Episode 13 - Janelle Booker: ADHD chats with a psychologist

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Transcript

Larissa: This podcast is recorded on the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nations. We pay our respects to the traditional custodians of this country and elders, past and present. We extend our respects to any First Nations, Aboriginal, and Torres Strait Islander people joining us today.

Welcome to today's episode of No Spoons to give the podcast where we explore life's ups and downs with neurodivergence, chronic illness and disability, and we chat with the voices that make our community so wonderful. I'm Larissa, and I've got the lovely Maddy in here with me today. How are you, Maddy?

Maddy: I'm doing well. I'm absolutely buzzing off the walls on caffeine, but I'm still in the room, so that is a positive.

Larissa: Love that for you. And for our listeners, Maddy, are you a coffee... I don't think you're a coffee drinker.

Maddy: I am not. I have tea most of the time, so this is a bit of a different thing for me. So I will try and contain my brain for the podcast, but yes, we're trying new things today.

Larissa: Absolutely. Well, let's see how you go. Hopefully, it's a good experience on coffee because I would love to convert you as a coffee drinker.

Maddy: Yeah. Well, I feel like Melbourne is the coffee capital, so I should really be drinking coffee.

Larissa: For sure.

Maddy: What about you? How are you going today?

Larissa: I'm going good. I've had a triple shot coffee. I'm ready to go, and I'm really excited for this episode with Janelle while we're talking all things ADHD because as a lot of our community know I have ADHD, and I'm very excited for this chat. We thought we would start off today's episode a little bit differently today. So usually, Maddy and I would give each other our top recommendation for the week, but this week we have asked our community for their recommendations. So we ask our community what their top ADHD hacks are, and here are some of their answers. So the first one is from Zoe, and Zoe has recommended frozen pre-diced onions. She said there've been significantly more life-changing than they have any right being.

Maddy: I think that's a great comment about them. That sounds like it would be life-changing. That is fantastic. I didn't even know that that was something-

Larissa: No, I get the pre-crushed garlic and ginger and everything, but also cutting onions is truly awful.

Maddy: Oh, it's awful. And I feel like I need to be thrown onto MasterChef and then diced up myself after I do it. I'm so bad at it. Okay, thank you, Zoe.

Larissa: Love that.

Maddy: Maybe you've transformed my life.

Larissa: Absolutely.

Maddy: The next one is from Deps and they say garlic and ginger in jars.

Larissa: Classic. Yes.

Maddy: That is a great idea.

Larissa: Yes, love that. I'm loving the cooking recommendations and also how many other ADHDers seem to struggle with cooking. I love eating. I love cooking. But yeah, the chopping bit and the part that isn't associated with the dopamine can be pure hell. A different Zoe, so not the same Zoe, this person said earphones with loud music while doing chores to distract your part of the brain that's resisting doing that. I can totally relate to that. And I also have another tip off the back of that which I was just talking to you about, Maddy, my partner and I will often play mediaeval quest music while we're doing chores, and we've also been known to play sirens to create a sense of urgency. So anything that distracts you from the thing I am all for that

Maddy: I love that recommendation from Zoe, but also your recommendation, how fantastic. I feel like I need to transform my life by playing siren music just to see if that's going to get me to do-

Larissa: It's also slightly stressful. I mean, yeah, you got to do what you got to do, right?

Maddy: Yeah, exactly. So we've got another recommendation, and it's from Anonymous who says they recommend an app called Due. When you remember something, you can tell Siri to use Due to make the reminder, and it also has a snooze function. That is a great way to make sure you don't forget the things that are buzzing around in your brain.

Larissa: I love that. Absolutely love that. I use Siri for a lot of my reminders, but this app sounds great because I use Siri and then Siri reminds me, and I never see it again. So to have that snooze function is probably really useful. We have another one from LenaLeenz and this person has recommended microwave veggies and an outside walk daily as a non-negotiable. Totally relate to that. If I don't have my little walk in the morning, I am not a great person to be around, and my brain is a bit funky.

Maddy: I love the microwave veggies as well. I feel like that's a tip that could definitely apply for a lot of people in our community-

Larissa: For sure.

Maddy: ... who struggle with energy and lots of different things.

Larissa: Absolutely.

Maddy: Yeah. Thank you, Lena. BleepFox says, "A robot vacuum changed my life. Vacuuming now means just picking up big things from the floor, and that's all I have to do."

Larissa: Oh, I love that. I have stairs in my house, but I want one of those so badly, even if I had one upstairs and downstairs because vacuuming is... Yeah, when you have a dog or you just have mess or things on the ground from cooking, vacuuming is exhausting.

Maddy: So exhausting, that sounds like it would make such a difference. There's nothing worse than picking up a heavy vacuum and having to trek all over the house.

Larissa: Yeah.

Maddy: Yeah.

Larissa: Love that.

Maddy: Wow.

Larissa: I've also heard some of them can mop as well. I'm not sure how good they are.

Maddy: Wow.

Larissa: And this is not a domestic housekeeping podcast, so we won't go there. But yeah, if you can find them with a mop function that alleviates a lot of stress and helps with executive dysfunction, hopefully. Chronicora says, I love this one, "I live with my ADHD sister. I'm Autistic, and I was getting frustrated with her because she was putting things where they fit rather than where they belong. I spoke with her and eventually we settled on labels. It's been a year now and everything goes home," that's so wholesome, "We made that the language too. So for example, the flower needs to go home, the sponges need to go home. We also reframe doing our chores to care tasks. So our chores are now a form of self-care." I love that.

Maddy: That is gorgeous. That is the epitome of seeing something that's becoming a big problem and working with someone else to find a way that makes the task easier and more comfortable to do together, working with your different needs.

Larissa: Absolutely.

Maddy: That's fantastic.

Larissa: And also, people talk about self-care in terms of doing things like massages and saunas and facials, but self-care is also giving yourself a clean space, changing your bed sheets, like little chores that we sometimes don't want to do because those things make you feel better after. So I love the way these sisters have reframed that. I think that's really beautiful.

Maddy: That's gorgeous. Thank you so much for all your wonderful tips. So grateful to this community for coming through like I am going to be using all of these.

Larissa: For sure.

Maddy: Not that I have ADHD, but-

Larissa: They're so useful.

Maddy: ... come on, everyone needs the help every now and again.

Larissa: Absolutely. And we've also got some community questions today for our podcast with Janelle Booker. So if you've asked some questions, stick around until the end because we will be going through those questions with Janelle. Today, we'll be chatting with Janelle Booker, a psychologist who works closely with people living with ADHD and also HSP. Not the snack pack, it does stand for highly sensitive person trait. Thank you so much, Janelle, for joining us. Our community has been requesting that we have an expert on the show, so we're very excited to be chatting with you today.

Janelle: Well, thank you for having me.

Maddy: So Janelle, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and the work that you do?

Janelle: Yes, as Larissa said, I'm a psychologist. I would never call myself an expert because we're all learning. I've been working, I don't know, for how many years, maybe 18 years as a psychologist, but for about 10 or 11 of those, I've really been working closely with ADHDers, not as much with people with the high sensitivity trait or HSPs because I mean, I still have been for that amount of years, but there's not as many people who identify with that trait as there are with ADHDers, so yeah.

Larissa: Very interesting. And I suppose it's probably a good point to start. Can you start off by telling us, I guess what ADHD is, how you define it, and I also want to touch on the attention part of ADHD. Because as an ADHDer myself, the common misconception is that lack of attention, but for me, it's not a lack of attention, but sometimes the wrong attention on the wrong things. I was wondering if you'd be able to talk a little bit about that as well.

Janelle: Yeah. So ADHD is defined as a neurodevelopment disorder, but there's quite a few of us in the field who kind of disagree with that and think that it's more just a brain type. It can be a disorder in certain environments, but on its own, it's a lot of us are. And I think the voice is getting louder out there that it's just a different way of being in the world, and it's an important brain type that the population needs. Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, so ADHD is a really bad... I think everybody agrees with this. It's a really poorly named trait because. As you mentioned, Larissa, a lot of people who are diagnosed or self-diagnosed with ADHD, it's not that they don't have enough attention, it's that it's really difficult to regulate attention.

And so a lot of times, albeit there's too much attention, and it's really hard to fix it on one thing. And so a lot of ADHDers is... I think this is a great thing about ADHDers in some ways, and other ways it's problematic, is that ADHDers can focus on more than one thing at once and so that's pretty impressive for people who can't do that, but also it's problematic. So for example, a lot of ADHD will find that to focus on the thing if it's not very interesting or intrinsically motivating to focus on that task, they have to also have something else that their brain is focusing on. So in order to do the dishes, they have to also be listening to something or watching something so that enough of their attention is taken up listening to that thing so that they can focus on the other activity that they're trying to make themselves do. Is that kind of what you struggle with, Larissa?

Larissa: Yeah. That's so interesting. And yeah, I've heard so many people in our community struggle with that. I know... My partner and I both being ADHDers, we can't do the chores without listening to a podcast or having music blaring or having some kind of dopamine pairing. Is that a thing that ADHDers seek to pair a somewhat boring chore or task with dopamine?

Janelle: Well, I think it's not only that they seek it, they have to do it because dopamine is crucial for goal-directed behaviour. It's crucial. And a lot of ADHDers, if not all ADHDers, really struggle to produce enough or make use of dopamine sufficiently when the task is not intrinsically interesting or when it's not new. So novelty is something that stimulates dopamine for ADHD brains or if it's urgent. There's four things that tend to stimulate a lot of dopamine in an ADHD brain.

One is novelty, so something that's new. Number two is interest because ADHD brains tend to be really interest-based brains. The third one is urgency. So if there's an imminent deadline, then suddenly an ADHD has access to dopamine. And the fourth thing is if they're doing the task for somebody else because ADHDers are very empathic and other-oriented. So those four conditions will release or allow ADHD brains to use up dopamine and anything else is likely to just like you guys don't have enough to dopamine. So even though you want to do the task, you don't have the dopamine, and it's almost impossible to do something, a goal-oriented task without dopamine.

Larissa: That is so interesting, that whole novelty or new or interesting or emergency thing. Yeah, I've never heard that before. I love that because I'm one of those people that I spring to life in an emergency or a dopamine-driven situation, as you said, but anything else I'm just completely disinterested in. That's so fascinating.

Janelle: Well, it's a real problem for so many people and an outsider looking in. So a neurotypical person or a neurodivergent person who doesn't struggle with dopamine, so someone who doesn't have ADHD might look on whatever the behaviour the ADHDers is doing and think that they're not trying hard enough or they're lazy or they're just not motivated. And they're not motivated. We need dopamine to be motivated and it's not an intrinsic thing and so this causes a lot of problem for a lot of people.

Larissa: Yeah. Touching on like we see so many ADHDers in our community who they find their work or their school or their uni quite boring, and they're just intrinsically not interested in it. When you work with clients with ADHD, what... I guess, how do you help them or what are the strategies that people use to make those tasks more interesting or get through work without having performance issues or dropping off or anything like that?

Janelle: Yeah. Look, it's so normal for an ADHDer to really struggle. High school's one thing, but there's a lot of structure there, and there's a lot of people reminding you to do things. But once you hit university, and I worked in a university psychology service for over 10 years, once you go to university, you're pretty much on your own. And you've got those 12 weeks of semester and the first three just lull you into this false sets of security, and then boom, you start getting all of the assessments and it just is relentless. And so it's really, really hard for ADHDers, one, with the executive function difficulties to keep track of all of the competing commitments and assignments and tests and exams, et cetera. But then when they sit down to do the assignment, there are multiple things that will reduce the dopamine in people's brains.

So one is if it's boring, if the task is boring and they've done it many times before, then you're just not going to get any dopamine going. If it's ambiguous and you're not quite sure how it's supposed to look or where you're supposed to start, then an ADHDer doesn't experience any sort of dopamine or insufficient dopamine. Another one, there's multiple. If there's a lot of mental effort without interest, an ADHD brain would just dial down. So they'll sit in front of their computer for maybe hours and not be able to do anything and not know why, and then they turn it in on themselves and it's all my fault and I'm lazy, et cetera. Another weird thing that I learned working with a lot of uni students was, and this seems to be quite common, is that if the ADHDer doesn't like the tutor or thinks that the tutor doesn't like them, then the dopamine dials down as well.

Larissa: Wow.

Janelle: Yeah.

Larissa: That is so interesting.

Janelle: Yeah, it's really hard. It's hard. And ADHDers tend to be super smart and super motivated. It's not about that. It's a daily challenge for them to get through a semester because of all of these challenges.

Larissa: Yeah, that's a super relevant point and also that cycle of shame that... I feel this myself as an ADHDer and I know so many people in our community do as well. And when you're stuck in that negative feedback loop of shame and feeling like you're not good enough and you're not efficient, it can be extremely harmful.

Janelle: It can. And that's why uni students are really lucky because, usually, there's a counselling service and oftentimes it's, well, it's free for university students, and I encourage university students to seek as much support as they can. It is about noticing that shame and just being kind to yourselves that this is not your fault, and you are going to need more support than other students to get through your degree.

Maddy: So can you talk a little bit about RSD and HSP and what the differences are between those?

Janelle: So RSD stands for rejection sensitive dysphoria, and that was a term that was coined by a psychiatrist in America, William Dodson. And it just really resonates with a lot of ADHDers with their experience. And so what it refers to is rejection sensitivity like it makes sense, but what they're referring to there is any perceived rejection. So that could be criticism, being told that they got something wrong, someone saying no, as well as feeling excluded or rejected. It can also come about on the road. So if somebody cuts you off in traffic. And what can happen? The dysphoria, sorry. The dysphoria. So that's rejection sensitive, and so it's perceived criticism. It's not actually intended criticism, so it can just be someone looking at you a certain way.

And the dysphoria relates to unbearable. It means unbearable. And so most people, if they get criticised, it hurts, but what they've discovered is, for ADHDers, it's unbearable. So the reaction to that is so intense that it can cause and does cause a lot of distress for a lot of ADHDers, particularly... Well, medication can help to soften it, but this is a problem for so many ADHDers, and I think up to a third of ADHDers in one study anyway, said that this is the hardest thing about ADHD for so many people. So that's rejection sensitive dysphoria.

HSP refers to something quite different. And so it's the name that Elaine Aron came up with for a trait that's been studied by several many researchers over the last 40 years, and it's a trait that they believe 15 to 20% of the population have. So when you think about ADHD, they think between about 5 to 10% of the population have ADHD, but 15 to 20% of the population have the high-sensitivity trait are HSPs. And so in my experience, there are ADHDers who have the high-sensitivity trait, but there's a lot of highly sensitive people who don't have a ADHD, and there are a lot of ADHDs who don't have the trait. So it is kind of like a Venn diagram really, where you've got people with ADHD, people with the high-sensitivity trait and you've got some people in the middle who have both.

But that trait, it's hard to say in just a minute, but what research has found is people with that trait, their brains just automatically lock onto their social environment. So they're so attuned to social cues, and they're very, very aware of people and probably too aware of other people, what other people are going through, what their perspective might be. And what they tend to do in my experience is to manage their own emotional sensitivity by making sure that everybody else is okay. And so that can lead to some issues, especially in the workplace, but also in friendship groups, in families, in all sorts of environments in the classroom, et cetera.

Larissa: It sounds so exhausting as well as... Some of these traits, I'm kind of like, yeah, I think I definitely have some of these things, and it is exhausting. You feel like you're constantly looking at other people's reactions and making sure everyone else is comfortable and everyone else is okay. Can people have RSD and HSP together at the same time and experience both of those things?

Janelle: Yes, absolutely. Yeah, because if you are so locked onto other people's experience of you and research shows that people with a high sensitivity trait, HSPs, I got that trait, so our brains react a lot faster. So when they do psychological experiments, they might flash ups like photos on a screen really quickly, and then they measure your response to them or you have to press a button or something. So what they've found is when you have that trait, you tend to respond a lot faster and have bigger reactions to angry faces than other people do. And then there's research on social anxiety that has found the same thing is that people who are socially anxious react a lot faster to angry faces. So that gets me wondering whether a lot of people with social anxiety also have the high sensitivity trait, but it is exhausting. And that's one of the characteristics of having the high sensitivity trait is being overwhelmed by what's going on in your environment and then having to withdraw and recharge.

Larissa: That's so interesting. I've just had this really vivid flashback of primary school and high school, and I think everyone has that experience with that one scary or angry teacher. And I was always the first person in the room to notice when that teacher was about to start going off and I'd stand up, "Guys, guys, the teacher's about to yell," and I was always that first person to pick up and I'd be like, "Stop. They're going to yell."

Janelle: Yeah. Because when you have that trait, it kind of is like your psychological safety is dependent on people not getting angry because that is just so overwhelming and has been your whole life, and that's what your brain is tuned to. And so yeah, you can, until you learn how to manage it, you can spend a lot of your energy just making sure that everybody is behaved not... Well, when you're a kid, you're expecting people to behave, but as you grow up, you just want everyone to be okay. And so what happens is that you kind of grow... A lot of the people that I work with grow up not knowing themselves because they're so focused on managing everybody else.

Larissa: Absolutely.

Janelle: That they don't know what they like or what they want and they're not good at saying what they prefer.

Maddy: I am really connecting [with] HSP, I've read up on it. But yeah, all of that is very much very similar to my experience as well. This is very interesting.

Larissa: So interesting. I want to ask you a little bit about relationships. So friendships, dating, work, colleagues. Do you find that people with ADHD tend to gravitate towards each other? And then also how does that work? Do HSPs gravitate towards each other or they gravitate towards the opposite or do you see any patterns with any of that?

Janelle: I love this question, Larissa. This is fantastic. Yes. ADHDers, in my experience, do gravitate towards each other. And the way that I understand that is that when you... I grew up in a family where there's a lot of ADHD, and I have some traits myself. I wouldn't meet the criteria, but I do have some traits myself. And so when you have that sort of brain and people have maybe heard me explain this and other people explain it, an ADHD brain is like this three-dimensional brain that is built for complexity and it connects all of the dots and it's constantly coming up with new ideas.

And so if you have that sort of brain, I think that you're more attracted to other people who have that sort of brain, whether they know that they have that sort of brain or not, and whether you are aware that that's why you're attracted to those people. What I find is when people start to be diagnosed with ADHD, they discover that all of their friends are being diagnosed as well, and they can be in the community a sense of, well, everyone has ADHD. And it's not necessarily in cases, it's just that ADHDers tend to find each other and sort of feel comfortable. And sometimes people will say to me, especially when they find a partner, they say, "We just clicked. I don't know what I liked about them. We just clicked," and that tends to be quite common with ADHD.

With HSPs, I don't find that necessarily, and HSPs will often have ADHD of friends, and they might attract people with strong personalities rather than attract other sort of because HSPs tend to be quite gentle and kind and very good at making other people feel good as we just talked about. So oftentimes, HSPs might attract people who kind of need that to balance out their own traits. And so sometimes the work that I do with HSPs is to help them learn how to speak up for themselves and develop their boundaries with people so that their needs are being looked after as well.

Larissa: That's really interesting. So just to make sure I'm understanding this right, do you sometimes find that people with HSP, they might be more likely to latch onto someone who's a little bit bolder in character, almost like a safeguard type thing and latch onto that person or...

Janelle: Yes, oftentimes. That's just what I've observed. Unfortunately, there just isn't enough awareness of the high sensitivity trait. Even though it's been researched for decades, it hasn't really been taken up by the field of psychology. And so there just isn't enough research done on it, but that's what I've observed, absolutely, that it can be a bit of a safety thing to have someone who's bolder and who is a bit more gregarious.

Maddy: That's so interesting. And Larissa, what you said about you and your partner both being ADHDers and connecting, that's so lovely. And yeah, it must be exciting and validating to be like this is actually something that is common.

Larissa: Yeah, absolutely. And once we both had a diagnosis and the realisations, it's like all these dots fall into place and it's like you two little neuro-spicy brains living together. We might just jump to a quick ad break and then when we get back, we've got some community questions for you, Janelle.

Janelle: Great.

Larissa: Hey, Maddy. I want to talk about something that's been a total game changer for the neurodivergent chronically ill and disabled community.

Maddy: Oh, you mean Spoony?

Larissa: I do. But today, I want to focus on one of their standout features, the journal for symptom tracking, whether you're managing flare ups, trying to spot patterns, or just need a space to unload your thoughts. Spoony's Journal is a tool you didn't know you needed.

Maddy: And it's so easy to use. You can track how you're feeling day-to-day, jot down notes about your symptoms and even tag triggers or treatments to see what's working and what's not. Over time, it helps you make sense of what might otherwise feel totally random.

Larissa: Plus, you don't have to worry about ever feeling judged. It's private, secure, and designed with empathy in mind. It's like having a health diary that gets you.

Maddy: Honestly, it's perfect if you're looking to take charge of your health while staying in tune with yourself.

Larissa: So if you are ready to track your symptoms, find patterns, and gain some real insight into your health, download Spoony now and check out their journal feature. It's a little extra support in your pocket when you need it most.

Maddy: Spoony, it's more than just an app. It's your safe stigma free space for friends, support, and now powerful tools like symptom tracking.

Larissa: You can download it in the App Store or Google Play and try it for free today.

Okay. So Janelle, we've put a call out to our community and we have got some broad community questions for you. So the first one is from Nat. And Nat asks, "What should therapy focusing on ADHD consist of?"

Janelle: That's a really hard question to answer because every therapist is different and every person that walks through the door is different. So I've just got to really generalise here. For me, it's a balance between understanding your brain and your nervous system and your behaviour, and I'll come back to nervous system. ADHD isn't just about the brain. There's often a lot of things that come along with ADHD for whatever reason. There might be an autoimmune disorder, there might be food sensitivities, there might be the asthma, eczema, migraines.

Unfortunately, there's a whole list of things so that needs to be taken into consideration as well, the nervous system and the body. So there's that, there's understanding more about their brain and behaviour and body, but for me, a lot of times a lot of what we focus on is learning to accept and love themselves. That's a lot. And to deal with the shame, that's a lot of what we do. And the way that I see it is I see my job is to hold a mirror up to the person so that they in time see themselves. I see them.

Maddy: That's so beautiful.

Larissa: That is so beautiful.

Maddy: Yeah, I think that's such an important part. That shame, it's so deadly. And being able to just help someone kind of clean themselves of the shame a little bit and just see them exactly how you see them, which is an incredible person who's just got a different brain type.

Janelle: Yeah. And has a lot of skills and strengths, but at the same time, it is validating the challenges as well. And also, what I do is I just follow the pace of the person. And so some people are really stuck and that's okay. And so we just need to go a bit more slowly with them because the last thing I want to do is get people to feel that they're letting me down. That's the last thing that you want for an ADHD or who's really struggling with shame. And this is one difference between if you just have the high sensitivity trait or you just have... You're an HSP, but you don't have ADHD, you don't... Necessarily, it depends what your background is. You don't necessarily have all of that baggage of being criticised, corrected or just the embarrassment of keeping people waiting or whatever it is, the long list of things that people have. So ADHDers often need longer with me than someone who doesn't have ADHD.

Maddy: So interesting. We've got another question from a community member called Elltia. And Elltia was wondering if you have any strategies for maintaining artistic consistency despite having ADHD and being driven by hyperfixation states.

Janelle: Consistency is a real... That's a real hard thing for a lot of ADHDers. There are people who have nailed that and mastered it, but it doesn't come naturally to an ADHD brain. When you think about ADHD brains that are fired up on novelty and interest, then it makes sense that an ADHD brain would be an inconsistent brain. So what she's asking is how do I develop consistency over the long term? That's what I'm reading that question as. And it's not only artistic consistency, although that is important. I imagine that it'd be the same if you're starting a business or trying to progress in your career or you're trying to develop in your sport or whatever it is. Okay, so what do we do? I think that it's always helpful to identify your own vision or mission, what you're aiming for, why am I doing this and get really clear on it and it needs to not have anything to do with anybody else.

It's not about impressing anybody else. It's not about external stuff. It's like, why am I doing this? Because you're going to need to know that and you're going to need to keep coming back to that again and again. It's helpful for that to be your north star or your anchor that you can just keep coming back to because in the boring times, in the times where you've got to draw back from doing that exciting hyper-fixation thing that's just got you going, if you bring awareness to that at the time, why would I give that up to just come back to plotting along and building my skills or whatever it is developing my project. You've got to have something that's guiding you.

So I would say that would be number one is really know why you're doing this and keep bringing your attention back to that. I think having a practise like meditation, which is a really hard... A lot of ADHDers struggle with meditation, but ADHDers can meditate and get... Well, ADHDers get a lot of benefit from having a meditation practise, but if you had a meditation practise or something else, whatever you do, whether it's running. Some ADHDers find it really hard to sit still. Yeah, but have some sort of contemplative practise where you can get a bit still. That helps. It helps to quieten all the noise in your mind and get you a bit more focused. So if you were to start the day, and again, consistency, if you were just say, "Five out of seven days a week or something, I'm going to start my day with this," you might find that you can just set your intention for the day.

So you might do a meditation, let's say you do a 10-minute, 20-minute meditation. And at the end of it, you set your intention for the day, but you might say, "Okay, today this is what I'm focusing on and I'm going to just stay the course today." Then that can help too, instead of waking up being late and sort of just reacting, so there's that. That's all I can think of at the moment. Another thing would be to have a mentor or a coach or a friend who can keep you accountable and sort of say, "Hey, how are you going on that thing? And are you getting distracted by anything else?" And then if you then start talking excitedly about this new thing that's got you going, you can trust that person to go, "That sounds great. Let's park that for a while and let's get back to what we are doing."

Larissa: Yeah. I can relate to that. All of this, I can just relate to so much, the whole excitement thing. And having that accountability partner is that I've heard the term body doubling a lot. Is that similar to that or...

Janelle: Kind of but not really, but it's along the same line. So a body double is when you're finding it really hard to make yourself do the thing. Having somebody else just in your orbit, so they might be sitting in the same room and reading a book or something just gets your dopamine going and so then you can get going or they can be on a screen. So there's that, but this would be an accountability buddy. So that's slightly different, that is someone who holds you accountable to do the thing, whatever it is that you've said that you're going to do.

Larissa: Yeah, I love that. We've been looking into doing in real life events for Spoony, and we put it to our community and asked them what they wanted to do. And we have so many neurodivergent people in Spoony and a lot of them said it would be great if you could just do an event where we all come together and we just sit with each other and help each other with something like a phone call that we've been putting off or just sit next to me while we do a task. And it's just that simple thing of having that accountability partner or just feeling like you're not in it alone. I think, yeah, it can really help. I had one more question for you, and this is something that a lot of our community struggles with when it comes to the workplace. Are there any particular environments or maybe workplaces that people with ADHD or RSD should avoid or is it something we can work on? Or is there I guess particular roles or environments that we should just avoid altogether?

Janelle: That's a really practical question and every person is different, but these are the generalities. A lot of ADHDers don't like doing monotonous, boring stuff the same thing every day. And so I don't want to criticise any jobs, but you'll know for yourself what jobs they might be. So a lot of ADHDers don't want to do desk work every day. They don't want to be in an office and doing desk work. They would rather be doing something a bit more dynamic that changes from day-to-day. So that's one guideline. A lot of ADHDers, as you mentioned, Larissa, are really good in a crisis or when things get hard and urgent. ADHD brains tend to come online and start to really function at a very high level. So there's a lot of ADHDers who are like emergency department doctors or nurses or they're paramedics or they're chefs or various other things, being a podcast host or an interviewer or something like that that where you just don't don't know what's going to happen next.

So those sorts of things, and not everyone can do jobs like this, but it is important to work out what is going to give you enough dopamine, provide you with enough structure. We haven't really talked about that, but ADHDers usually need a bit of structure in order to get the stuff done. So that's just general advice. In terms of RSD, so being sensitive to rejection, I think that we can learn skills to soothe our tender hearts, but a lot of ADHDers find that there's certain... I would say there would just be more company cultures that are just not for them. And so one that comes to mind is a lot of law firms can be quite aggressive and highly stressful, and so some ADHDers might thrive there and others that are more tender hearted and sensitive souls might find that that's a very aversive work environment to be in and it might just be too much.

Larissa: So interesting.

Maddy: Yeah, it really is. I think you've given great general guidelines for people to think about their strengths and what would work best for them. And yeah, of course, everyone can do whatever job that they want to do. But yeah, I think your advice is super helpful. It's always good to just know your strengths and what you're not so good at and then what strategies can help as well.

Larissa: And I think it's also so important to acknowledge as well, I've been in jobs where I've really struggled and the job that we have now doing this is such a privilege and not everyone can do that. And I just wanted to acknowledge that as well, very grateful to be working in such a dynamic role and being able to have amazing conversations. But yeah, the reality for some people is that we have to do those monotonous jobs or we have bills that need to be paid and rent that needs to be paid. And yeah, I just wanted to acknowledge that as well because I think it's really important to talk about that.

Janelle: Absolutely.

Larissa: Yeah. Janelle, I know you're a very busy woman and I do appreciate you chatting with us today. I could talk to you for hours and I'm sure our community is going to love this chat. So yeah, thank you so much for spending some time with us. Where can people find you if they wanted to check you out or look you up?

Janelle: I've got a website, so you can just look up Janelle Booker and you'll find me pretty easily. I do have a LinkedIn, but I don't really like LinkedIn, and I don't really do much with that, so don't worry about looking at me up on LinkedIn.

Larissa: No worries. And we can drop a link to your website in the show notes as well. But yeah, is there anything else you'd like to add before we close off?

Janelle: I guess the only other thing that I would say that I didn't get a chance to say is there are some great ADHD coaches out there who are really good allies for a lot of people. Yes, it does cost money and that's hard, but ADHD coaching is a really helpful thing for a lot of people with ADHD.

Larissa: I know, we had a bit of a chat about this last week, Janelle, but are there any support services you can recommend for people with ADHD? I know there was one you recommended to me last week.

Janelle: Oh, yes. So this isn't coaching. This is when you want to delegate those tasks that you just find really hard. A lot of the women that I work with who have ADHD and anyone would relate to this, but particularly I think women who are also running a home and a family. So this service is called Stardust Support. And they are real life virtual assistants, all of whom have ADHD. And you book an appointment with them, and they will do all of your life admin tasks, whatever you want them to do. And they've even organised someone's wedding for them that was overwhelming.

Larissa: Wow, that's awesome.

Janelle: So they organised that for them, but they will organise your inbox. They will make all your appointments for you, whatever you want. Yeah, they're amazing.

Larissa: That's amazing. Yeah, we'll definitely share that with our community and check them out. But yeah, thank you so much for coming on, Janelle. It's been amazing chatting with you, and we really appreciate your time today.

Janelle: Well, I think you guys are doing such an amazing thing in Spoony, and it's been something that's been needed for a long time and well done. I'm just really excited that you guys are doing the work that you're doing.

Larissa: Thank you so much.

Maddy: Thank you so much. It's such a privilege and a pleasure to be able to bring an app and a whole community to people who really need it and could really do with learning that there are people with different brain types out there, and it isn't such a bad thing at all. It's actually kind of wonderful.

Larissa: Absolutely.

Maddy: Thank you so much, Janelle.

Janelle: My pleasure.

Larissa: This podcast is brought to you by Spoony, a safe space for neurodivergent, chronically I'll, and disabled people to make friends and find support. Spoony is the world's first social app designed with accessibility at its core. If you liked this episode, it would mean the absolute world to ask if you could hit subscribe or share it with a friend. If you'd like to join our Spoony community, you can download the app via the App Store or Google Play. And if you'd like to keep up to date with us on social media, you can follow us by the links in the show notes.