Everyone, welcome to another episode of the all the things ADHD podcast.
All the things, all the things let's do all the things right now.
Yeah, seriously? All the things right now all of them. Hello from immediately.
Why are we still talking about it? Why aren't we doing them?
Well, we are doing it we're recording. Right, right, right. We're doing and you're also knitting and you're also drinking coffee and you're also training in your living room. And those things Oh, yep. Yep. Right now. Yep. Breathe.
breathing slowly, because apparently deep breathing is the wrong instruction. Right. Breathe deep. You can panic while breathing deeply. The trick is Breathe deeply. Always meant slow it down. Somewhere. Breathe slowly, while you introduce the podcast.
Okay, you breathe slowly. Well introduce podcast, I am one of your co hosts Lee Skallerup Bessette. And this is Amy Morrison, who is breathing very slowly right now. There we go. And today, we are going to talk about Well, Amy, how about you introduce what we're going to talk about, because I think it's,
we are going to talk about springtime Lee, because I know that we have talked about the darkness and the seasonal slowdown and how hard it is to get a bed sometimes and many neurodivergent people do suffer from seasonal affective disorder at a higher rate than neurotypical people. But the flip side of this, which we never seem to notice and does not tend to come up in the public discussion of this is that as depressed and sad and carb hungry, as you get at the beginning of November, you may find yourself overwhelmed by hypo mania in the spring, which is where I find myself currently, which is as the daylight comes back at a rate of three extra minutes of sunshine per day. The days longer. I know, right? My energy is zooming up. I am waking up earlier I am staying up later. I'm a bit more manic. And just like people with bipolar disorder often find that they don't like the depression. But the mania feels pretty good. And sometimes we don't even notice that what feels maybe just like elevated mood might be a little bit of mania. And we may have to be kind to ourselves just as much in March as we do in November.
Yeah, I as soon as you said that as a possible topic. I was like oh, that's why I just so two garments, planned 27 other ones, and I already have one, too, that I want to so as soon as we are done with recording this podcast, even though my to do list for work is a mile long.
Sure. Yeah. Right. So and that's like, that's what I'm talking about. It's not like, you're going to somehow manage to find the focus that you lost in November from the season getting darker to get all of your work tasks done. But then you have an extra four hours in which you can sew an entire garment, it's that you have all this energy, but still none of the focus, right and so instead of like failing to do the things on your list, because you're staring off into space and wondering why you're so sad, you're failing to do the things on your to do list because you did 75 Different things partway through, and you don't understand why your hands are shaking and you're talking too fast.
Yeah, that's actually about right. I mean, it's it is i i was making the observation and and you just sort of clarified it for me. I was making the observation on Twitter that I was like, you know, I'm so excited to sewing and I found my sojo which is like the expression that we use so much yeah, we'd lost our so you lose you lose or find your so Joe. And I just thought I was like I just like sewing spring and summer garments more than I like sewing sort of fall and winter garments. But which may be true as well just because of my color palette and complexity of on the fabrics.
cold temps are difficult for winter, but maybe just have more energy. Exactly. So Springer. Exactly. Yeah, right. There you go. That's that's,
that seems to be you know, something and I think, I mean, I sort of even see it in my kids, right where it's like, they're, they're more excited. They're maybe not easier to get up in the morning but they've got a little more energy. They've got a little bit they're getting a little antsy. I think it'll get worse, you know, they'll start getting once the third quarter ends. I think it'll move into fourth quarter and then they'll just all have big feet.
Sure. Yeah. So like that's the the line we want to find between like cheerful and antsy, right because the same way that like, you know when when the sun gets lower and the Sky and it begins to get darker. Like I'm going to light some candles, I'm going to do some seasonal decorating now as the, you know, season of crossword puzzles and, and big puzzles and Heuga, right? can slide into the kind of dysfunction of nothing but trackpants Nothing but carbs, too much alcohol and crying all the time, right? There is a way in which every season has its energy and it should, right like it's okay to feel more energetic in the spring. But how can we be sort of self aware about where that energy becomes a bit more frenetic and frantic rather than sort of cheerful, where does cheerful turn into antsy? How can we find that line? How can we sort of be attentive to what our bodies and our brains are doing? And also, maybe we can celebrate that this is a better problem, maybe to have sit and crying all the time, which is what I did this past November. Yeah. And now I'm just like, ah, talking too fast.
Well, just, I mean, explain your morning, or you know, what you were doing leading up to? The podcast, which I think is another excellent sort of illustration of, yes, man, it kind of.
Yeah, so I've been like engaging in a tweet thread about some art that I just hung, which was some art that I just ordered for my gallery wall in my living room, which I've completely redecorated since January. I mean, it was time, it was one of those things like with car purchases, I've been thinking about it for a really long time, and then just pulled the trigger on everything. But it means that like boxes keep arriving at my house. Like we're have to order all the furniture online and all the art online and everything is like coming in that everything has to be managed. And so my front hallway again, is like completely full of boxes, because the guy came to deliver my end tables today. And so I was like, I have to put all the tables together. And I was four minutes late for a podcast because I wasn't looking for gift today to send the my husband, I was like, I'm just gonna finish putting this one and table together. And now I'm knitting. And earlier I was I was practicing my Chopin and I have not done a lick of work today. That is part of my employment, because I have so much of it to do and I have to sit still to do it. But I have so much energy, my body I want to bounce around instead.
Yep. Oh, yeah, no, and that's a, I get that feeling. Again, acutely where I'm like, zipping all over my basements, between the sewing table between my computer between, you know, then heading upstairs, I actually went and worked in the dining room, because I was like, I need to sit in a place where there's sunlight. Yeah, maybe I'll sit still, if there's also, you know, I'm not in the basement anymore. It worked. Sort of. And, you know, and it's also that time of, it's getting to be that time of year to when it's almost the worst of the, as a parent, it's almost worse than Christmas, because we're coming up on the all of the end of the year activities. And all of the, you know, all of the like, my daughter's spring show is soon it's a
whole new set of permission slips
a whole new set of permission, sets a whole new set of calendars, because the routine is going to change because now there are extra rehearsals and dress rehearsals and you know, like just different times. And, and so everybody's also has that notebook in the house filled with nervous energy, we have shows, we have performances, what's going to happen, how are we going to do this and then also, it's here in the state of Virginia. Because of No Child Left Behind, everybody does sort of the state tests. And here they are called Sol, which I think is hysterical. Took me a long time to being like shit out of luck. What's wonky about this? Yeah. And so it basically is the kids know, now they're like, once the third quarter is over, which is ending at the at the end of March. Once the third quarter is over, all learning basically ceases and it's nothing but test prep for the last quarter.
I love that No Child Left Behind was actually meant to rectify some serious and measurable deficits in the American public education system. And what it has resulted in is less teaching. Yep. Yeah, I mean, of course, maybe we'll have to do an episode on assessment.
Important seriously, but so I think that there's also especially again when you have kids in the house, this is kind of the time of the year to where the nervous energy also starts ramping up depending on how old they are. And you know, I'm now in elementary school it wasn't really that big a deal and we try to downplay it but it's it gets more and more is that it's Middle School in high school. You know, these things are starting to as much as my kids try not to because we want to downplay it and we don't but it's in the air right. We are going to high performing schools.
So you're going to get a little Gordon Gatto and violent femmes about it. Like, I hope that you know that this will go down on your permanent record. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, sorry. I'm like a violent femmes face.
No, that's no, I think that that. I mean, you want the magic music to
you Sure. Do you Sure. Do. You know, I rescued someone from a nosebleed at a violent femmes concert once, really, when I was doing my masters at Well, yes. Because the security, you know, think about AstroWorld. Now, the security of this Guelph concert in 1997, long term memory in full effect here was like just a bunch of people didn't know what the hell they were doing. And I was in the front row and had T shirts on and had T shirts on that said security. Yeah. And so this person, like popped up bloody nose, and they're like, oh, yeah, squeeze it and turn your head back. I'm like, Well, if you wanna throw up, let's do that, right? Because then all the blood just goes down the back of your throat into your stomach. So I hopped the barrier. This is like, could not be more me. I hopped the barrier. And I was like, okay, sit down, everybody. I'm taking care of this now. Right? Yeah. So our kids, too, are noticing this, right? I mean, everybody is sensitive this is this is one of the things that I'm trying to bring back into my life is an attention to the natural rhythms of the world, right? Winter time is a slow downtime, it's dark, it's cold, it's dangerous outside, because there's too much ice, everybody is tired. Like, this is not the time to start, like a major energy project. If that's not in your body, that's cool. Like, we're gonna have your energy certain times of the year. And I would like to be more attentive to that. Because that for me, that's part of a mindfulness practice that is like, you know, it is what it is. Amy or Yes, Mike would say it do be like that sometimes, right? Don't fight the weather, right? Like, that. Sometimes, can't argue with the weather, right? So I'm trying to be attended to that. But in in other ways, too. I'm like, part of that is about noticing when, when my own responses to the weather are maybe counter productive, sometimes Right? Or, or, like, it's nice to have a bit more energy, but because I know myself and I know I have a tendency to anxiety as well, sometimes this extra energy feels like anxiety, right? And sometimes it comes out as anxiety a particularly like you're mentioning your kids with the rhythm of the school year and like and some of our listeners, like work in, you know, the corporate world, and it's year end corporate year end, like around this time of year, which means like, there's a lot of like reporting requirements that happen now. And so the world Gosh,
tax season two, we got to get our taxes done. Oh, god.
Yeah. It's like tax season, it's year end reporting. It's like quarterly stuff. It's, you know, in universities, in in Canada, our semesters, this teaching term stops, like in the first week of April, which means that all exams, so all of these, like high stakes, activities that require energy are happening at this time. But those high stakes activity also produce anxiety. And so So sometimes, instead of like, oh, hurray, I have more energy to like, bust my way through all the readings and papers. I did not right between January and March, because I was too sad and depressed. You're like, oh, hurray, I've got like this bit of mania I can put to use but it can just come out as anxiety. Right. So that, that the energy that you have, you are now expending almost entirely on panic. Yeah, instead of on, on doing things right. And so it's, it's useful, I think, to try to learn to distinguish between like, this is a stress or like, there's a standardized test that I have to take or, or for me, like the I've just finished week, eight of the semester. So I'm trying to guide my students for the end of the semester, two weeks, and grading load is increasing, and things have to wrap up, sort of like I do have more work to do. Do I need to be anxious about it? Do I have more energy? And is this energy? Just basically like frizz, like I'm putting my fingers around right now? Is this energy just basically static? Like, or is this energy that could like power a light bulb? Right? So I don't know, how do you how do you feel that balance in your body? Or how do you feel that that disruption, like do suffer from the springtimes?
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think I get more manic. Definitely, again, just by planning 27. So in projects after, after I barely made anything, yeah, there's two months of the year and even the last two months, like I think it was, it was literally November where it was like my I sewed like, one thing, and it was a dress that was like a warm hug. And I was, you know, made of dresses, like a warm hug. And I was like, that's good. And I willed myself to make something for Christmas, just to like, say that I had made something
new so is I have to sew right?
Yeah, I just I have to do this. And I was like, well, maybe I only make one garment a month this year, and that's okay, because maybe I don't need to make 32 garments. And now I'm planning 27 garments for my summer. But it was interesting to say that so we've always lived up until now. Very close to university campuses, like like walking distance to campus. Press and surrounded by students. Yeah. And I cannot sleep during final exams week. Right? And I, you know, even when I was teaching, I don't do final exams, I teach writing classes. So I've like, and, you know, the students essays have usually already been handed in. And all of that. So there's like, No, you know, yeah, I got a grade, but that like, you know, I've got a great all the time it's written, but during the week of final exams, I cannot like I usually cannot sleep now that we've moved away from campus, or like, I mean, moved away from campus. We live in Northern Virginia now, right? It is what it is. You know, I can't afford to live in Georgetown to be able to walk or walk to work and that, but, but I sleep so much better. And I've all I always used to joke that I would just feed off of the energy, but I think I was just feeding off of the energy being so close to campus. And so
energy vampire Are you calling Robinson from? Yes, what we do in the shadows, that's, you're just like, you're not feeding off it? It's like, no, altering your own vibe.
Yeah, I know. It's it alters my own I, I mean, I do as an extrovert, I do tend to feed off of the energy of the environment that I'm in. Right, that's, that's sort of the definition of extraversion, right? Like, that's right. Um, you gain energy from it. But the reverse is also true, where if I am in an environment where everybody is a nervous wreck, yeah, then you are nervous. I am also a nervous wreck, or, you know, and can't sleep and, and get into the, the kind of spirals and that even though I'm like, that no one, you know, I have to grade but like, I always have to grade and like I have to, you know, no one's I don't have an exam on you know, and I'll start having like, the nightmares, where this was my favorite. i It's a reoccurring nightmare that I have, that I find out that I missed one of my classes in sage up. Oh, places.
Yes. And you have to go back because they're gonna take up.
They're gonna take everything away from me, like, go back and finish this one course. In Asia, and I can't find it. Yeah. And I keep skipping it.
Yes. Oh, my God, I have that too. I have that back to like my high school and Kirkland, Lake Ontario. KLCI. Take some kind of math class and an English class. And I'm, like, so confident about my English class that I keep skipping my math class, and I'm like, I'm gonna fail it. It's like, I forgot to take it the first time. But now I'm going to fail it because I just never showed up for it. Am I gonna have to come back to high school? Again? Yeah. That's a bad dream, man. Yeah, I've been there.
Yeah. I wonder if it you fellow academics? Have you have dreams like this? And maybe it's of like, like, they made a mistake. And I have to go back all the way to? Well,
I think like Kurt Vonnegut had that dream at least once. Because that is a plot point in the novel player piano. Right. Okay, where there's, like, you know, like, like reefs and wrecks, like, there's, like some classes of people who do not have PhDs like work in these terrible jobs. And the people who do have PhDs have access to the better life. I mean, it's an academic fantasy law. But like one of the guys with a PhD finds his entire life turned upside down, because there was like a transcription error or something like in somewhere and so he's missing this one credit. So I think that dream may belong to more than just your eye because it gives a plot point in a technological dystopian novel, which I remember, but again, remember, I'm the person who doesn't turn the button on the washing machine. I don't know why remember that. All right. So you've described here another confounding factor. So first, the daylight is increasing, which is going to produce physiological changes in the human body, which cues its melatonin production. It's cortisol production. It's circadian rhythm, much like migratory birds is matched to the environment, right. So that's just physical has to do with day like the the second confounding factor is, the occupations that we work in may produce deadlines that are also cute, like so high stress events are like high stakes events that have been building towards a pinnacle and the pinnacle tends to happen at this time of year. That's common in many professions. That's the second confounding factor. The third confounding factor is our sort of inability to maintain an emotional equilibrium that's different from the equilibrium of those around us. Right. So like, we could say, like, is it the standardized test that's making you freak out? Or is it being in class all day with everybody else who also was worried about standardized tests? Right, so I think neurodivergent people, um, like we've talked on this podcast about your rejection sensitive dysphoria and part of that is being exquisitely attuned constantly in a state of hyper vigilance to the emotional tenor of the room so that you can find some type of safety and assess your own participation. And similarly, with autistic people often the reasons we are so often putting our hands over our ears closing our eyes and rocking back and forth is because we cannot tune out the world right? It's not that we lack empathy or kid have feelings, it's that other people's feelings are so disruptively attaching to our own emotional states, like there's no sort of wall that keeps other people's feelings out of my feelings that I'm very, very sensitive to so daylight, work and life circumstance, and the people around us can all conspire to give this jolt of energy, that might be excitement. It might be anxiety, it might be stress, it might be mania, and how can we tell the difference between those states? And how can we manage our environments or our bodies a bit to get through it?
That's a good question. I mean, I'd like your idea of mindfulness and just sort of paying attention. Like if you hadn't, if you hadn't proposed this, I wouldn't have noticed all of these things about my own sewing mania right now. Right? Right. And so now I can kind of be more attuned to it and sort of think about it and, you know, look at my to do list for work and say, All right, now how can I balance this Mania with what is the energy that I need for this other thing? Because all I want to do is stare at my sewing patterns, and fabrics and play. Oh, amen. Yeah, that's all I want to do. That's all I want to do right now. And then get to sewing and like, just, and there's something as well, like, they've just the bright colors for me, like, it's just going along with that, where I'm, I've taken out all of my floral patterns, just like all of the most colorful floral patterns, and it's just gonna be like, No more. No more black and white. You have a fabric garden in your basement now. Yeah, I do have a huge fabric garden right now in my basement, much to my husband's dismay, because pay for all of it. Um, but, but again, so there's that mindfulness. And so now that I've recognized the behavior, I can take a step back from it. And, and, and then look at it, you know, look at it critically, yeah, no, and sort of say, Okay, now I understand and I know what is happening. What can I do about it? And, you know, and sort of manage that and think of strategies for myself, where, okay, this is how we can do that. What's harder for me is that other case where it's like, living near campus, and I can recognize that I'm feeding off of the anxious energy of the students. But you know, if that doesn't help me go to sleep. That's right, because, okay, I recognize it. Stop it now. Yeah, that didn't work. Didn't work.
Yeah. So they're just like saying, yeah, there's a lot of noise outside. And I'm aware that that's what's keeping me awake. But now that I know that it's very noisy. And that's why I can't sleep now. I can sleep well. No, because it's still noisy. Right. Like, emotionally that that works the same? Yeah.
It's like when the leaf blowers are outside. I know, I can't work because there are leaf blowers outside. Yeah. But now that I recognize that the leaf blowers are still there, like, yeah, exactly. It's
like, the reason that I'm so angry, and I can't concentrate is because of this noise. Again, I can't change the noise, like, Can I change? Like locations? Maybe, right? But like some things you can change and some things you can't and I do think that there is, as you suggest a power just in noticing, right? Like, what is my mood right now? And like, Is this my mood? Or has this been laid on me by external circumstances? Like MMI Miss reading my desire to so as So Joe, when maybe it's mania, right? Am I you know, like, I have some strategies, like I love my routine. So we were talking in last week's episode too about about routines or two weeks ago, I don't know how to speak about routines and how they allow us to just kind of autopilot our way through but like, even with autopilot, sometimes you have to say, you know, when the MCs in your Boeing is malfunctioning, like the nose should not be pointed down like this, right? You need to be able to pull up hopefully, and, and part of that is, is is having that little bit of awareness when your autopilot is not really working anymore, right. So in the winter, I tried to get up with the sunrise so that I maximize my hours of daylight and, you know, I've timed my walks so I can get a last bit of sunshine on my eyes, but also when I do my cooking so that like before my energy disappears entirely. I can do this. And so my whole routine is organized around the constraint that I know I have a limited number of hours in the day where I'm going to feel energetic and there's some hours of the day I'm going to feel sad and weepy and lonely just physiologically, that's what the lack of daylight does to me and how can I meet my needs there? But if I maintain those routines into the spring I'm not going to have the same effect, right? I don't have to goose my energy. I don't have to get up with the sunshine because there's more than enough sunshine, right. And I don't have to plan for the lonely and weepy parts of the day because I don't have lonely and weepy parts of the day, I need to build more quiet into my day, not more excitement, right? I need to find a way to dissipate some of my energy not to goose up some of my energy. And you know, Lee, I'm not changing any of my routines unless something very dramatic is going on. Because I love my routines. Yes. But again, these things might be for some of us seasonal, right? Maybe you have a winter routine. And it's going to be the same every winter and maybe have a spring routine. But just because your routine that worked great in January and February is not working so great. Now it doesn't mean that you're a failure, and you have to persist without same routine. Maybe your routines have to be adjusted seasonally, the same way you don't wear wool socks in the summer doesn't mean that they're not great for January. They're just not super for August.
Yeah. I don't need my feet to be that warm. They're already that warm. Thank you. Yeah.
And like no shade on the socks, right? They're just not appropriate for the new circumstances. Right?
Well, we shift out our wardrobes right? That's something you know, I mean, that's that's particularly in Canada. I mean, that is I can remember that growing up right my mom would literally flip her wardrobe around so
I do that. This Yeah, yeah. Old House small closet, right? Yeah.
Yeah. So you you move it down to the basement or up into the attic and you go through and you know just maybe you Kondo it this is Bristol bring me joy.
bring joy did I remember I own this one? For six months.
Now that's a great thing about HD too, because you're like, oh my god, I love this.
Oh, yeah, I bought these shoes in August. Right which I forgot these shoes existed. Yeah, that's fun.
Yeah. Especially my My thing is when I buy things on super sale towards the end of the summer, yes. And then you rediscover them. Like literally forgot you bought them and then never worn them before. Now you're like, Oh, my goodness. Like did you buy it again, though?
All my seasonal decorating is like that I have learned over the years do not buy the cute Christmas napkins. When you see the cute Christmas napkins appearing because probably January the fifth, I bought a bunch of cute Christmas napkins and then never use them put them in the box with the Christmas stuff. Right? Which is why I now. I mean, I mentioned that one because I do have a problem with Christmas napkins and I have enough Christmas napkins for probably 10 years. But I can't stop buying new ones when they come out right after Halloween because I like it just one little something that's going to be Christmas that I buy some napkins and then I open up. Like I'll have a box out of the attic that at this point is like 40% Christmas napkins. Right. But I just love them. I'm like eat more everybody make more messes. Wipe your face. With all these napkins. We have so many Yeah, but that's a that's a thing. And so maybe, maybe the change of season actually we can see as a gift a way for us to kind of reevaluate if this routine is still working for me, is this a routine or rut? Yeah, maybe? Right? Did I actually really like did I miss these pants when I put them away for six months in the attic? But these shoes still not comfortable? Am I still kind of learn about them? Right? Do I really need to get up at this time of day or like is working after supper, something I can actually think about doing now because I seem to have a lot more energy in the evenings than I did before. So maybe I can, you know, go for a walk when it's nice. During the day, like maybe it's an opportunity for us to, like become more mindful, right when something changes often. You know, like I teach stuff to my students and I find when the concept is really novel for them, and therefore counterintuitive, and they don't really have like a frame to attach it to comparative analysis is better right to things that are completely different. So that I can say Do you see how these things are different and usually they can't right and then I'm like now we can describe the characteristics of the one I'm trying to teach you about because you can see that it's different from this other thing and so I think sometimes we do tend to go through our lives kind of like in our ruts you know not noticing like in my house when the angle of the sun changes I noticed like how gross my kitchen cupboards are because like the light comes in at a different angle and now it bounces off the floor under the cupboards and produces a reflection where I can see all the like, yes ladder marks that I couldn't before. Like
the fingerprints and yeah,
change. But the the the fact of the cupboards did not change but I'm able to see them differently because the angle of the light changed right and now I can do something different and and so maybe we should not take so much as a disruption, the changes that seasons bring, but like an opportunity to look afresh at, like our patterns of behavior or our preferred ways of doing things or, or what have you, right like I always like I wanted to talk about the city because I do I struggle in the spring just as much as I struggle in the fall right when fall starts To turn to winter, and I'm like, I hate myself and I hate everything. And why am I so sad? And I just want to sleep. And I would like to eat an entire loaf of bread except I don't want to eat anything and like, everything looks a bit weird. And it's like, and I hate it. And then I'm like, Oh, thank God, it's the spring and everything is better. But like, It's not better. It's it's like, everything is up ended again. And I'm a bit jagriti jagriti and all of my energy, and I don't really have a lot of coping skills for that. Yeah. Other than like, I am noticing.
Yeah. Well, I think that that's, I think that that's really important, especially as we found out, we were no neurodivergent later, we just always internalize that and said, There's something wrong with me. Absolutely. Right. There must be something very wrong with me that I am not able to have normal reactions to things the way other people have normal reactions. Thanks. That's. So I think part of that is goes back to our discussion around just kind of forgiving ourselves and noticing, right and being okay with what it is that we notice. And we we've probably always noticed it. Yeah. But it was always kind of, oh, well, I that's something I have to fix. Or that's something I have to suppress or that's something that I'm not going to I don't want to talk about because this is just more proof that that I am yeah, I'm broken.
And so nobody else is like this. Why am I like this? Why am I like
this? Right? Why? Why does? Why everybody else is so happy. It's spring and I'm happy but also not happy? Like I don't understand why
nervous right? Yeah. nervous because spring nervous.
And again, it's easy. I think it's easy, particularly is it seasonal for it to sneak up on you. Right? Like, if you think about it, the days have been getting longer since the end of December. Sure they have right. And they'll start getting shorter. July,
June the 21st.
Yeah, June 21. will start getting shorter. Yeah, um, but but when that finally does have an impact, even though it's been happening for months is then three months later. Mm hmm. Right, when you start getting towards the equinox, so it's really easy.
Well, I was gonna say like, and also sunlight is tricky because it's not like it diminishes at an even pace day by day and it's not like a gross and even paced day by day so like what distinguishes the spring equinox, which will come like around March the 21st is like, that's the apex of the speed at which the daylight grows like so after Christmas we were getting because I obsess about this because I pretty bad seasonal affective disorder. Like we were getting an extra 30 seconds of daylight every day, right? And yesterday, we got an extra three minutes of daylight right and then after, after the the spring equinox, then it will be like we're gonna get two minutes and 55 seconds of extra daylight, right. So the speed at which the daylight is increasing is going to peak in like, the middle of March. And then we're still going to get more daylight every day until the middle of June, but it won't be so much extra. Yeah, everyday. And again, when it starts to diminish after June the 21st. It's going to go down by like 30 seconds a day. Until all of a sudden in September. It just feels like daylight is falling off the edge of the earth because it is right. Much faster. Whoo. Thanks. I hate it.
I know. I know. And but but again, it's it's that sort of thing where it feels like it's sneaking up on you. Mm hmm. You know, and I think we all have moments like for me again, driving the kids to practice. All of a sudden it's not dark anymore. Yeah. And it feels like it's all of a sudden, it's not dark anymore, right? You're just like, Wait, it was dark. Wasn't it dark last weekend? Because yeah, yeah. What's the dark when we did this? Just like, you know, Friday and then to Monday, and you're like, wait, it's an it's just that little bit extra? Yeah. Where you're like, oh, they really are getting longer. Okay, cool. So this is one
that can mess with your routines too, right? You're like, oh, it's starting to get dark. That means I should take the dog out or like it's starting to get dark. Oh, that means I like Oh, Tom's gonna be home from work and but like, no, like, so sometimes the day like gives you those cues to about like, where you have to be. And when and now you're like, now you're back in the time knife. Like you don't know what's happening. It's like, like, go ahead.
I was gonna say we both lived in Edmonton. That was the war first. In the summertime, the days were so long.
The sun goes down after 11pm Right?
Yeah, you're outside having a beer after work. And all of a sudden it's midnight. And you're like
nice, like, I have to get up tomorrow morning. And then like the sun starts coming up to like for me like I can't get up it's too early and it is too early but you can't sleep because the sun is so bright. And then in the winter like the sun is so low on the horizon. Like I just remember sitting in this like Edmonton transit bus going down white Avenue, like headed west and like the sun is coming through the front window of the bus and then hitting me in that eyes in the backseat of the bus. Like that's how flat the sun is. But it comes up at like 845 and goes down at 330 You're like, Please kill me. It's like both too bright and not enough. Yeah, they like I'd like, I think also we make associations, right. So like I often, like I know, I'm going to get depressed in the winter, because I do every year. And it's pretty hard not to notice when you get depressed. But I also have, like a lot of things that I like in the winter like I'm like, Oh, great. Like, there's gonna be Halloween and after Halloween, I get to start harassing Tom about can I buy some Christmas napkins and like put up my lights and like we do have cultural rituals around the coming darkness. Right? We're about hygge and things we can do indoors in our warm fuzzy socks and stuff. And, and I like that because it's comforting. And I need sort of comfort and togetherness and brightness. And in the spring, it's like Hurray, let's do all this stuff. Everything is growing. But I'm still anxious in the spring because like for me, having been in school every years since I've been for spring is like when as I said the chickens come home to roost or like, Yep, all the assignments that I haven't done, are now due. And I freaked out because I've been so dysfunctional all winter, like as a student that I haven't handed anything in, or I'm like behind on everything. And I'm super anxious because I don't get it all done. By this deadline, I have to move back to Kirkland Lake and I'm going to get in completes and everything. And so every time I see spring Chem, I'm like, oh, no, this is when the shits gonna hit the fan. So I kind of look forward to spring with dread. And probably my spring anxiety is 100 times worse, because my spring anxiety is now very much cued to all the things I didn't get done in the winter, because I was not sufficiently taking care of myself. And obviously, I'm undiagnosed and untreated, for my ADHD so that when spring comes, I'm full of dread. Even though I haven't been like that for many years, I'm still somehow I've built this pattern into my body where Yeah, spring body remembers, the body remembers, like the body remembers huge number of high stakes deadlines. And it's a great opportunity for me to hate myself, because I'm almost certainly way, way way behind on everything. And my anxiety is going to shoot through the roof, partially from the reality of all those things I have to do. And partially just from the daylight making me probably manic right. So I don't really have any spring rituals, like I have in the winter that that calmed me down and make me feel comforted. Which is weird, because you wouldn't think and probably because I never would have thought that I needed them. Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah. So I was today years old when I learned that Lee, learn that well. Disgusting and shit. So except for me right now, please.
So what my mom does and has all without always but, you know, for a long, long time, her thing was planning her garden. Right? That was her comforting thing. Right? Like, when? When do I that? So there was a there's a whole ritual and cycle around that. Right? When do we? When do we start planting? When do we turn everything up? When do we you know, wake up the plants as you should have, she has it planned out, she knows when things are supposed to get planted when she has to do the things for her garden. And there's there's kind of a ritual and a cycle that takes place throughout the entire spring, summer. And then again, in the fall, we put everything to bed, you know, and and so for her I think I never asked her but I mean, just the routine of that. And when she starts talking about it, you know, when she said oh, it's time to start thinking about the garden, what do we need this year? What do I want to plant? So you know, what do we you know, do we need more dirt doing more pots do we write you know, so there's that sort of that, I think that that was really comforting for getting your hands in the dirt. I was watching something the other day and they're like, apparently there's like, dirt has antidepressant qualities in it that you absorbed through your skin and I'm like, whatever. Fuck maybe, but maybe right, but maybe. So I think that that was always her way at the very least of having some sort of thing to look forward to some sort of comforting ritual. Yeah. That that came with that because I mean, there is also looming, for better or for worse as well. The interruption in all of our routines, which is summer break. Yes. Yeah, right.
Yeah, I feel like I'm sitting you Yeah, I feel my incipient research term, like sneaking up on me, which is like, oh my god, first of all problems, right. But I'm like, I have to get everything from the fall term, the winter term done because I have to hit the ground running with my research because I only have this amount of time and then it's really only two months because that school is gonna end and my kids gonna be home all the time. And then my husband's gonna want to go on vacation. I hate the fact like what Yeah, so I like I'm cranking myself up for sure. For sure. For sure. And like, I've always told people spring is my like, least favorite season and like I'm becoming aware just talking to you today. It's just because spring is the most anxious season for me. It's the reckoning of deadlines and academic work and it's the end of an academic year and I love academic years, right like so September always hasn't been great for me. because it's the beginning of the Year and Christmas is always great because you know, I love Christmas. I love it. It's my, my favorite and you know, when I lean into it in January, I'm gonna get through it and then the spring comes and like, I guess I've never really had anything to look forward to in the spring other than like, I'm gonna have a crap ton of work. I'm going to be low key freaked out constantly. My sleep is going to be disrupted. I mean, I love summer, too. It's just been has always been like God, spring is the worst. But that's maybe because I haven't got the right rituals. Yeah, myself, right, maybe need to change my mindset around. My own anxiety might just be seasonal mania, and maybe I don't need to be so freaked out. Maybe I can just say it's okay, buddy. You're freaking out. Because of the daylight. I'm going to be kind to maybe I don't really have so many reasons to be anxious or panicking as I think I do. Maybe my body is tricking me.
That's I mean, again, the body remembers after how many years of spring time equaling anxiety. Absolutely right. It doesn't all of them right? That it just that's what it is. Oh, there's daylight shits time to get scared
that's me. Yeah. lights here. Shit. It's time to get to get where I'm like so like, Thank God I like not going to be depressed and crying all the time. But like also I hate it. Yeah, right. I'm going to be scared all the time. And I am that's my predominant springtime emotion is fear is not a great way to go through the day and I'm like, I should be enjoying this because like I complain about although Yeah, then you beat yourself up about not enjoying it that might pop up about having oh, about having the wrong emotion at the wrong time. I wonder why I learned that.
Yes. Right. That so I mean, I always Yeah, that I always really, because again, it's spring is it's rightfully especially for kids the way the schedule goes, it's tax season and all that so I mean, I don't know why we associate as a society so many negative things. Like just decided to schedule so many negative things. Just it's like it's spring here. It's nicer out have all the shit
related problems and taxes. Yeah, cancel each other out.
Yeah, final, final exams, final shows final, you know, final swim meets final competitions. Let's pack all of the Most High Pressure things into the month into the spring months before summer
endings. endings to rites of Spring is the season of renewal, we should be happy, like the Earth is coming back to life. Like you use the language of gardening, which is like wake up the plants, which I love you to cut the burlap off them and you turn them back and whatever it is, like, wake up the plants and it's new beginnings. But actually, in most spheres of life, it's a bunch of endings at the same Yeah, right. And things like ending the tax here. It's like the ending of the semester. It's the ending of like the corporate year end, all your children's activities are starting to wrap up which is both like much more busy than like status quo is but but endings always. Like I think especially for neurodivergent people who are so conscious of our own failures constantly like well, there's another like year of whatever lessons that didn't go the way I wanted it to. Yeah, to be I have failed myself, right? Yep, I set all these goals and I didn't meet them like so it can feel like like spring is also you have much more energy to ruminate on all your failures as things and and like many of us also are much more comfortable with beginnings than endings, right. It's nice to be excited about something. But an ending always, in some ways feels like a failure or a loss. Right. And since we don't even notice probably that we're associating spring with the ending of things. We're looking forward to the beginning of summer. We're always looking forward to the beginning of something without maybe paying attention to how things are in fact ending and we are often ambivalent about endings.
Yeah. Oh, for sure. No, I think that that's that's perfectly right. I mean, you know, again, any sort of any sort of event where there is an ending, but there also is high stakes and opportunities to fail or not do things well, I mean that Yeah, always, you know, my RST kicks in and I'm thinking like, all of the you know, all of the end of the year team champs which were always in May, right that you know, how I didn't improve times or how I didn't, you know, swim as well as I wanted to or, you know, didn't do as well on exams as you'd want it to or you know, didn't didn't didn't do my paperwork for my taxes. This year was going to be different.
Here was going to be different and some, not
some Alex not Yeah, and so it's Yeah. And there is so there is this. We don't have an airy again, we can talk about how Christmas was quote unquote rescheduled to around the December you know, The Longest Night and having all of these celebrations to give people something to look forward to. That's right. You know, and Easter to an extent was that similar thing for spring? Yeah. Right within the Christian tradition, we want to just go by Christian traditions. But we don't have the same kind of cultural weight around Easter as a society in the in a western society. Yeah. Or at least in North America as we do Christmas.
That's right. That's right. And because Christmas absorbed a lot of other holidays, which we discussed, like this sort of human need, like where in the summer you work on the crops, and in the winter, you work on the relationships, right, you have to hunker down, you have to work collaboratively and spring, people are so frenetic and busy, like it's not the most, you know, let's let's all get together and talk about our feelings. It's more like, Let's go chase easter eggs outside. And
let's like, Let's go have Mardi Gras your business.
Let's go Mardi Gras like busy, busy, busy, busy, busy. And yeah, I think like you're talking about like, Oh, my time didn't improve in my swimming. Like I think it is that reckoning, too, right? It's like, I'll get to the end of the semester and be like, well, here we go again, I have failed to live up to my own ideals. And like, like, I know, I remember this feeling both as a student and as an instructor of like, I cannot wait for this semester to be over because I think it is irredeemable. And I am irredeemable. And I just need a fresh start at some point. But also, I am sad that I can't fix this, right? Like there is no way for me to somehow pull it out of the fire and get like a victory out of this one, right. So it's both like I very much want it to be done. Can't wait for it to be finished. But also I'm really upset that it's ending like this, right. And in fact, I will say some small victory I've been able to pull out of this, as I was discussing this with my students. I'll say this week, at the time that we're recording it I was discussing with my students this week, this kind of week eight effect, I call it right, which is like two thirds of the way through the semester for us. And I told them, which is true. I'm like I assign less reading now, after week eight, because like, well, you've built up a base. And that was what was important. And you still have a bunch of assignments to do and you're getting tired, because we've been doing this like for a while already. And it's been really intense. And now you have to start to synthesize things and you can't synthesize if you're learning new stuff, but also you're gonna have trouble synthesizing and or learning new stuff. Because, like a like a novice running a road race, you started too fast. Yeah, probably right. And you can't recover from starting too fast. You cannot get that energy back, you have to pace yourself from the beginning and like pacing ourselves to something that almost everybody struggles with. So as like I said to them, and this was true. Like, I used to be disappointed in both my students and myself that we could not keep up a regular schedule of work across an entire semester as each of the 12 Weeks was perfectly fungible one with the other, right, like any week of a semester is a week of the semester, right. But it's not like a week two is qualitatively differently from week 10. Right, we have 10 people are exhausted, they know each other, but they're freaked out about like their final assignments. And they're like, either disappointed or happy with how they're doing and all of their courses so far, and they're worried about what
their summer internship is going to be like.
They're worried about their Co Op terms. So I thought like, they're miserable, I'm miserable. Everybody's disappointed. What if I like shifted? Show shifted my class, the rhythm of the semester, instead of saying, like, every three hour block of period, where I meet with my grad students is the same three hour block. Like they're not, though, like, how could I teach the best course that I can teach them? My goal was for them to learn as much as I can teach them. Not. My goal is not to teach them as much as possible. Because if they're not learning it, that doesn't
mean you're not doing that, then it's not coverage. Like yeah,
yeah, like, I'm not about coverage. I'm not about like, yeah, I need to dump as much information in the bucket, right, the bucket model as I can, because if their eyes are glazed over, they're not learning and also like that disappoints me when it happens, and I'm not happy. But also like, if I assign too much to read, I am sitting there the day before class, like, Oh, God, I gotta read I got this. Yeah, yeah. What if I shoved my way through it? Then I mad that they didn't shove their way through it. But what if none of us had to shove our way through? What if I shifted right to sort of say, like, I know, there's more daylight. But you guys are really busy. And you've worked really hard. So we're going to do a bit less, but we're going to do the best we can. Right? I have started to do that. And I will say it works better. It works better than what I'm doing before, which was just hoping it was going to be different this year, somehow without anything else changing. Right? How could it be? Yeah, I would try harder.
Yeah, I mean, isn't that always the solution that we've learned our lives? Just try harder?
Yeah, I could like blame my students for being lazy. Like which manifestly they are not right. Yeah, I can blame myself for being a bad teacher, which manifestly I am not or I could say like, I have been trying it this way for many, many, many years. And like the results are in it's not working. Like yeah, like what can I change to make spring better for them. But my guess I've never really thought about that just for myself.
Yeah, exactly. Well, we're always more likely to think about it for other people than we offer ourselves.
Absolutely. Especially that just you have more energy should I get the more energetic? Why do I need help at all? We?
Why do we need her? And I think that this speaks to a really important need for for rituals. neurodivergent or not? Yeah. Right. And to have positive and nourishing rituals. Mm hmm. Right, because we all have these rituals again, or I would say routine that are all anxiety inducing. That's right. Right. And we're aware that there are rituals. Yes. Right. Yeah, exactly. Um, but how do we then build in since since society has decided that it's going to build in toxic rituals that are somewhat toxic rituals? Standardized? Yes. syntaxes, standardized syntaxes. With other more nourishing rituals that we can do for ourselves with our families, you know, maybe even into the communities depending? Right, so what can those look like? What can we do for ourselves? And, you know, I think the, I think the gardening example, for my mom is just that that was her ritual. Right? That was her ritual for the spring, and maybe sewing new spring clothes? Is my, you know, right. Yeah. That yeah, I think that's the kind of re re energization to get, like, excited about wearing bright colors, and cute dresses, and, you know, being outside and seeing people in them
too. And you can notice that like, it doesn't mean that you should have just tried harder, because you could have sowed that much all winter, right? Maybe it just means that you know that in spring, that you're going to feel this burst of energy to make a particular type of garment and to sew with a particular kind of intensity that you don't have in January, that maybe that's fine, right. So like, maybe you learn like that the thing that precedes that burst of energy is not a failure, right? But just part of that natural ebb and flow. Right. And, and maybe I can like, think about because every spring, I'm like, God, how do I let my house get this filthy, but I didn't like I've been, like, I try to keep my house tidy all the time, we try to keep things fairly clean. It's just the thing is when the angle of the light changes, you see things you didn't see before. And like maybe that's why people do spring cleaning, because they angle of the light like this may be why spring cleaning is I think not middle of the winter cleaning. I mean, you can't go outside in the middle of the winter, it seems like a good time to clean springtime, you could go outside, but here we all are like scrubbing the inside of our cutlery drawer, right, like, but maybe I can just say like, it doesn't have to be pristine. My cupboards don't have to be ungreased splattered in February, because I know every year March is going to come. And then when March comes my maintenance clean is going to turn into a deep clean, you know, and that maybe there is a season, right? Yeah. For for all of these things. And just because you have to redo it every year, like how come? It's always in March that I noticed this like particular thing? Like why can I stay on top of this? Don't have to like yeah, maybe you're it's the rituals is not a matter of like my daily routine. Maybe sometimes things happen every five years, maybe sometimes things happen. Like every four months, maybe sometimes things happen once a year. And that's just the rhythm that those things have. And maybe this is like something that clock time has disrupted for us, right, like a lot of research on like, when we move from seasonal time and daylight, organized time, like, Oh, I do this in the daytime, because I can't do it at night because there's no lights right? Or I sleep during these periods because like there's nothing else I can do. There's no TV and there's no internet, right? Like we move to clock time. And we segment the day into equal hours and hours into equal minutes and minutes into equal seconds we develop this cognitive error, that every bit of time is exactly the same. It just has a different number on it. But it's not right, like all week is a qualitatively different thing in the middle of winter than the middle of summer, like our perception of time is quite different, even though they both have the same number of hours, the same number of days and the same number of minutes. Like the daylight is different, the temperatures are different, our energy levels are different. The expectations that others have of us are different than and so maybe like this is part of the violence of clock time as we expect that we should be stable in our energy and stable in our activities. And like if I can do it now. I should have been able to do it two weeks ago, but maybe we could and maybe that's okay. And maybe we're more prey as neurodivergent people to think that there's something wrong with our energy levels. Yeah, focus. Like we blame ourselves internally instead of saying maybe this is just a natural part of the world. Yeah,
well, exactly. It's like you're saying about the semester. Right? The Week One is not the Same as week 10. Mm hmm. In terms of energy level in terms of expectations in terms of the students sitting in front of you, in terms of their understanding the material in terms of their energy levels, what they're able to focus on and same thing with you. And so, you know, same thing with our, with our time in the seasons. And I think, again, you've been good at noticing that about your seasonal affective disorder and getting depressed in the winter time. Right. And so you make, you know, you have, there are rituals built in, like I said, rituals that have been built in, because it impacts us more as neurodivergent, but impacts everyone. Mm hmm. Right. Um, whereas, again, we need to think about, okay, how do we do this now for ourselves? And springtime? Yeah, you know, and thinking of what is what is something that you can create in your own life to look forward to? As an antidote almost, to all of those other things?
Yeah. I would love to hear from any of our listeners to particularly those who experience more the kind of hyperactive form of ADHD because I imagine the boost of energy that those people get in the springtime, is maybe more disruptive than when I because I tend to be more attentive and more sort of on the inertia of slowdown mode, I would be really interested to know. Because it is really hard also, culturally to say I have too much energy, and it's upsetting me, right? Especially in hustle culture. They're like, Oh, great. You're only sleeping four hours a night Good for you, like you, you read two books put together for N tables in order to Posterize photographs on the internet and also, like, recorded a podcast and went for 10 kilometer run video, like a miserable if that's too much. Yeah, right. So but I can't stop. I can't stop. Yeah, I'm just like a human sized fidget, basically. Right? I'm spinning around from from thing to things, I would be really interested to think about that, like people understand when you're sad and depressed and you can't do stuff. But I think some people neurotypical people don't understand what it's like to have too much energy. Yeah. Right, that, that that's not a gift, necessarily, right. And they pass that along to neurodivergent people, too, who may have difficulty understanding their own energy levels as being disruptive and burdensome. Right? I have more energy, that should be better, more is better. Right? Yeah. Right. I can do 50 things at the same time. Isn't that better? Well, maybe not.
Yeah. Then I think it's one of the again, it's, it's, it's thinking about because, you know, bipolar in particular, right? This This sounds and that, again, it's this really difficult time that we have with neurodivergent behavior in that sort of way. Because in a way I can, I can remember some I'm going back to when I was in university, one of my one of my really good friends, she was eventually diagnosed as bipolar. It was called manic depression at that time and Bipolar but, um, but I mean, specially when you're 19 and in college 20 In college, the manic is just like you just go along for the ride. Right? Like this is
on foot in Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
And, and then when at the crash, though, I always, you know, or it goes too far. Yep. Right. Which, yeah. impulse control. Yeah. You got bipolar and someone with ADHD, undiagnosed ADHD, we had a lot of fun, but also crash real hard. Oh, I can imagine. But I mean, I think that there's, you're right, right in the hustle culture, but also just how we want to be and we want to be productive, and we want to be always doing things. And then we feel this pressure as well on ourselves, because we've always done things wrong. And now that we're doing things, and we're getting some praise for it, that we should probably keep doing the things because we're finally getting praised for something and appreciated for it. And so we're just gonna keep doing it. But then, you know, you're up at two in the morning. Yeah. Yeah, I'm
gonna make some PowerPoints. Yeah,
you're up at two in the morning. And I have to write some blog posts or like, maybe all you know, I have to organize my sock drawer now. Let me clean up my closet.
Yeah, I think I think we did like talk about that a little bit when we talked about how you stepped up at the beginning of the pandemic when your unit became essential and like converting all of Georgetown to online only and, and how you really leaned into that and I was like, so proud of you and you're like, it is so good for me like I can't keep I was like, oh shit, that's right. Like so. So even I'm proud of that like, and, and I know for sure, like everybody he that I've ever met is like when you get the hyper focus, you're like, I'm gonna ride that horse. Yeah, right.
off the cliff. You're
right that As at right off the cliff, but it's gonna be at full speed at least. Right? I'm not just gonna roll off the cliff because I was powerless to stop myself, right like, because like we're so conscious of when we do not get things done that that sometimes that bit of mania or or hyper focus as it manifests in people with ADHD is like, Yeah, I'm just gonna lean right into that I'm going to get everything done, that I didn't get done before. And that's a little bit of my spring mania, too, right as being conscious of all the things I didn't manage to do during the rest of the semester, and I can feel this energy in my body and I'm like, I'm going to transform that energy into hyperfocus. And all the things I didn't do, but like that's not how kind of manic energy works. It's not directional. Like you can't focus it on Oh, isn't your your human fidget?
Right? Your human just? Or? Or like the the? The balloon goons are like out? Yes. And they're just sort of flapping aimlessly in the wind laughing garlis of the breeze. Yep. Wherever the wind gets it, that's where they're going to flop and they can't stop.
That's right. That's right. And other people probably don't experience your mania as energetic either. Like, my husband is bipolar, and he is developing the awareness. Now when he's becoming hypomanic. He's like, I feel that I'm talking faster. And I feel a lot of this energy. And I think I'm being rude and like you are, right, like, because that's for him. Because it used to be like, no, no, like, I finally got my groove back. And I'm like, Yeah, I don't think so. Because no one is enjoying being around you. Because you're talking too much. And you're rude. And what you're saying doesn't make sense. And like people need more sleep than what you're getting right? And like, No, you you can't sell the house and buy a bookstore. Like, we're not going to be doing that. And yeah, like whatever it is, right? Like, yeah, but it feels good, because we've been taught in hustle culture, that that's what what productivity is right? And yeah, and that's, I think, a real indictment of neoliberal capitalism, if you will, Lee, that what it produces as a desirable state is his mania, that you get to be manic. In order to succeed in this, you need to blow through all your own boundaries and stuff. So it's difficult to recognize that as a pathological state, when you're in it, but like, god bless my husband is learning, right? And he's like, Yeah, I can I can feel this feels more now to me, in begin today, but Right, like, yeah, like Brene Browns research is doing is like saying, like, you know, if you can't name an emotion, then you can't address it. Right. So yeah, I thought I was excited. But I think I am frantic. Right? Like, I think that I am, I think that I'm worried about something. But I actually just think I'm having a stress response. I think this is bodily, I don't think this is gonna attach whatever. And once you can start to name that you can maybe be a little bit more intentional about, like, Is my body producing a signal that is relating to something that this that I have to address? Something that I can do? Like, did I forget to sign a permission slip? Or do I have to write an entire paper in 20 minutes? Or, like, do I have to plan all of the garden today? Or is it just like, there's a lot of daylight, which is messing up my circadian rhythm, and so I'm anxious about nothing. And I should just try to slow down because I don't need to be this fast, right? Yeah. Yeah, it's hard.
I don't need to be this anxious. I'm just anxious. Anxious. Yeah, I'm anxious out of habit. Which, again, you know, it's it's not like I can just stop the leaf blower from blowing now that I realize now there but yeah, it does make it easier to sort of recognize that and then, as you say, Okay, now what?
Yeah, yeah, no leaf blowers going doesn't mean you have to get angry, right? That's a groove. Yeah, that's in your head. Just because it's springtime, and I feel more energy. It doesn't mean I'm behind on all my schoolwork. And I should hate myself, right, like, but that's a path, a groove that you've worn through your own neurons. And it's
just like, is this like, 40? freaking years, right? Yeah,
exactly. Like people who quit cigarettes and have to stop drinking coffee. Right? Because they're like, I can't, or they like, cancel their newspaper subscriptions, because they cannot do one of these things without the other. Right? Yes, you have to learn that they are not actually coupled. And that's really hard.
Yeah, no, it is. Mm hmm. I mean, we, like you say we are creatures of habit. But I mean, this goes into neurology, right, we have created certain pathways in our brains, through repetition, through all of these kinds of things, and this is, you know, it has to get the body remembers, right, this has become something that is a part of our bodies. And you know, that's not easy. It's, it's, again, it's not easy to to couple that it's not easy to, you know, you can't just be like alright, brain, stop thinking that way.
Yeah, yeah, we're stopped like, like Subterranea Lee thinking things like we were just, you know, we've been talking in previous episodes about building automaticity in ourselves, right? Or, like, you know, trying to I've tried to build a routine with my kid that they don't leave their boots out in the hallway, because they know I'm gonna make them come downstairs at 10pm and put them away. And so it will build this automatic response that ultimately my kid does not have to think about what to do when they come home, right? They just do it. And so I think like On the one hand, we try to build those responses in ourselves around behaviors that we want to promote in ourselves. But at the same time, we sometimes inadvertently build them in our brains. And then we have to try consciously to undo them, which is kind of hilarious because sometimes, like automaticity is desirable, right? It's like I put my bag down here, I know what to pack in it every day, I just kind of do it or like, this is my routine for going to bed or like, you know, this is this is what I do to get stuff done. But then like, you don't realize you have exactly the same type of process running, when it becomes springtime, and you panic, you don't realize you've built an automatic, non cognitive, non conscious response to that. And so if you don't notice it, it's hard to undo it just it's hard to build a habit. It's hard to break one.
Yeah, exactly. So yeah, I would like I'd like to know what also listeners how they do it. Right. Not just yeah, you know what it feels like, but but if they have any, that they've maybe even unconsciously. Mm hmm. Right. You know, I don't my mom ever consciously said, this is the routine that I'm going to build for myself in order to be able to survive. Yeah, yeah. The manic nature of spring sprung. Yeah. You know, um, but, you know, so what are what are some of the things that that people that some of our listeners do, or if they've had this similar experience,
or what are some of the things that they were today years old when they realized, yeah, that they did, right. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
Because I think I, you know, again, I think this is something that I've never heard talk about. Mm hmm. Right. And we, of course, we've read a lot of the stuff cuz yeah, all the things. Because all the things. So. So yeah, please share with us, email us at all the things adhd@gmail.com I'll get your emails and
I will not and then we'll put them on.
But also, you can find us on Twitter. I am ready writing on Twitter.
And I am did you want to I will be there a lot posting pictures of all my frantic spring cleaning.
Yeah. And I'll be posting pictures of all of my frantic spring sewing.
makes such amazing things. Lee I am in awe.
Things. This is the top I'm wearing. Nobody can see this, of course. But I
top love it. No, no, I love me a severe black and white.
I know. I know.
It's colorblock black and white. So like half of it is black and half is white. It's sort of like on the diagonals. And the pieces are like, it's like definitely not a Beetlejuice effect. It's like no, amazing. Thank you, like, want to be around you. Oh, thanks. I mean, that's always true, though.
Yeah, it is true. Also, although if we don't think we get anything done now. Could you imagine?
Just read it. Think about it.
Oh, my God, I just had this thought
maybe. Yeah, we'll both be talking at the same time the entire time. And it's laughing right? That's right.
So you can try to slow me down and me because I talk with my hands a lot. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you so much for listening. Please share your experiences. We'd love to hear more about this. And this will be coming out just around the equinox. Equinox. Yeah, right around the vernal equinox and so enjoy
and it. Yeah, we did not.
We did not. I mean, it ended up that way. Yeah, just like, Oh, alright, side to side quests. Oh, let's do it. We get to, like the most inadvertent planning we've ever done. Um, so when the Muppet Show came out on Disney plus, right? We went through from the beginning. So my son still every night before bed in order to kind of unplug no more phone and we all as a family watch something animated or MFI or something like that, or about a half an hour? Yeah. So as soon as as soon as all of the Muppet shows.
Oh, sorry. Okay. So,
side side quest. Muppet Wiki on Twitter is blocked me.
I'm sorry. What now? So there's,
there's there's a Muppet Wiki, of course. I mean, of course there is. Yeah. And there's a Muppet Wiki Twitter account. And I saw somebody retweet something and say my favorite Muppet was this or that. And then underneath it was this tweet is unavailable. And I went I was weird, because I clicked on it. And then I got so it was from Muppet Wiki and I clicked on is like you've been blocked by this user. And I'm like, oh, surely I need to reevaluate all of my life choices because like, I don't know how I ended up here.
Seriously, you want some kind of blocklist somebody I guess? Like better to be on a block listen to have been personally targeted by the Muppet with
Yeah, like people's personal habits and I don't think I've ever like was I spamming them at one point like, I don't think so. You're going online for
a while. So you know, I'm going to do a deep dive on this as soon as I get off this goddamn call, and I had two more end tables to put together leave. Thanks. Another thing. I'm just trying You're
welcome. But anyways, back to the Rafal show. So watch the show nightly. And it just so happens that on May the fourth
Oh, was it the Mark Hamill episode? It was the mark. I think of you. Whenever I think of that episode, I was just thinking about Mark Hamill, because I'm watching what we do in the shadows, right? Yes. Yeah, he does a thing on there. Anyhow, that's a further side quest. The other side quests we get the amazing. Mark Campbell. That was like one of my all time favorite episodes When originally. Oh my god, Luke Skywalker is Yeah.
I was on The Muppet Show. I was like, awesome. Also, when Ernie and Bert were in the Muppet Show, that
was another no crossover episode. Episode. I mean, this is back in the days kids like remember, we were talking about discs and magnets and stuff was like, when you had to sit down in front of the TV at a particular time in order to watch a particular show. We would watch them up at show as children right at a particular time on the couch with their family and your to make sure there wasn't a hockey game at the same time because that you were not going to get to watch The Muppet Show Muppet Show.
And then you didn't know if you would ever be able to see that episode
ever again. Ever again. Talk about it at school the next day. And you'll be like, ah, yeah, nobody would say no spoilers because you're never gonna see it again.
Yeah, exactly. It was just like you were sure. You had to read about it in the TV Guide. Magazine. Yeah, you were so it's brought it back. All right.
Working memory
and the episode. But also Muppet Wiki blocked me. And I don't understand it actually really kind of hurts. Like
anybody out there involved with muck that wiki justice.
I'm sorry, whatever I did. I'm sorry. I didn't justice.
Really somebody fix this.
I love them up. It's the Muppets are like everything anyway. All right. Okay. All right. On that note, we will so everyone's great. I know. So close. That should just press stop by everyone.
