedom lies in your... Roman Wyden (51:49.824) Yeah. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (52:09.387) your willingness to be able to face them and how you do face them. But ADHD is often described as like a genetic condition, which I think is not only scientifically inaccurate, but it disempowers. It sends the message that this is something that is outside of your control. It's something you are born into. And that is part of this kind of allopathic materialist paradigm in the way we view the human experience. In all your work that you're doing, your investigations, you're talking with experts and your own personal experience, what do you think about pushing this as a genetic brain disorder? Roman Wyden (52:46.572) I love that you brought this up again. you know, I'm just collecting all my thoughts. So many things are going through my head. So, yeah. So as I was doing research, I talked to Bruce Lipton, who's a biologist and you know, he's some call him woo woo. And, but he is a biologist. He's been doing this work since the eighties and he was sort of in this epigenetic field doing his research and saying, Hey guys, it's not, I love that he said this on my podcast. said ADHD is not a hardware issue. It's a issue. It's programming. It's not the brain, right. And he says that, you know, epigenetics has proven that it's the environment that turns on or off a set of genes or a gene, right. So you're never pre determined to have something but predisposed, you know, max. But so he's talking about how, you know, when we say when parents hear like, it's genetic, what they're hearing is, there's nothing I can do. And that's to what you were just saying, like, your personal responsibility and your power has just been taken away from you with a statement that's unscientific. And that's why actually, they talk about that's why they use this term parent blaming, because they want parents to know, look, there's nothing you can do. There's no, you, if you're being blamed or made wrong for it, run, right? These are the wrong experts. But actually, that's just a defense. to push their genetic narrative. And Gabor Matei was saying just recently, we shot him again for the documentary and he said that, look, genes don't change in a matter of 10, 20, 30 years. So to say like, it's genetic and it's an epidemic and all that stuff because it's genetic, it's just unscientific. And also, by the way, most people are surprised when I say this, but there's no ADHD gene, and there's no combination of ADHD genes. There's not even a gene for alcoholism and many, many, many disorders. Now, how a condition or say, a behavioral Roman Wyden (54:53.932) packet is handed down to a child is through the lineage through like transgenerational hand me down, but not genetic. It's in the environment. It's how the grandfather raised the son that became your father and now your child has ADHD, right? So what parents think is happening is that the genes get handed down, but it's actually the environment. which is the opposite of you get full responsibility. You can say, Hey, as a parent, I'm the steward of my child's environment. I'm the guide. I can do a lot to remove stressors from this environment. And then not only will my child's ADHD behaviors dissolve, but then their children may not deal with it. And, know, I've summed it down recently. Like, I forgot to ask you earlier, is there swearing okay on this podcast or no? Okay. Because Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (55:43.32) All right, yeah, your stuff, Roman Wyden (55:45.895) My the motto in my life currently is slow the fuck down. That's what I've learned. And I say that's the most effective cheapest form. readily available medication for ADHD. Now, parents might be like, well, that's easy to say, but my child and it's like, no, you start you slow the fuck down as the parent, slow down in working the wrong type of job, slow down in, in worrying anxiety, get treatment for that slow down in attracting the wrong partners and fighting, right? There's, again, a vast spectrum of how do you slow down, but to me, it's slowing down. that will transform everything. And I see it happening in my life. I'm still working at it. It's probably a lifelong journey, but the more I slow down, the more I can see where I, where things fall through the cracks, where I forgot to dot the I's and cross the T's, right? I suddenly realized, I've started 10 projects instead of two. Why? Cause I believe if I do 10, most likely one will work out. there's some fear. What's that fear about? Right. So slowing down almost reveals everything that needs attention, right? And so if we when we give the right attention to the right thing in our lives that we actually where we need it, then how can we go wrong? You know, it's Yeah. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (57:11.51) Yeah, you bring up some more good points. One about narratives too, and about that word medication. So we provide hyperactive children, children who have difficulty focusing on certain tasks in certain environments. You know, class of drugs that's similar to cocaine and methamphetamines, right? And the narrative that's pushed out there, and I laugh at it is that if you provide an ADHD kid a stimulant, they slow down and they focus as if a normal brain, whatever that is, which doesn't exist. And obviously everyone who gets diagnosed with ADHD doesn't go through this series of brain scans. There's no biological test. But they use that as like evidence if you give a kid a stimulant that it slows them down. But I just reflect on, You everybody, you, take an amphetamine, you take Adderall or you drink coffee, you are able to focus on something much better. I in myself become more focused. I slow down with coffee. I can do, you know, therapy sessions. I have like five therapy sessions in a row, which is listening to people for five straight hours. Coffee. or some form of a stimulant in that regard allows me to be more present and to focus. And I don't think for a second I have a disordered brain, but this narrative is out there. How do you address those who say, well, it works defending this treatment of stimulants? Roman Wyden (58:56.48) Well, it's just like what you just said, right? If you don't have to have been diagnosed with ADHD, for the stimulant to do the same type of, thing to your brain. in other words, it's not actually ADHD medication. We just label it as that. Right. And it's interesting because it took me a while to formulate my own kind of metaphor, but Tom Hartman's book, the hunter in the farmer's world, you know, where he talks about, once, this is sort of my interpretation is like you go. out there as a young hunter. It's your first hunt. You're ready, you're poised and then you know, cyber tooth tiger attacks and you're just like, holy shit and then you do whatever you're trained to do and you survive and you make it. Well, part of your operating system that's survive under extreme conditions just got activated, right? Whereas if you didn't go on your first hunt, never done it, that that part of the human operating system, that app has not been launched, right? It's not activated. But once it's activated, it's you can't put the cat back in the bag. It's just activated. You are now somebody who takes in a lot more information because you want to be safe and survive just like veterans that come back from war, right? they're now in an environment where they need to sit with their backs against the wall in a restaurant and see the exit and the entrance. So they just, they just got to take it all in to feel safe, right? So with that activated, I think when we give someone medication, it's almost like we're aligning them with this hectic, stressful life. So they can keep taking in that much information and process it to feel safe. So they, they can slow down and focus because it's familiar. It's aligned almost in a way, but if they don't, they get overwhelmed. It's too much information coming in and they don't have anything to keep up with that. So too much information. You're like, I'm, I, Roman Wyden (01:00:47.774) I'm tuning out, it's too much or, or I'm bored because it's just going over my head or so to me, it's a metaphor. It's simply like we're, we're, we're trying to chemically align something that will have them thrive in a world that actually I think they're not meant to thrive in and none of us, but you know, some can do it. And so it's a misalignment. So yes, it, works in a, in a way, but here's the kicker. What I tell parents, most parents want to give medication for let's just be honest here. It's for the academic performance, right? Because if there was no grades and no academic performance, no reports, no Ivy League school, none of that tracks we would probably focus on what do they want to do, right, like the school we went to that our son went to. But because of the fear that they're not going to perform academically, unless they're medicated, they will medicate. There's a study that's like 80 % of parents that that's what they that's what matters most. Well, here's the thing. So You might've heard of this, but it wasn't officially published, but Nadine Lambert out of Berkeley had a study of 26 years where she followed like 400 Bay area children into adulthood and half, well not half, majority, there was a group that was medicated and a group that wasn't. And then there's the other blindfolded and placebo, but basically, What she learned was that the kids that were medicated for ADHD actually were more likely to get in trouble later, be alcoholics, drug users, go to jail versus the kids that were not medicated. But parents are told if you don't medicate your child, they will most likely become a drug using delinquent and go to jail and be a loser. Right? So that's the complete opposite of what her study showed. And this is a 26 year study. It's been a while since I've seen a study that was done longer than five years. Roman Wyden (01:02:43.508) like recently where people go a new study shows like five years, 10 years, maybe 26 years. this was with Ritalin. So I tell parents, and then there's the MTA study, which I know, you know, about, I'm sure that also showed that the academic performance benefits after a year, they tapered off drastically. And by like year five, there's no academic or four. I think it was actually even year three. no academic benefits to medicating your child. So if parents knew that and they were really told, this could work for a year or two, but afterwards, it's going to be, you might be like, then what do we do? What are we going to do? Right? So it opens up a whole new conversation. is medication safe and effective? No, you and I know it's not safe. Safe for some very unsafe for many. Is it effective? Yeah, for a year or two, but parents are not told that You know, it's safe and effective. Yeah. Thousands, hundreds of thousands have done it. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (01:03:44.313) Yeah. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (01:03:48.075) Yeah, I'm so glad you brought that up. you mentioned Patrick Collin earlier as somebody that you interviewed and we both interviewed and you know, he really alerted me to that aspect of the literature where we don't have this evidence that suggests a medicated ADHD kid has better outcomes academically or behaviorally. In fact, what we're seeing is skewed in the other direction. And what I love about science as a concept is it's the search for truth. Now you can create methodological problems to try to produce an outcome you desire and call it science. But when we're honest and we think reasonably and we think critically, what's more likely if you tell a developing kid that the way to self-regulate is through drugs versus another path, you don't put them on drugs? which group is more likely to then use drugs in the future to change the way they think or feel. I mean, that's obvious to me. You're actually training someone to seek the alternative, to seek the mechanism outside of them instead of within them. And if people can just be a little bit more reasonable, you're getting them on stimulants. Stimulates have all kinds of problems with dependency and effectiveness and... adverse reactions and health effects down the line. And as we know, the brain is constantly seeking out homeostasis, right? So once you start taking any drug, even if it's coffee, there's going to be this tolerance that's developed for that. And you're going to need more. You're going to need more to get the same results. God, do I know that with my coffee habit, right? Roman Wyden (01:05:28.769) Yeah. Well, you you bring up a great point here with the word dependence because parents often ask me like so about you know, addiction because I have experienced an addiction I've been in 12 step programs not substance for other addictions but one thing I've learned is this. dependency on an outside source, whether it's a person, food, gambling, right? Alcohol, drugs, in this case drugs. Let's call them for what they are. They're drugs because they're scheduled to. the DEA. So it's a drug that outside dependency is going to create a dependency, right? The outside product is going to create a dependency. Independence is achieved, not from anything outside, right? It's from whether it's meditation, peace, exercise, better food, right? So children will grow up and lean on this, this substance like a crutch, right? And I explained this to my son early on and he got it. And what happened recently when he was before he went out of the country to do his year of high school in Ecuador, he was at a school here in California and they offered what they call a learning resource program. It's, it's a LRP kind of, where the kids with, you know, they call them neurodiverse kids, get to Roman Wyden (01:06:56.896) get their resources and do their homework and whatever with, with all the, I call them the outcast, right? So my son said to me, he's like, dad, I don't want to do that. I don't want to do that. And I said, okay, why not? And he said, I don't, I don't, these kids use it like a crutch. They always tell me like, I can't do this because I have ADHD or I got to go to this class now because with, And he realized like, I don't, I don't want to do that. And I was so proud of him, you know, that, that he himself saw that he could have easily applied for it. Cause he had the diagnosis in the past. Right. And they even asked him and he said, no, I just need to be able to do homework while I listened to music. Cause I love that. I love music and I can do it. And he does it that way. And they allowed him to do it in the classroom or He does it at home, obviously, but so it's again, finding your own way without using an external crutch that you then lean on. And like you said, you become so comfortable that crutch almost becomes part of your body. And you're now like, you can't, if somebody took, takes it away, which by the way, this interesting story, there was a, I won't mention her name, but there's a, a successful ADHD influencer online. And during COVID she didn't have access to her medications. And so she made a video about how ridiculous it is that people like her who depend on ADHD medications are struggling. And I've never seen such a mental breakdown on camera where it was like watching a six year old like that you just took her stuff toy away. Right. And I was like, wow, I feel for her. But at the same time, I'm sorry, honey, but you've created a dependency you've bought into the narrative that you'd need this to function as a human being in the world. And now that you can't have it, it's dangerous because somebody's pulling your strings. They're like, ha ha ha. Now you can't have it. Now you're crazy. And so it was, it was a wake up call for me. was like, wow, that's, that's an addiction right there. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (01:08:52.431) Yeah. And it's both the psychological consequences of that dependence and it's a chemical that, you know, now that is removed and your body is, it's responding in withdrawal and, you know, both of those together, you know, can create a lot of suffering. One final question. Been a great guest. appreciate all your time. technology, smartphone dependence. Roman Wyden (01:09:13.067) Yeah. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (01:09:20.077) and its current role in the diagnosis of ADHD. I'm just interested to know your thoughts on it. Roman Wyden (01:09:27.518) Absolutely. And I will just say again, that media or technology is also again, a stressor, right? Whether it pulls the kids away from focusing on what they need to or whether it has this rapid fire editing that you're just expecting everything to be that fast in life. We can't do without it. It's here to stay. have never been an extreme sort of prohibitor of media with my children. I haven't enforced it. You know, hey guys, you can't do this because your brain and I will just share with them once in while some studies or some videos. I will, you know, for driving, I'll say, Hey, let's take a break. Let's, let's look out the window and chat or, know, I do the best I can. But it certainly is, especially for children who have already other stressors, like whether it's food dyes, rough, rough childhood or a school that they, you know, not aligned with. it just exacerbates it. It's not, I always say none of these things are the cause, but they exacerbate the behavior that might already be there because of other stressors and traumas. But it's for parents, the only advice I have is like moderation, you know, and really again, insert yourself as a present parent and say, hey, you've been on screens for a couple hours, let's go for a walk or. let's have dinner together, whatever. It's, don't believe in the complete like abstinence of like, my kids are never going to have a, you know, an iPhone or a phone smartphone until they're 25. Okay, you do you of course, maybe that's fine. But I think it's part of our culture. It's not going anywhere. And if we Roman Wyden (01:11:12.052) restricted as we know with kids, they will find a way to still get it. They'll go to their friend's house and play video games there, right? Like, so moderation, be present and always acknowledge that media can be a or technology is an assistant. shouldn't become the replacement for family or attention or boredom or you know, yeah. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (01:11:37.041) Yeah, totally agree. And I think some of the science of this does play itself out is that there are kids who have exposure to smartphones, technology, and have a balanced life. know, they have extracurriculars, they have other things, and they seem to do quite well. While other kids, you know, it can become quite problematic. And I probably think there's some, you know, curve here with the extent of the use. Like anything, it can be overused. It could create dependence. And it could really have an effect on other things that are really healthy and necessary, like connection to nature, like sun exposure, like sleep, right? It could be something that's overused and controls your life. It is certainly designed to hijack your brain and it's much more difficult to focus on other stimuli that's less interesting when you have something that is hijacked to quickly get your attention and expose you to things that are necessary, like this TikTok culture that we're in. Roman Wyden (01:12:15.905) Yeah. Roman Wyden (01:12:35.51) Right, right. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (01:12:35.9) You know, just continuously swiping and swiping and swiping to the new real and the brain is adapting to that because that's what the brain does. Yeah. Roman Wyden (01:12:42.091) Yeah. I was, yeah. Well, one thing that if I may just share one last thing is that I saw this post by a psychologist who I was referring to this show, Adolescents, right? That was a big, big thing on Netflix, I believe, a little while back. And everybody was like, my God, that's what's happening in media. And that's why these kids are bullies and violence and stuff. And she said, look, she said, it's actually not the medium or the technology that they're logging onto. who they are mentally, before they log on to, if there's stability and love and peace and understanding, if they're heard, and I remember she listed a bunch of sort of not solutions, but like, if you're present with your kids, if you, you know, listen to them, their problems, you know, if you reduce stress in their lives, if you work to understand them, if you're at eye level with them, when you talk to them, like all these things, right? then when they log on to they're not actually looking for a solution or a fix to their mental problems. They're just playing. They're just having fun with their friends. And yes, their brain gets wired with the fast editing. But like you said, nature walks and, know, different things that can be done to help with that. But it's ultimately again, our parents as the parents of our responsibility to create create healthy children, mentally healthy children and guide them. And then all these distractions are not going to have as much of an impact or an influence on them as we think. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (01:14:18.086) Well said. Tell us about your book. Is it available yet or when's it going to be available and just some key things about what inspired you and what's in it. Roman Wyden (01:14:26.247) Yeah. Thanks for asking. Yeah. So the book is called ADHD is over. The struggle is real. The label is not. It's available on October 3rd on Amazon. It's right now Amazon as pre-order. It's really, I have a copy here. It's show that, but it's, it's a very simple book. It's 150 pages. I wanted to write something because that's usually when I tune out myself, I'm like, I get to 150, 160. I'm like, I think I kind of get the book. I think I'm done, you know? So wanted to create something shorter. I call it the unofficial ADHD diagnosis survival guide, because again, I want it to be this sort of wedge that comes in and says, okay, you got a diagnosis. I get it. It's stressful, but hear me out. Just read through this. This is my journey, our family's journey. If it makes a difference to you, great. If not, there'll be other books, right? But I wanted to put our story into these 15 chapters and sort of like, weave it through, but also have, you know, some quotes from experts that I've interviewed on my podcast. And I also have a sources kind of links in the back where I got my information from. the main thing about this book is that every chapter comes with a, conclusion of mine at the end, and then a suggested search terms. In other words, I want to encourage parents to like, I don't have all the answers, but here search these terms, like go, you know, go look at. ADHD medication side effects, or go look at bio neurofeedback or you know, research things and research things that are there are often kind of unusual to put these two words together, right, where we're so used to in the mainstream narrative that this is what your research and here's the Google search results. So I really wanted to have parents take a step after they read the book and do more research, right and not spelling everything out. And so that's the book I wrote and I hope that, you know, it encapsulates over 250 episodes of podcasting in the one book. And then the film might be just sort of bringing that book to life. That's kind of where we're at today. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (01:16:35.42) Great. And where can people find you? Roman Wyden (01:16:38.046) ADHD is over.com. Very simple information on the podcast, the documentary and the book is there and they can email me there. I respond to every email that I have time to respond to or it may take a while. And then just on all the podcast platforms is where they can find ADHD is over. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (01:16:56.582) Right. Roman Wyden, I want to thank you for a radically genuine conversation. Roman Wyden (01:17:02.368) Thank you, Roger. It's been a pleasure.