I actually don’t have the hyperactivity version of it. I mean, I could just sit in a chair for five straight hours and have no problem with that. Like I really, I don’t have the physical must, get up, must be, moving version of it. and fewer women have that for sure, but some women absolutely do. 

But I definitely lack. Executive function skills. and as I look at my childhood, I think I always struggled with that for sure. I think I always struggled with that and I came up with a bunch of tools to help me succeed. That then kind of compensated for the fact that it was more difficult for me to do basic executive functioning things.

But I do think that once a mom has three or more kids, the shear volume of details that need to be taken care of and the amount of noise and just the moving parts ends up fritzing out the brain so it doesn’t work as well. And then she has less access to those executive functioning skills.

Again, I’m just making that up, but that’s kind of what I see and why I see so many. Moms popping up and wondering, do I have ADHD?  So I’m just gonna tell you all about my journey with that and what I’ve tried and what I think moms can do, whether you are officially diagnosed with ADHD or not. 

So it began when a good friend of mine, her son, I believe her son, was diagnosed with ADHD, and she bought Ned Hallowell’s book. 

He’s like one of the OG ADHD guys, and she started taking pictures of this book and texting it to me and saying, Hey, this sounds like you. Which first of all, props to her for having the guts to do that because you know, it’s a very. That could be a very dangerous position to like, tell your friend, I think you have a mental health disorder.

But I’m so grateful because I had zero times in my life up until that point ever thought that I had ADHD, right? I didn’t look like boys who couldn’t sit still and couldn’t pay attention. And I’m an incredibly productive person and I kind of had this idea that ADHD people were just like a hot mess and they never got anything done.

So she starts sending me these pictures and I’m reading them, and I totally agree with her. I’m like, yeah, that does sound like me. So I go and buy that book and it has a pretty lengthy list of things in the front. Symptoms or like signs that maybe you have ADHD. And so I just start putting stars by all the ones that are me.

And there were so many stars, you guys. So many stars. And one of the ones I think was really interesting was, likes to speed. And I am not a thrill seeker. I do not like roller coasters. I do not like motorcycles. I don’t like the thrill of. I don’t know those thrill seeking behaviors, but I love to drive really fast. 

And my husband makes fun of me because I think I’ve had two or three speeding tickets since we’ve been married. And he has never had one. And I just like, if no one was around, I would drive so fast. I don’t know why. And I think it’s so interesting that is an ADHD thing, but it’s not related to, like one of my daughters loves roller coasters and I have no interest in that. 

So there’s some version of just, like being in the car and wanting to go really fast. And I just thought that was a funny thing that I ended up starring in that book. So I get a few more books. It seems very clear to me that I have ADHD at this point, right? Like I’m reading the books and I’m like, oh my goodness, this is me. This has always been me. 

You know, as a child, I remember I had a really hard time, like remembering my jacket or I would lose the house keys all the time, and I just really struggled to remember. I think basic things, and again, because I. 

So I grew up poor and I wanted to kind of climb outta poverty and go to college and make money and be safe and wealthy, right? Like when I was young, I remember just thinking like, I’m not gonna be poor. I’m gonna figure this out. 

So for me, it was really important that I did well in school. And I see that I just, I was very good at taking notes and I was very good at having a planner and using a planner because I knew that I couldn’t remember anything. 

And so I kind of leaned on some of these props, like to prop up my executive functioning at a young age without realizing that that’s what I was doing and not realizing that everybody else didn’t need to do that.

So I did pretty well in school and again, I kind of managed my brain to set me up for success, to do that. And I don’t know, I just don’t think I would’ve had any  indication that I had ADHD except for this friend. 

So I get the books, I take the quiz. It’s very clear. I have ADHD. I start calling around and it’s, there’s like six month wait lists to be seen for anyone to help you with ADHD locally where I was.

And I looked all the way in Coeur d’Alene. I even looked at Boise and it was just wait lists everywhere. And so I ended up finding a website called ADHD online.com. Yes, ADHD online and you can pay like a hundred or $200 to get a test. 

Now I fully recognize that this is not the best system of tests, okay? It’s actually better to see an ADHD professional and have them like, really test you and test you multiple times, like couple sessions. And my understanding is that the real test takes six hours and it’s very thorough. 

This was not that. This was like your online. You take this test, you’re basically just paying to take the test and then you can work with a doctor through this website to get medication.

So I did that, but I also was very confident that I had it after reading the Ned Hallowell book and then the Barclay book, taking charge of adult ADHD, like I was very clear. I didn’t really need someone to tell me. There was so many signs that I had that.

And my husband really wanted me to try medication, and I did not wanna try medication. I don’t like medication in general. I’m pretty low medication on all the fronts with the kids, and we’re just pretty natural. And we had at that point bought two marriage books about ADHD. 

And he said, listen, these marriage books say that it’s extremely difficult to live with someone who has ADHD. And I just think you kind of owe it to me to try this. And he was explaining to me, remember, he’s a chemist, that these are the kind of medications that. Dump out of your system in 24 hours. 

So there are some kinds of medications that build up in your system, and then if you wanna go off them, you have to taper down off of them, right? So they build up and then you have to kind of taper off. But ADHD medication, I think most of it isn’t like that. It’s like you take it has whatever effect it’s going to have, and then it. Dumps out at the end. 

So he said, why don’t you just try it? And actually that was the most compelling argument to me, and I was like, fine, I’m just gonna try it. So he stops talking to me about this. I’ll just try it. I probably won’t like it, but then I won’t have to keep taking it. 

So through this website, ADHD online, which I’m, it’s not a scam. It’s not, I just do think that they charge a lot of money for what the service is, and you’re really just paying that money because it’s easier to work with them than with anyone else.

So. Like, I think it’s $150 for a 15 minute appointment with a doctor, for them to just be like, yep, I saw your test results. We’ll write you this prescription for Ritalin. Ritalin was the first one that I tried, so day one I tried Ritalin and oh my goodness, it was the most amazing. Like it just took all this noise and energy in my body and it just brought it down. It was like it went, shhh. 

And then everything was so much quieter and I didn’t feel weird. I didn’t feel like a zombie. I didn’t feel like, not myself. It was just, it was so amazing. And I remember talking to my husband and saying, I can’t believe this is how everyone else lives. Like it was really incredible.

So I totally ate my words and was like, oh, I’m absolutely team Ritalin. Let’s stay on it. It took me a little while to figure out the dose. I ended up doing a time, released 30 milligrams over the whole day. So, it like releases slowly throughout the day.

And then at one point. I felt a very sharp drop off in the evening, and I started eating at night, which is so interesting because even though I’ve been a bit fluffy for most of my life, and would describe myself as an overeater, I was not a night eater. I was never a night eater. I was never a night binger. I just didn’t do that.

But this medication would wear off and then I felt like. A hungry raccoon who wanted to, like dumpster dive for food, like that’s how hungry I felt at the end of the night. And so they ended up giving me like another tiny amount that I would take at two or three, and it would just like level that off a little bit more. So I didn’t like, fall off a cliff in the evening. 

And so the Ritalin went well. I was so happy. And then my husband was like, you should try Adderall. What if you like that one better? And I was like, what are you talking about? I have this one and it works and I like it. But he, his point was just like, but what if you like the other one better? And I think he just wanted to know. 

So I did take Adderall and that one I hated. I felt like a zombie and I didn’t want to eat anything, which was. I don’t know. If you had told me that I could take a pill and not wanna eat anything, I think I would’ve thought that that was great. But it wasn’t. It was bizarre. 

It was like an out-of-body experience where you’re watching yourself and you’re like, Sterling, you haven’t eaten and it’s two o’clock and you need to eat, but your body’s like, I don’t want any food. All of it sounds gross.

And I would like, make myself eat anyway. I only did it for a few days. Then I tried it again, I wanna say three or four months later, just in case, just to see. And I had the exact same reaction, so I was like, Nope, Adderall isn’t for me. and I really just enjoyed my time, released Ritalin, and it was great.

It helped me with my work a ton. I was just tighter and my work, and it helped me with emotional regulation stuff a little. But really the truth is, I mean, I think coaching has made such a big difference for me there and. I’m not sure that medication will change the fact that I have six kids. 

You know what I mean? Like your medication isn’t gonna change the fact that you have a crazy full life. And so I have a really intense full life and the medication didn’t really change that. I still have it and I still have to like, create systems and manage all the people in this house and eating and cleaning and all of that.

I don’t feel like the medication like, magically made it feel like I only had two kids and didn’t have as much to do, but I definitely was calmer. 

So then it’s so funny, I probably did that for a year or two and then I was just, got mad that it was so expensive I had to pay that $150 every three months. To this website, ADHD online. ’cause they wanted to check in with you about your medication, which in and of itself isn’t bad. I wish that they would do it every six months. I was like, listen, we’re not even changing it. Like why can’t I meet with you every six months? 

And then the medication started to get hard to get, I don’t know if any of you experienced this, but there was just a shortage of ADHD medication and it was hard to get it. So anyway, I ended up not, I ended up stopping taking anything.

And it wasn’t like a big philosophical decision and it wasn’t something I even thought about a lot. I was just tired of paying this money for these appointments and then I had a hard time getting the pills and then I just kind of let it go and I noticed I was doing okay.

And my understanding is that ADHD medication really can work like that, where it really can kind of prop you up and rewire your brain so that then you can go off of it and still have a lot of those.

A lot of the benefit of when you were on it. And that’s I think, how I feel now. Like I actually feel like a better version of myself than I was before I took the medication. But I’m not on anything. 

And sometimes I think about finding a doctor locally and spending the time and just having it, especially for really intense days where I know there’s a lot of details and a lot of moving parts where I’m just like, I’m gonna take that today to help me. But I haven’t done that yet.

And so back to my theory that all moms with three or more kids present with the symptoms of ADHD. Here’s what’s so great about people with ADHD and about the tools that help them is that they can apply to anyone because again, they’re just skills for being organized. 

So even if you didn’t have ADHD, if you bought a book about parenting as a mom with ADHD, and you just read the tips in there, you’d be like, those are great tips. For example, one of them is to break big tasks into small steps. 

There’s a great book called How to Keep House While Drowning. And she’s an ADHD mom that talks about like, how do you take care of your house when you have ADHD and two small kids. And that’s a big one, is breaking things into small steps. Using timers and alarms, like that’s just helpful for everyone. 

I use timers and alarms a lot. I never believe this thought anymore. I’m going to remember, I’m like, no, you’re not gonna remember. I’m not gonna remember. So I use a lot of timers and alarms and sticky notes and visual cues. 

One of the tips I read once was like, if your spouse needs to remember something important, tie a neon pink bow to the fridge handle because they’re gonna go to the fridge and then they’ll see it.

And so there are all these, I just like tips and tricks that. Are helpful even if you don’t have ADHD, because I just think that the more kids that we have and the more full our lives are, we struggle to hold onto some of that executive functioning. ’cause the brain is just like trying to hold it all together and there’s just too much. And so then it erodes a little bit. Not that the brain erodes, but our ability to have good executive functioning erodes. 

So for me. A lot of those ADHD hacks I was already doing because that’s how I survived in the world. And I didn’t even realize that and I didn’t realize that other people didn’t do that.

The other really big, they say medication is really, really good for people with ADHD and I will just say I feel that way and I, one of my kids is on ADHD medication and it was great and we really love it. I’m just like team ADHD medication, even though I’m still a pretty hippie, crunchy, natural, everything else.

So and medication is really important. And then the number two thing is exercise, is that if you need to prioritize exercising. More than other people. And again, that’s probably great for all the moms, right? We’re all probably sitting too much and we all probably need to get at least 6,000 steps a day.

You don’t need to shoot for the 10, but the 6,000 keeps you from that depression level, and I think is the level that. Helps ADHD people just like be with it a little bit. So I am often doing like, I call it running man with the kids. I’ll be like, let’s do Running man. We’ll do running man when the microwave is going or I will just do some squats.

I’m not a big burpees person. I don’t really like doing that, but I’ll do some jumping jacks and I just thread more physical activity into my day knowing that my brain just really, really needs that and that, and I don’t like doing it. I don’t like moving my body, but the books really just sold me so hard on, this is so important and it will make me a better, me better if I do it.

I think if you have ADHD. You know, do the self-work for not feeling broken or that something is wrong with you? I don’t know. I just have a high level of self-confidence. 

And for me, when I found out that I had ADHD, I was like, oh, that makes total sense. That’s why I’m so creative and I’ve created so many things because ADHD people, they tend to not be able to do what other people can do, so they create these workarounds.

And one of the kind of big cornerstones of my work is that I have to, I read complex things and then I have to make sense of it. So I write notes and I simplify it. And then I teach people that simplified version. And that’s so much of what people love about my work is that I take things and I make them really accessible to them. And that’s just because I had to do that for myself. 

So. I don’t spend a lot of time feeling frustrated that I’ve struggled to remember things or to stay organized. I kind of have my tips and tricks and then I just go, yeah, I have that kind of brain. And there are some negative aspects to having that kind of brain.

But then there are also these really beautiful aspects of having that kind of brain too. And that’s what I tell my kiddo with ADHD. I go Hey, listen, you have a special brain and it just means you’re gonna forget your jacket places, right? But you’re also gonna create really beautiful things in the world.

I write everything down. I mean, I will text it to myself or email myself. I put it on my calendar. I mean, I just live or die by my calendar, and that’s also how I get so much stuff done. All these kids in this business and everything. It’s just, I just don’t pretend that I’m going to remember, and it just doesn’t bother me that is part of it.

I don’t have a lot of sensory things, but I really hate brushing my teeth and taking a shower. I’ve always really struggled with both of those two things. The amount of mental energy that it takes for me to accomplish either of those tasks is just so high, and I don’t know how to explain that to somebody that just brushes your teeth or takes a shower.

But for me it’s like a herculean effort to do it. It’s very, very difficult everyday. Every day. It’s hard for me to brush my teeth and take a shower. I just, I don’t know. That’s a big ADHD thing. That’s very common. The other thing is that in my intimate life, I’ll just, since I didn’t put a warning on this episode, I’ll just keep the language kind of clean.

It’s very difficult for me to get my head in the game and focus, and I didn’t realize that was an ADHD thing. And I think that’s women to some extent, right? Women need to be turned on. For quite a bit of time before they get to that activity. But I think specific ADHD flavors for me is like, I really hate being breezed on.

And there are a lot of ways that I don’t love being touched and then my brain, it’s so easy for my brain to go somewhere else and then lose the momentum of the moment. So one of the things that was helpful for me is, I found like on YouTube there are just like musical tracks. I would just play something with beats or musical tracks, just, and then put the headphones in just to kind of keep my brain in the game.

So, you know, there are just so many different aspects and people. Struggle with different things who have ADHD. Not everybody struggles with everything. Like I don’t have a big struggle with,  like how tight my socks are. There were a lot of, like clothing things that I read about that people struggled with and I didn’t really struggle with that.

I have a really hard time listening to people eating, which is difficult because I live with seven other people. but I’ve kind of learned to coach myself through that and just be like, yeah, that bothers you and that’s your problem. It’s not their problem. 

And you know, I just try to manage my mind around it and like I kind of explained in a recent episode, like being angry in your body or frustrated or annoyed, but then not having an outward reaction about that.

And I work hard to think about the different things that are gonna come up so that I can be on time. I’m really on time to just about everything, and it’s because I am like, yeah, it takes five minutes for each of the kids to get their shoes on, and then it takes five minutes to get them from the front door just to the car. I don’t know why it takes so long, but it does. 

And then they have to put their buckles on and then, you know, one of them’s gonna be like, where’s my veil? And you know, I just kind of built in that time because. I like to be on time, and so again, it’s like I use all these tricks to make sure that I am on time, but I have to work at it. It doesn’t come naturally to me.

So whether or not you have ADHD. Or not. I highly recommend Books for Women about ADHD or for, you know, moms who have ADHD and just like, read their tips sections. You can go to AI and just say, what are some tips for moms who have ADHD? How can they manage their lives better? 

And I promise you that list of stuff is gonna be helpful for everybody because it just helps us to be organized and to take care of our families. And then, you know, I’m team medication even though I’m not really taking it now. I did for two years and I really enjoyed it and I might do that again sometime. 

Exercise is really important and it’s just important I think, to tell yourself the truth, which is like, yeah, I have one of these brains, and so it is my responsibility to take the time and move my body more so that I can be a good mom and like, show up for these kids.

And that was really, that was probably the hardest thing for me because I don’t like doing it and I didn’t wanna do it, and it felt unfair and I didn’t think that I had to do that, but it was so clear that when I moved my body more that my brain just worked better and I cared for my family better, and that just had to be more important.

Okay. I think those are all the things that I wanted to cover, but somebody emailed me and asked me about that and I thought, oh yeah, let’s talk about that. I have an episode on my business podcast about how I run my business with ADHD, although it sounds pretty similar to this one. but you can go listen to that if you want. Insights into how I do business as a mom with ADHD.

And I think as we have more and more screens and information, more and more people are going to lack executive functioning skills. And I just think it’s our responsibility not to be victims about that and be like, oh, it’s so hard and I just can’t do it.

Like no it is your responsibility to create systems and use timers and use a calendar and put sticky notes places and move your body, and we’ve got to kind of overcome what this technology is doing to us. 

Like, let’s just not act like this is happening to us and there’s nothing to do. I really do think that we can take an active part in it and shore up executive functioning in our brain.

All right, my friends, I’m praying for you. Please pray for me. Thank you so much for listening and have a blessed day.