Show Notes
Patricia and Nicole help demystify seeking an ADHD diagnosis, provide information to help you decide if seeking an ADHD diagnosis is right for you, and discuss how to seek an ADHD diagnosis. We talk about what may happen during ADHD testing, the validity of online ADHD testing, and what the different steps may be to seeking an ADHD diagnosis. We also chat about potential ADHD treatments and of course, some of the problems with the DSM-5-TR, why a person might not want to seek a diagnosis, barriers and privilege around diagnosis, and more.
Quick corrections: We are aware that the DSM is published by the American Psychiatric Association, not the American Psychological Association, both of which use APA as their abbreviation. Also for clarity, Nicole says, “Executive Dysfunction” then provides a definition for “Executive Functioning”
Mentioned on the show:
- DSM-5-TR information from the APA
- Buy the DSM-5-TR
- Overview of the people behind the DSM-5
- DSM-5 Criteria For ADHD: How Is Adult ADHD Evaluated? via add.org
- Wait. Am I ADHD? with Dr. Sasha Hamdani via Struggle Care Podcast
- Dr. Sasha Hamdani @thepsychdoctormd on Instagram
- The planners we use
- ADHD Test For Adults based on World Health Organization guidelines that we mentioned
- How to get a free or low-cost private evaluation via Understood.org
- Wicked movie trailer
Find the full show notes and official transcript on our website: eedapod.com
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Sound editing by Jen Zink
Transcript
Music: [Intro Music]
Patricia: Greetings, citizens of Earth! Welcome to Enthusiastic Encouragement and Dubious Advice, the podcast for folks who would rather curl into the fetal position than lean in. I’m your host, Patricia Elzie-Tuttle.
Nicole: And I still struggle to get my homework done, Nicole Elzie-Tuttle. We are recording this show on May 20th, 2024.
Patricia: The two weeks between shows feels like a lifetime.
Nicole: We’ve done so many things.
Patricia: We’ve done so many things. Our friends got married, we got dressed up.
Nicole: We did. We even got, like, mani-pedis for the first time
Patricia: in a long time.
Nicole: A long time. It was very satisfying.
Patricia: Yeah, my little goblin feet look much better.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: And on Mother’s Day, which is a hard day for both of us, I was very clever and I planned a distraction. We went to Berkeley Repertory Theater and saw Galileo, a new rock musical.
Nicole: This was a preview, wasn’t it?
Patricia: Yeah, and actually, it was like the preview of the show before the show opened here at Berkeley. And so then it was, it’s like the premiere, the world premiere of the show. And ideally, it will go to Broadway.
Nicole: Ideally.
Patricia: Ideally.
Nicole: Okay.
Patricia: I mean, that’s, I think that’s, I assume that’s their plan. With Raul Esparza as the lead character. So…
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: It was really interesting what they did with it, I think. The cast was amazing.
Nicole: They did really good.
Patricia: The chorus sounded amazing together. Like, the chorus was so good. And also, I think the stage, the set design was really innovative.
Nicole: I’m always, like, really fascinated by good set design in theater. And this, did not disappoint. It was really cool.
Patricia: Yeah.
So, I was like, cool, I have distracted us from grief, and then on Tuesday…
Nicole: The news broke that we in Northern California Bay Area are finally getting a basketball team.
Patricia: Aww, yeah.
Nicole: We are getting the Golden State Valkyries.
Patricia: Yeah, and if you are listening and you’re like, oh, you already have a basketball team. You have the Golden State Warriors. No, that is a men’s basketball team.
Nicole: We’re talking about basketball here.
Patricia: We’re talking about a basketball team.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: So their colors are, like, purple and black, and I’m going to need all the merch.
And I was just on Instagram, scrolling around, I watched their trailer, and then I just burst into tears, because I’m like, ugh, my mother would have been so excited that we are getting a WNBA team in the Bay Area. So…
Nicole: So we hugged it out.
Patricia: So we hugged it out. We hugged it out, and it is endlessly fascinating and frustrating when grief, uh, pops up, but I am excited to take you to some basketball games.
Nicole: Yeah, I don’t think I’ve been to a pro basketball game ever. I have been to a men’s basketball game, probably when I was in, like, junior high or something. Because my sister really liked the Lakers.
Patricia: Ah, okay.
Nicole: So, we went to see an L. A. Lakers game when I was younger.
Patricia: I’m so sorry.
Both: [Laughter]
Patricia: I grew up in a Celtics household, so.
Nicole: So, sorry to my sister out there.
Patricia: [Laughter]
Nicole: I will say, this weekend was the first day that merch went on sale for the Valkyries, and I don’t, did you share the video with me?
Patricia: Of, like, the line!
Nicole: The line, like, wrapped around the Save Mart Center.
Patricia: It was bananas! The Save Mart Center? No, the Chase Center.
Nicole: Chase center.
Sorry, Save Mart Center is, that was the center at my university.
Patricia: [Laughter]
Nicole: Little, detective game for you listeners out there, figure out where the Save Mart Center is and you’ll know where Nicole went to college.
Patricia: Well, and they also had like a block party where Kehlani was there and performed and, I’m sad we didn’t go to that, but we did some other things this weekend.
And, yeah, I’m gonna have to get some merch.
Nicole: Yeah, it’s really cool. Like, it has the Bay Bridge, but also it’s like a sword with wings. It’s a really cool logo.
Patricia: Yeah, their logo’s so good.
Nicole: Yeah.
Reminder for our listeners that we do have a Patreon, and our Patreon community has a survey for people who subscribe at the Helpful Helper level that you can fill it out, and we’ll send you a rainbow prism sticker of the podcast logo.
And even if you don’t want a really cool rainbow prism sticker that’s gonna, like, throw rainbows all over whatever room you put it up in, you can still fill out the survey. It would be really helpful.
Patricia: Please fill out the survey because we also want to know more about you. And you could just check the little box and say, no, I don’t want a sticker.
But please, if you are a helpful helper, fill out the survey. And also, we started our first actual paid Patreon feature, which is a weekly accountability thread that I’m very proud of. We started, people are already responding, which is really exciting because, again, as people on the internet, as podcasters, as a writer, you sometimes put things out into the world, and you don’t know if any of it lands, or if anyone sees it, or if it’s even meaningful or helpful to people.
So thank you to the folks who have responded. And it’s basically I post that this is the thing that’s been on my to do list forever and I’m going to get it done this week. So this week, one of my things was I need to make a doctor’s appointment because it’s been over a year since I’ve seen my doctor.
And so other people responded with what they’re going to do. And then I’m going to check back in with the post next week. and see how people did. Like, did we do this thing? And also, I’m hoping people will hold me accountable too. Like, I’m already, like, yes, I’m doing these things because I know in a week, I’m gonna have to report back to the helpful helpers and say if I did this thing.
So, we’re being accountabilibuddies. You could join us. I’m actually really excited about it because it’s, it’s helping me do things.
Nicole: The way you looked directly at me when you said you could join us, I felt a little targeted there.
Patricia: Well, you should.
Both: [Laughter]
Patricia: That’s okay. I’m your, I’m your built in accountabilibuddy.
Nicole: Yeah.
I really appreciate you.
Patricia: I appreciate you too.
Music: [Transition Music]
Patricia: So, May is Mental Health Month, and last episode we talked about how to find a therapist, especially if you are a person of color or queer, and we want to kind of continue with that theme, or at least around mental health awareness. And so today we’re going to help demystify ADHD testing and diagnosis.
Just like we mentioned a lot of people are prone to say go to therapy, but then they don’t actually offer support on how to find a therapist or what that even means. There is a lot of content out there right now that say go get tested for ADHD, or like here are some signs you might have ADHD, or getting tested for ADHD was the best thing I did, but there’s not actually any kind of support or exploration of what that means to go get tested. What that means to get a diagnosis, and so we’re hoping to demystify some of that.
Nicole: Now there is a lot of privilege just behind the statement, go get tested for ADHD. That is not something that is readily accessible to everyone. There can be a lot of barriers to this, primarily around cost and access, and I want to say time, and we’ll get into that.
Patricia: And for anyone who is from a historically excluded group, so, we’re talking about BIPOC, people of color of all kinds, but also white queer people, white women.
We don’t always get taken seriously. So it’s not like our concerns, we could just walk right in all the time and say, one ADHD test, please. And they’re like, here you go. Like, that’s not
Nicole: Pee in this cup, please.
Patricia: Pee in this cup. No, you do not have to pee in a cup for an ADHD test, or do you? Oh, no, we’ll get to that.
Both: [Laughter]
Patricia: But I think it is hard enough for us to go in for even physical things, and get our needs met and actually get listened to. So just to tell someone, especially from a marginalized group, to go get tested for ADHD, like, that could be really, really hard.
Nicole: Yeah.
And we’ll get into some of the reasons why that historically has been even more difficult, especially for historically excluded groups. But I do want to start out by just talking about what is the point of, say, going and getting tested for ADHD?
Like, what does that do? And, like, yes, it will tell you, hopefully, whether or not you have ADHD, but the primary purpose of it is to get a diagnosis of ADHD. And this is the medical terminology, the label that gets added to your medical record, saying that you meet diagnostic criteria for having ADHD, and this, in turn, ideally is a tool. Having this diagnosis that can assist in getting additional help from both mental health practitioners, like we discussed in last episode, but also medical practitioners, so doctors, psychiatrists, etc.,
Who may additionally help you with medication to treat that or help you with some behavioral interventions, which we’ll talk about as well. The other thing this does, though, is if you move around between doctors, primary care physicians, HMOs, ideally, having documentation of your diagnosis can help facilitate communication between them, but also help getting yourself set back up with getting the services you need within a new healthcare provider system.
Patricia: Absolutely.
For some diagnoses like ADHD, having a diagnosis can also help you get accommodations at work or at school to help make things more manageable for you. And we’ll definitely talk about accommodations a bit later.
Nicole: The other thing that a diagnosis can do is have kind of a peace of mind. Or it can be comforting because it gives you a term to apply to perhaps a constellation of symptoms, right, various different aspects of things that are happening in your life that can be grouped under this label, which can help you feel like maybe this is what’s going on and it’s not just that you’re a bad person.
Patricia: Yeah, because that constellation of behaviors that are going on are usually things that you don’t like right, they’re possible negative things, there are things that get in the way of you doing things or even forming relationships. And so being able to label that and like you said, not think it’s just you not being great at being a person.
This label can also help you feel less alone, because if you have this label, then you could find other people who are also experiencing some sorts of, of these things and also have this label. And it can also direct your research efforts in, especially around finding behavioral strategies in dealing with your symptoms.
So having this diagnosis kind of will direct your search terms.
Nicole: It can also potentially help other people be more understanding. Which, in general, people should be more understanding regardless of what the reality is, but not everyone is that nice and understanding without seeing the official paperwork that says this is what’s going on with this person.
Patricia: Yeah.
And I love documentation as much as the next guy, but this dependence on paperwork and jumping through all of these hoops can, it can be argued that that itself is a function of white supremacy. This dependence on only having official people say these official things. And speaking of which, there are a lot of cons for diagnosis as well.
And seeking diagnosis for issues around mental health is not the right or desirable choice for everyone. And we want to make sure that we talk about this too.
Nicole: So, as we mentioned in our last episode, there is a lot of racist, misogynist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, antifat, you name it, in the history of psychological and psychiatric research. And this also applies to psychiatric diagnoses.
Now, the standard manual for diagnosing any psychiatric or mental health conditions, at least in the U. S. or western world, is what is known as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. It’s shortened to DSM. Currently, we are on the DSM 5.
And we are on the text revision of the DSM. So you will often see this abbreviated as DSM-5-TR. This is a book that is published by the APA, the American Psychological Association, and it is put together by a large committee over many, many years of experts in their various sub-disciplines of psychology, psychiatry, psychiatric nursing, social work.
Anyone who kind of works in this field and is considered an expert may end up on a committee as part of the revision of this manual.
Patricia: And when we were talking about this earlier, and I had asked you, you know, who writes the DSM and you mentioned this, and we really need to kind of put on those thinking caps and think about, who are the usual people that get looked to as experts in their field?
Like, what are the demographics and, you know, what is, oh, it’s people who get published. Well, who usually gets published? It’s people who get asked to speak. Well, who usually gets asked to speak? And it’s, it can very much be kind of, uh, when we think about who translates the Bible into English? Who writes the dictionary?
Who writes grammar guides? And think about the narrow subset of people that I’m sure you all can imagine are often parts of these committees writing these things. And so this is some of what we mean when we talk about how some of the history of the research and also white supremacy has made its way even into some of the things we use today.
Nicole: So, all of that being said, it’s safe to say that the DSM is not perfect, but it does provide some, say, guidance or boundaries for what we are working under when we’re discussing things like an ADHD diagnosis.
Patricia: Absolutely. Another reason why a person may not seek a diagnosis or share a diagnosis is there is still a lot of stigma around mental health, mental illness, and anything not neurotypical.
There are people out there right now that would be horrified hearing this conversation we’re having, as well as people who would be angry that we are having this conversation and flat out think that we should not be talking about these things. The stigma exists regardless of community across races, genders, etc.
Though it may be a bit more prominent in communities of color or very religious communities. And also families that have very strict ideas about masculinity and ideas around who gets to seek help, who’s the helper, who deserves help. And we’ve talked about this in past episodes as well. Because of this stigma, having and sharing a diagnosis with a manager or coworkers or school administration can have a direct line leading to prejudice.
Nicole: Right, and that’s where I will say, like, getting a diagnosis doesn’t necessarily mean it’s something you have to share with everyone. It is something you can just get for your peace of mind and hold on to that. Something else that is there, though, is that there are a lot of barriers to obtaining a diagnosis for something like ADHD and in some ways this can make it completely inaccessible.
These can be things like cost, it can be very expensive, as it can require multiple visits to multiple professionals. It can take a lot of time, and this would be time that, of course, typically has to happen during daytime business hours, during the Monday through Friday workweek, when usually other people are working, so for some people this requires taking time off of work, which makes it inaccessible.
There are likely other barriers that I am not even touching on here, possibly around language, culture, as you touched on.
Patricia: I just thought of another one that we don’t have in our notes, but now that you’re saying this, it’s so obvious because we mentioned it in last episode. Usually, if you are in the position of seeking a diagnosis, especially around ADHD, you are likely not already getting treated for the ADHD.
And one of the kind of symptoms is an inability to focus. Uh, so there’s some executive dysfunctioning, right? Like you can’t do quote unquote, simple tasks, like making appointments, showing up to appointments, making multiple phone calls. And that in itself is so inaccessible. And like, it makes me so mad because it’s like, oh, you’re having problems doing these things. Well, we’re going to need you to do these things in order to diagnose your problems doing these things.
Nicole: Yes, for those playing along at home, what Patricia is referring to is a term called executive dysfunction, the ability to take control of your kind of day to day actions and just get things done. And, and that refers to your own kind of self control. And this is classically one of the hallmarks of ADHD is executive dysfunction, where it sometimes feels like you are not fully in control of your ability to just get something done, which you’re 100 percent right. This is something that people classically struggle with, and they need a lot of executive functioning to make all of these appointments and get to them on time.
Patricia: And also, gonna put it out there, a diagnosis can be wrong. It could be wrong. It could be premature. It could be inaccurate. This can also mean that a mental health professional saying, no, you don’t have that has the potential to be wrong.
Nicole: I will add on to this saying that this is a risk with almost all medical diagnoses.
Including various types of cancer or other, whole other issues that may be going on. I’m, it’s late and I’m blanking on all of the medical terms that I see at work every day. That being said, that is the reason why we have things like the DSM to give some criteria that need to be met in order to be given or labeled with a particular diagnosis.
Patricia: Some people self diagnose, that is, diagnose themselves based on their own research without seeing a mental health or medical professional or going through any sort of quote unquote official testing. From a disability justice standpoint, self diagnosis, especially around neurodivergence, is a response to inaccessible healthcare. In, like, so many ways we’ve talked about, and even more ways we haven’t talked about, and it can also be very liberating for some people.
Nicole: Yeah, this is a whole other area that I am not an expert in. I am not an expert in disability justice, so I don’t necessarily want to get lengthy on that right now. What I will say is, if nothing else, finding screeners and other things that people typically often use for self diagnosis can be used as screening tools to help guide your own understanding of any issues you may or may not have going on.
Patricia: Yeah, I think mentioning things like screeners and stuff is really important because you are not going to watch a TikTok and diagnose yourself from a TikTok or a Facebook quiz, you know, you’re not going to see an Instagram reel. And, you know, they’re like, do you do T-Rex arms? Well, you might have ADHD.
Like, that is, that is not what we’re talking about. Um…
Nicole: And also, if you go to your doctor seeking like an ADHD diagnosis, they’re like, why are you here? And you’re like, well, I have I, I do T-Rex arms sometimes, therefore I think I have ADHD, like, that’s, that’s not gonna fly.
Patricia: That’s not gonna be helpful to your situation.
Around self diagnosis, this is where I have been doing a lot of unlearning, and I’m continuing to do a lot of unlearning. Because I believe that people get to choose what they want to do with their own bodies and also that community knows what community needs and that people are allowed to advocate for themselves around both physical and mental health.
And if I truly believe all of that, then I can’t ethically uphold those barriers to diagnosis around neurodivergence. Which we have also said, like so many of those barriers, are direct results of white supremacy.
Nicole: And along those lines, and similar to the discussion we were having a few minutes ago about who writes the DSM, a lot of the early testing and work that went into, I should say, research that went into detecting and figuring out diagnostic criteria for psychiatric conditions was often validated on cisgender, college age, and at the time, most commonly white men.
And so, that is who a lot of these things are classically very good at diagnosing. In the last couple of decades, there has been a lot of work going into expanding diagnostic criteria and improving the sensitivity of these measures to other groups, but that is an ongoing effort. And even today, I am still seeing articles that are discussing how sensitive a particular measure, and I say measure, this is typically some sort of diagnostic criteria or other kind of survey type mechanism or something, how good or poor is it at detecting what it’s supposed to be detecting in a particular group of people, and this is often a historically underrepresented group of people.
Patricia: Absolutely.
I think anecdotally about all of the adult women we know who are getting diagnosed late in life, because perhaps the ADHD didn’t show up how it would typically show up in cisgender college age white men.
Nicole: Or even classically, the little boys who cannot sit in their chair and run around the room.
Patricia: Yeah, like that. And so we have women that we know in their 30s and 40s, and they’re getting diagnosed, and they’re getting the help they need.
Nicole: Hopefully.
Patricia: Hopefully. Speaking of, there’s a DIY content creator that I follow on Instagram who has basically self diagnosed with ADHD, and she has no interest in getting a diagnosis, and she’s very open about that.
She is, like, you know, she found socks with no seams, so she doesn’t have that kind of sensory nightmare and she has specific soft pants she likes to wear and she cuts out all the tags and she has all of these like behavioral strategies and tactics to make life workable for her. And she is just fine without diagnosis and seeking extra help for that. And that’s fine too. Like that’s valid too.
Nicole: Yeah. I think this is where, you know, the difference and some of the discussion around self diagnosis ought to really be focusing is if you’re able to use the tools provided to the diagnosed members of the community to improve your life and you are better able to function and lead a life that you are happier with, I don’t think that’s really hurting anybody else.
Patricia: Yeah.
Nicole: And so I’m fine with that.
The bottom line here, though, is that if you’re feeling discomfort, stress, suffering, or an inability to function due to the symptoms that you are having, you deserve help in whatever way is most helpful to you. You do not need a diagnosis in order to just reach out to a therapist.
Like we discussed last episode, you can just reach out and try to get a therapist and tell them what’s going on and find ways to help navigate and improve your life. If that’s all you want to do.
Patricia: Yeah.
We are not going to judge whether or not you get a diagnosis from a professional. We are just trying to give you some accurate nonjudgmental information so that you can make decisions about what would work best for you.
So we covered what diagnosis means when it comes to mental health and some pros and cons of seeking a diagnosis. What next? Well, like I mentioned, a lot of our adult friends and loved ones are getting an ADHD diagnosis just now in their adulthood, and sometimes that catalyst is some of that relatable content on the internet.
Nicole: Okay, so let’s start off with actually talking about what is ADHD. ADHD is a diagnostic term that is used to define a certain set of behaviors that typically cause some sort of issue with someone’s daily life. ADHD itself is a shortened for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. And there, I know, there’s a lot of jokes on the internet that it’s not necessarily one or both of those things.
And if you want to get into it, there’s actually, you know, three subtypes of ADHD and everything, and we can link to some information about, like, what the actual criteria for that is. But we’ll suffice to say here it is a diagnosis that refers to Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.
Hi, hello, I am one of those older women we were talking about earlier who are getting diagnosed with this later in life, and that is partly why we’re talking about this in this episode today.
This whole process is something I went through last year in figuring all of this out, and I will say like the catalyst for that was actually, I think it actually started with you
Patricia: Yeah.
Nicole: listening to a podcast episode.
Patricia: Yeah, I was listening to an episode of Struggle Care with Casey Davis, and she had a guest on, and they were talking about, like, the episode title was probably, like, possibly even, like, Do I Have ADHD or something like that.
Nicole: Right.
Patricia: And I listened to it, and I just kind of slid that episode over to you via text and was like, heeey, so you might want to listen to this because some of this resonates with, uh, my experience of some of your behavior.
Nicole: [Laughter] And I think, was the guest on that Dr. Sasha Hamdani?
Patricia: I think so.
Nicole: So I in turn found Dr. Sasha Hamdani’s Instagram account where I think she primarily reposts videos she makes for TikTok or whatever. She is a psychiatrist who treats people with ADHD, but she also has ADHD. And so she had a lot of very short clips, you know, TikToks and reels, about what that’s like from the perspective of a psychiatrist who has ADHD.
So she both knows what it’s like as a first hand experience, but also medically, clinically, diagnostically, what ADHD looks like. And I remember sitting in the bedroom waiting for my turn to go brush my teeth and it all just hit me all at once like oh my gosh I might have ADHD and it explains a lot of what i’ve experienced for a huge part of my life.
Patricia: Yeah.
It was like a lot of light bulbs.
Nicole: All at once. They kind of exploded.
Patricia: Yeah. And it was a little, it was a little scary, too.
Nicole: It was scary and a little overwhelming. I probably almost certainly cried.
Patricia: I mean, you did. I came out of the bathroom and I’m just like, doo doo, my face is washed.
Nicole: Your turn to brush your teeth.
Patricia: Yeah. And you were crying. So, yeah, it can be a lot. And I know we talk about this very openly and very flippantly sometimes, but I want to recognize, like, it could be a really big deal. It’s a lot.
Nicole: Yeah, it took me a couple weeks from there to, like, kind of sit with that.
Patricia: Yeah. So why did you seek diagnosis, especially as an adult?
Like you mentioned, this was only last year and it was actually in the second half of last year that you went through this.
Nicole: Yeah. Honestly, it’s because it finally hit a point where my ability to function daily was declining. And this is due to a couple of different reasons. One of them is I got a promotion at work. I was no longer in a position where I was running around doing eight different things at once all day. I was sitting at a computer all day.
Patricia: In like, nine back to back meetings, just like…
Nicole: Yeah. And so, like, that changed. But there were other times where I would just find myself, like, scrolling Instagram for literally hours at a time. Literally unable to get anything else done. Not able to get myself up off the couch or the bed or whatever.
I was stuck. And, you know, I had, I had, I have. A lot of other kind of symptoms that are related to or are consequences of some of the symptoms of ADHD that, looking back, like, were causing a lot of negative, I guess therapists would call it negative self talk. Things that I would just feel really, really bad about.
One of the hallmarks of it is losing things. And I would lose things all the time at what I feel like is an excessive rate, but then I’d also get frustrated with myself. And this is the kind of thing, like, similarly, like, accidentally breaking things, dropping things, chipping things. Again, like, I feel incredibly guilty about these things, and so there’s a lot of negative self talk that goes on with that kind of stuff, and so that was all compounding at the same time as my inability to even get things done on certain days.
There were, there were other things going on. I think one of the funny ones, which this is not a, like, diagnostic feature, but it is totally something that was going on for me, is, uh, as you said, I was haunting the house.
Patricia: You would just roam around the house looking lost. Not necessarily confused. But it was, we found it was rooted in your inability to make a decision about what to do next.
Nicole: And also I think a bit of like, almost sensation seeking in a way, like just not being able to make a decision, but also knowing I needed to do something and wanting to do eight things at once, but not being able to start them. So I would just waft from room to room, looking for something that would maybe give me enough of whatever I needed to
Patricia: Whatever kind of stimulation or something. Yeah.
Nicole: Get up and go.
Patricia: Yeah.
Nicole: Um, and really I just wanted to, I wanted to be better. And part of that was I wanted to be better with you, right? This was not a helpful place for me to be in, in life. And so having a diagnosis in particular, has helped me understand, one, what was going on, and what is going on, and that I am not just a terrible person.
Patricia: You’re absolutely not a terrible person. But before the diagnosis, we were both doing a lot of labor for a lot of workarounds.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: Like, I was making a lot of accommodations because I was like, oh, my wife’s just quirky. She just needs things written down. We need calendars with a hundred reminders. We need lists of everything we need schedules we need…
And I just thought, you know, you were quirky and as our vows say, we promise not to be jerks to each other. So I was like, I’m just going to make accommodations and work with you and your brain the way you are.
Nicole: Well, and this is one of the reasons why it also took so long to go seek out a diagnosis, because with all of these accommodations you were helping me with, this kind of covered up or hid a lot of the diagnostic criteria.
Patricia: Yeah, I’m, I was really good at working with what we had. And yeah, I think, I think you definitely could have sought diagnosis earlier had we not had all of these fail safes in place.
Nicole: But it was amusing to then take them to the doctors and be like, here’s all the weird things we do just to make sure, like, I can get through the day.
And them being like, mm hmm, I see. What is the joke? I don’t have an issue. I have, uh, I have a method.
Patricia: [Laughter]
Nicole: I, I have a, I have a way of dealing with that. I have a coping strategy. I have, I don’t, I don’t have a problem.
Patricia: [Laughter]
I have a method for that. Yeah.
So do you want to talk about some of these, like, things that we had in place that some of these things are still definitely things we have in place because they help.
Nicole: They are. And honestly, the biggest one is one I still use every day. I am constantly listening to audiobooks and podcasts. Constantly. Unless I need to, like, read something else or pay attention to something else, I am probably listening to an audiobook. I do it while I get ready for work in the morning, including washing my face and brushing my teeth and putting on my makeup.
I do it while I’m driving to work. I do it when I drive home from work. I do it while I am doing any kind of household chores, including doing the dishes, the laundry, any kind of cleaning around the house, I am listening to something. And that provides just enough, I guess, stimulation or whatever, that I can do other things.
It also is great. I have gone through dozens of audiobooks this year.
Patricia: Read so many books. And again, shout out to the libraries.
Nicole: Heck yes, libraries. Thank you. You have saved me so many dollars.
Patricia: And if you haven’t listened to our library love letter episodes. You should do that because, yeah, the library saves us so much money, especially with the amount of books we consume between the two of us.
Nicole: Oh my gosh, yes.
One of the other big ones was, is, I should say, is a reliance on electronic calendars, specifically ones that are built into my phone so that I can get plenty of alerts. But also we discovered that you can just send an invite to me, I don’t have to open it, I don’t have to accept it, I’ll still get the alerts for it.
Patricia: For our Google Calendar.
Nicole: For our Google Calendars, specifically, yes. Which means if there’s something going on you want me to know about, you can just invite me to it, and I will get the alerts for it, and I can know what’s going on without having to do anything.
A big one that I’ve used is, I use the reminders function on my phone for what the doctors would refer to as activities of daily living.
This is things like, taking my pills, brushing my teeth, other things that I want to remember to do daily, like my Duolingo, and stuff like that.
Patricia: But also things like, okay, we’re gonna check the locks on the front door,
Nicole: Yes.
Patricia: we’re going to make sure you turn on the dishwasher,
Nicole: Yes.
Patricia: and that all the windows are closed, the fans are off, and all of those things, too.
Nicole: Yes.
My phone literally pings and puts a reminder on the lock screen at 9:30 at night that says, check the windows and the front door are all locked.
Patricia: Yup.
Nicole: Because if it’s not there, I will probably just go to bed.
Patricia: Yeah.
Nicole: This one took us a lot of time to figure out. The paper based or planner based to do list.
Patricia: Well, you know, this was a lead up over years.
Nicole: That’s why I say it took us time to figure out.
Patricia: I had recommended a paper planner years ago, and that felt really overwhelming.
Nicole: Mm hmm.
Patricia: So, what we had were, you know, a paper to do list that was always on the same type of paper, and on one side, it would have what we are both doing or what you’re doing for the weekend, and then I would have a separate list for myself.
But then when the pandemic started, and we were working at the dining table across from each other,
Nicole: Mmhmm.
Patricia: and we were having a lot of Zoom meetings, we had gotten a bunch of pads of post it notes that had the daily schedule on it, and we would put down, when I had a meeting, if it was a meeting where I was talking, or if it was a meeting where I was only listening, and then in the other column, you would do the same for you. You would put your talking versus listening meetings.
So if one of us had to go to the bedroom to give the other one space or whatever for meetings, we would do that. Finally, this year is the first year, or I think we started at the end of last year maybe,
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: with a different planner, but we were like, okay, we are used to having these two paper lists for years now, let’s combine them and use a planner together.
Nicole: And so we found specifically a planner that has each day as a column with the hours on it, so we can map out where our meetings are, but also there was space on each page for a to do list. And the key to this is that these, this planner has to live in the same place at all times, because if it is not there, it is gone
Patricia: Yeah.
Nicole: from my memory still.
Patricia: Yeah.
Nicole: I will completely forget about it.
Patricia: Yeah, the planners live on the sofas near us, just.
Nicole: Where I go sit every day. Yeah. If it’s not there, I will forget it exists, and it’ll get dropped out of use. And this is one of the other big things that we figured out, is there are some items that have to have a very, very, very specific home, and they have to go back there every time.
So I have a very specific tray in a very specific spot that I put my keys in every day when I get home, and I can pick them up from there. If I set them anywhere else, I am really going to have a hard time finding them.
Patricia: Yeah, yeah. Things have homes. Things have places.
Nicole: Yeah. Pills live in one very specific spot. The planners live in a specific spot. Please don’t ever rearrange the kitchen.
Both: [Laughter]
Nicole: But these are, these are the kinds of workarounds that we, over the years of being together, figured out and probably slowed down the progression of needing to seek additional help for what turned out to be ADHD.
Patricia: So, if this is resonating with any listeners, where do they even start?
Nicole: Okay, so here is my recommendation on where to start, and that is to actually go look up what the diagnostic criteria for ADHD are, and we will link to that in the show notes.
The other thing you can do is take, say, the ADHD online screening test from one of the ADHD organizations out there, and this is a screening test that is specifically offered by the World Health Organization, and we’ll link to that, too.
Patricia: Yeah, it’s not any, it’s not just any old screening test.
Nicole: No, it’s not like a bunch of I don’t know, TikTok influencers ideas on what this is or anything.
Patricia: Tell us your favorite movie and we’ll tell you if you have ADHD.
Nicole: Oh my gosh, please don’t.
Patricia: [Laughter]
Nicole: The other thing I recommend is talking to your doctor or therapist, or if you’ve already got one, your psychiatrist. And this can really just be an opening of a conversation of, I think I might have ADHD. Can we figure that out?
And that will start a conversation of, “why” will probably be the next question. Why do you think you have this?
Patricia: But you will have looked at our links for the criteria and the screening from the World Health Organization, and you will be able to have evidence of, I think, because these things map to these things in my life.
Nicole: Yeah, and that is actually what I did in one of my initial messages. I don’t know if we’re talking about that later or not, but I sent an email that was like, I think I might have this. Here is why, and I listed out diagnostic criteria and sub bullet pointed each one with here’s what’s going on in my life.
Patricia: The thing we’re gonna do here is cite our sources, everyone.
Nicole: Absolutely!
Patricia: If there’s one, if there’s one thing about us.
Nicole: The thing to know is that whatever conversation you have, if you are seeking a diagnosis, an official diagnosis, a medical label for this, there will likely be some kind of, what we’re just gonna broadly refer to as testing.
Patricia: So when we broadly refer to it as testing, like, what do you mean? Are we talking about a written exam, a survey, a physical test, a lab draw, brain scans? Like, what does testing mean?
Nicole: Most of this is gonna be what is often thought of as behavioral testing, and what that means is honestly, it’s probably gonna start with a survey.
Your, I’m gonna say doctor, but that’s a stand in for doctor, therapist, psychiatrist, mental health practitioner, whatever, is probably gonna hand you a survey and say, fill this out and get back to me. And it’ll have a whole series of questions and you fill it out. And that might be the end of it for some people.
For others? They may ask you to do more, and this is what would be referred to as neuropsychological testing, and this is where you have to go see a neuropsychologist or a psychologist who is, their whole professional job is testing people for things like this. And this is gonna be a much bigger situation than taking a single survey, or maybe a couple surveys.
This, in my experience, was, like, four hours of testing, which…
Patricia: In person.
Nicole: In person testing. It involved answering questionnaires and surveys. It involved doing some computer based testing. It involved doing a whole host of tests that challenged different aspects of how my brain worked, including things like memory and they would do things like, when I say this, what do you think of?
And if, you know, what’s the opposite of this word? And it was a whole weird suite of testing. But it kind of probes and checks on the different ways your brain works. And what the psychologist’s job is, is to look at the pattern of how you respond and score to all these surveys. And that pattern either will or won’t align with what they see in people who have, in this case, ADHD.
There are no brain scans. There’s no lab draws. There’s no genetic tests that can test for this.
Patricia: There’s no peeing in a cup.
Nicole: At this point. There’s no peeing in a cup for the diagnosis. There may be peeing in a cup if you want to get medication.
Patricia: Fair.
So, people can very easily, and people do, just do a web search online, like, ADHD test online.
Like, can’t they just do that?
Nicole: This is where you really need to kind of be choosy, and look at what is the history of this test? Is it an actual diagnostic test, or is it a Facebook test, or something? The one we’ll link to is one that is put out by the World Health Organization as a screening test.
It is unlikely you will find a single test available online for free that will tell you whether or not you have ADHD.
Patricia: So, what should people know before they go have testing. What kind of prep do they need? What is the cost? What is the time? Did you, like, make a phone call and get this done in two weeks? Like…
Nicole: Oh, I wish.
Let’s start with cost. Depending on how you go about this, this can either be not that expensive or it can be incredibly expensive. If you go to your primary care doctor and they give you some questionnaires or surveys to fill out, it’s probably just going to be the cost of your co-pay.
If you want full neuropsych testing and you don’t have insurance that’s going to cover that, it can be hundreds to thousands of dollars. And this is where I have a fair bit of privilege, as we talked about, with having additional mental health insurance for our employers. My insurance covered it, which was the only reason I was able to do it.
It is very time consuming. Like I said, I spent four hours in a face to face appointment. There was a one hour appointment before, there was a one hour appointment after. It also had at least a three month wait between when I called and made the appointment and when I got the actual appointment in person.
Before that, there were several months of talking to a psychiatrist who helped me, like, figure out some of this stuff and, and confirmed and recommended that, yeah, I should probably go get testing done. It can take a very long time, and it can be expensive. It isn’t always, and it kind of just depends on what’s available to you and who you talk to and how you go about it.
Patricia: Yeah, I think it depends on your insurance, if you have insurance, and I cannot confirm, but I do know in the show notes of last week’s episode on how to find a therapist, I linked to a newsletter issue that did have resources on finding things like low cost therapy and stuff like that. You may want to look in there and see if there are other, like, resources for low cost mental health services, because, um, unfortunately, we didn’t do our due diligence and try to find low cost options for this.
But we’ll take a look.
Nicole: Yeah. The other thing I will say is, going into this, know that as part of this, either from just like your doctor giving you some questionnaires or doing the full neuropsychological testing, they are either way likely to send home some questionnaires for your partner, your parents, your roommates, your besties, for someone else to fill out.
These are not required, but they will likely ask you for this. And they’re going to want someone who’s known you for a long time, and spends a lot of time very close with you. Preferably someone who lives in the same home with you.
Patricia: Thank you for saying it’s not required, because that could be another barrier to access.
Not everyone has someone who has known them for that long, or knows them that well, or that they are close to, that they trust to fill out something like this. And so they will likely ask for it and it is not required. You mentioned kind of that whole timeline or not the whole timeline. You actually just mentioned from making the appointment to getting the appointment, but was like that whole timeline, like, like how long after did you get results?
And what happens after you get your results from the testing?
Nicole: Yeah, so. the initial timeline of, like, talking to a psychiatrist. And I did that for probably a couple weeks to a couple months before…
Patricia: And it still took you, like, a couple weeks to even get into the psychiatrist, too. Right?
Nicole: Yes. Took a couple weeks for that.
And then after probably a couple weeks, he was like, okay, yeah, you need to get this testing done. Here’s, like, one place you can get it done. But I was able to find a local Doctor. A local doctor’s office that did it. That was several months, I think it was about three months. And then after the testing it was another month before I got my results.
So it, all in all, probably was about three to six months, from like, initial like, oh my gosh moment,
Patricia: Mmhmm, mmhmm
Nicole: to actually having paperwork in hand.
Patricia: And this is from, also, recognizing you have all these fail safes and you’re able to make these appointments
Nicole: Yes!
Patricia: and show up to these appointments.
Nicole: Right.
Patricia: And we have a lot of privilege around our jobs and our access, so your mileage may vary with this one.
I also have, as we’ve talked about before, a lot of experience navigating mental health, the mental health world, but also navigating the medical world in particular due to my day job. So I kind of know how to navigate these systems by work experience.
You asked what happens after, and what happens after you get a diagnosis in hand really kind of depends on what you want to do with it.
As I mentioned earlier, you can just keep that to yourself and sit with it and acknowledge it and do better at understanding who you are and the implications for that. You can talk to like a therapist or a psychiatrist or someone for behavioral help. And this is specifically, honestly, it’s a lot of the ways that we talked about finding workarounds and ways to work within your now diagnosis to better improve your daily functioning in your daily life.
Yeah. So if you don’t have your own Patricia.
Nicole: If you don’t have your own Patricia, a store bought one will work.
Both: [Laughter]
Nicole: No?
Patricia: You got me with that one.
Nicole: You’re welcome.
Patricia: Wow.
Nicole: But this, this can also be other things like working on certain aspects of mindfulness to try to practice being more present and focused in the moment. This may or may not work for everybody. I know I really struggled with it. You can also from there, take your diagnosis back to a medical doctor or a psychiatrist, who is also a medical doctor as we discussed in last episode, and talk to them about medications to help treat ADHD.
The other thing you can ask for is accommodations at your school or place of employment.
Patricia: Since we’re mostly talking about adults here, what, like, what does that even look like? What kind of accommodations can a person possibly get at their job if they have had an ADHD diagnosis?
Nicole: So when I had my appointment to discuss the diagnosis, first they asked, do you want a letter for workplace accommodations?
If you have this opportunity, I recommend saying yes, because you don’t have to give it to your work, you can just keep it. I will also acknowledge, I work at a very large organization that actually has a disability office that I could take this to. For most people, they would likely have to take this to their human resources office.
But what accommodations, at least in the letter I was provided, it was a letter that said, Nicole needs specific things at work to make sure she can get her work done. And some of these things include, and it gave a list of things out, like stricter work boundaries. And it said, like, she needs to adhere to a very strict schedule of hours. Do not ask her to do work outside of her normal work hours. It also, I loved this one, fewer meetings that don’t pertain directly to my role. The letter basically says, like, if it’s not directly pertinent to Nicole’s job, please don’t make her go to those meetings.
Patricia: That’s beautiful.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: That’s worth the cost right there.
Nicole: Another one is receive all instructions in writing, and this is because, as I was talking to the person who did my diagnostic testing, talked about the fact that I really struggle with verbal communication and remembering verbal instructions. So her recommendation for workplace accommodations is, everything has to come to you in writing.
Also clear expectations, very, very clear expectations. Do not ask me to do something that is not previously discussed as part of my job. This has been really helpful. As I mentioned, you don’t have to actually give this letter to anyone. I am very fortunate I’m in a job where I have just kind of asked for some of this stuff to happen without going through the official channels.
Patricia: Right, you were able to tell one of your managers, like, hey, I got this thing. And
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: here’s some ways we could help make work more manageable. But you didn’t go through giving the official letter and
Nicole: Right.
Patricia: and the disability office and everything.
Nicole: No.
Patricia: Yeah.
Nicole: And I’ve also managed to do other things like with all instructions in writing. I just took that as part of my new like, this is what I do at work. So anytime anyone asks for something from me, I, in turn, ask them, send me an email. So, hey Nicole, can you do x, y, and z? Sure thing. Can you send me an email, please? Send me an email, I’ll get right on that. And that then takes care of the writing thing, and I don’t have to go through official channels and support, submit this letter and everything else.
Patricia: So, let’s talk a little bit more about treatments. What are, what are some of the options for treatments, for ADHD specifically?
Nicole: For aDHD specifically, the big one that a lot of people talk about is medications, and these come in like two broad classes, and this is starting to wade into territory that I am less familiar with, but I think a lot of people have heard that there is stimulant medication that is given to people with ADHD. And this does a weird thing in that it calms them down. And yeah, it kind of does.
Patricia: Yeah, it’s, again, there’s a lot of stigma around medication, especially when it’s psychiatric medication, as well as recognizing that sometimes these things are used as street drugs. Because if someone takes these stimulants who doesn’t have ADHD.
Sure, it maybe gives them a bit more energy, maybe makes them zoom around, or
Nicole: Maybe makes them high.
Patricia: Maybe makes them high too. And, but with people who actually have ADHD, who need this medication to function
Nicole: mm hmm.
Patricia: It does kind of mellow you out and helps you focus.
Nicole: Yeah. And it’s, I mean, I’m not going to get into all the whole chemistry of why it does what it does, but it does help with the focus and getting work done and overcoming that executive dysfunction we talked about earlier.
Patricia: Right. And the same thing, I think it’s important with psychiatric medication, sometimes the first thing you try doesn’t work. Also, related, you could try it. If you don’t like it, you could stop and ask for different treatment.
Nicole: Yes.
Patricia: Or a different medication. Like, that’s okay.
Nicole: Yeah. There is also non-stimulant medication that can be helpful for people with ADHD, and this is something for you to discuss with your doctor or psychiatrist or whoever your prescribing person is.
And that’s important to know, especially for people who do have concerns around substance use and substance abuse, that you can get non-stimulant medications. You can also just go with, uh, what was, uh, referred to by my psychiatrist as behavioral coaching. And this is kind of what I talked about earlier about let’s find ways to make your life work better, but also talk about specific and very targeted areas of how can we practice and do specific things to improve your focus.
And so it’s a lot of hard work and training to recognize when you are finding yourself distracted and how to reorient yourself back to the thing you’re supposed to be paying attention to. And that’s, it’s a lot of coaching around stuff like that.
Patricia: Yeah, and for some people the coaching’s better, for some people the meds are better, and some people need a mix.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: So, like I mentioned, there is a lot of stigma around psychiatric medication, and I just really want to stress that if the medication, and this is for a lot of psychiatric medication, like, If it is for the thing that you’re actually trying to treat, it will often behave in a way that is beneficial to you, ideally, as opposed to someone taking it for recreational reasons.
Nicole: Yeah. And I will also say that, like, you can start taking these medications and you can still feel kind of conflicted about them. The other thing to recognize, and this is really common with a lot of psychiatric medications in particular, is if they are working, you will feel better and what happens to a lot of people is they feel better and so they start to think, I probably don’t need these because I’m doing better.
Patricia: Yeah, this happens not only around ADHD meds, but like you say, people who are being treated for depression, for anxiety. It’s like the meds work and you feel like yeah, I’m, I’m feeling better. I’m feeling great. I can just chuck these in the garbage.
Nicole: And that is a good way to really discover that you actually should probably continue taking them.
Patricia: If your medication is working, or even if it’s not, talk, to your doctor. Talk to the prescribing doctor, talk to your medical professional, before just stopping a med.
Nicole: That, I was gonna say that, and I want to reinforce that. Do not just take yourself off of your psychiatric medications without first consulting your doctor.
There may actually be medical implications beyond your mental health for stopping a psychiatric medication on your own without consulting your doctor. Please don’t do it.
Patricia: Remember, if you get a diagnosis, you are under no obligation to do any of these treatments or to share a diagnosis with anyone.
The diagnosis is a tool that you can use for accommodations. You can use it as information to help you find content online that will also help you manage your day to day. You can use the information to help you find communities of folks who also have ADHD. Diagnoses can feel very isolating, and they don’t have to be.
So, Nicole, what has changed for you since you’ve been diagnosed?
Nicole: I think one of the big things is I stopped scrolling Instagram all day. Which sounds silly, but like, with working with my doctors and the treatments I’m working with them, it has really been helpful. And honestly, I feel like I’m able to get a lot more done during my day.
I’m able to actually do my job, which has been really helpful.
Patricia: I want to point out there that scrolling Instagram is not an actual symptom of
Nicole: It’s not.
Patricia: ADHD. And, and I think for you, it was, it was one of the ways it showed up. And there are also many other reasons why someone may be dissociating, why someone may be dopamine seeking.
But for this example, so again, remember it’s a constellation of behaviors.
Nicole: Right.
And for me in particular, this was part of that executive dysfunction we talked about.
Patricia: Right.
Nicole: And in particular, it is, if you want to get into like the real deep roots of it, as you mentioned, dopamine seeking. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that is often, there is less of it going on in the brain of people with ADHD, and that’s why we are often sensation seeking in various ways.
Patricia: Because dopamine is related to like the feeling of rewards, right?
Nicole: Yes.
Patricia: Yeah.
Okay.
Nicole: So it was one of the ways where I was trying to get up enough, something going in my brain to be able to get up and do the next thing. I’ve been better at being able to just help take care of things around the house. That has been really, really helpful. I think one of the things, again, this is not a diagnostic criteria, but it is amusing anecdotally, I run into things less.
Like I don’t walk into doorknobs and counters and everything else as much.
Patricia: You have fewer bruises from running into things around the house.
Nicole: Yeah, I don’t haunt the house as much. I am not wafting room from room, completely unable to find the next thing to get me excited enough to be able to do something else.
Patricia: And I think that’s something that has changed for me, too, because as the non-ADHD partner, when you would haunt the house, I would feel like I would have to do something about you doing that, like I would have to figure out something for you to do, I would have to help you get this dopamine boost, I would have to help direct you, I would ask you, are you lost?
If I was feeling salty. But it was a lot of invisible labor from me, too. And like, once you have gotten diagnosis and treatment, and we figured out what’s going on, and we figured out the things that really work, I find we both have more spell slots.
Nicole: Yes.
Patricia: To do other things.
Nicole: I will say the other thing that has really changed for me is now I have an understanding of what is going on. I spent 40 years of my life, not really sure why, but definitely feeling bad about, like, my memory issues, and losing and breaking things, and having days where I just can’t get anything done. And now I have a framework for understanding what is going on, and that means I also have a way and a vocabulary to talk to my mental health and health doctors if something stops working or if I need additional help in some way with relation to this.
Like I said, I have a way of talking about it, a better understanding, and so it’s given me a little more peace of mind and understanding as well.
Patricia: Do you have any advice for folks whose medical professionals refuse to test, or if the results from the tests or the initial surveys aren’t helpful?
Nicole: I would start by asking why.
That is my first, my first recommendation is talk to your doctor about why, why do they don’t think you need to do any of the surveys or why do the surveys they gave you say that you don’t have it and try to have a conversation with your provider. The other side of this is ask for and consider alternative possible diagnoses.
And the, the term you would be talking to your doctor for here is a differential. What is the differential diagnosis? What are other things that could be causing these symptoms that you’re having? If that’s not working or your provider just refuses to talk to you, consider getting a second opinion and in doing that, look for people who specialize in diagnosis and treatment of ADHD.
They’re going to know a lot more about this than your primary care physician. And when you go talk to your doctor or a doctor for a second opinion, be very clear about why you think you meet the diagnostic criteria and what about those things in your life are causing some level of impairment in your daily functioning.
And that’s really the other key to this, like we mentioned earlier. If you say you have memory problems, but it’s not causing any problems in your daily life, then your doctor’s not gonna do anything about it. It has to be causing problems in order for them to want to do something about it.
Patricia: So, we have had a very long show.
Nicole: Oh my gosh.
Patricia: What is, what is your takeaway?
Nicole: Honestly, if you’re having symptoms that cause stress or discomfort or whatever, like, you deserve help regardless of what the end diagnosis turns out to be.
Patricia: And I also want to add to that, that you get to decide what is right for you when it comes to diagnosis. Right?
Maybe you don’t want to go through all of the mental health and medical professionals and a self diagnosis and coming up with your own strategies and doing your own research. If that works for you and if you find comfort in that, that’s great. If you want to talk to medical professionals and possibly get on medication and maybe get a letter for work or something like that for accommodations, that’s okay too.
It’s what works for you.
Music: [Transition Music]
Nicole: We gonna skip the resource this week?
Patricia: Oh wow, yeah, we’re gonna skip the resource. Although I love this resource, I’m gonna have to share it next time.
Nicole: In that case, Patricia, what’s filling your cup?
Patricia: Oh my gosh, I’m just crying at everything on the internet lately. The full Wicked movie trailer for the film version of the musical based on the book of the same name by Gregory Maguire.
So Wicked the musical means a lot to me as someone who deeply identifies with Elphaba who always felt like the green girl. I have seen the show. I don’t know, maybe five or six times. And, you know, I have seen it from the front row. I’ve seen it from the last row of the balcony. I have seen it so many times.
I have the Making of Wicked large hardcover Broadway book. I have the vocal selections. I, I love the show so much. And to see Cynthia Erivo, a queer, black, pierced person, who’s bald get cast and play Elphaba is just overwhelming to me, especially in having studied musical theater and recognizing there are so few roles for black women, especially as leads and especially roles that aren’t us being enslaved, or jazz singers, or prostitutes, right?
Like just, or sex workers or like, it is just so deeply important to me. And so like, I saw the trailer, I absolutely burst into tears. And then I saw Wicked’s coming to San Francisco, uh, the musical, and I haven’t brought you to see it. So we bought really expensive tickets for one of the days in the, when it comes in like October or something, September, October, and then we’re definitely going to the movie theater, might even make you take the morning off to go see it in the big comfy theater.
And yeah, it’s just, I know I said a lot of words and I almost have no words.
Nicole, what’s filling your cup this week?
Nicole: This week, I’m feeling a little full from just having a weekend with no big plans. This last weekend, we didn’t have any major plans. There was no theater, no weddings. No big parties to go to or anything.
We just did some errands and I cleaned the kitchen and did some laundry. I listened to almost an entire audio book. It was a short one. It was only like six hours.
Patricia: Did some gardening.
Nicole: Did some gardening. Yeah. Just home things.
Patricia: Yeah.
Nicole: Just did some home things and. And it was nice. As much as I love going to theater and seeing friends and dressing up and doing all the fun things, I felt like I needed a home weekend, and we got it, and it was really nice.
Patricia: Yeah.
Well, that’s our show for today. We’d like to thank our awesome audio editor, Jen Zink. You can find her at loopdilou.com, and we’ll leave a link to that in our show notes.
Nicole: You can find the full show notes and transcript at eedapod.com. That’s E E D A P O D dot com. There you can also find a link to our Patreon, our Bookshop link, and a link to the ongoing Enthusiastic Encouragement and Dubious Advice newsletter.
You can also find us on Instagram and BlueSky at eedapod. and email us at eedapod@gmail.com.
Patricia: We are nothing if not consistent.
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Patricia: We would also appreciate anyone who can subscribe to us on Patreon. Support is going to help us keep this show going, especially without ads. You can find us at patreon.com/eedapod. In the meantime, we hope you find ways to be kind to yourself, drink some water and read a book. We’ll be talking to you soon.
Nicole: Aren’t you glad I wasn’t like haunting the house in like a sheet ghost costume or something?
Patricia: I would have to draw a line there. That’s,
Nicole: or like a Victorian
Patricia: Nightgown.
Nicole: Nightgown. I was gonna say, like, newsboy or chimney sweep outfit or something.
Patricia: Chimney sweep!