ADHD Shame Spiral: Why the Tools You Know Don’t Stick (ft. Dr. Priyanka Rao)

Priyanka Rao (00:00)
we learn all the things and we still don’t feel better. Because we still think we should be able to figure it out. We should be okay.

We shouldn’t need to write everything down because it should be important enough to stay in our brain. So we start shoulding all over ourselves. And we

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (00:14)
Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (00:15)
like get resistant to using the tools that could help our brains because we feel like just a lifetime of shame.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (00:23)
Welcome to The Vibe With Ky Podcast, the show where we talk openly and honestly about mental health and the beautiful mess of being an adult in today’s world. My name is Kyrus Keenan Westcott. Thank you so much for being here.

Today we are talking about what happens after the ADHD diagnosis when you’ve collected every tool and tip and system that you can find and you still don’t feel better. The missing piece usually isn’t another strategy, it’s the shame that keeps us from. Using the ones that we already have.

My guest today is Dr. Priyanka Rao, a licensed psychologist with a doctorate in clinical psychology and an ADHD and executive coach. She learned that the hard way after her own diagnosis as an adult.

As she explains why shame, not a lack of information, is what stops so many of us from using the tools that could help. You’ll hear what loosens it and why you can stop treating your struggle as a personal failing.

Before we get started, if you want more mental health conversations and resources just like this, make sure you visit my website at thevibewithky.com or follow me at @TheVibeWithKy on your favorite social media platform. With that said, sit back, relax, and enjoy my chat with Dr. Priyanka Rao on The Vibe With Ky Podcast.

I have a I have a question. Minneapolis in August. What’s it what’s it like in in in August?

I’ve never been there in August. I’ve been there once.

it was during the summer, but it was in August. What’s what’s Minneapolis in August like?

Priyanka Rao (01:51)
So it mini summer in Minneapolis is the best because everybody’s out because we know we have to hibernate half the year. it’s it’s kinda humid because we’ve got all the lakes, but I think today it’s like upper

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (02:01)
Too many. There’s too many lakes.

Priyanka Rao (02:03)
seventies, low eighties. So like not horrible, but kind of sticky a little bit.

but it’s like sunny and beautiful and like vibrant. there’s street festivals

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (02:08)
There’s so many lakes. Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (02:13)
and this weekend my neighborhood’s doing a buy nothing event where like everybody has stuff in their front yard for like anybody that wants to Take it. and like

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (02:20)
cool. nice.

Priyanka Rao (02:21)
kind of trade things that you no longer need in your home. And yeah,

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (02:24)
Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (02:25)
it’s just like such a neighborhoody city. It’s just yeah.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (02:28)
I love that. I love that. There is a thing called Minnesota Nice that I learned when I was

Priyanka Rao (02:32)
This this is true.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (02:33)
when I was visiting. I went to I went to a Twins game because I love baseball stadiums.

So I travel the country going to baseball stadiums and I went to I had never been to Target Field. And so I went there

Priyanka Rao (02:43)
Mm-hmm.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (02:45)
and where I sat I sat like right behind one of the dugouts and the two people next to me were season ticket holders. and they were like so super duper like nice to me. And I was saying to one of my friends to the event I was going to later that day, I was like, Yeah, the people next to me were so nice.

And they were like, Were they nice or were they Minnesota nice? I was like, What does that mean? What?

Priyanka Rao (03:02)
Uh-huh. That took me a minute. So I’m not originally from here.

I moved here in twenty eighteen. and

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (03:09)
okay, okay.

Priyanka Rao (03:12)
Minnesota nice is like there’s an edge to it. It’s like a little passive aggressive. Like everybody’s Nordic and sweet, so nobody’s gonna

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (03:15)
Yes. Yes.

Priyanka Rao (03:19)
be like aggressive or confrontational, but there’s Minnesota Nice for sure. Yeah.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (03:22)
Yes, yes. And it made me think I was like, ooh, were they just being I think they were being genuinely nice, I think.

’cause they were Yes, yes, yes, that’s fair. I I grew up

Priyanka Rao (03:29)
there’s a lot of genuinely nice people. It’s not all passive aggressive.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (03:34)
in New Jersey and I say the same thing except like like we’re mean but in a loving way. Like we’re not mean in like a I hate you way. Like it’s

Priyanka Rao (03:43)
Yeah.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (03:43)
like just leave me alone, you know, type of thing.

Priyanka Rao (03:45)
Yeah, I always joke like if I’m teasing you it’s that’s a sign I like you ’cause I wouldn’t I wouldn’t be like ribbing you if I didn’t feel comfortable.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (03:48)
Exactly. Exactly. Exactly.

I wanna start I want to start where I think all of this kind of starts for you. you were the A pla the A plus student,

Priyanka Rao (04:01)
Mm.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (04:02)
doctorate, dream job, the whole run, and the engine underneath it was procrastinate and then power through, right?

Priyanka Rao (04:09)
Adrenaline. Yeah.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (04:12)
Yeah. And then your firstborn son shows up and that engine Just dies on you. Take

Priyanka Rao (04:19)
Mm-hmm.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (04:19)
me into that stretch. What did a regular Tuesday look like for you during that time?

Priyanka Rao (04:25)
my gosh. I was just like continuously overwhelmed. Like it just felt like my brain was imploding all the time.

Like there is a billion and one things that float around in your head. Like the mental load of motherhood is unreal.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (04:37)
Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (04:38)
And when you’ve got a br newborn baby, so you’re not really sleeping, and they’re not really sleeping, and you have to nurse them every two and a half to three hours, starting when you start, not when they end, and then you’re doing so you’re doing math all [bleep] day long. And then

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (04:49)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (04:52)
And then you’re noticing, did the bottles get sterilized? Do I have breast milk thawed or in the fridge? Do I need to go pump?

Do I need to make formula? Like, it’s just so many decisions and so much laundry and so much math. Like the math is what blew me away because you have to notice

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (05:05)
Yeah. Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (05:07)
how much they’re drinking and isn’t enough. And are they growing appropriately? And there’s a million doctors’ appointments and things like that.

So I just like I was so anxious, but it wasn’t like generalized anxiety. It wasn’t like I was anxious about something bad happening or about not knowing the outcome of something. It was more just I knew I was dropping the ball everywhere because there were so many details to pay attention to.

And I was just perpetually overwhelmed. So I

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (05:28)
Sure.

Priyanka Rao (05:31)
I had I remember telling my therapist, if I could just hit pause on my brain for two hours and get get

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (05:36)
Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (05:36)
it all organized, like I would feel better. And that’s when she was like, I think it’s time to go get tested, Pri.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (05:40)
Yeah, yeah. Here like here’s here’s what I keep chewing on as I was like, you know, prepping for this. You you have a doctorate, you had years of assessing adults, and it still didn’t occur

Priyanka Rao (05:53)
Mm-hmm.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (05:54)
to you that you had ADHD because because of how it shows up in adults, in women, in the BIPOC community.

Priyanka Rao (06:02)
Yeah.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (06:03)
that was a that that was close to a a footnote in your in your training, I would imagine. I want the I want the uncomfortable half of that. Once you saw it in yourself, who did you start seeing differently in your in your caseload?

you you were trained psychologists. Yeah, I I would imagine

Priyanka Rao (06:17)
literally everybody. Yeah.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (06:19)
so you didn’t spot it yourself. And then once you did, your caseload it must have changed like the way that you viewed it must have changed significantly, I would imagine, right?

Priyanka Rao (06:28)
Yeah, that was actually what a great question. I our programs do a [bleep] job of teaching us about neurodivergence. So maybe if you specialized in children, which I did not, you got a little bit more of develop developmental psychology, which is kind of where like the ADHD and the autism and other neurodivergence

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (06:43)
Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (06:44)
kind of tends to fall. But I was in an adult program, or like an adult track because therapy with kids is hard.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (06:51)
Sure.

Priyanka Rao (06:51)
and I wanna say in my we had four years of coursework and then a year long internship for my doctorate. And in those four years, I would say maybe a combined hour, maybe, went to talking about ADHD and autism. And that might be generous.

And so I was truly ignorant about some of the more subtle presentations or how it looks different in women than in boys. And like I I had the stereotype of like the little white boy in a school classroom bouncing out of his chair and causing a ruckus. Yeah.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (07:18)
Yeah. They can’t sit still. Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (07:22)
And that’s like not at all what so many people look like. and like that awareness.

And then my my older kiddo, he’s autistic, and when he was diagnosed, I went the deep dive on autism and realized. How many clients I’d missed that in two, because there’s

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (07:33)
Sure.

Priyanka Rao (07:34)
a pretty big portion of folks that end up in your office that are neurodivergent. And it like, yeah, I completely changed.

I was so guilty of the like, let’s do some mindset work and think through how we can get you to do this thing you’re avoiding and challenge like some of the irrational thinking you have there, not understanding that like your brain is just literally not kicking on. So executive

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (07:52)
Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (07:53)
function isn’t gonna work with like your feelings super well. And so like we need to talk about your feelings, but if we need to get over task initiation hurdles. We need something a little more concrete that works with how your brain operates.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (08:04)
How how did you how did you manage that emotionally? Like you, you, you went a whole caseload, like a life, you know, thinking one thing and then you you get diagnosed and then you look back at the some of the people that you treated and you’re like, [bleep].

Right? Like like you had just

Priyanka Rao (08:19)
Mm-hmm.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (08:20)
mentioned it yourself that you like you might you feel as though you might have missed some things. How did like you’re an empath, I would imagine, you know?

how did how did you feel about that? after the fact.

Priyanka Rao (08:33)
I have been so lucky that a lot of the folks I have in my therapy caseload are longer term folks. So they’ve actually gone on said journey with me

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (08:37)
Amazing. Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (08:40)
and followed me across practices and things, which has been lovely.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (08:42)
Mm-hmm.

Priyanka Rao (08:43)
So there was some where I was like, hey, guess what? I learned a lot. Should we maybe consider if you’re autistic or if you have

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (08:48)
Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (08:49)
ADHD and like how we should work with that? And

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (08:50)
Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (08:51)
so they got to like kind of learn with me and kind of explore that together. but there’s

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (08:54)
that’s amazing.

Priyanka Rao (08:55)
totally some guilt. Like I can right now vividly think of a client of mine where we were stuck. For a very, very long time and she was supported enough.

But if I had conceptualized it this way, I would have approached it very differently. and so yeah, there’s some guilt there, but I try to channel that into like, okay, we’ll do it better for the next person.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (09:13)
Sure, sure.

Priyanka Rao (09:14)
and I challenged a lot of my frustration with how many of us are not well trained in this stuff into like doing more of the assessments myself and trying to make

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (09:21)
Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (09:22)
sure that people have a really good experience with me and

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (09:24)
Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (09:24)
like speaking in mental health spaces about it so that you know. sharing some of the information because yeah, I even met medical providers that were like, you can’t have ADHD, you have a doctorate. And hmm, sure.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (09:36)
Yep. Yep. Like no nobody struggles that long without landing on a reason for it.

And like I’m sure you had a reason that you gave yourself before you had the word ADHD. So what was that reason? Like what had you decided about yourself that like what before you had the word ADHD?

Priyanka Rao (10:00)
it was like all the classic, I’m I must

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (10:01)
Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (10:02)
be lazy, I must be undisciplined,

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (10:04)
Mm-hmm.

Priyanka Rao (10:06)
I must not care enough, there must be something wrong with me, I must be broken. yeah, all all of those, especially because like I think in our current world, or at least in like our generation, when we were in school, like if you were smart, you should do well. So if you are like doing well, but it feels really hard, so you’re still smart, there’s no other explanation beyond like character flaw.

For why it’s so hard or why you wait till the last minute, because it’s not about intelligence. You’ve gotten really good grades. and so like when we don’t have an alternate explanation, it like the only thing that logically we can conclude is that it must be us.

We must be doing something wrong. so I had like a lifetime of being so frustrated with myself because I would do the like wait till the last second, procrastinate, power through, crush it, crash all the time.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (10:50)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Priyanka Rao (10:51)
That and that boom and bust was just like my life. And it to me, I was like, well, this must like a discipline problem. This must mean

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (10:57)
Sure.

Priyanka Rao (10:57)
that I’m just unprincipled and that’s why I keep doing this, versus understanding that nope, right at at that point, that was the only way I knew how to turn my brain on was time pressure. so yeah, it

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (11:07)
Mm. Right. Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (11:09)
was a lot of self blame along the way, which is what I hear from all my clients too. Everyone comes in thinking there’s something wrong with them, they’re broken.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (11:16)
Yeah. Bo both of your companies are are named Asha, which means hope in

Priyanka Rao (11:20)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (11:22)
Bengali. And I know you didn’t land on that word by accident.

Priyanka Rao (11:27)
Mm-hmm.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (11:28)
What were you thinking and who were you thinking about when you picked that?

Priyanka Rao (11:32)
So one, naming a psych practice is hard because there’s so many tree and hope and resilience and like compassion like named practices everywhere. And so I wanted something that was kind of gonna honor my background. my family is Bengali from India.

and so I wanted something that would honor that, but also be a word that Minnesota’s pretty white, Minnesota could say,

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (11:57)
Mm-hmm.

Priyanka Rao (11:58)
and not be turned off by.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (12:00)
Sure. Mm-hmm.

Priyanka Rao (12:01)
And I think the point of connection with others, the point of therapy is to develop that hope. and so while there’s like a million and one practices that are called hope, I it there’s a good reason for that. because a lot of the times when people walk in the door, they’re stuck and they’re feeling hopeless or they’re feeling discouraged.

And so like I can’t promise you that everything in your life is gonna be a whole lot better, but I do think I can bring you some hope that things can can turn around for you. And so

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (12:24)
Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (12:25)
it was like the melding of like, my cultural background and wanting to honor that and to signal that this is a culturally informed practice combined with wanting to be white people friendly, quite frankly, and then the message of hope.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (12:39)
I feel you. I feel you. No, I get it.

I and I I do like the sentiment there, like ’cause I think that there’s a lot of people in their mental health journey that, you know, ’cause I like a lot of my audience are late diagnosed people,

Priyanka Rao (12:52)
Mm-hmm.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (12:54)
who struggle with the hope side of things, you know, because they like a lot of times they look back on their life, they’re like, did I waste All this time in my life, what’s the point of even trying to get any of this fixed? Like that, you know, all of that kind of stuff.

So I I I think that people can take solace in the fact that there is hope out there, no matter who you are, what your background is, what religion you are, what gender you are, it doesn’t matter. And one of the reasons why I was excited to talk to you is not just about your own story, but it’s about the insight that you’ve gained since then.

And I I wanna help share some of that insight with everybody that’s watching and listening right now. Your position is that until the shame gets dealt with, people will not let themselves use the tools. And almost

Priyanka Rao (13:46)
Mm-hmm.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (13:46)
everything published about ADHD is just tools. So

Priyanka Rao (13:51)
Absolutely.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (13:52)
take me under the hood on that. What is happening? inside somebody who knows the move and will not make it.

Priyanka Rao (14:00)
Yeah, this one I learned honestly the hard way and accidentally. because like obviously in the therapy space, we talk a lot about like shame and self-trust and things. but in the like you said, in the ADHD space, everything is hacks and tools and tips and systems and strategies.

And I know I feel this way and everybody I’ve talked to since. Like we all do the hyper focus deep dive after we get diagnosed.

Most of us do. And

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (14:22)
yeah.

Priyanka Rao (14:23)
we learn all the things and we still don’t feel better. Because we still think we should be able to figure it out. We should be okay.

We shouldn’t need to write everything down because it should be important enough to stay in our brain. So we start shoulding all over ourselves. And we

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (14:37)
Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (14:38)
like get resistant to using the tools that could help our brains because we feel like just a lifetime of shame. We have a lifetime of thinking we’re not good enough, a lifetime of thinking things should be easier for us or that we’re screwing it up.

And also a lifetime often of getting said feedback, of being told by others that we’ve dropped the ball, that we are not doing as well as we should, that we are not living up to our potential. And so those two things combine and shame really thrives in isolation.

So we cut ourselves off from other people. We mask,

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (15:07)
Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (15:08)
we show them what we think they want to see, that we’ve got our lives together, that we’re on top of the workload, whatever. And then at home we don’t let anybody in because it’s a [bleep] show in there.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (15:17)
Yep.

Priyanka Rao (15:18)
and so we just like close ourselves off. Which further feeds that story that this is a me problem. There’s something wrong with me.

I’m uniquely messed up in some way. And so

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (15:28)
Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (15:28)
what I learned, and I say I did this by accident because this happened via my own like Instagram channel. And I went on like a podcast, shared my story, my account kind of blew up.

And I realized the more I was sharing, because I had this series called Why the [bleep] Is This So Hard? And the

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (15:44)
Mm-hmm.

Priyanka Rao (15:44)
more I shared that like I was messy and things were hard and like trying to explain it, I let myself use more tools. I lightened up on my own, beating myself up when I dropped the ball on something. I when I screwed something up, instead of spending an hour beating myself up about it, I just went and went like, okay, what in the system needs tweaking?

And I think it was purely because like I was letting people see me and they were being accepting of it. and there

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (16:07)
Mm-hmm.

Priyanka Rao (16:07)
were other people that got it and I was helping other people get it too. And like that connection like is what chipped away at that shame. And so then when I started doing like group programs and my membership and things like that, Over and over and over again, the theme that came up was the shame and how that was the thing they were surprised moved the most.

So they thought they were gonna go in there and learn about ADHD. And instead what happened is they stopped beating themselves up as much

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (16:31)
Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (16:31)
and they stopped letting in more support. And so I just kind of watched it happen over and over again. And that’s kind of where I came up with like my framework for change.

And like the step one has to be like working with the shame, and that has to come from letting people see you. so yeah, I

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (16:44)
Yeah. Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (16:46)
it just was like both personal and like kind of thinking about the literature around shame and seeing what was happening in my membership

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (16:52)
Sure.

Priyanka Rao (16:52)
and all and just kinda putting it all together.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (16:54)
Sure. There’s this there was the study that I was reading about recently that I want to share with with you and with the audience. And the number that stood out to me was was 88.5%.

There was this 2019 study in the journal ADHD Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorders that was run out of centr the Central Institute of Mental Health in in Germany. And they took 104 adults with ADHD, and they measured three things how much stigma people had turned inward on themselves, how much discrimination they expected day to day, and how much public judgment they thought was out there.

And close to nine in ten expected to be discriminated against in ordinary life. And the more of it somebody was carrying, the lower their self esteem ran.

Priyanka Rao (17:47)
Mm-hmm.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (17:47)
And the lower their quality of life ran. So

Priyanka Rao (17:50)
Mm-hmm.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (17:51)
in your experience, when a new client sits down, already braced to be judged, what has that cost? What has that cost the work before you have like before you have even opened your mouth? Like in that one, in that one study, nine out of 10 adults with ADHD expected to be discriminated against day to day.

Priyanka Rao (18:11)
Mm-hmm.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (18:11)
What does Walking in braced like that, what does that cost the work?

Priyanka Rao (18:16)
I mean, we hide. We don’t take risks. We

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (18:19)
Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (18:19)
don’t put ourselves out there. We don’t connect with other people as much because or if we do, we do it in a very guarded way.

Cause it like if they saw how messy I am, emotionally, physically, whatever, then they wouldn’t want to be near me. And we have rejection

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (18:34)
Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (18:35)
sensitivity because we experience a lot of rejection. And so all of that pi piles up together to like us projecting a version of us out into the world that looks like they’ve got it together or that kind of seems more neurotypical, I guess is kind of the goal.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (18:50)
Mm-hmm.

Priyanka Rao (18:52)
not my goal, but often the goal.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (18:53)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Priyanka Rao (18:55)
and like that it it closes the door on a lot of things because then you don’t ever trust that your friends actually are your friends because they don’t actually know the real you.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (19:04)
Mm-hmm.

Priyanka Rao (19:05)
you don’t try to take on the next exciting thing at work because you don’t trust you can follow through on it.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (19:10)
Right.

Priyanka Rao (19:10)
you want to start your own but so many people come to me wanting to start their own businesses, wanting to go into entrepreneurship, but not believing that they can pull it off. And

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (19:17)
Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (19:17)
so it’s like the self-trust is probably the place where it gets chipped away the most because people just stop believing that they can do the thing they say they’re gonna do. And that’s such a like there’s a lot of depression with that. There’s a lot of anxiety with that.

that really just kind of keeps us stuck and unhappy and alone.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (19:35)
Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (19:36)
And so once you get to start working with that and start understanding that, the world really opens up.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (19:40)
Yeah. I w I wanna I wanna push I wanna push on this a little bit bit because I know that somebody listening will be thinking this and will want to say say this. If the message is shame first and tool second, there’s a version of that which tells a person that they are not allowed to start yet, that they have to go do the deep work, which sometimes costs money and

Priyanka Rao (20:07)
Mm-hmm.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (20:08)
takes a lot of takes time and a lot of people feel like they don’t have before they are I guess permitted quote to to set a timer. What do you say to the person who just wants to start Monday and can’t afford the shame work?

Priyanka Rao (20:23)
So one of the things that drives me bananas about all of the psychology theories and frameworks and things is they put everything in this linear progression. And the reality

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (20:30)
Sure.

Priyanka Rao (20:31)
is us humans, we never do anything in an actual stage-wise linear progression. I know, right?

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (20:33)
Yeah. If it were only that easy, right?

Priyanka Rao (20:37)
So like start with whatever feels accessible to you because starting on anything is helpful. Use use the timer today, but also push yourself to connect with other people. So the shame work, you don’t have to go to like hours and hours and hours of therapy.

You don’t have to go spend a ton of money on it, but pick a person in your world that you can let see a little bit more of the real you and see

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (20:57)
Mm-hmm.

Priyanka Rao (20:57)
how they take it in. Or find other ADHD spaces online or other communities where you can start to pay attention. what are the people around me saying and doing?

Where do I fit into that? And even the observing will start to loosen some of that grip. So you can do

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (21:12)
Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (21:12)
those things concurrently. It doesn’t mean you gotta do, years of therapy first and then you can go use a Pomodoro timer.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (21:19)
Right. Right.

Priyanka Rao (21:20)
But having the compassion with yourself of if you’re having a hard time sticking to it, that actually completely makes sense. And maybe if you connected with other people, which feels a lot more accessible than figuring out another planner system, like

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (21:32)
Mm-hmm.

Priyanka Rao (21:33)
maybe that would actually help.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (21:34)
Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (21:35)
and so yeah, do it all concurrently. You don’t have to do it sequentially.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (21:37)
Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (21:38)
But you’re gonna find that the more you work on the shame piece and the connection piece, the easier it gets for those tools to stick.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (21:45)
Sure, sure. And I and I want to bring something in. And I and of course I want to flag up front that I am a man, a male asking this.

So I’m I’m asking this from the outside looking in. but it’s something that I’m I’ve always been fascinated in. And I was reading this study in in the journal Neurodiversity for this team that published something out of Amsterdam and they they ran these focus groups with young adults who have ADHD and with people around them.

and the stigma came out different by gender. the women described skepticism, getting diagnosed late, masking loneliness.

And the men described rejection and just not telling anybody. My audience

Priyanka Rao (22:28)
Interesting.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (22:29)
runs about like 85, 86% women are people that identify as women. And a lot of them got their answer late. What are the women who come to you carrying that the men are not?

Priyanka Rao (22:45)
I’m gonna think about this again.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (22:46)
Yeah. Yeah, please take a time.

Priyanka Rao (22:48)
So there’s so many layers of this. what’s popping in my head is there’s all the societal expectations, like the way that our current society is set up, there’s a lot of gendered [bleep] around who’s holding what mental and emotional labor, who’s responsible for what kinds of tasks aware. and in a world where we have more women working, getting careers, but then also still holding most of the household labor.

There’s double the load on our brains. And so we have this idea of we should be the Pinterest mom. We should have all our [bleep] together.

We want to be corporate boss girl. And also our brain is imploding. And so there’s a lot of shame around not doing motherhood properly, not doing career properly.

while also like holding so much more of like literally so much more of the like mental load,

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (23:37)
Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (23:38)
which our brains struggle with managing. And then I think about too, we are socialized from so, so young. And this is why like boys get flagged younger than girls, to like not take up too much space, to not cause a ruckus, to not draw too much attention to yourself, to be agreeable and to be helpful.

And so we start masking way younger. And that I think is part of why women get diagnosed so much later. Part of it is that like Up until the early 2000s, they didn’t even think women could have ADHD or adults could have

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (24:09)
Mm-hmm.

Priyanka Rao (24:09)
ADHD, which is bananas to me.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (24:11)
Mm-hmm.

Priyanka Rao (24:12)
so we we internalize it. So our hyperactivity doesn’t look like bouncing off the walls, it looks like anxiety because it’s a million thoughts running in our brain all the time. And so

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (24:20)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (24:22)
the historical use of like behavioral observations makes a lot of women feel like, Am I faking it? Am I just not? did I trick somebody into thinking I have ADHD and really I should be able to figure this out?

And I had a similar story. when I got diagnosed, I went for the assessment and they did one of those like computerized tests. And

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (24:38)
Okay.

Priyanka Rao (24:39)
I told my story. And like obviously, I’m I’m a hard one to assess because I’m a psychologist who does assessments.

so they have to be kind of tricky with their like measures that they give me. And they gave me this computerized

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (24:44)
Sure. Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (24:48)
test that’s like for attention. And I remember finishing that and being like, I [bleep] rocked that. I nailed it, and they’re and they’re gonna tell me.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (24:54)
A plus.

Priyanka Rao (24:57)
I just need to buckle up buttercup and go do your thing

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (24:59)
Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (25:00)
because you don’t have ADHD. And so I walked out completely convinced that I have been faking it. I’m just, I’m

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (25:05)
Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (25:06)
just actually lazy. And I just not trusting that it was actually hard for me. And

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (25:11)
Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (25:12)
I came back for the assessment result and I was in the 99th percentile of hyperactivity.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (25:15)
my god. you didn’t just have ADHD, you had AD four K.

it was clear as day. Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (25:19)
Yeah. I was like, woof.

but I was never I was never fidgety. I was never bouncing out of my

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (25:27)
Mm-hmm.

Priyanka Rao (25:27)
chair. I was never disrupt. my goodness, I would never be disruptive.

I’m an Indian girl here. Like I’m a good student.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (25:32)
Yeah. Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (25:34)
and so like that stereotype of what ADHD looks like versus like how we tend to present leads to a lot of that like self-doubt around like, do I actually deserve the help? Do I actually need it? Is this actually hard for me?

Did I trick people? and so I hear that a lot from the women that I work with. and then there’s also the like stereotypes around like emotional reactivity and just being too sensitive and not understanding

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (25:55)
Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (25:55)
that emotion regulation is an executive function. So it is something that is directly impacted by ADHD.

And so we just like there’s just like a different level of like judgment around rejection sensitivity or regular emotional regulation, and it gets written off as like, we’re just dramatic, we’re too sensitive. So

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (26:11)
Yeah. You you have a you you have a line that I I think is the I think actual thesis of this entire conversation.

We keep reaching for information and more strategy. And the thing that moves the needle is connection.

Priyanka Rao (26:28)
Mm-hmm.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (26:29)
That that belonging pulls people back to the work in a way that that willpower never manages to. Talk me through that.

Make make that case. Sell me on that right there.

Priyanka Rao (26:42)
Well, it it works on so many layers because it’s the connection with other people, seeing that you’re not alone, and then letting them see the mess of you and accepting it that starts chipping away at the shame. And then you build on that. And when you’re part of when you belong to something, it’s the relationships that pull you back in.

So so often we think we just need like more discipline. We just need to like be harsher on ourselves, be more diligent, be more consistent, which is like such a pet peeve.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (27:09)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (27:09)
and so we think like we just we just need to like willpower our way to doing things better.

But the reality is like when you’ve had a lifetime of beating yourself up for dropping the ball, the next time you drop the ball and nobody knows about it and nobody is checking in with you and you don’t have a connection with other people, you like it feels [bleep], but it’s a tolerable [bleep] because you’re used to it.

Whereas when you’re in a community with others, when you’re connected to others and somebody else is checking in on you, like that pulls you back in. And you want to check on them too. You give a [bleep] about how they’re doing.

So you’re gonna show up at the call to support them and maybe just

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (27:41)
Mm.

Priyanka Rao (27:41)
be in a chat, but still show up for the other people. So that those relationships naturally create accountability, but they also naturally create a path back to the thing you were trying to do that you maybe dropped.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (27:54)
Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (27:54)
that isn’t so reliant on you beating yourself up enough to try again.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (27:59)
Right. There’s there’s something that’s a a personal this is personal for a lot of people in my audience because they they write in a lot and they comments and DMs and email and stuff like that. That I I wanna I wanna pick your brain about.

You ’cause you have described your own history with anxiety and depression as something that finally made sense once you understood the ADHD side of things.

Priyanka Rao (28:23)
Mm-hmm.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (28:23)
I have a lot of people on my platform that are carrying both separately who have had somebody tell them that the thing that they were treated for was really something else the whole time and that can land like their diagnosis you know got taken off of them I guess. So how do you hold that line?

When is when is when is it one thing underneath and when is it two real things stacked on top of each other.

Priyanka Rao (28:56)
Yeah, I think that’s that’s a hard one to answer because it’s so nuanced for each of us. But for

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (29:00)
It is. It is.

Priyanka Rao (29:01)
me, things can co-occur, right? it’s not just because you have ADHD does not mean you now don’t have anxiety. In fact,

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (29:08)
Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (29:09)
it’s just a really good explanation for why there’s so much anxiety there. and so I often like think about when it comes to our feelings, when it comes to these diagnoses, like there’s something productive in that, and that like At some point in time, there’s something about that that’s trying to be helpful for us. It’s trying to pull for support, it’s trying to pull for reassurance.

We’re trying to make sure we succeed or plan for the worst case scenario so we’re prepared. And so if you can start to understand, like, what is your anxiety telling you you need? What is your depression telling you you need?

It doesn’t really matter which diagnosis is primary or secondary or what came first or what happened. Like that’s gonna be what tells you what will help you. So for me, a lot of my anxiety was based on.

I’m dropping the ball everywhere and there’s too much to remember. So that told

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (29:51)
Yeah. Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (29:52)
me, okay, so this is executive function. This is more ADHD related. This means I need a better system.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (29:57)
Right, right.

Priyanka Rao (29:59)
but a lot of the depression stuff earlier in my life was about like belonging, and it was about like being a brown girl growing up in suburban Virginia and like

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (30:07)
Right.

Priyanka Rao (30:07)
feeling different from everybody. And like all of that is still that’s still a thing separate from ADHD. Like those

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (30:13)
Mm-hmm.

Priyanka Rao (30:14)
they play together, because it’s like another layer of rejection and difference.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (30:18)
Mm-hmm.

Priyanka Rao (30:19)
But it doesn’t like one doesn’t cancel out the other. So I like will always, always trust somebody’s lived experience. Like if

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (30:25)
Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (30:26)
you tell me like this still feels important and is something that like means something to you to hold on to, like, cool, let’s work with that. let’s pay attention to what that’s telling you you need.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (30:35)
Yeah. You you borrow a line from Kristen Carder over at the I Have ADHD Podcast and you use

Priyanka Rao (30:41)
Mm-hmm.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (30:42)
it with your clients. go for go for persistence, not consistency. Build

Priyanka Rao (30:46)
Mm-hmm.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (30:46)
you know, build the build the forgetting and the dropping and the blowing it entirely into the plan because it it was always going to be there. Break that down for me. What changes for for somebody the day that they stop grading themselves on consistency?

Priyanka Rao (31:01)
my gosh, this was the single most life-changing piece of like advice I’ve ever heard. so I will forever be grateful to Kristen for the way that she worded it. basically, like everything everywhere says consistency is key.

You wanna be a healthy human, you gotta be consistent. You want a successful business, you gotta be consistent. And the way that we use that term means you do the same thing every day the same way.

And you do it consist like consistently. You’re gonna be regimented about it. Our brains are not designed for that.

We are never gonna be consistent. That is boring AF. There is no way.

And so when we expect ourselves to be perfectly consistent, I’m gonna do the same thing every day, we’re setting ourselves up to fail because

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (31:40)
Yes.

Priyanka Rao (31:41)
that’s not what our brain is designed to do. However, we are so persistent. We are so good at falling down and picking ourselves back up.

We are so good at trying again, because we’ve had to. And so if you aim for persistence instead of consistency, what that means is When you are trying to build a new habit and you forget it exists, you’ve got a new planner, you’re using it great for two weeks and it falls out of your brain.

When you remember that you have the planner, rather than doing the shame spiral and the drama of beating yourself up and feeling like you’re a total failure and you can’t do anything, if you’re aiming for persistence, the goal there is okay, so that sucked. I’m gonna pick that up and do it again. And I haven’t

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (32:18)
Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (32:18)
actually failed. So it takes the failure out of the equation in a way. That makes it possible for us to keep moving because we don’t have to keep beating ourselves up.

We don’t have to keep feel we drop the ball. We don’t have to take the self-trust hit. So that’s

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (32:31)
Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (32:31)
why it was such a game changer of yeah, no, I’m not supposed to do the thing every day. And I am gonna have it fall out of my brain and I am gonna forget. And I can just pick it back up when I remember.

And that was always part of the plan. And so it’s really

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (32:41)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. I

Priyanka Rao (32:44)
freeing.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (32:46)
I want I want you to I want you to picture somebody who got their diagnosis maybe six months ago. So they’re they’re six months out from their diagnosis. They read everything, they joined the groups, they have the vocabulary down cold, and they still feel stuck.

And honestly, it it it it feels worse now because they they can name exactly what is happening and still can’t move. What’s going on with that person?

Priyanka Rao (33:12)
I think there’s still there’s probably a lot of internalized ableism there around what they should be able to do.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (33:17)
Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (33:18)
there’s a lot of that like self-judgment and shame around thinking there’s something wrong with them. Like one thing that is so important to me, and you’ll see it through all my stuff, is like being neurodiversity affirming, by which I mean like being neurodivergent biologically makes sense. To exist

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (33:35)
Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (33:36)
in the world. That’s not a deficit. That doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you.

It’s just literally a different way of being wired. And if we have biodiversity on everything else, we got skin tone, we got eye color, we’ve got height, et cetera. Like, why wouldn’t we also have it for how our brains are wired?

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (33:48)
Yes.

Priyanka Rao (33:49)
And so the folks that are really stuck are the ones that still feel like they should be neurotypical. Like you d you said this beautifully on the Shimmer Summit of like, you’re trying to be a different person, you’re trying to have a different brain.

When there’s nothing wrong with your brain, and if you can give yourself permission to work with how your brain operates, life gets so much lighter and so much easier. So the people who are

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (34:07)
Yes. Yes.

Priyanka Rao (34:09)
really stuck are the ones often that are still in that shame spiral of feeling like

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (34:14)
Mm-hmm.

Priyanka Rao (34:14)
they should be able to be neurotypical or they’ve set a

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (34:16)
Right.

Priyanka Rao (34:17)
goal for themselves to do the thing in a neurotypical way. When what’s actually successful there is like do it in the way that your brain allows you to do it. So if you need a billion checklists.

If you need to write everything down, if you need timers to remember to go pick up your kids from school, which I have on my phone.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (34:35)
Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (34:36)
like there that that doesn’t make you a less adult human. That just means

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (34:40)
Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (34:40)
you’re working with your brain.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (34:41)
Yeah. Yeah. I want to play a little game with you.

It’s called Real or Noise. So I’m gonna say something. I’m gonna say something that I either see on the interwebs or on social media a lot or something that is quite commonly said just in the ADHD world.

and I want you to let me know whether that thing is real or whether it’s just just noise based

Priyanka Rao (35:05)
Okay.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (35:06)
off of your own. Experience and clinical opinion.

Okay. the more

Priyanka Rao (35:09)
I love this. Yeah, let’s do it.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (35:11)
your your bluntness is welcome for for all of these. Okay.

Are you ready? Okay.

Priyanka Rao (35:13)
Okay, yeah.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (35:17)
First one. Everybody is a little bit ADHD.

Priyanka Rao (35:21)
[bleep] that noise.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (35:22)
Agreed. 125%. Yes.

Priyanka Rao (35:26)
one of my biggest pet peeves. no, they are not. Everybody forgets things sometimes, everybody is disorganized sometimes, everybody double books themselves sometimes.

Those traits show up sometimes for people, but ADHD, it is pervasive, it is everywhere in our lives, it is all the time, and it’s disruptive and it’s distressing. And so, no, everybody is not a little ADHD because this like you forgetting to call somebody once. Karen is not the same as everything important that I want to hold on to falling out of my brain, outside of control.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (36:00)
Yes, yes.

Priyanka Rao (36:01)
and so that is and sorry, Karens if you’re listening. but like it’s it’s just not the same thing. It’s just like sometimes

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (36:07)
Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (36:07)
this quirky thing happens versus like throughout the day, every day, this really gets in my way and causes things to be a lot harder for me. So

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (36:13)
Mm-hmm. Okay.

Priyanka Rao (36:15)
yeah, noise, such utter noise.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (36:18)
real or noise, you can grow out of ADHD. Mm-hmm.

Priyanka Rao (36:22)
Noise ADHD is neurodevelopmental, meaning it is in the wiring of your brain and how your brain develops. There’s differences in our neuron connections. There’s differences in what parts of our brain activate for what things.

There’s differences in what chemicals are available in our brains. You don’t grow out of that. That’s the same reason why prescribers that tell you, don’t take your meds on the weekend and give your brain a break make me want to scream because it’s not like your brain

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (36:51)
Yeah,

Priyanka Rao (36:52)
switches on the weekend.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (36:53)
yeah.

Priyanka Rao (36:54)
So no, you don’t grow out of it. It might look different depending on the different like stressors in your world and the different structures

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (37:00)
Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (37:00)
you have in place and the different demands you have in place. so it evolves with us. And for women, especially with hormones and all, it evolves a lot for us.

but no, we don’t ever grow out of it. We can learn to work with it really well. But

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (37:11)
Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (37:11)
like tell me how you’re gonna make your brain grow differently in your 50s.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (37:15)
Right. Right. Here we go.

Number three. If you can focus on a video game for six hours, you do not have ADHD. Real or noise?

I am. I might be.

Priyanka Rao (37:23)
You just rage baiting me.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (37:26)
I might be. The then

Priyanka Rao (37:30)
I

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (37:32)
the it it g it gets it gets a little bit more interesting in the next ones. In the next ones, I think. We’ll see.

Priyanka Rao (37:35)
Okay. So this is definitely noise.

one of the so ADHD is very poorly named. Calling it

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (37:42)
Mm-hmm.

Priyanka Rao (37:42)
like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder makes people think that

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (37:46)
Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (37:46)
ADHD is about a lack of attention. So if you have a space

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (37:48)
Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (37:49)
where you are paying attention, you can’t be ADHD because your attention is there. When

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (37:53)
Mm-hmm.

Priyanka Rao (37:54)
the more accurate description of it is it’s a difference in our ability to like regulate our attention, to put our attention Where it needs to go, when we want it to go there. And so we can hyper focus when it’s something that’s lighting our brain up, when it’s something that’s really interesting to us. We can totally lock in on that and do that

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (38:12)
Right.

Priyanka Rao (38:13)
for hours and hours and hours. And a lot of times, and I’m sure you’ve experienced this, we have a hard time pulling out of that too, because we have a hard time switching our attention. So, yes,

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (38:19)
Mm. Yes, yes.

Priyanka Rao (38:23)
things that are exciting and interesting to us do light up our brains and they are easier to engage with. But

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (38:28)
Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (38:28)
also, like, yeah, it’s not a lack of attention that’s the issue. It’s the

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (38:32)
Yes.

Priyanka Rao (38:32)
ability to regulate it and switch it when you need to.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (38:35)
Okay. Next one.

Do it for thirty days and it becomes automatic. Real or noise?

Priyanka Rao (38:42)
That might be real for some humans. It

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (38:44)
Uh-huh.

Priyanka Rao (38:45)
I I don’t think that’s real for neurodivergent humans.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (38:48)
Okay. By the way, there’s no right or wrong technically any right or wrong answers here. This is all based on your I know, I know.

Priyanka Rao (38:54)
I think there were some wrong answers on those earlier questions.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (39:00)
This this next one I’m interested in. Here we go. ADHD is a motivation problem.

Priyanka Rao (39:05)
No. No. The reason I’m hesitating on that and let me explain.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (39:06)
Uhhuh. I didn’t say that the rest of them aren’t gonna be easy.

I started off easy. Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (39:13)
Yeah. So this one’s a little more nuanced. It’s not a motivation problem in the sense that if you just cared more or tried harder, you could do it.

Because it is executive dysfunction. There is

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (39:21)
Mm-hmm.

Priyanka Rao (39:24)
the the part of our brain that does executive function like activates differently and is sleepier

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (39:29)
Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (39:29)
and has less dopamine and all those things. The reason I hesitate on it is that I think a big piece of where we tend to get stuck is that we have a brain that has a different motivation system than a neurotypical brain. A neurotypical

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (39:43)
Yes.

Priyanka Rao (39:43)
brain is motivated by importance. A neurodivergent brain or an ADHD brain specifically is motivated by interest. And so when you can tap into the right types of motivators for how your brain actually operates, it gets a lot easier to to do things and get started and get going.

So working with motivation is actually a big piece of like tapping into your executive function more effectively, but not in the sense of care more, because we care a whole lot, like a whole whole

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (40:09)
We do.

Priyanka Rao (40:10)
lot.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (40:10)
Probab sometimes too much. Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (40:12)
yeah, totally. And so it’s more about my brain activates for different motivators than a neurotypical

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (40:17)
Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (40:18)
brain. So I need different conditions to be able to access the skills that I need. So that was why that was like a Yeah.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (40:20)
Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

I’ll give I’m gonna give you a a softball one for the next one. Real or noise, women get diagnosed later.

Priyanka Rao (40:32)
That is real, way later.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (40:35)
Mm-hmm.

Priyanka Rao (40:36)
so many of the women that show up for assessment with me are like in perimenopause or menopause.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (40:42)
Sure.

Priyanka Rao (40:43)
And so the the reasons for that one, like I was saying, we we learn to mask younger and so we’re not disruptive, so we don’t get flagged as like having struggles. We often life can be designed and structured in a way that we’ve got enough coping structures for it. And then we hit like a next big milestone and that’s when everything falls apart.

So for it was motherhood, which is another big time that people get diagnosed. for some people, it’s like a massive career shift or like moving up the ladder and then they hit like a level of expectation executive function-wise that crashes them out. And then for

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (41:14)
Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (41:14)
many, many, many, many, many women, it’s perimenopause and menopause

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (41:17)
Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (41:18)
because we now finally, as of only last year, have research supporting that perimenopause and menopause, like the drop in estrogen directly makes ADHD worse. So so many women are like, why is my brain not working? they

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (41:32)
Right.

Priyanka Rao (41:33)
come to me being like, Am I in cognitive decline? what’s happening here? And it’s like, no,

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (41:35)
Right. Right. Right.

Priyanka Rao (41:38)
you just like have raging ADHD that’s been exacerbated by the drop in estrogen. so

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (41:40)
Yeah. Yes. Yes.

Priyanka Rao (41:44)
yes, we do tend to get diagnosed later. We also like have a medical world that discounts so much of our experience and tells us we’re dramatic. So there’s so many systemic reasons too for why we get missed as well.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (41:52)
Yeah. last one.

You need a formal diagnosis before you are allowed to use any accommodation, real or noise. Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (42:04)
Total noise. Total noise.

really the main reason to get a diagnosis is if you’d like to pursue medication. And medication

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (42:11)
Mm-hmm.

Priyanka Rao (42:11)
is like the most empirically validated treatment and it is

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (42:14)
Mm-hmm.

Priyanka Rao (42:14)
very life changing for a lot of people, myself included.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (42:17)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (42:18)
but also pills don’t teach skills. And so just

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (42:20)
Yes.

Priyanka Rao (42:21)
having medication is not gonna make [bleep] better for you. And so there’s so much you can do. And I think self diagn, yeah.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (42:25)
Mm hmm. Yeah. That was a big part of my talk the other day at at Shimmer.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm.

Priyanka Rao (42:33)
yeah, it it would be great if that would just solve the problem, but right. your brain still operates differently. You still need to do things differently.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (42:36)
I wish I wish. Yeah. Yeah.

Priyanka Rao (42:41)
so yeah, I think like my god, I just went full ADHD and like forgot the question already.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (42:45)
I love it. I I love when that happens because that that’s people need to see it.

They need to see it. about

Priyanka Rao (42:50)
just thinking about your talk, and lost it. What was the question?

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (42:57)
f needing a formal diagnosis. Yeah yeah.

Priyanka Rao (43:00)
do you do you need to wait? No, totally use the accommodations the minute something resonates with you online.

Give it a shot. it’s not it’s not gate kept by only neurodivergent humans.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (43:05)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I got one more question for you, and this is a question that I ask all of my guests. If there’s one thing that you want the audience to take away from our conversation today, what is that one thing?

Priyanka Rao (43:19)
This is cheesy as [bleep], but I say it. I everybody who knows me will tell you that I say this all the time. You are not broken.

There is nothing wrong with your brain. It is just different. And when you allow yourself to work with that different, life gets better.

So yeah, you probably need to hear that eighty three more times, but like you were not broken. There’s nothing wrong with you. Mm-hmm.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (43:39)
Cliche, but true. many cliche things? I’m not a a toxic positivity person, but cliche

Priyanka Rao (43:44)
Mm-hmm.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (43:45)
things, just because something’s cliche doesn’t mean it’s not true.

Priyanka Rao (43:48)
Totally.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (43:49)
I always say there’s there’s always help out there. Cliche,

Priyanka Rao (43:53)
Mm-hmm.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (43:53)
but it’s freaking true. It’s true,

Priyanka Rao (43:55)
Totally.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (43:56)
you know? So I have no problem being cliche like that. Dr.

Priyanka Rao, thank you so much for being a guest on The Vibe With Ky Podcast today. The way that you named shame as the thing standing between us and the tools that we already know is going to stay with a lot of people. I can guarantee that.

If you enjoyed Dr. Priyanka Rao today, be sure to check her out on on her website, asha-coaching.com, and on Instagram and TikTok at @ashacoach. She also runs a membership called the Divergent Table.

And with the code KY30, that is KY30, you get 30% off your first month. All of those links are in the show notes of this episode. If you enjoyed today’s episode, make sure you visit my website at thevibewithky.com or follow me at @TheVibeWithKy on your favorite social media platform.

For even more conversations and content just like this episode. And if you haven’t already, please subscribe so you never miss an episode of the podcast and leave a review so more people can find it just like you did. With that said, thank you so much for watching and for listening.

As always, my friend, much love, good vibes, and I’ll catch you next time. Bye.