Hi, everyone. Welcome to a long delayed long awaited new episode of the other things ADHD Podcast. Today shows our dash day isn't ADA? I don't think it's ADHD in French is it?
Listen. You started talking and I was like, Oh, I'm not going to sing today, I'm going to do the bit in French. And like, I'm obviously under qualified for that. So you weren't 100% caught me on my bullshit. And now, Lee, our ADHD task for the rest of this recording session is for neither one of us to side quest, look up what it actually is in French while we're talking. So that's the goal is to not know by the end of the episode and look it
up after and forget and then put forget to put it in the show notes and then forget to put it in the show. And then forget to put it in the show notes.
Listen, I don't want to tell you what to do. But like
that's, yeah, that sounds about right. So why Amy did you decide today of all days to do your greetings to the listeners have set
for set, a cynical squeegee fit in why I made a trip to France with my family. We've been promising our kid since they started French school. lo these many years ago that if they actually learned French, and stuck with it, and became a francophone that before they graduated high school, we would go to France as a family and and they did that they learned French right. And listeners Alaska, say readers of this podcast.
transcripts, they might be just reading the batching crazy transcripts,
we respect that probably people can't read faster than we can talk. Right? So so they held up their end of the bargain. Readers of this podcast will will have heard me talk about their adventures in French school lo these many years. And then there was a pandemic. I don't know if you remember, but it was three years where we pretty much couldn't travel anywhere. And then it was like the summer of revenge travel, I guess where everybody was so enraged about not having traveled that they were going to do all the travel, but they were going to be mad about it simultaneously. Right. Right. Right. And I was reading about it in The New York Times. And my husband was like, Oh, should we go this summer to France? And I was like, Oh, hell no, no, like, no, man. Don't do it. And so we booked for October because it at Waterloo in Ontario universities have a reading week in the fall as well that coincides with American no with Canadian thanks. Yeah, I'm not very articulate today with Canadian Thanksgiving right, which this year fell on the ninth the weekend like seventh eighth ninth of October, which is still a nice time of year to go to Paris because the weather is not bad yet. So I booked us for a whole week, I used up all my travel points on my credit card that I had been accumulating with all of my online shopping for toilet paper during the pandemic and everything else, I guess. And so we did it. So that was seven, six nights in the hotel and with overnight flight at one it being like we were out of house for eight days, right. So that's why that's why I'm tempted to speak in French now not because I'm showing off. But because my ADHD brain once I switched to the second language for enough days, the two language parts of my brain get confused. And things come out in the wrong language, which is kind of hilarious. But since I was traveling,
before we introduced the content of the site quest, I noticed something very interesting. So I've been making a concerted effort to listen to more Quebec while podcasts. Oh, good for you. Yeah. And, of course, there's lots of Montreal Canadiens one. So that's really nice. But the thing that I noticed is that they speak so quickly, which I love. Don't get me wrong, but it is not like and maybe again, it's the type of podcasts I'm sure there are like the you see how to Canada, kind of chill one. Yeah. But most of the ones that I listened to are fast talking one of them. One of the one of the hockey guys that I listened to he, he speaks at it when he speaks it sounds like it is playing at double speed. All right, or at least 1.5. And I love it. I and I made that I'd like everybody is talking so quickly. And finally so much finally, finally, because I accidentally Well, what I did notice as well is that when because I have an Apple watch, I'm holding it up right now I have an Apple Watch. And sometimes when I'm driving, I'll brush my watch and forget that the controls for the podcast are there. So it'll accidentally speed it up or slow it down when I have to figure it out again. And as I'm going through the speeds Huh, it was at point 750. And I was like, oh, oh, this is like normal talking. This is like people who are trying to learn French should probably listen to but I just wanted it normal speed, which is a normal Spanish heist, which is high speed.
So so maybe here's the theory, Lee side quest to the side quest, since you and I live in, you know, come from francophone backgrounds, right? Yeah. You live in Francophone province and I like lived in Franco Ontario and grew up in French maybe the reason we speak so quickly. It's not just the ADHD but may also be cultural
that is entirely possible that is very possible. Also loud Yeah, yeah there's there's a loudness there's there's any such as I think it's the Quebec Wah right like that loud and boisterous like
in the same in France, people are not allowed Well, we can really appreciate it like it was this funny thing where we like because there was a bunch of terrorist threats and it turns out to be a lot of bomb scare started by high school students in the middle of terrorist threats when we were in France and the general strike as well for one day so like just situation normal in France there so when we get to the situation
normal, isn't it? No, strike and okay, we'll get the French experience like we're
in plus any shed like let's pull up the the cobblestones in the square and start hooking them up people because that's classically that's like the revolution of 68 Like that's where it starts people and plus a Michelle like throwing cobblestones at cops students was like, Okay, great. So we get to the airport, we have to go through like seven layers of passport. I've never taken my passport and in my pocket so many times in an airport in my entire life, right? And we go through all these like seven gates of hell or whatever, we wind up finally in the departure area where it's like five gates, or behind a separate security area. And it was just for flights to the US and Canada. And as soon as we walked in there, it got 100% Louder. From people talking. Everybody looked like they had accidentally locked themselves out of the house when they went outside first thing in the morning to get the newspaper and somehow wound up at the airport. And people started talking to strangers, it was very abrupt. I was like, Oh, this is why it's behind a locked gate.
To keep the animals away.
Yeah, exactly. Like keep the animals in the zoo here. But like I walked into that part of the airport and a woman immediately walked up to me and started talking to me about my hair and nobody had spoken to me spontaneously in front. There's polite and they're quiet. I can tell the volume of people's voices was just so incredibly loud. I was like, Whoa, culture.
We are that way. Oh, okay.
Ah, right. Very loud. Anyhow, what
the hell are we talking about? Big feelings.
Big feelings. The theme for today is big feelings is ADHD people have them. It's part of our impulsivity and our reactivity. The same brain quirks that bring you a rejection sensitive dysphoria also bring you I get madder than everybody in the whole world right away and sadder than everybody in the whole world right away and more disappointed than anyone or in or disappointed, and everything feels very all or nothing. I mean, and this is true of our joys as well, which is something I like, when I was a teenager once something struck my ridiculous sense of humor, and I got the giggles I just come home from school or something like it was nothing really funny. I remember like, I had to put my backpack down. I was laughing too hard. And it was like full of textbooks and stuffs very clear sense memory this and I started giggling about something that wasn't that funny. And my mom was like, What is so funny? And I couldn't explain it to her and I just started laughing louder. And then she said, Are you okay? And then that made me laugh louder. And then she came and looked at me she went Are you on drugs? And then I lost my shit. Oh, yeah. Like I could not stop laughing like it hurt. It was like the funniest thing I had ever experienced in my life. And I wound up like going and I ran away from my mom and it kind of jokey way and the way our house was arranged you could do a full circle around the house like you went through like the door on the entryway like one of our houses was like that. Yeah, into the living room. And then from the living room, you could go like the dining room was open concept. And then from the dining room around to the kitchen, the kitchen led right back to the front door around my house and then my mom started chasing me. Are you on drugs? Are you under I think she might have been serious, but I like could not keep it together. So some of our big feelings are very joyous, like my stomach hurt. Yeah, after I was Oh yeah. Gasping
Yeah, you can't breathe tears your faces wet from the tears. Yeah, like you've hurt your neck to somehow Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. The one I remember. And again since memory it was always i i love my brother's laugh. Like hearing him laugh and giggle always just made me really happy. So like there's there's kind of two of them. One of the first Once I remember was Burton Ernie guest starring on The Muppet Show? There was a there was a there was a guest star in The Muppet Show. And of course we grew up watching the Muppets
and Murder She Wrote and Magnum PI. It's like the crossover episode of everyone's dreams. Yeah,
yeah. Well, like Burton Ernie show up on the, the Muppet Show, which allows them to be even sillier than usual because I don't remember. I mean, people I don't know if he's calmed down at all. But like, Ernie was the ultimate chaos muppet. Like, just like and just terrorized burns, wearing socks on his nose, having bananas in his ears, and birds. Like a banana in my ear. Yeah. It's like, Why do you have a sock on your nose like and just like Bert being like, the ultimate straight man in this sort of thing. Like just
Ernie and Bert like, could describe my marriage. Yeah, I am Bert. I'm always like, I'm just going to tend to my pigeons and be organized and sit in my chair, your
argyle socks and collect your My argyle socks,
right and like, be very judgy and have a long and narrow face and my husband like wants to run around putting a banana is you're making me laugh, right? It's like it's two kinds of amazing people. Yeah, Ernie and Bert like, it takes all kinds. You know, I'm sure. Ernie says to Bert or Bert sister Ernie all the time. It won't surprise you to learn Bert. Yeah, my experience is completely different from yours, right? Yeah. Like that. Okay, so yeah,
so anyways, so so I'm really lean into the chaos because also the Muppet Show was chaotic. And I don't even remember what they were talking about, or why they were talking about it. But Ernie just turns to Bert. And tears off his nose. I'm sorry, what? Yeah, Ernie turns to Bert and tears off his nose. And then Bert now has like, so there's the shock of that happening. Right? And then Bert starts to talk. And bird is now talking. Like someone's holding his nose. Doesn't have a dog. Yeah, exactly. In like his very Bert kind of way. And my brother and I frickin lose it. Like we are in front of the television. The television was right by the doorway to the kitchen. And like I am rolling in between the kitchen and the TV. My brother is like banging on the floor. He's laughing so hard. And I look at my brother. And of course, that makes me laugh even harder. And then Burt says something else without his nose. And Ernie has some sort of like nonsensical retort to it. And we just lose our damn minds. Like one of my earliest memories. I don't know how old we were. But we were not that old. And just like, and I watch it now, and it's funny, but I'm like, that's, that's
not funny.
It's not that funny. And then. And then the next time like, there were lots of other times in between, but I had won tickets to the movie premiere of South Park Bigger, Longer Uncut. Oh, my God. Yeah. And it was actually my brother who introduced South Park to me, because we didn't get Comedy Central what South Park was on. So it was on at like, 1230 at night on global on Thursdays or something like now. Right? And so he was like, Have you ever seen this show? stylepark And like, I don't know what you're talking about. So the internet is still very proto at this point. We're not finding out everything on the internet. And, and he's like, oh, yeah, no, it's this weird cartoon with these foul mouth built the kids and like, you know, but yeah, probably animation. Another side story about that. And so and so he introduced me to it I introduced our friends it was the funniest thing. He had just gotten his wisdom teeth taken out like in a bit of the data rough couple of weeks, I had these tickets and I was like, I am taking you to go see South Park. And he we just edit. There's something else about the atmosphere of being at a movie premiere, where everybody is just like, yes, South movie. We are here for this. We are ready. We are like, and it was an event. It was an event and when they started when Terrance and Phillip I won't say but when Terrance and Phillip start singing their song. I watched my brother fall off of his chair laughing and then that was it. That was like we could not breathe. That like just the funniest thing ever.
But like that's a great story about ADHD feelings, right? Because they're just completely all encompassing. It really is all or nothing and when you're caught in that feeling of like a joy or laughter like the helpless giggle like someone is tickling you but they are it's like your brain is doing this too and oh yeah. It like takes over your entire body like your stomach hurts like your eyes are watering. You can't catch your breath. You fall off the chair like who would do that as a bit like in a Movie theater because those floors are absolutely disgusting. I would never touch that on purpose in my life right like we are in extremis if you're falling out of a movie chair onto the floor because you're laughing too hard like it is all consuming like a fire like it's just going to burn up everything in it. And I will just say my sister and I went to the, to see the Beavis and Butthead movie. In Toronto, yes, it was really crappy, tiny movie theaters that are underneath the Eaton center again. Yep. Scott Thompson from the kids in the hall was right behind us. And yeah, yeah, he was laughing. But we were laughing so hard. We're like, Oh, my God, Scott Thompson is gonna kill us. Like, we're just we couldn't keep it together, we had to watch it like a second time because we were laughing so hard, we missed a big chunk of it. And that the kid in the hall behind us were like very self conscious about it, but could not help it. Right. So that's laughing but like, we do have other emotions, too. Like when we get angry, we tend to get unbelievably angry. And when we get scared, we tend to get unbelievably scared. And I'm, I'm thinking about this as a high salience for me right now. Because traveling internationally is a fairly intense experience. Right? And, and the way we do it, we can we, you know, I, readers of this podcast will No, I usually travel by myself. And it was an adjustment to learn how to travel, even with my husband, but I am in a groove with him when we travel. Now we know what we're doing. We know what our roles are. We like we know how this is going. And it was a bit of a wild card to try to bring a teenager with us on an international trip to a country where that has husband doesn't speak the language. I was in charge of planning all the details, because I understand the situation a bit better about international travel. I'm much better at that. And also more experience
with it too, right? Yeah, absolutely. I've just experienced how
many work trips? Yeah, I know how to do that. And also, since all of it is in French, then it falls to me, because although my kids speaks French, they're not very forward. They have no life skills. So it's all on me. So I'm feeling it's a high degree of responsibility. And I'm very worried about flying overnight, because I know I'm not going to sleep, right? How much of my life is that going to ruin when we get there and like, so we're now it's a dynamic, not of two people, but of three people. And two people who are like you're in charge, we'll do whatever you want. But then we'll be like, Well, I was kind of hoping we could have done this. Like, so trying to manage all of that. And then it turns out France actually international travel, it could be like I haven't been different since 2014, after the DH that was in Switzerland. And things are different things are like, you know, if you want to go to the Eiffel Tower, there's a big security perimeter around it now of Plexiglas, right, so you have a layer of security, oh, wow, eight foot wall of Plexiglas. And that takes a long time. But you also they recommend book a reserved time. Right, and reserved time slots open up 60 days in advance, and I'm like, Bitch, please listen, I don't want to check my email at home, I don't want to go on vacation and have it be 100 times more executive function than I can muster, while in a second language. So like, if you want to go to the Louvre, you pretty much have to book it before you leave your own country right in some some museums require tickets in advance, some just require that you reserve a time slot we got the Paris Museum Pass, which means you skip some kinds of lines but sometimes you still need to make a reservation in order
to get into executive functioning nightmare like absolute
nightmare. And like the Paris museum pass also doesn't get added to your wallet, your apple wallet, right? So you have to keep the PDF like on your phone and available that you have like a different thing. It was like just a hot, it was a hot mess. And it was also like a hot mess in the sense that it was 28 degrees. And Sunny cells entire time we were there. Celsius. I'm sorry. What is that? It's a lot. It's hot. It's July weather. Yeah, right. Like totally July weather. blessedly, it was not humid. blessedly, our hotel was air conditioned, but like, you know, it's not air conditioned is the Rodin Museum which is in a former hotel that Rodin had purchased, like in the later part of his career. It uses the kind of artist residence which later he gave to the state in which is a museum. It's this beautiful old house with 8 million tourists in it in October and it's 28 degrees and like, I bent down to tie my shoe and I stood up I was so lightheaded. I thought it was going to faint. I'm like that's it if like my lace comes undone again, I'm just leaving my shoes here because I can't. I'll shuffle up and down in this business. I'm just gonna shuffle. Unbelievable, right? And so, and like you know, in France also, if you've ever been like you can't have a fast meal, you know in France, so you know me and my kid because we're on the Vyvanse don't know when we're hungry until we're well past hungry. And since we're standing in so many lines with men with machine guns looking into our purses. Before we get into the second line about can you get in with this reserved tickets if you can find them on your phone like things are taking a lot of time and by the timeline Get out of someplace where like, Oh, I'm so hungry. And then you have to find the closest restaurant may not be a restaurant that you want, you have to find something close. And then like, that's great, they'll bring you in, it was just kind of stressful to be like, oh, yeah, you have to plan something to excruciating degree, but then all of a sudden, everybody is starving. And you can tell that you're starting to get snippy with each other, all three of us would be a bit short tempered. I'm like, we need to eat. And then it's like, three people trying to decide on a restaurant. Like, oh, my God. And then once you're in there, you're in there for at least an hour and a half. Like I love this about France, like they will not bring you the bill until you ask for it. Right? You could just sit there forever. You're saying your glass of wine and it's like and till you say DCM Superplay. You are sitting there and no one is ever going to be the building contrast with like Denny's where it's like, here's your eggs and your bill. Yeah. They'll say No rush, but you don't believe it? Right. So. So it was like a question of managing the blood sugar and then managing the excessive temperatures and then trying to take a read on three separate people's desires about what we wanted to do for the day, coupled with executive dysfunction of trying to book all these things. And I will say there was some crying by all of us,
is it a family vacation? If no one cries, though? I mean, honestly, right. Right. Is it? Is it a family vacation, if no one Christ, so there were
big feelings, and it really got me thinking about big feelings, there was one attraction we wanted to go to. And like because of some combination of bomb threats, and a general strike the time to tickets we had for St. Chappelle, the Gothic cathedral that was like, like pretty much kitty corner to our hotel that has the oldest continuous run of stained glass windows, and it's beautiful. And we'll send you a photo but we had tickets and it was the one thing like it was desperate, desperate, desperate to see and I've been trying all week to get tickets, but the website kept putting on my I finally got the tickets we get there, there's a sign that says, you know, because of our caused or move more sociol essential planet family tree, like a phobia, like so horrible, say like, you will get a refund on your tickets, but we were leaving the next day. Yeah, like a refund doesn't help me, ya know. So everybody had a meltdown about that. And like, I let Tom and our kid go back to the hotels so that my kid could have a meltdown, because their meltdown was just gonna make my meltdown worse. And I was like, Yeah, myself for an hour, and I came back and then everybody was crying. And since Air Canada, oh boy, Air Canada wound up delaying our flight by five minutes less than the threshold for having to compensate us. I did manage to race through the website and get us tickets for first thing the next morning. Oh, nice to go see it. And that was like very stressful too. But like the whole thing, big feelings. And I was conscious at the time when I watched Tom and our kid walk away from the place where I could already see that my kid was very upset. And my husband was better able to deal with it than me because I thought if I am around my child right now, we will amplify each other's bad, big feelings. Because I will feel incredibly guilty even though none of this is my fault. And then they will feel guilty for being upset because they see that I feel guilty even though they would just be like this. Yeah, unhelpful bull spiral. So probably like the first first and I was gonna say the first call say, See, I can't talk today. The first advice for big feelings is maybe get by yourself for a few minutes. Yep. What do you think? Do does that resonate with you?
We Yeah, like it's, uh, so a similar similar experience was when we last time we went to Disney World. And there are advantages of Disney World because there is food literally everywhere. It is expensive, but it is readily available. And there is a massive variety so that like you go to one place, and everybody's gonna be happy. Well, so you can eat it while walking. Yeah, and you can, unless Oh My God, My poor son. They got the churros. And like, he hadn't even taken a bite out of it. And the seagull just came down and snatch the whole thing from them. And we were like, Oh, no. Yeah, so that was that was what but so this was when the Star Wars had had like, just opened. Right. And you had to get a timed entry to do the the whole Star Wars experience ride. And so people were at Epcot at 6am to be able to because that's when it says you have to be on site in order to get into the virtual line. To do rises of resistance.
I'm sorry. What?
Yeah. So there are 1000s of people. And we all that so they like they let they they're not supposed to but they let you in. Right because it's just like we can't have everybody waiting over here. So they let you in because it also has to be geo located. And then I I think it opened at like 7am, where like, you could you could access the app at 7am. But of course, you've got 1000s of people trying to be on either Wi Fi at the same time, or the Wi Fi at the same time trying to access this one poor Disney app. Right. And so mine kept crashing. Sure. And you hear whips up in the crowd. Like they got their spot in line, they got their spot in line and got their spot in line. And there are people who will get guaranteed spots. And then there are people who are like if this if it doesn't break, or take too long you might be able to get in.
And so winning a shirt grant you're on. Yeah, reserve list, right? Yeah, yeah.
And so I finally get a spot, but it's not a guaranteed spot. And now we've been here, it's 6am. Everybody got up stupid, super stupid early to be here. And I can't even guarantee that we're all going to get to go on the stupid ride, which probably means more to me than anything anyways, because I'm the biggest Star Wars nerd. And I'm apologizing to the family and everybody's just like, you know, and of course, I can't that's but that's the flip side of the downside of Disney is that you're never alone. Right? There's so many goddamn people there. But but, you know, it ended up that we did the bright side was is that we did get in our line was called we had a great day. We broke the Millennium Falcon ride, which was really funny. What? We didn't break it, but uh, broke while we were on it. Oh, I see. And so. But so like, we're on the ride. It's a really cool flight simulator, and you're near front, you're in the NFL. And then all of a sudden, it stopped talking to us. And so it's still shaking, and we're doing all these things. But we're like, Okay, this is weird. And then like the alarm starts going off.
So realistic.
Yeah, no, it really was it was so surrealistic, but we'd had such a good day at this point. We were just like, it will get whatever like this is funny. And they said like, because that's another sort of timed entry one. And they were like, Don't worry, you'll be so we just basically went up at the end of the day and said, Hey, we were on when the busted ride the busted ride. They're like, Yeah, whatever go on through. But yeah, so that was like that was the but but again, like that, that big feelings. And even this was before we even had and traveling. We always knew it because we learned very early on. When we travel, we have to schedule a rest day. Yeah, we talked about so yes, we've talked about this before where it's like, okay, we're going Monday through Thursday. And then like somewhere in the middle, it's like, we're gonna go in the morning, we're going to eat, we're going to do some things, and then we'll go and we'll just like, sit at the hotel room, or wherever we are. And just like all of us be by ourselves on our phones, not talk to one another.
Yeah, you and I had talked about this? I know. Because, like, so I think vacations are a good, a good test case for how to deal with the feelings, right? Because it's a little bit about meeting social expectations like around what other people expect of you. And then it's a little bit about internalized expectations about what you're supposed to do. And then there's a lot of sort of emotional pressure for a vacation to be a peak experience, right? Yes. You're like, how can you be miserable at Disney World? Right? Or like, though
everybody is right, like, yeah, there's always like some kid crying or getting dragged or like, just like the parents face of like the clenched. We I'm not gonna yell at my child and
other people are able to sustain the level of miserable where they can be in denial to themselves about it. But since people with ADHD neurodivergent people in general don't have right a level six, misery they go up to 11 right away, that those pinch points where it's like one of those social norms where everyone tells themselves they're having fun, but they're not. Yeah, we can't fake it. No, right. And since everybody else successfully manages to fake it, there's an element of shame involved in being mad that you have to go stand in a line to get in a virtual line to do something that you want to do. And like we actually managed to get tickets tickets we had like the Paris Museum has been getting for free, but we booked a time slot at the Louvre like before we left because like everybody told me it was going to be impossible and that I had to do it before when the last time I was in Paris in 2014. We skipped going to the Louvre because you didn't need time tickets at that point. But we got close to it. And you could just see the huge number of people even before it opened, and I said to Tom, I'm not going to enjoy this. No, right? This just we're gonna be lined up forever. I don't want to spend my time in Paris lined up and irritated and we skipped it. And then this time, I don't know why. Maybe it's because I was still in Canada, but I felt this pressure. It's like I'm bringing my kid they need to see the Louvre rarely Oh, and I like got the tickets. And by the time Thursday afternoon at 430 rolls around I like 100% Absolutely would rather have died, then go, right. And I have to even remember what we had done in the morning, we did something else, like quite big. And I was like, I'm already overwhelmed. You know? And yeah, it's a lot. And then Tom said, we don't have that. He's like, Well, how much did the tickets cost us? It didn't cost anything. I just have a reserved entry because like the Paris Museum Pass was six days, whatever museums you want to go to? And he's like, Well, then let's not go. That's like, what is it? We didn't go last time? Like, I didn't miss it. And even my kid was like, oh, yeah, I don't like lining up mom. And it's too gonna be too crowded. And everybody says, like, you can't even see anything anyways. And I was like, Huh? What? And immediately I felt like 40 pounds lighter, lighter. Yep. And less like, I was gonna cry. My headache disappeared. Yeah. How did I bamboozle myself into thinking that I was going to be that person that did like three museums in one day? Because I've been that person. I don't know. It was something about bringing our kid or or something about like having maybe I was revenge traveling to like, it's hard to say like, I just wanted to go and be chill, because every time I travel like that, I'm usually quite chill. I'm like, I reserve the right to rage quit. So if I don't want to do it, I reserve the right to change my mind. Right. But this time, I was like, I must do all these things. And I could feel myself getting frustrated.
And it's probably the kid factor. Yeah, right. Like, I must show my child France, Paris. Yeah. Like what kind of parent am I if I do not bring my child to some of these things? Yeah. Right. Like, you know, well, I can even hear the parental judgement, right? It's like, Oh, you went to Paris? Did you go see the Louvre? No,
did you not know it existed? Like what is? Like normally? I
absolutely don't care about any of that. But you're right, it okay. I might have been a little bit about having our kid with us. And it might also have been a little bit about me managing a relationship with one other person when I'm traveling is something I've learned how to do. But me managing a relationship with two other people while I'm traveling is maybe exceeds my capacity to collaborate. Yeah, maybe effectively. Right to to read the room.
Yeah. And I mean, because I'm just so used to traveling with my kids that I'm like, I can read, I can read those rooms pretty well. And the four of us, that's, you know, I'm not, I'm actually more used to traveling just with the kids and all four of us. Yeah. And, and it's funny now, too, because the, my daughter actually would prefer to travel by herself. So now when she travels with us, she pretends she's not. I love that. Yeah. Yeah, she's like, I'm, I'm not no, but that mean, that's the way her way of managing energy as well is that I can focus, I need to just focus on myself, and I don't have the energy or capacity to focus on two or three other people. And so I am going to pretend until I need it until I need her there to like, vouch that this 15 year old isn't just traveling by themselves. Yeah, nationally.
That feels like a this was like a second thing to write. So we're talking a little bit about like, what when you have a really big feeling, like I said, I wanted to go sit by myself now, you know, we split off into groups or, or your daughter, your oldest is like just going off, like, by herself to, you know, manage her energy that way. And what some of that is like about when a big feeling happens, how do you deal with it, but some of it is also about knowing what is going to produce a big feeling in you that you wish to wait right. And so you have always said and readers of this podcast will have heard me discuss before that we are a one event per day family, like even if you're gonna do a trip to Toronto, which is, you know, a 60 to 90 minute drive, or two and a half hour drive depending on what traffic is, like, we're not going to do like the aquarium in the afternoon because we're already there. And we're going to a basketball game at night. It's like no one of those things, right, just one of those things or we will get overwhelmed and not enjoy the second thing or we will be nasty to each other or we will not have enough energy to drive home and be pleasant to each other. Right. And I know that about us and we're quite good at that and, and yet we go to France and I'm like this is a peak experience meets my child's first time in Europe and I promised them this trip and we're all gonna go together and it's like, has to be amazing. And like, you know, remember last October, Tolman had his major surgery and then also over the Thanksgiving weekend, we had like, started the reading week. That was when he almost died from his anaphylactic reaction to a dental implants. We went to a hospital again. And that was the big and Happy anniversary. That was the beginning of my burnout leave there too. And I was like, we're doing so much better and I want to celebrate this and so maybe not only try to do too many activities in any given day, despite the fact that I know better. Do I know how much I know better. Lee? Do you want to know what book I was reading on the air? Plain Oh, God, all over berchmans 4000 weeks, which is a productivity guide that says there's too much to do, you can't do it all. And as soon as you accept your finitude, right and let shit go, it's going to be better. Right? You don't need to optimize, you need to do less, because wow, wow. And I was like, amen. And I'm like, Jake, you know, highlighting stuff. And like, Oh, this is so wise.
And then looking at your schedule for every second,
how much does the Wi Fi on a plane cost because I could be pre booking museums, while I'm here. It's like, Oh, my God, I could feel that tension. In my own brain, like, I could see that I was behaving like a crazy person, I was behaving in a ways that were not aligned with my intentions, right. So what I had done on that trip is kind of failed to prevent some of the things that I knew were going to be problems, I guess, for me, and then they became problems from it. Like, I don't wanna give the impression that the trip was ruined, it absolutely wasn't, it produced a lot of big feelings, that that needed to be managed. So the best way to manage a big negative feeling is to know what your own patterns are, yeah, and what types of things set you off. So I teach on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and I teach, like, roughly nonstop from one to 530. Like there's a break in between there, but it's just prep for the second class. So pretty much get to campus at 11. And I'm going full tilt until 530. And then I walk home, Tom make supper on those nights and but our kid has karate at a certain pace, we have to eat within a certain window, which is a kind of have to rush to come home, and I have the walk. And it's a buffer. But like, it turns out is not enough of a buffer because for several weeks, I was being like fairly snappish with my family, because I'd been like being nice to undergrads for three hours already. While people kind of undermine my authority or didn't listen to my instructions, or like, whatever it happens, whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so like, you know, somebody would like playfully say the reverse of something they knew to be true in response to a question I asked. And then I would like just go off on them. Because it was like, I've done teaching already today, right? I'm not ready for this. And then it turns out, like on those nights, I really need to have I said to Tom said, Okay, we're by myself. And he's like God, you ask because I want you to get back from campus faster, because like family dinner is really important to us. But like, is it more important that we actually have a family dinner when everyone is miserable? Because I'm snapping at them. You're like, maybe I spend half an hour watching like episode of Gravity Falls with my kid later. So we could have family time because it's kind of not worth it. Right. So yeah, trying to figure out gravity feels great. It is it is great. Yeah. And I will say that my kid the other day was looking for a pair of shoes before we went to France. And I said, Did you look here and they're like, they're not there. And I was like, they might be. And they searched the whole house twice. And I said, like, just humor your mother, can you go in the basement and look for the shoes. And then they texted me from the basement and said, I'm coming up to sing the song. And the song that they're saying was, I'm Stan and I was wrong. And I'm singing the Stan wrong song. And then they did the kicks. And it was great, though. That was that was nice. Yeah. So So sometimes, like our boundaries are going to be different from other people's boundaries, too. Right? I would say like, Well, I had half an hour to walk home in the fresh air like surely I can be nice to my family when I get back but no teaching are so intense. Like, yeah, like there have been nights when I because you know, I walk in, I get super overheated. Thanks, perimenopause, I would come home. And like we had discussed before about how when I come home from teaching, I should go take a left, go right upstairs, take all my work clothes off, put my cozy clothes on and then take my makeup off. So I don't do bedtime procrastination. But I will come home and like separate is on the table. So you can feel me from two blocks away saying like, it's ready. We're sitting down are you here as we come in, don't even take my shoes off. But I will take my shirt off the number of times that I've had family supper with a full face of makeup on my boots and no shirt is higher than I want it because I'm just like, I'm so hot. I'm going to explode. Right? That's not reasonable. So I was not helping my big feelings. I was just generating bigger angry feelings. And sure enough, it worked better once I just rage quit like forever on family suppers on those teaching nights. But last night, which was a Thursday so I taught all day there was parent teacher night at my kids school. And my husband was like very kindly dealing with me saying you're going to want to bring some earplugs because it's going to be loud and there's going to be a lot of lineups he's like I printed at the map I know where the rooms are you can just follow me like where layers because you're going to get too hot and like very, very kind and we made it there and was a minor. Sometimes we butt heads. Were talking to teachers we have a different idea but what we should be talking about which we should probably work on first and he corrected me about something and I just turned him I was like really says like, Oh, yeah. And we had like a low key fight haha in front of a teacher about it. And I was probably wrong there. And he was also probably wrong, but that ruined our evening. Yeah, great. I shouldn't have gone like I just shouldn't have gone to
jail I was about to say I was like maybe just skip.
I should have just delegated that. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Like, because I thought, well, it's important. And if it's important, my boundaries don't matter. Yeah, right. And so now I've made a bit of an emotional brouhaha that I have to clean up because I did something that I should have known, I was not going to be able to do and maintain my human skills that are required to maintain relationships in my life. So step one is avoid, like, know what your limits are. And that's really hard, because there's social pressures, especially around peak experiences, or things that feel compulsory, like parent teacher night, or going on vacation, you feel like there's a certain set of feelings you have to have and a certain type of enthusiasm you're supposed to have for it. And if you are already worried before you start it that is going to cause a blowout, it's going to cause a blowout and then when it causes a blowout, you the first step is usually to hate yourself, which is not actually going to help you deal
we've done. We've done many an episode on that topic. self loathing hay with Lee and Amy. Now, and I think so there. And there's also the like you said, so there's trying to set it up that you avoid it. But then inevitably things go wrong, even to the best laid plans. And we you know, my my children's neurodivergent a little bit of mine, too, is that we don't necessarily do as well with the unexpected, right if things do not go as planned. Yeah. So like, my, my daughter talking about big feelings and things not going as planned and traveling. My daughter went to a con it VidCon. And this was something that like all of her favorite. I don't even want to call them YouTubers anymore, because they're not really YouTubers. They're Twitch people mind. I don't know, just somewhere online, they
may chant creators, content creators, thanks, favorite content creators
favorite content creators. And it had never been it was in Baltimore, which is not far from where we are. It never been on the east coast before. It was always in like somewhere in Southern California or Vegas. I mean, of course it was. Yeah, exactly. And so she was like, Can I go? And I'm like, Well, yeah, I mean, Baltimore. It's not it's like an hour away. You know, and so a lot, actually, a bunch of her friends descended down upon us from various locales, to all go together, and they organized it and they got the tickets, and they got an Airbnb and all of that kind of stuff. And she she, she knew herself enough that it was like, we're gonna go Friday, because I don't want to be rushed on Saturday. And so we can go we can, we can stay at the Airbnb. We can always take pick up our passes, we can do it while these two extra nights so they didn't drive home Sunday. They drove home on Monday, as well. So they Yes. So like, this was all very well done. She was like, you know, she was doing a great job of hurting the cats. And all that, but everybody showed up Thursday. So they didn't sleep Thursday night. And then they drive out on Friday. And of course, they weren't gonna sleep Friday night. So Saturday morning rolls around. Nobody's awake on time. And so they're late. Getting there.
You You're gonna miss the good lineups.
Yeah, well, that was I get a phone call. And she's like, come pick me up. I can't do this. Right. And I'm like, what? She's like, you need to come pick me up right now. I can't do this. And so the through other circumstances, I was like, I can't come pick you up. And basically, I was just like, she removed herself from the situation. But at the same time, like, that was not necessarily the safest thing to do. You know, like, right, you know, here. She's like, I'm outside of the Baltimore Convention Center. And I'm like, oh,
that's huge. I've been there. Yeah. And
so like, and thankfully, I had one of her friends phone number. So I'm texting with a friend and everything. But finally I was just like, could you just go back to the Airbnb and take a nap? Yeah. Like, could you just go back to the Airbnb and take a nap? Like, just just do that? Because I know what's going on right now. And I even I even called it. I told my husband, I'm like, well, let's see what happens when they're late for something or someone doesn't do exactly what. And then, you know, finally she went, she went to sleep. And it was that was fine. And she woke up like late and she's like, because Sunday was the person that she really wanted to go see. And I knew she was gonna be devastated if she didn't go see that person. Right and that she was gonna wake up early Sunday morning and be like, Could you take me back to Baltimore now, please, and I was like, I would have done it. But anyways, she ended up staying. She ended up having a great time. Ended up being a
master, she needed an app. Right. So maybe that's another strategy.
Well, or like the food, right? Like it? Yeah. Drinks to Twitter, have a snack? Take a nap. Right. Like, and yeah. And again, that and I think it's just giving yourself permission. Like it's okay. Yeah. Right. Like, I know that you are missing things. But at the same time, you are clearly miserable.
Yeah, you're gonna miss everything. Yeah. Right. So that's like a little bit of an acknowledgement of our, of our own limits. But like, definitely big feelings are exaggerated. And our coping skills are diminished when we don't have enough sleep. Yeah, right. And when we push through three or four boundaries already, right. So having a couple of extra nights in the Airbnb is great, but not if you spend them 24/7 with people, and you don't get the alone time that you need, right, like so that's why you don't go on holiday, or you don't go to bed. Right. One of the things that I was worried about when we enter France was like the the time change. And like all the flights, there are overnight flights, and I don't sleep on the plane and messed up. I'll tell you prescription amphetamines help with that. So I was weirdly, the person who was in the best shape. The first day that we were there. It turns out, I did sleep for about an hour, which was about an hour more than either of my family members slept and so I drag them bodily through the day. But right if you don't have enough sleep, right, especially for something like a peak experience, or like you maybe you're going to feel really terrible about the exam you just wrote, because you crammed on late, you have no perspective anymore, then you wrote the exam, and then you're going to leave the exam and like just cry and be like, I need to find out the site where it is on the registrar's site that I can just drop all my courses right now, right like this, this kind of like big feeling that threatens to take over your whole life that makes us produce these like rash actions or like burn our relationships down or like rage quit everything, like we talked about in another episode of burnout, right? Yeah. Is is like, you'd need to know if you're going to go on vacation, make sure you get enough sleep. It's not like I'm going to have a bunch of new experiences and unexpected changes. And also, I'm going to sleep less. Right is a bad company. Yeah. Like, don't let yourself do that.
And we're discovering this too, with the youngest, where he's doing a different kind of school schedule. We finally figured it out. Yeah. And so he ends school, he just doing some online course. And we moved another course of the summer. And that's actually working out really well. Because he usually sleeps for he comes home early now from school because his day ends earlier. He comes home and sleeps for four hours and still goes to bed by 930. Yeah, cuz that's how exhausting it is for him to do school. Yep. And, you know, and what, but if he doesn't, then it's the big feelings and he can't regulate and and, and so it's like, okay, well, we could force him through the day. Yeah, but why? But why? And this works out really well. And so So Thursdays Thursday, no, sorry, Wednesday's, Wednesday's is is, is his online, they do a synchronous session on Wednesday evenings. And so but he basically now knows on Wednesdays, he comes home, you know, eat some food, and then sleeps until about a half hour before his course starts and he has an alarm on his phone. And then that wakes him up. And he he rolls out of bed and does his course and then you know, eats a little more and then goes and gets ready for bed again. And, you know, it's it took a while. Because of course, teenagers hate napping because of FOMO. Right? But it took a while to be like, if you're that tired. Just sleep
asleep. Yeah, yeah. And like,
teen And now and now. That's the routine.
Yeah. And like, what good is FOMO like, Oh, I'm going to miss two sessions at the con or like, I should be with my friends. If if you did those things, you would be miserable and have a tantrum, right. But we're always like wishing, actually, that we were different, right. And that's like part of the problem. So sometimes the big I think the big feelings that we've talked about why we're gonna have to do more episodes, but big feelings. The big things we talked about today is like, that arise from mismanaging our energy around experiences or other people's expectations. This isn't about like getting having a breakup. It's about like you didn't get enough sleep and you're on vacation or like you're planning stuff with your friends and it's not working or people think that somebody like you should be able to and you push it and then you can't and those big feelings are best dealt with by prevention. convention is best for that. But But failing that, trying to get a little bit of space, right? So we're saying like at Disney World, you can't really get away from other people, but you can at least get away from your family. Right? Yeah. Because it's the people that we care about, that honestly can amplify those emotions that we're having. And sometimes we just like need to turn the machine off and turn it back on again, and the machine is our capacity to engage with others, right. And so those are, I think, two very, very good strategies, do whatever you can to know your one activity per day person. And that will not change when you're on a six hour time difference in a foreign country where nobody speaks the language except you, you're not going to be at your best, right? Don't. And you need sleep, you need food plan for those things. If you have to have an emergency granola bar in your purse when you're traveling, because you have trouble figuring out where you're supposed to eat, and you're too unreasonably hungry to make that decision. You need a little bit of something first, right engagement. And also probably clear expectations with your family and discussions about these things, right. Like, it's great. When your oldest could call you and said like, come pick me up and you're like, I think maybe you need to have a nap. Right? And they didn't hang up in rage, right like that. No,
they did. Well, when we're not taking any calls. But like, I
mean, it's going to be what it's going to be right but like to know ourselves. And to know that maybe just because it's possible for somebody else to do it. Maybe it's not possible for us. Like, as I said, we wound up skipping the Louvre because I thought it's going to be so crowded once we get in there. I'm just going to be enraged the whole time. Anyways, right? I'm not going to enjoy it. I'm stressed out at the idea. And once I get there, there's going to be another line and once I get it, I'm just going to be mad. Why am I doing this? Yeah. Okay, it turns out nobody in my family wants to do it either. So that that worked out best. And then sometimes your big feeling you just have to let it out. So the day we couldn't get into St. Chappelle, everybody had a good cry. More than one good cry except my husband who just like walked around comforting people. So that was okay. And it was okay. And you didn't have to be mad at anybody. Because you were crying and nobody had to be mad at you because you were crying and nobody had to have their feelings be about anybody else's disappointing behavior. It was just overwhelmed. And sometimes that's okay. Yeah.
You press the release valve. That's right. And it comes out. And then it's like, okay, that's all right. That's
and then you eat some rotisserie flavored rotisserie chicken flavored French chips. And you're like, that's weird, but I don't hate it. Yeah. And then you reset. Yeah. Well, we're going chips rotisserie chicken flavored. Surprisingly good. Yeah.
We're going to our our trip and I know you're up to go. But like, our trip to Italy, basically is going to be the chylous trip. We have literally nothing planned. And part of the time because it's offseason. It's late November. So we're going over Canadian thing, or sorry, American Thanksgiving. Everything is off season. And so we're going to Milan and we're going to just like, do Milan, good and just be like, hey, it's Milan. Let's do stuff. And then rent a car and drive to a villa overlooking Lake Como.
Say hi to George. For me.
Yeah. And then Lake Como is huge. So I have no idea for any word. No.
Hi to George Clooney from Yeah, and I
think I think everything overlooking Lake Como is a villa. So it's not like a George Clooney asked villa. It's more like a regular person. It's like when, when you say lake house in Canada, right. There's a wide variety of,
there's an outhouse. Yeah, yeah.
And then we're gonna go into como. And basically, this is the only thing that were planned is that we are going to como to coincide with the starting of the Christmas festivals and the Christmas markets. Nice. And then that sounds great. Yeah. And so and we chose this because as the kids voted, we needed chill vacation.
So true. And I love that they have learned that that is a great lesson. So sometimes the lessons of our big feelings and tantrums of the past has been that everybody gets to grow a little bit. Right? Yeah. And that's great news. I will say in my family, we each had our moments of like, struggling to deal. And I will say how proud I am and how loved I feel that in those moments, the person who was suffering the least would comfort the other person's Yep, it was just really nice. The way we all tried to take care of each other. Because we're aware that we struggle with different things. And then when there's too much of anything, we all struggle and we have to be extra kind to one another and that that is an unbelievable gift. If you can have those relationships with people. It is really worth holding on to forever give up the Louvre tickets, but hold on to your loving real relationships.
I love that that's a good place to end it. So I am Lee Skallerup Bessette and I am ready writing on like so many of the socials it's not even funny anymore I have too many tabs just with socials and I get a I get a bang sound and I'm like crap which of the tabs is that who's added me on this?
I always joke that pal ma Morrison is mall food is also co Omar.
Yes
right now but I am Did you walk if anybody wants to find me because my notifications now are nothing but Twitter sending me stuff saying hey, look at this I'm like that's not what a notification is jackass.
Yeah, and you can always email us a shoe the socials entirely and go. But I love how email is old school now, school by emailing us all the things adhd@gmail.com We make no promises that we will be back next week. But we can say that we will make every efforts in order to make every effort we will make every effort in order to do so. We try so hard. We do we really do. And but until next time of wall and that question and a question. Oh my god.
