Faelyne: Quick question. Have you ever read something completely neutral? A text, an email, ha ha, love you, and instantly built an entire case against yourself out of it? Stephanie: Judge, jury, and sentence all before you finished reading the line. Faelyne: And the wildest part is it doesn't even feel like a thought. It feels like the news breaking, confirmed, filed. Stephanie: Obviously speaking hypothetical. Faelyne: Obviously. Stephanie: Today we're talking about RSD, Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria but not the version where you just feel bad for a minute and move on. Faelyne: The version where something that sounds exactly like your own voice shows up uninvited and starts running the whole meeting. Stephanie: We're calling this one the evil twin. Faelyne: Same signal, same name, close enough that you connect without even checking. Stephanie: And once you're connected, she can see everything and manipulate everything. Faelyne: So grab your firewall and update your passwords. Stephanie: And maybe don't hit send on anything for the next thirty minutes. Faelyne: And let's start the investigation. Stephanie: Welcome to the ADHD cringe lab, the only place where getting hacked by your own brain counts as valuable scientific data. Faelyne: Every episode we take one cringy, chaotic, and completely relatable ADHD moment if we put it under the microscope. Stephanie: We act it out, we break down the neuroscience behind it, and give you actual tools to handle it better the next time. Faelyne: Because understanding why your brain does what it does, well, that's where the shame stops and the strategy starts. Stephanie: I'm Stephanie. This is Faelyne We're two ADHD coaches collecting cringe data in and outside of the lab. Faelyne: Our lives are just one big ADHD scientific experiment. Stephanie: I'm coming to you live from the US Research Wing. Faelyne: And I am joining you from the Canadian Research Wing. Stephanie: Two labs Faelyne: One mission. Stephanie: Open borders equal cringe. Faelyne: And nobody stopped us. Stephanie: And keeping watch over the lab as always. Faelyne: Our chief cringe officer, the ADHD Spaghetti Bear still ghosting, but wearing a sheet. Stephanie: Yes, his ghosting manifests multi dimensionally. Faelyne: Ghosting is not a lifestyle choice, SB. Stephanie: No. Today's experiment is still firmly planted in spooky season. Faelyne: Last time it was ghosting. Today it's something that just doesn't disappear on you. It impersonates you. Stephanie: We're calling it the evil twin attack. Same voice, same face, wrong intentions. Faelyne: One team, one investigation, one incident report. Stephanie: Let's start the investigation. But first, 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 lately, or we reach into the cringe mailbag for a cringefession from the community. So I'm gonna go ahead Stephanie: Wait, hold the cringe. The evil twin has been sighted on premise. Faelyne: Let's head to the lab! STAT! Okay, family holiday trip. Let's have a look here. Right, Search and Desist. Just enter Auntie Rhoda's name in the search bar. Blinders on, eyes on, inbox only, singular focus. Don't even have to answer yet. Just just gonna take a peek at this dragon. Family planning, trip to Salem, email thread. Okay, let's do this. wow, there's there's a lot more to respond to than I thought. I really shouldn't have let this get so out of control. okay, never mind. I am here now. Alice, you are here. This is all I can do. Okay, alright, let's let's do this. "Hi everyone. Sorry it's taken me so long to reply. Sometimes peeking at my overflowing inbox sends me into full panic mode LOL. But I am sooooooo excited about our trip, and my slow response has nothing to do with my excitement level." All right, it's going pretty well. Doing the thing. I'm responding to the email. I'm being accountable. I am engaging. I am enthusiastic. Ooh, yay, me! Stephanie: Hey, Hey! Evil twin here, please acknowledge. Hey, Where are you on the "TO" line of this email? Faelyne: I'm sorry, what? Stephanie: What order is your name on the address line? Faelyne: okay, let me have a look. okay, there's there's my mom, my sister, there's Uncle Buck, a couple more people. Yikes what? Stephanie: Your name is almost last. Faelyne: So? Stephanie: so that means they just kinda added you at the end, like an afterthought. Faelyne: That's ridiculous. Besides, there's pfff one, two actually three addresses after mine. Stephanie: What are they? Faelyne: Well, let me look. There's the the dog sitter, the foreign exchange student from fifteen years ago, and cousin Vinny's ex wife, who's actually she's in prison. Stephanie: That tracks, yeah. Hm. Faelyne: Hey, I really don't think that matters, does it? "Making a list. I'm gonna make a list of everyone's bed and room preferences." Auntie says "I'd like to get an accurate count before we commit to an Airbnb". Yeah, that makes sense. Stephanie: You know why she's asking that? Faelyne: So everyone's comfortable? Stephanie: No, it's because you snore like a chainsaw. Nobody wants to room with you. Faelyne: That is not true. Okay, well, whatever, moving on. All right, let me see what Jessie replied. look at that. Cousin Jessie said, Alice and I will share a room. "Some of my best memories are of us staying up late telling ghost stories, but not sneaking out and not telling our parents about it, right, Alice?" look at her lol. Stephanie: Mm, that's sweet. Or is it? Faelyne: What do you mean? Stephanie: Sounds like she's just low-key reminding everyone what you're really like in family trips. Plus she gets to look like she's the kind, benevolent cousin and you're the selfish train wreck. gosh, I am sure everyone is thinking about the time she got up super early and went to the farmer's market to get those amazing scones for family breakfast while you just laid around in bed doom scrolling on your phone. Faelyne: Maybe she's just being nice. Stephanie: Is she? Or is it just a humble brag at your expense? Faelyne: Just gonna keep reading, okay. the tentative dates October 22 to 25th, okay. "There's a small chance that I may have a conflict, but those dates sound great!". Exclamation mark, "def schedule it!" exclamation mark, exclamation mark. "I'm almost a hundred percent sure I am in!" exclamation mark. Stephanie: Hmm. Do you think anyone believes that you may actually have other plans? They're probably just thinking you're fishing for some pity replies. "Oh, no! Please say you'll come. It won't be the same without you!" Actually, that one is true. It wouldn't be the same if you weren't there. It would actually be better. Faelyne: Huh. Well, moving right along. I'm gonna just read the the next section. okay, meal planning. Let's look at that one. Stephanie: Ooh, yay, here we go. Here we go. Faelyne: Okay, "Sharing family meals together has been an important part of our family tradition. I love how we've bonded over the years. Okay, cooking new recipes, trying new foods together, creating new shared culinary experiences." This is a great email. "I love our family's adventurous spirit." This one's for me. "Don't worry, Alice. We'll make sure there's a veggie option for you, even if it means driving to a grocery 20 miles away and has that special vegan brand you insist on. We will always have a fond place in our hearts. for the Charleston Piggly Wiggly grocery and feed store. So high maintenance, haha, just kidding. Love you, Alice". Eyy! Stephanie: Whoa. Faelyne: Come on, she said Stephanie: That stung. Faelyne: ha ha it's a it's a joke, but I my head my head's killing me. Stephanie: There it is. She thinks you're too much, too precious and difficult. She literally typed it out to everyone right there. Read it again. Faelyne: She's right. I am too much. Stephanie: Say something, you have to say something. That is 100% a passive aggressive jab at you. Faelyne: Yeah, you know "Actually, I think it is kind of rude to keep making little comments about my food like it's a personality flaw and not, you know, like an actual kind of like this..." Stephanie: Yeah, say it. Do it. She's been doing this for years. Go. Yeah. Faelyne: stupid autocorrect dumb computer I can't even type today. Stephanie: Nah, it's just you. Faelyne: Well finished Take this, Auntie I'm gonna hit send my husband home for lunch today. "Can't wait to see you. XO." That is so sweet. That is so sweet. Hmm. Stephanie: Hey, hey, hey, focus. Don't lose momentum. You're right there. Just hit send. Just do it. Faelyne: You know what? I'm gonna just cut this part out and kind of paste it over that other screen there on my working notes doc. But listen, I am coming back to this one. I don't have time right now to send that email, but boy, when I do, she's gonna regret picking on me. Stephanie: Okay, let's see. 2022 ski trip. Left your gloves on the lift. Irresponsible. cousin Vinny's birthday dinner. You complained about the restaurant the whole night. Classic. last summer? Yeah. Missed the train. Legit traffic. But still, that was just you being you. I'll save that one for later. And ho ho ho ho! What do we have here? Dramatically threw your veggie burger in the trash because it touched a cooked chicken gosh, your brother in law thought he was being so nice getting your you own veggie burgers at the cookout. Faelyne: Huh. You know, Hank did seem a little sad and maybe I have been kind of difficult about the food situation in the past. But Auntie was still being super passive aggressive. Stephanie: Yeah, but you you no. You're right, she was being a brat. Faelyne: The activities section. Aunt Rhoda sure has made the trip planning well organized. Stephanie: Well, you're proof that that trait doesn't run in the family. Recessive genes there. like Danny DeVito in that movie Twins. Hilarious. Faelyne: You know, I I really am making progress. I'm I'm I'm reading the email, it says under activity. Auntie says there's a lot of different options, so we're all gonna be able to do what we're truly interested in. There's no pressure for all of us to go everywhere together. Stephanie: Wow. Faelyne: Come on, wow what now? Stephanie: Oh my word, it is so obvious what she's doing there. She's letting everyone know that they won't be forced to spend time with you, and no one is obligated to go on the dumb excursions you come up with, like demanding everyone go see the lobster nativity scene. What a waste of time that turned out to be. Just a bunch of Christmas ornaments shaped like lobsters, and it was so unbelievably cold out. Faelyne: Hey, in my defense, not one place in all of the advertising did it say that the lobsters were not actually lobsters. We we all thought they would be actual lobsters. Who wouldn't want to go? Stephanie: Remember the haunted house? You screamed, grabbed a total stranger's arm. He thought you were a total weirdo. The actors had to stop the show to let you out that hidden side door they have for scared little babies. Faelyne: Listen, everyone was scared in there. That's the point. Stephanie: Not everyone wet their pants. Faelyne: Well my sister did. She was terrified in a dark hallway, people jumping out at her. Nobody thinks she's pathetic for that. She was just a kid in a haunted house that was built to scare people. You know what? Looking back, maybe we should have protected her a bit more. Stephanie: Well well that's that's different. She was like three and you're at least fourteen years old. Faelyne: My sister was five and I was seven. Exactly how is that different? Okay. I just need to relax for a few minutes. I need to clear my head. Alright, I'm just gonna take a quick look and see what everybody's up to on Instagram. Hey, wait, wait, what what time is it? Okay. Back at the laptop. I'm gonna do this. Stephanie: you you checked out for hours because you couldn't handle one email. That is next level pathetic. Hey, let's talk about that time when you were left at the gas station and you made such a big deal about it when actually it was your fault because you were the one who Faelyne: Quiet over there. You have been sandboxed. Alright, let's just finish off this email. Huh. I'm really looking forward to seeing all of you in Salem. If anyone else is interested in the Midnight Corn Maze, let me know. I'll order the tickets. Here's the link. And yes, I checked. No lobster ornaments will be involved. L O L Heart emoji send. Responding and contributing. Nicely done, Alice. Feelings aren't facts. Alright, sweetheart, coming down now. Stephanie: All right, lab coats on and keep your wigs on. What you just watched was Alice not being paranoid, difficult, or dramatic for no reason. What you watch was a real neurological cybersecurity attack just aimed at the wrong target. Faelyne: Vocabulary note before we go any further, because it actually matters here. In cybersecurity and cryptography, there are standard names used to explain how communication can go wrong. Alice and Bob are the two legitimate parties in a in a conversation trying to talk to each other. Eve is the code name for an eavesdropper who's quietly listening in, and Mallory is the name that cybersecurity experts use for the active attacker, the one who doesn't just listen, but intercepts the message and messes with it. Now, Bob and Eve, not part of today's story. Stephanie: I hope that miming helped. Which tells you exactly what we're dealing with today. We are dealing with Mallory. She's not an eavesdropper. She is actively getting in the middle of Alice's signal and altering it before the signal reaches Alice. Faelyne: And An evil twin attack is a real cybersecurity term as well. It's when a fake Wi-Fi network is set up to look exactly like a legitimate one. Same name, same signal, close enough that your device connects to it without question. And once you're connected, the attacker may be able to interpret or manipulate what passes through the connection. Stephanie: Which is exactly what Mallory was doing to Alice's signals the whole episode. It it didn't sound like an intruder, it sounded like her own voice, her own reasoning, her own common sense. And that's what makes an evil twin dangerous. And it's what makes R S D dangerous. It's not an outside voice you can easily dismiss. It's spoofing the real signal. Faelyne: So let's start with the very first thing that Mallory does, the two line in the email. Alice's email Alice's name is a little further down the list, and Mallory immediately reads that as evidence that Alice is an afterthought. Stephanie: That's what we are calling negative intent attribution, taking neutral or ambiguous details and assigning negative intent to them. The room preferences, the activity suggestions, her cousin wanting to share a room with her, Alice concluded they were all negative. Almost immediately, researchers have studied this closely related phenomenon as hostile attribution bias. Faelyne: And once that first read lands, the the brain doesn't just sit with it, it goes looking for backup, which brings us to the pile of folders. Stephanie: That's confirmation bias. Once Mallory decided Alice was being excluded, difficult, unreliable, she didn't calmly recall one relevant memory. She frantically dug through an entire stack, sorting for anything, anything that could support the case she was building. Faelyne: Gloves left on a ski lift in twenty twenty two, a restaurant complaint from a cousin's birthday, a missed train. None of that has anything to do with the holiday email thread, but it didn't need to be relevant. It just needed to fit the story. Stephanie: And that's the part that makes this so exhausting to live with. It's not one bad thought. It's a whole search engine turning on instantly and returning only results that confirm the worst possible read. Dr. William Dotson, a psychiatrist specializing in adult ADHD, Faelyne: or, as we are now officially calling him, the father of RSD. Stephanie: I don't think that's a title he asked for. Faelyne: Doesn't mean he isn't earning it. Stephanie: Okay, okay. Dr. Dodson, Father of RSD, uses the term RSD for a much more intense, sudden rejection-related emotional response associated with ADHD. And the rejection or perceived rejection doesn't have to come from another person. It also includes a pain of feeling like you failed, fallen short, or disappointed yourself. Faelyne: That is a lot of input coming in. But here's what we have to be careful about, because this isn't a "Your feelings are lying to you. Ignore them" episode. Stephanie: No, because some of what Mallory dug up actually held up. The veggie burger, Alice has in fact thrown out food that touched something it wasn't supposed to touch more than once. That's real. That happened. Faelyne: And having a real trait like that doesn't make you a bad person, and it doesn't mean that people secretly can't stand you. What it means is that there's an actual choice sitting there. You can keep hiding it and feel resentful when people don't accommodate it. You can dig in and refuse to budge, or you can make an actual conscious decision about how you want to handle it going forward. Stephanie: The problem was never the trait itself. The problem is reacting to it automatically and emotionally instead of choosing a response to it on purpose. Faelyne: And notice Alice doesn't let that kernel of truth excuse everything else either. She was able to treat each thing individually instead of letting her aunt's passive aggressive behavior become an excuse to sit in the victim role. So okay, maybe I have been a little difficult about food, she said, and in the same breath. But Auntie still was being passive aggressive. Both were true. One did not cancel out the other. Stephanie: That's actually the whole thesis of RSD in one line, if you want it. It's not your feelings are wrong. It's that the volume gets turned up louder than the moment actually calls for. Faelyne: Which brings us to the tells. A tricky part about RSD and about a lot of automatic thought patterns is that you usually can't catch the thought itself. It doesn't announce itself as a thought, it just feels like truth. Stephanie: But what you can catch is what happens because of it. The second Alice read that veggie meal comment, she got a pounding headache, a sharp, immediate switch flipped. That's a real physical stress signal. That's not an exaggeration. Faelyne: And her act of cutting out the angry reply and telling herself that she's going to come back to it later, that's not an avoidance tell, that's a containment tell. She recognized that she wasn't in a good state to send it, so she moved it somewhere safe instead of acting on it. That's her already running Protocol One before we've even told you what Protocol One is. Stephanie: And the autocorrect stupid computer. That was never about the autocorrect. That's irritability displacement. Frustration from the real source landing on something small and completely unrelated because it's a safer place to put it. Faelyne: And that's three different signals, and not all the same kind. A physical hit, a misplaced temper are the attack leaking out. The shelved reply is the defense already kicking in. None of them look like, hey, I'm having an RSD spiral. They look like a headache, a note that she'll deal with later, and a bad mood about a typo. Stephanie: Which is exactly why you can't always just wait to notice the thought. You have to notice the fallout instead. Faelyne: And we do have to say one more thing quite plainly because we're coaches, not doctors, and RSD Surprise yeah. RSD Stephanie: Surprise Faelyne: is not an official diagnosis. It's not in the DSM, and as of this time, there are no established diagnostic criteria or validated diagnostic tests for RSD. Stephanie: But that doesn't mean it isn't real. The pattern is well documented and a lot of people recognize themselves in it immediately. But if what we're describing sounds like more than just relating to something you saw on TikTok, if it's disrupting your life, that's worth an actual conversation with an actual doctor, not a self-diagnosis off a comedy podcast. Faelyne: as convenient as that would be. So, Stephanie: Right. Faelyne: listen, here's the full case file. The cold, unearned suspicion was negative intent attribution. The frantic folder digging was our confirmation bias showing up, and the sharp and intense headache, the exhaustion and the autocorrect meltdown, those were the tells that the attack was already underway. The shelved reply was the tell that she was already fighting back, and underneath all of it, Mallory. Actively broadcasting a signal close enough to Alice's real internal voice that she almost didn't question it. Stephanie: Almost. Faelyne: Which is where we're headed. But first stop Stephanie: Validation station. So if you just watched that skit and felt your stomach drop the second Mallory said, yikes about the To: line? Faelyne: If you've ever read something completely neutral, a scheduling question a ha ha an emoji and instantly built an entire case against yourself out of it? Stephanie: If you ever caught yourself clenching your jaw, snapping at autocorrect, and had no idea in the moment, it was not about the autocorrect. Faelyne: We see you, we are you, and before we hand you the tools, we want to sit here for a second. Science can help explain an evil twin attack, but it doesn't know what it's like to live with her running commentary every day all day. Stephanie: Welcome to the validation station where science goes outside to make a call. And we lay around in our jammies, just feeling the feels. Faelyne: Yeah, we do. Stephanie: And before we dive in, quick distinction since we're using both terms today. Emotional dysregulation is the broader umbrella, trouble managing how big or how long any emotion gets, whatever set it off. RSD is one specific version of that, the kind that fires off rejection or feeling like you've fallen short. Faelyne: So every RSD spiral involves some dysregulation, but not every dysregulated moment involves RSD. So wow, right? Did you feel that whole thing land in your body watching Alice? Because I did, and I was acting it. The Stephanie: Yeah. Faelyne: second someone starts building a case against you out of a haha, you're not overreacting. the just kidding. lit literally that just made my skin Stephanie: Mm-hmm, I know. Ha ha Faelyne: crawl. Mm. Your nervous system can respond as though something important is under threat because in that moment it really feels like one is. Stephanie: Putting just joking on anything does not give you full permission to say whatever you want. This just let you know if anyone thinks that. Okay, here's the part that's easy to miss when you're in it. You are not abnormal for having an evil twin. Most people know what it's like to have an inner critic that gets carried away. Faelyne: And the exhausting part isn't even just the big spirals, it's the small stuff. An intense headache that seemingly shows up out of nowhere, snapping at a keyboard. None of that looks dramatic from the outside, but from the inside, it is your whole nervous system working overtime just to get through one lousy email. Stephanie: All of this doesn't mean you're just too sensitive or insecure. It means your brain may be reacting to signals of possible rejection even when the meaning of the signals isn't clear yet. Faelyne: And we also don't want to hand you a version of this where the answer is your feelings are wrong, ignore them. Because you know what? Sometimes they're not wrong. Sometimes there's a real kernel of truth in there. Alice really has thrown food away over the texture thing. That is true, and it's allowed to be true. Stephanie: Having a real trait doesn't make you difficult. It doesn't make you a bad friend, a bad daughter, a bad anything. It just means there's an actual adult choice sitting in front of you, one that has nothing to do with whether you're a good person and everything to do with what you want to do next. Faelyne: And that choice belongs to you, not to the evil twin who wants to skip straight to the verdict, and not to whoever said that passive aggressive thing in the first place. They do not get security clearance just because they happen to be a little bit right. Stephanie: You can hold both. Maybe I've been like that before. And that still wasn't a kind way to say it. They're allowed to both be true in the same breath. Faelyne: And can we talk about the reply still sitting in her notes for a second? Because that's the part of this episode that I really keep thinking about. Stephanie: Yeah, because to everyone, Alice is the sensitive one, including her own evil twin twin thinks this about her. But she's also the one who was interrupted with a text from her husband and decided to hit pause on the angry email response instead of just sending it, even with Mallory egging her on. Faelyne: That's not weakness, and it's not luck either. This is actually one of the harder emotional regulation skills that there is, taking an exit ramp when she saw one rather than driving right on by. And she did it while a voice in her own head was broadcasting two competing signals at once that she was overreacting just for feeling anything at all, and that she should actually be furious and hit send. The evil twin was actively stoking the fire, egging her on, feeding the dysregulation. So many voices competing to be heard. Stephanie: Part of emotional regulation is knowing which signal to tune into, not just automatically listening to whichever one is broadcasting the loudest. So if today's episode is landing because you recognize yourself in Alice, tune into this. The same brain that spirals is the same brain, given even a small crack of daylight, can catch itself. You already have that skill, you use it. It's not rare, it's not out of reach, it's already yours. Faelyne: And you are not too much, and you are not imagining things every time, and you're also not always right about what things mean. You're a person with a nervous system that runs a little hot on rejection, doing your best to sort real signals from spoofed noise in real time, without an antivirus program continually scanning your incoming messages automatically. Stephanie: And whatever awkwardness awaits, that's the cringe we're here for. Faelyne: We're here for Stephanie: Okay, real quick, if the lab is your kind of place, hit follow wherever you're listening. It's the fastest way to make sure the next experiment finds you. Faelyne: Future you will not remember to come back and look for us. We know this about you. Stephanie: Yeah, we know this about ourselves. Faelyne: So go ahead, hit follow right now. While you're thinking about it, Eve is probably listening in and she will report back to Spaghetti Bear. Stephanie: We've met Mallory, we've watched her spoof the signal, dig through the archive, and get caught turning fragments of evidence into the verdict. Let's talk about what to actually do when your own evil twin shows up. Faelyne: Three protocols, all borrowed straight from actual cybersecurity practice, because it turns out that the internet already solved most of this, just not the feelings part. Stephanie: Protocol one, the sandbox protocol. Faelyne: In real cybersecurity, a sandbox is where you isolate something suspicious before you let it anywhere near your actual system. You don't delete it, but you don't trust it either. You just contain it long enough to look at it properly. Later, when you're not mid-attack, sometimes the interpretation happens so quickly that by the time you notice what's happening, it already feels like fact. Stephanie: The second you notice one of the tells That's the cue. At this stage, you're not trying to catch the thought itself. You're catching what it left behind. And the first step of this protocol is simply being tuned into the effects of a possible security breach, not trying to figure out in that moment what actually caused it. Faelyne: Think about it like suddenly getting a ton of spam mail. You don't need to know why yet, you just notice, hmm, well, that's a lot of spam. That's the result of a breach. You notice it. That's it. That is the whole first step. Stephanie: So when you notice one of the tells, don't argue with Mallory in the moment, but don't agree with her either. Just say out loud or in your head, "Sandbox" and note what she said. One line, a couple of words is enough. Faelyne: You're not solving it right there. You're just refusing to let it run unchecked while you're already compromised. Stephanie: Protocol two clear the cache. Faelyne: This is the one you do later when you've actually got some space. Now you go back to that spam flood and you actually investigate. Did you click on that sketchy link? Did you pay the you're about to be arrested over unpaid parking tickets fine? Did you sign up for a promo code just to get the sale price? Yeah, that's that's that's a thing I've done. that's the reflection that you skipped in the moment. So now is the time you actually do that. Stephanie: First step, verify the source. Would you trust this claim if it came from a random unverified sender? Or is this actually more like a spoofed email, something dressed up to look official that you'd never trust from anyone else? Faelyne: Second step, check the timestamp. Is this evidence about who you are right now, like today, or is Mallory serving you up a cached page from years ago, like it's still current? Because let's be honest, some of us are running on browser history from 18 years ago and have never once cleared it. Stephanie: And that's exactly the problem. An old memory doesn't expire on its own. It just sits there fully indexed, ready to load the instant Mallory searches for it. Faelyne: Which brings us to step three. If you check the source and the timestamp, and it really is old expired information, you don't have to destroy the memory, you just revoke its access, change the password. That memory doesn't get to log in and vouch for who you are today. Not anymore. Stephanie: It happened. It's allowed to have happened. It just doesn't get administrator privileges over your present life. Faelyne: No it does not. So let's go to protocol three, two-factor authentication. Stephanie: Hmm, Mallory, she's operating alone inside your head with zero outside verification, and no serious system trusts a single factor for anything this important. Faelyne: So, before you let a spiraling read become subtled fact, get a second factor. Text a friend. Ask the direct question. Say the sentence out loud to someone who isn't currently under attack. Hey, am I reading this right or is this a Mallory thing? And remember, that text from Alice's husband, the one that broke her spiral right before she hit send, that wasn't just good timing. That was two factor authentication happening to her before she even knew to ask for it. Stephanie: One outside signal completely unrelated to the email itself. And suddenly the signal "eternal read" wasn't the only vote anymore. And we aren't just prescribing a dose of reassurance here. We are also strongly encouraging direct clarification. Hey, when you said X, what did you mean? Going straight to the source can often save you a lot of time and worry, but we also know that there's people that you can't do this with. Faelyne: Right. Sandbox it in the moment. Clear the cache once you've got some room. Verify with a second factor before you let it become the story. Stephanie: Alice didn't need to silence Mallory forever, she just needed to stop letting her run the whole system unsupervised. Faelyne: And that's it. Your cybersecurity stack to keep you protected and the incident response toolkit to help you deal with the data breach. Okay, it is mailbag time. And do Stephanie: Ooh. Faelyne: I have a good one for you? And so it's a long one. Settle in. You ready? Stephanie: Ooh, okay, yes, read it. Faelyne: Okay, it's from Rizzabeth from Hawkins, Indiana. This for sure will be a strange one. Stephanie: Wait from who? you know, honestly, I don't think we have time for a long cringefession form today. It's been we ran over on the skit. Faelyne: Dear ADHD cringe lab, there is a man I will call Dr. R, who is a well known researcher and expert in his field. I've admired him for years. Anytime he's a speaker at an event I'm attending, I insist that my friends go with me to all of his presentations. Doesn't matter if we've already heard it, we go again. I visit his website like I am a walking on sacred ground. Any article he has written I immediately read it and or leave it open on a tab for all of eternity. anyway, here's the cringe. Once at a conference, I ended up alone with him in an elevator. I froze. I had a hundred questions, like real ones, not the look at me ones that people ask in Zoom meetings just to say something. I wanted to thank him. I even had, Hi, I'm Rizzabeth. just attended your lecture and really enjoyed it. So I thought and overthought. all of the things I could possibly say. And the silence grew as each floor passed. We both faced forward, watching the numbers go up, and finally, eighteen floors later, we reached his floor and the doors opened, and he turned and said kindly, "Have a good night" to which I mumbled, "Thanks". And then he's off the elevator and turning the corner, and the elevator doors are almost closed, and I then I call loudly, You too and more cringe. Part of my everyday job is to make small talk with everybody and anybody. But Doctor R, nope. Couldn't get a word out except when he had already left. Stephanie: well, it doesn't seem that cringey. Faelyne: Come on, Steph, she froze. Didn't say one single thing the entire ride, not one, but managed to yell out after he left when the doors were already literally almost closed I'll bet she was really hoping she didn't run into him again the whole conference. Stephanie: The fact that she did respond honestly makes it all a little less cringy. I'm sure it is worse in her head than it was in reality. Faelyne: Doubtful. I can just hear her words bouncing off the hotel hallways, startling the other guests. And you know what? The worst part is she makes small talk with strangers for a living. bless her. You know she felt that cringe deep in her bones. I mean literally no judgment here, but whoo hoo. That was painful. You know what? It kind of feels like it hits a bit close to home. Like I I don't know, man. I sort of feel like I've heard this story before. Stephanie: Experiment concluded ADHD, RSD, and the evil twin attack is a brain and body response associated with ADHD. Protocol one. Faelyne: Hey, wait, what what wa we skipped over the whole cringefession ask? Stephanie: Well it's implied and we already have some submissions and we have a couple that were simply created as placeholders and to use to test the system, test the form to make sure it worked. And we're not actually supposed to be used. Yep, guilty, it was me, and now my cringe is out there for the entire ADHD community to enjoy. Feast up. Faelyne: Right. Okay, yeah. I thought I remembered that night. Remember you came rushing into our hotel room like you were all giddy? Stephanie: No, no, that is not an accurate recollection. Besides, you were still riding that talent show performance high. Feelings aren't facts. Faelyne: Don't worry, Steph, your cringe secret is safe with me. sorry, not anymore. But honestly, it would have stayed in the vault, but look, if you've got your own cringy version the inbox, the veggie burger, the haunted house, the elevator Stephanie: Hey, hey. Faelyne: Hey, it's out there now, sister, a hundred percent public domain. You are lucky that SB is still ghosting us because he would for sure. Be rating this cringe high on his cringe ometer. Stephanie: Email us at the ADHD spaghettibear at gmail dot com. Remember the T H E. Faelyne: Or fill out our cringefession form, link in the show notes, anonymous submissions welcome. We won't check, but you could possibly out yourself. Stephanie: Mallory, this incident is offline for you. And you too. Faelyne: No judgment, only science. Stephanie: Investigation or breach report, whichever you prefer, is complete. The experiences of RSD are real and exhausting. Faelyne: Protocol one, the sandbox protocol. Notice the effect, not the thought. Contain it, don't argue with it in the moment. Stephanie: Protocol two, clear the cache, verify the source, check the timestamp, and if it's expired, change the password. If it happened, it happened. It just doesn't get to run your present. Faelyne: Protocol three, two-factor authentication. One internal read is not enough. And when appropriate, get a second source of information before you let it become fact. Stephanie: That's it, your cybersecurity stack to keep you protected and the incident response toolkit to help you deal with a data breach. Faelyne: Alice didn't need to delete Mallory, she just stopped giving her admin access. And speaking of admin access, Dr. Dodson, the one who's been running through this whole episode, or as some call him, Dr. R. Stephanie: H hey Boundaries Faelyne: Dr. R would probably would probably say an elevator is a five alarm RSD event all on its own. Stephanie: Okay. Anyway, until next time, keep investigating and watch out for your Faelyne: And watch out for evil twins. Stephanie: Or your co-host. Faelyne: All right then. Okay folks, hit like and follow right now while you're thinking about it. Stephanie: Future you will not remember to come back and look for us. We know this about you because we know this about ourselves. Faelyne: Yeah, we do. And if the lab is your kind of place, leave us a review. Preferably a good one. Thirty seconds from Stephanie: Yes. Faelyne: you helps another ADHD brain find us. Stephanie: Help us find them. And we love hearing from you. And this is a personal plea. If you've been sitting on your own cringy story that is so cringy that it will make us all mentally delete all the cringy stories we've heard before, please send it. Faelyne: That's not gonna happen, but we will be here. Stephanie: In the lab. Faelyne: Assuming Mallory doesn't send Steph into full RSD spiral "You, too!" as the elevators close. Classic cringe. Stephanie: She has been sandboxed and you are close to being so as well.