Faelyne: Hi, quick question before we start. Have you ever been in a conversation, like like a really important conversation, and then just lost the thread completely? Not because you didn't care or not because you were bored, but just because something else, something completely random and utterly irrelevant, just walked right into your brain and took it over. Stephanie: like a sound or movement or the very specific hum of a refrigerator in a coffee shop. Faelyne: Today, we're putting ADHD distracted listening under the microscope, why it happens, why it is not rudeness, and what to actually do about it so the people you love feel heard. Stephanie: It's a good one, someone gets engaged and almost nobody notices. Faelyne: Almost. And one more important thing before we dive in, we know your brain is doing a lot right now just by listening. So everything we talk about today, the science, the strategies, all of it, it's gonna be in the show notes. So no need to scramble for a pen. We gotcha. Stephanie: Okay, let's do this. Faelyne: Welcome to the ADHD Cringe Lab, the only place within the interwebs where your most embarrassing moments are considered valuable scientific data. Stephanie: Every week we take one cringy, chaotic, and completely relatable ADHD moment and we put it under the microscope. Faelyne: We act it out, we break down the neuroscience behind it, and we give you actual tools to handle it better next time. Stephanie: Because understanding why your brain does what it does, that's where the shame stops and the strategy starts. We're Stephanie and Faiteleen, two ADHD coaches who also happen to be living specimens. Faelyne: Very much in the data. Stephanie: I'm coming to you live from the US research wing. Faelyne: And I'm joining from the Canadian Research Wing. Stephanie: Two labs. Faelyne: One mission. Stephanie: Open borders and equal cringe. Faelyne: and absolutely no idea what time it actually is. And nobody has stopped us. Stephanie: Stopped us and keeping watch over the lab, as always. Faelyne: Is our chief cringe officer, the ADHD spaghetti bear? Stephanie: Yay! And for people who are listening only, this is a purple bear and he has a lab coat, a badge, and a little bow. So visualize that. Faelyne: Spaghetti bear lore to come in future episodes. Stephanie: And it's a story. So grab your safety goggles. And your fidget spinners. Before we head into the lab, we need to take a reading of the current cringe climate. Faelyne: Every episode we take a quick reading of how ADHD life is treating us this week. think about it as our pre experiment data collection. Stephanie: Mm, truth. Okay. So w what do you got? Faelyne: So okay, so I was grocery shopping with with my partner and I typically like grocery shopping alone, but you know, I'm trying to curtail some of my more impulsive spends because that is a goal. So my partner comes and well, mmm, to be can you know, to be determined. So we're we've just grocery shopped, we're back to the car. Stephanie: You are or he is. Faelyne: we're you know splitting duties. He's putting the the groceries in the trunk, gives me the keys. I put the keys someplace for safekeeping because we only have one key to this car because I lost the other key. So this key can't lose it because it's very expensive to get them to come and make a new key. So I put it someplace really, really safe. So we get the groceries all into the trunk. My partner says, Hey Phaeline, pass me the keys and let's go home. Stephanie: Mm-hmm. Faelyne: Daily says, Didn't I give you the keys? Apparently not. We looked everywhere. I looked in my pockets. Stephanie: Okay, wait, did you open the car with it though? Like how'd you get the trunk open? Faelyne: With those keys. So I knew I had them. I hadn't left them, you know, in the parking lot or in the store. I had the keys. We opened the car with the keys. We looked everywhere. We took everything out of the car. We took looked in all of the grocery bags. We repacked them. I was down on my hands and knees, you know, under the seats. And you know, you get like seat nasty in your nails, and it's awful. And you know, bless and more. Stephanie: Yeah. Yeah. Like old French fries. Yeah. Uh-huh. Faelyne: Enough said. He's being like so supportive, and I really do appreciate that there is an understanding of the ADHG brain in my household because many of us have it. but nevertheless, it was about 15 minutes, hands and knees, looking under my car, looking under the cars were parked beside. Stephanie: Mm-hmm. With other people in the parking lot, like, wow, what's going on over there? Faelyne: What is going on? Thank goodness it wasn't raining and the snow has mostly finished because you know, hello, Canada. And then, like, my chest was a bit itchy. So I'm like, I go to scratch, you know, Bessie on the left. I had put my keys in my bra because I had no pockets in my clothes. Stephanie: yeah. No. Is that a normal carry all for you? Faelyne: Well, it's always convenient. Except for then I forgot. So I did find them. We did get home. I didn't have to call for a tow or anything, but it was pretty, pretty cringy. Stephanie: Mm, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, we just started this show and there's lots to learn. The learning curve is high. And instead of spending time going over the scripts and doing all the things on our to-do list that were important, what I decided to do instead is to make Spaghetti Bear a lab coat. And because His real lab coat, which is actually a karate thing, but don't tell him, hasn't come in yet. I took an old t-shirt and I made him one. And look how bad it is in the back, right? And then I'm like, well, he needs a badge. And so I went through old magazines and I cut something that looks like a badge out. That's my cringe. Faelyne: It's it's it is beautiful. I I mean until you turn him around. Yes. Stephanie: I know you like it, so you're not being hard on me. But you know what? Like I had things to do. I had edits, but I did this. This is what I did. I cringe on myself. Faelyne: Yep. Yep. And again, I think that's that's that's that's the cringe. That is the cringe. Now. Stephanie: But you know, honestly, Spaghetti Bear, I don't want him mad. He's got high standards and he's top priority. Okay, so is he gonna take a reading of this? Faelyne: He has high standards. Absolutely. Well, let me get Stephanie: Bread a bear are are you? Faelyne: So I get this spaghetti bear cringometer to spin. Stephanie: Why not? Because I think you're definitely gonna be cringier. Faelyne: All right. I think you may be right. But let's see what the kringometer says. Stephanie: Is it like under a laundry basket right now? Faelyne: See? Funny you should ask that. Here is our kringometer. Alright? Give it a spin. Stephanie: Wow. Okay. All right. Let's give it a spin. On the ba by proxy for spaghetti bear. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Faelyne: By proxy. So let's see. Let's do my story first. What's the cringe reading on it? Ready? You certainly could. Stephanie: Do I have to make the tick sounds? Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. Okay, that's annoying for everyone. it's gonna be low. It's gonna be high. It is stopping on the Faelyne: I think it's stopping on the one. So I guess there's more there's more empathy than cringe. More empathy. All right, let's see yours. Stephanie: No, no. Mm, mm. Dee, dee, dee, dee, dee, dee, dee, dee, dee. Okay, that's a it's very cool, but it's very spinny. Like that's a hard spin. Faelyne: The current wheel's pretty cool. It is very spinny. It's a hard spin. Stephanie: Yeah. All right, it is a Faelyne: Also, a one. Hey, I think that there may be a balance issue with how our crank wheel is set up. I want to come on that. Stephanie: Yeah. No. That thing looks so professional. I mean, you could go on the road with that, like go to carnivals and stuff. Faelyne: I totally could. And in fact I may I may well. Well Stephanie: Okay. Well, you know, readings are high. I think it's time we got to the lab. Faelyne: Let's yep, let's go to the lab. Stephanie: I have been physically shaking. I'm about to burst. I'm so excited. I have something to tell you. Are you ready? Because I need you to be ready. Faelyne: I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm so ready. I'm literally all ears, all four of them. Stephanie: He proposed last night at that restaurant, the French Canadian one that's like on the river. Faelyne: that's great. That's wow. Sorry. Sorry, do you hear that? Stephanie: Mm what? Faelyne: that sound? It's like a low frequency hum, like a fridge, but it's kind of dying or like bees. Is there a hive nearby? Like are we near a hive like right now? Stephanie: Sam Faelyne: No, no, no, no, I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. Sorry. You were saying he proposed. That's incredible. That's. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, but listen, is your phone maybe on vibrate because it genuinely sounds like there's a small, determined appliance dying inside your purse. Would you mind checking in just just real quick? It's going to eat me alive otherwise. Stephanie: Nothing. No alerts. No texts. Not even a spam text saying that I'm about to get arrested for not paying my parking tickets. Faelyne: So this is an ambient noise that's everywhere. Stephanie: It is the refrigerator case at the coffee shop, Sam. It's always been here. Faelyne: yeah, that actually makes so much sense. That's actually such a relief. All right, good. I'm back. I'm here. I am present. You are getting married. Stephanie: Mm. Yes, I am. Faelyne: I am so happy for you, like truly, genuinely, from the bottom of my heart. This is the best news. He's wonderful and you are wonderful. Together you're like statistically impossible levels of wonderful. Just one quick thing. Stephanie: thank you. What? Faelyne: It's not a destination wedding, is it? Because if I have to locate my passport, I'd need to start looking for it today. Actually, right now I could leave and start looking for it right now. Last time I saw it, was it in the junk drawer? Maybe the car? I donated a coat to Goodwill in 2021, could have been in the pocket. Any of those things, any of those things could be equally likely. Stephanie: No, it it is not a destination wedding. Faelyne: Thank you. Okay, good, great, wonderful. I love you. He is a lucky man. Now tell me everything and I will stay directly at your face and not the refrigerator case. Stephanie: Thank you. You can still hear it, can't you? Faelyne: It's so loud, Alex. It's so loud. And we're back. Wow. That was painful. And I say that with full self-awareness and also a little bit of love. Stephanie: A lot of love. And hey, Alex did eventually get to tell Sam everything about the proposal, and Sam fully listened and then she cried, which was an appropriate reaction. Faelyne: Sam cried a lot. She was very moved, but also briefly more moved by the sound of a commercial refrigerator. And that's what we're here to talk about today, because what happened in that scene has a name. Several names, actually. Stephanie: Let's break it down. What Sam was experiencing in that moment, the inability to hold onto Alex's genuinely exciting news because of a background noise, that's not because of rudeness. And it's not because she didn't care. It's something the ADHD brain does almost involuntarily. And the science behind it is actually really interesting. Faelyne: So most people's brains have what researchers call a salience filter. So basically a gatekeeper that decides what deserves your attention right now. For the neurotypical brain, the filter goes, Hey, your best friend is telling you life-changing news. Fridge hump, background, irrelevant, suppressed, done. Stephanie: But in the ADHD brain, that filter is working with much weaker breaks. There's lower activity in the prefrontal cortex, which is the part of the brain responsible for regulating attention, deciding what to prioritize, and the default mode network, or simply call the DMN, which is the part of your brain that wanders and daydreams, notices random things, it can stay more active than it should when you're trying to focus. Faelyne: So when that hum started, Sam's brain genuinely could not decide that Alex's news was more important. It treated them as equal inputs competing for attention. A bee invasion and an engagement announcement. Same threat level apparently. Stephanie: Apparently. And here's the part I think a lot of people don't realize. This isn't a choice. It's not even conscious. Sam wasn't thinking. I'd rather focus on the buzzing noise. Her brain just it just grabbed onto that sensory input before she could stop it. Faelyne: And sensory sensitivity is actually really common with folks who have ADHD. Many people with ADHD have what's sometimes called sensory processing differences. So where certain sounds or textures or lights register way more intensely than they do for other people. So it's not just that we get distracted, sometimes things are. genuinely louder or more uncomfortable for us than they are are for everyone else in the room. Stephanie: the hypers. We have an entire episode coming up devoted to this diabolical team. And hey, if you love someone with ADHD, this is important information for you to know. Because your loved one can look like they're being dismissive or inattentive to or you, but in reality, they really truly are trying to do their best. Faelyne: Truth. Sam was so there for Alex. Well, like 50% of so there. The the point is, she wanted to be there fully, but her brain got hijacked by the buzzing sound and then poof. She was down the rabbit hole and up in the beehive. Stephanie: Well, at least you didn't add anything about a squirrel in those nature examples. Faelyne: Well, so if you're sitting there feeling like you're a walking disaster headed straight for the beehive, see what I did there? Or if you're buzzing around like a bee stuck in a honey pot. Stephanie: Yeah. Wow, okay, and if you easily get distracted by B metaphors, feeling is you. But we both see you. We are you. And before we tell you what to do about it, we want to say something important first. Faelyne: Because the science is one thing, but the shame that can come with these situations, it needs its own moment. Stephanie: Well, welcome to the validation station. Before we get to the prescription, let's just pause for a sec. Faelyne: Because here's the thing if you saw yourself in that skit, you're not a ditz, you're not inconsiderate, and you are not selfish. Stephanie: Sam really did want to be there for Alex as she shared an incredibly important life moment. But her brain was short circuiting with the buzz, literally causing interference between her ears and her brain. Faelyne: And the guilt that you feel after when your inner critic is telling you that you're a terrible selfish friend, that feeling is real too. And it's exhausting. And we see that. Stephanie: You may have been called flighty, ditzy, self-absorbed, or distracted, that your priorities are out of whack. And some of those may have been said with the best intentions, but it's not the whole picture. Tuning out background stimuli is hard and mentally draining. You are running a marathon that other people aren't even aware of. Faelyne: And yet you are still showing up, you are still trying, still caring, even when your brain is staging a coup over a refrigerator pump. Stephanie: Hmm. Yep. And that's the cringe we're here for. Okay, we are still in our lab coats, all science-y. We witnessed the cringe. We've explained the science. Now let's talk about what to actually do about it. Faelyne: Four protocols tested in the field, as always mostly on myself. Stephanie: Right too. A protocol one, name it out loud early. If you notice your tension getting hijacked, and sometimes you can feel it starting to happen, like the one B that swarms by before the swarm that follows. Faelyne: Nicely done. Stephanie: Thank you. Before that, say something simple and honest before you truly spiral. Even just, hey, one sec, something's pulling at my brain. Hold, please. That quick verbal acknowledgement actually helps your prefrontal cortex re-engage. And it also lets the other person know you're not checked out. You're just briefly in a traffic jam. Faelyne: And from the friend side of things, that is infinitely better than watching someone stare at the ceiling and say, you know, while you say the words, I'm getting married. And if you're not in a position to say that out loud to the other person. Say it to yourself and imagine a line pulling you back in. Stephanie: Okay, protocol two, body anchoring. This sounds a little woo-woo, but research backs it up. When you feel your attention slipping, plant your feet on the floor. Put your hands on the desk, make deliberate physical contact with your environment. This activates, okay, here's a fancy science of world alert, the proprioceptive system. This is your brain's sense of where your body is in space, and it can help pull your focus back to the present moment. It's like a reboot button that doesn't require Wi Fi. Faelyne: And the cool thing is, you don't even have to know how to pronounce that word to use it. Protocol three, minimize sensory competition before important conversations. So if you know you're about to have an important conversation, receive big news, or have a serious talk, set yourself up for success. Stephanie: Uh-huh. Faelyne: Through your environment. Sit away from speakers, face away from windows. Squirrel, sorry, they're lip close before us. Maybe suggest a quieter spot. It's not about being precious. Well, we're always precious. But it's about giving your brain a fighting chance to actually be present for the moments that matter. Stephanie: Mm. And this goes to the people who love someone with ADH2. If you have big news to share, it's kind and it's proactive to ask, Hey, can we step outside for a minute? I have something exciting to tell you. It's not babying them, it's just setting a stage. Okay, side note here. Can you imagine if that was phrased more, Hey, can we step outside? I have something to tell you. Like what would you think was going on? Faelyne: Yeah. Yeah, I think I would start to feel really anxious and I would I would I would worry I had done something wrong and they my friend was pulling me aside to to yell at me and not in front of other people or to yeah. Stephanie: Mm-hmm. Faelyne: I would like my alarm bells would be going off like crazy. Stephanie: Right, that general like I need to talk to you. Your mind's like, I'm getting fired, they hate me. Like what what did I do? Yes, can you imagine if they just said, I need to tell you something, like my mind would be, they hate me, I'm getting fired. It would completely spiral to the worst case scenario. So it's important to say, I need to tell you something exciting, you know, like make sure they know it's not bad news. Faelyne: I think that's so important. a lot of people with ADHD, a lot of neuro divergent folks have what is known as rejection sensitivity. and in fact, that makes us hear things more towards the negative than than people may intend. And all of that spiraling can actually have a negative impact on being present for important conversations. So absolutely, and we're gonna do a deeper dive on rejection sensitivity dysphoria. In future episodes, but in as you're pulling your friends aside to minimize external distractions, which is kind, proactive, and a loving, don't accidentally trigger their RSD by making it sound ominous. Just be really, really kind and let them know that it's for a good reason. It's something exciting. Stay tuned. Right? Stephanie: Yeah, 'cause they definitely won't be listening to you if they're all spiraled out. Faelyne: Yeah, let's talk about protocol four. Give yourself grace and a do over. So if you did get derailed and you missed something important, go back to it. Say, Would you mind telling me again? I want to actually hear it this time. Now, most people would much rather repeat something than feel like it didn't matter. The gesture of asking again shows that it does matter even more than getting it right the first time. Stephanie: Mm-hmm. And Sam did this. She asked Alex to tell her the whole proposal story again from the beginning, and she heard every word of it. Faelyne: She did. Sam also asked three follow up questions and teared up again. Stephanie: the three question strategy. Okay, she used next level conversation tools here. we'll make sure to include how this strategy works, especially good for ADHD people wanting to show interest in others. We'll put that in our show notes. But back to Alex and Sam. A beautiful story of friendship, awareness, listening, and bees. I'm sure Alex will be the best maid of honor, assuming she can find her passport. Faelyne: All right, it's time for us to open the lab doors to you. We know you've got a story. You know, the one that makes you hide under your hoodie just thinking about it. Stephanie: Hmm. And maybe you went looking for a pen to write something down so you didn't forget it and wound up reorganizing the kitchen drunk drawers and then went to your bathroom and started redoing the drawers, overflowing with hair clips and hotel mini samples that you never got around to writing that thing down that you needed to do and then you forgot. Faelyne: That sounds a little personal stuff. whatever the cringe is, don't let it just marinate in your brain at three AN. Send it to us. We want to dissect it. Find the HD ADHD win inside it because there absolutely is one. It may be buried deep inside of the hive, but most importantly, we want to show you that you're not the only one. Stephanie: So we're just opening the lab doors and we want you in here with us. Faelyne: You can email us at the ADHD spaghetti bear at gmail dot com or click the link in the description to fill out our cringe fashion form. You can even stay anonymous if the cringe is still that fresh. Stephanie: Your disaster could help us make the next lab experiment. So help us out. Help us all feel a little bit more normal. Faelyne: No judgment. Stephanie: Only science. Okay. Experiment concluded sensory sensitivity is real. It is neurological and it is more common in ADHD brains than most people realize. Faelyne: Your brain's ability to go on high alert because of random noises, textures, tastes, and lights can be both a feature and a bug. But now you've got four protocols to help you show up the way you want to with the people in your life. Stephanie: Protocol one, name it and capture it. Faelyne: Not what it's called. Stephanie: I was trying to make it catchy and more easy to remember, but okay, name it out loud early. As soon as you feel the distraction, tell yourself, tell your friend. Faelyne: Thank you. Protocol two body anchoring. I feel you, Flor. Stephanie: Okay, now who is trying to be catchy? Protocol three, minimize sensory competition. Set the stage before the conversation. Try to minimize potential distraction hazards. Faelyne: And finally, protocol four: give yourself grace and a do-over. Ask for grace and receive it. What? Stephanie: I know you want to get one more B reference in, so go ahead. Faelyne: And thank you for being part of our eighth hive. Stephanie: Okay, until next time, keep experimenting and try not to die of embarrassment. Faelyne: of embarrassment.