Your ADHD brain loves a good argument. Here’s why that’s a problem.

Ever notice your ADHD brain gets a little too excited during an argument? Like you’re not even mad anymore, you’re just... having a really good time being right? Yeah. There’s a reason for that, and it’s not a great one.

In this mailbag episode of Sorry, I Missed This, host Cate Osborn is digging into questions from our Understood Facebook group

Our amazing listeners wrote in (and had the chance to win a copy of Cate’s new book, The ADHD Field Guide for Adults). In this episode Cate tackles questions like how to share a new ADHD diagnosis with friends and family, how to wade through the swamp of ADHD motivation, why our ADHD brains LOVE to argue, and more. 

Check it out!

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Cate Osborn: Hi everybody and welcome back to "Sorry I Missed This", the show where we talk about all things relationships and ADHD. As always, it's me, your host, Cate Osborn, and today we are doing a mailbag episode brought to you by our Facebook community and the giveaway that we did over there.

I don't know if you, dear listener, know this or not, but we have an amazing Facebook community where people share tips and tricks, and we talk about different episodes of "Sorry I Missed This" and all of the great stuff that's going on over at Understood.org. And so the other day we did a giveaway where people wrote in questions and winners got a copy of my best-selling book, "The ADHD Field Guide For Adults".

But today's mailbag episode is a special episode because all of the questions that we are featuring are from that giveaway and the people who entered that contest. So if you hear your question, thanks for entering the contest. I really appreciate it. It was nice knowing that you guys wanted a copy of my book. Made my heart feel big.

So our fearless production team has gathered an assortment of the questions that were sent in as part of that contest, and I am going to read them to you and then I am going to answer them to you. If you're watching this on video, please note that there's going to be a few times where I look over here.

And dear listener, dear watcher, I just want to be so honest with you. When we talk about ADHD, sometimes honesty and vulnerability is really important. My brain is not working. I did not sleep last night and so I have taken a lot of notes on my answers because I just want to make sure that I do a good job. So if you see me looking over here, that's what's happening because my brain is just — it's not today. But you know what? I'd rather just be honest about the struggle. You know what I mean? I'm not a perfect person. So let's get into it.

Cate: Today's first question comes from anonymous. How mysterious. Okay. "I'd love to ask Cate for ideas on how to begin communicating with friends and family about being newly diagnosed with ADHD, especially when the diagnosis comes later in life, like 30s or later. I feel like they're going to roll their eyes and say, 'Yeah, sure, okay.'

I was an average student, not straight A's, but I didn't fail. I also didn't really try, if I'm being honest. I always preferred to hide in a book and ignore reality over pretty much anything else. My room was a mess, but it was always chalked up to normal kid stuff.

The problem is my room is still a mess, and so is my house, and my finances, and my relationship, but nobody sees that. They just see what I show them, not how hard I'm busting my butt to keep my head barely above water. How do I say, 'Hey, I found out. I have this thing and it explains everything to the people I've been hiding my real self from my whole life?"

(01:42) Cate offers advice on disclosing a late-in-life ADHD diagnosis to skeptical friends and family.

Cate: Oh man, relatable, hashtag relatable, dear listener. Honestly, I think this is really interesting because I get this question a lot. I think we've sort of accidentally convinced ourselves that there's like this magical way to disclose an ADHD diagnosis that is going to make everybody go, "Oh, of course" and that you won't have any problems.

But the truth is, like, you don't owe people evidence. And when you are letting people into your inner world and you are letting them into your life in this way, all you need to do is just say, "Hey, I got diagnosed with ADHD. It explains some of the things that I've been struggling with. I'm learning how to manage it." You don't owe them anything else.

The fear comes from that moment of rejection where, you know, they roll their eyes and they go, "Well, everybody's a little bit ADHD, right?" And I think that's one of those things where we have to be kind of honest, right? We have to be kind of realistic when we talk about these things.

And I kind of think that if somebody was going to roll their eyes at you getting an ADHD diagnosis, they were always going to roll their eyes, right? You cannot control that. And what I think is particularly interesting about this question is, dear anonymous, I believe you. You don't have to prove to me that you have ADHD.

But even in the question, there was this element of like, "Well, I was always messy. I was always" — this idea of the burden of proof being on us. You don't have to explain it if you don't want to. But I also think that a lot of times with diagnosis comes a lot of grief.

There comes this moment of realizing that the things that we have been struggling with for 30 or 40 years, there was a reason, there was a rationale, there was a cause that was outside of our control, outside of just needing to try harder. To me, this question isn't really about like, "How do I tell people that I have ADHD?"

It's "How do I explain to people that I have been struggling this whole time and they've never really met the real me? They've never really met the person who was deeply struggling." And I think that is such a relatable phenomenon for so many people with ADHD, especially late-diagnosed women with ADHD.

And so I think that becomes then a question of vulnerability and how do I decide to let people into the knowledge that, yeah, I have really been struggling. Again, I don't think that there's a magical, perfect way of dealing with it or answering that question.

But what I can say is that real friends, supportive family members, meaningful people in your life are going to see you and they are going to believe you, and they are going to accept that struggle without you having to, you know, present evidence and a court case to prove that you've been struggling.

And so if people are dismissive of the struggle, if they are unkind, if they are less than compassionate, that might inform how close or how far you keep them relationally in your life. But yeah, it's a tough question to decide when and where you disclose.

But I think especially couched in a question of authenticity and vulnerability, I think always airing on the side of being the most yourself when it is safe and possible for you to do so, that is just going to guarantee that you are building a more supportive community and you have better access to systems and structures that support you.

Our next question comes from Blair. Blair says, "Motivation is all capitals HARD some days. What are your top tips for just getting going when you feel like doing the opposite? Thanks."

(05:40) Cate shares five strategies for overcoming motivation hurdles by building reliable systems and structures.

Cate: Thanks, Blair. I appreciate this question. Okay, this is going to be a moment for the tough love pterodactyl to come out. Because my number one tip is stop waiting for motivation. And I know that sounds maybe mean or blunt, but what I mean by that is that motivation is a feeling.

Like, motivation is an emotional state where we feel capable and confident and as though we can conquer the world — like we can hyperfocus for 20 hours and organize our whole house. And it's great. It's wonderful when motivation shows up.

But especially in the ADHD brain, sometimes motivation can be wildly unreliable and also extremely fleeting. And so I think it's again really important to build systems and structures that work for you without relying on "and I'm going to feel motivated and when I feel motivated, that's when the system activates and everything starts."

So the first thing that I would recommend is lowering the activation energy. I like to think of my day like a slip and slide, and I try to make it as easy as possible for myself to move between activity to activity, and even more than that, breaking down tasks so they are the smallest possible task that you can possibly do.

Right, if I set out to clean the kitchen, that has a lot of activation energy. That has a lot of transitional energy because now I'm like getting out all the cleaning supplies and I'm trying to find the mop bucket and whatever. But it is a lot easier for me to go, "I'm going to walk to the kitchen." Checkbox done.

I am now in the kitchen. I'm going to find two pieces of garbage and put them in the garbage can or whatever. And it can feel really silly breaking down tasks into that small of steps, but for a lot of people with ADHD, it is really important that the steps that we give ourselves feel achievable.

So we aren't spending a ton of time and energy dealing with the overwhelm of like, "What do you mean I have to clean the whole kitchen?" versus "I am going to take this plate and put it into the dishwasher." The next thing I would say kind of goes along with that: think about changing the goal.

Because a lot of times what we will do is we will say, "I need to clean the kitchen." You go to the kitchen, you maybe do a few things, you get distracted or whatever. Now you have failed. You failed because the entire kitchen isn't clean and the fridge isn't organized and you didn't, you know, color code the cups or whatever.

But you still started, right? You still moved past that activation energy difficulty into starting. And so sometimes making starting the goal — all I need to do is get to the kitchen, all I need to do is load one plate into the dishwasher. And once you have achieved that goal, your brain registers that as success.

"Oh, I did this thing well and good. Perhaps I can do another thing," and then you put another cup in the dishwasher or whatever. The next thing I would recommend is motivation can sometimes also be environmentally dependent, right? So if you are trying to be motivated to get writing done and you are surrounded by piles of laundry in your living room, that's going to be very different than feeling motivated because you're in like a cool shared workspace.

But that can be really helpful, is changing up your environment. Now, I do want to say, I'm going to call this out and say one of the things that ADHD brains love to do is make a problem where there isn't a problem to avoid the problem that they are already trying to solve.

And so when I say change the environment, I mean literally go somewhere — like, you know, if you really got something you need to do, maybe go to a coffee shop, go to a park, whatever. I'm not saying this is a great time for you to completely rearrange your office. I am also speaking to myself in this moment.

Another thing is just simply adding novelty, right? Adding accountability. Sometimes both at the same time, like things like body doubling, you know, calling a friend, doing tasks together, racing a timer, you know, making a checklist like how much stuff can I do, giving yourself a little bit of like a dopamine boost at the end.

Like, I'm going to finish this set of tasks and then I get a goldfish cracker. I used to do that in grad school. That's a true story. I used to reward myself with goldfish crackers based on word count. Just anything that can add a little bit of novelty, a little bit of dopamine, and it can be silly, it can be goofy, but as long as it's something that is going to light you up and bring you joy, that's always a perfect thing.

And then lastly, this is where I think sort of therapy Cate is going to come out, but sometimes a better question to ask about "How do I get motivated?" is to ask what is going on in my life where I'm feeling disconnected from my ability to do stuff.

Because sometimes "I'm not feeling motivated" actually means I'm feeling incredibly overwhelmed or I don't know where to start or — one of mine that I struggle with all the time is — I'm not motivated because what if I fail? What if I try really hard and I put all of my time and effort into this thing and then it goes poorly and people judge me for it, right?

And so sometimes again, when we talk about these sort of ADHD issues, they become larger issues around vulnerability and authenticity and being our own best self-advocate. And sometimes we have to get really honest, brutally honest with ourselves about "Am I actually just not motivated or am I burnt out, struggling, overwhelmed, feel like I'm drowning, getting no support from the people who I need support from, and I'm trying to make this thing happen?"

And that can just be a lot to deal with. I feel like if you can sort of like integrate those five things, that's just a really great way to sort of circumvent the idea of motivation entirely. That was such a long answer, but I have no regret.

Okay, so our last question for this episode comes from Maria. And I want to be honest and say this is one of my favorite questions that I have ever gotten on this show. So gold star A-plus to Maria. Here we go.

"How do I snap myself out of arguing with my ADHD daughter? We are both clearly dopamine seeking and so we get into these ridiculous arguments and negotiations all the time and we can honestly go on for ever making absolutely no progress in any direction until my husband has to be like, 'Okay, seriously stop, you crazy ladies are stuck in a loop.'"

(11:16) Cate explains why ADHD brains struggle with arguing and provides tips for breaking the loop.

Cate: Maria, oh, that's so relatable. I am not a parent, but I can say very honestly that this was something that used to really impact and — I will be very honest — nearly ruined my marriage, was that kind of need for that constant cycling and that over-discussion and all of this kind of stuff. And once I sort of became aware of the pattern and started becoming aware of like how this functions with my ADHD, I was able to make sort of healthier choices around the ways that me and my husband communicate.

So what I will say is, in answering your question, one of the things that ADHD brains can really truly struggle with is disengaging. Because arguing is stimulating. It is a dopamine-producing activity, especially when you feel like you're right, especially when you feel like your side is the right side and now you're fighting for the cause of like justice and the American way or whatever.

And so once our brains are emotionally activated and we're kind of getting dopamine from those arguments, we can keep generating new arguments. And then out of those new arguments, we're like, "Oh, now we have more evidence. And now we have a rebuttal."

And so what can wind up happening — and this is such a trend in ADHD relationships, whether or not it is like a parental relationship or a partnership or whatever — but it's like, "Please unload the dishwasher" will become like a 45-minute fight about fairness and like, "Well, you said you were going to do it later but what does later even mean?" and something that you said three months ago is getting brought back up, right?

And so what's really important is, one, I think to recognize that everybody's on the same team. Like, the goal of arguing isn't to win, the goal is to figure out something that works for all parties involved.

But especially with ADHD and this sort of issue that you're having around like looping and just continuing to fight over and over and over and over, moving the goal from winning the argument to ending the loop. And I'm going to give you the resources that I got in therapy for free. So here you go.

So the first thing is just honestly like recognizing when you are engaging in this loop and then saying it out loud. This is very, very important. ADHD brains do not retain information the same way that other people do, and so a lot of times we have to aurally say something in order for it to become real and true and recognized in our brains and in our bodies.

So like, if you start noticing that you're looping, say that. Say, "Hey, I think we're stuck in a loop right now" or "Hey, I think we need to take a pause, we've been talking about the same thing for 45 minutes." And that's very different than saying, "Hey, I think we're arguing right now" or like, "Hey, I think you're being ridiculous right now," right? Like acknowledging the fact that there's an actual loop going on.

The next thing is, again, remembering that loops are dopamine generators. They are stimulus generators. And so whenever you are stuck in an argument loop, it can look a lot like, you know, person one is like, "Well, you said this thing," and then person two is like, "Well, that's because," and then person one is like, "Well, okay, but," and then, you know, and so it just becomes this endless, endless, endless thing.

So instead of providing additional information to feed the dopamine goblin, think about communicating about what is actually happening, like, "I hear you. I hear what you are saying. Like, we do not need to rehash this again. My answer is still no," or "I'm not going to keep debating this."

Now, I am going to say that your results may vary on this because sometimes when you're a parent and your kid is like really, you know, struggling and you say like, "I'm not going to keep debating this" — like, that can make the fight worse, right? So you're going to have to like use your judgment on some of this.

But keeping answers succinct and to the point and factual information-based as opposed to continuing to fuel the fire, that makes that argument boring. It makes it less interesting. You're no longer fighting for your life in a court of law and for justice and the way of right, you're just providing additional context.

The last thing is you are the adult and your kid is your kid. And so it is really important that we be able to model healthy behaviors for the people in our lives, whether they're younger or not. If you are emotionally activated and you know that you are emotionally activated, modeling the ability to step away from things healthily and kindly is a really, really powerful skill.

Not a lot of people are taught this. Oftentimes we are taught that if you leave during an argument, it is manipulative, right? Or like, "I'm going to walk out of the room because I'm so mad at you" and then that person has to sit in there and stew for 20 minutes and wonder if you're coming back. And that is a manipulative tactic.

And so modeling healthy ways of stepping away from an argument is really important. And all that is just communicating before you step away, before you call a timeout on yourself. So like, "Hey, I'm really dysregulated right now, I need five minutes. I'm going to take five minutes, I'm going to come back and we'll continue this discussion."

Like, you are allowed to ask for those things, you are allowed to advocate for yourself in those ways, and modeling that for your kid, I think is really, really powerful because they are going to go into partnered relationships and friendships with the same ability to emotionally regulate themselves and not sort of continue that cycle.

Somebody online, a ADHD parenting expert, said something along the lines of like ADHD parents often forget that just because your child wants to negotiate doesn't mean that you're obliged to negotiate, right? Because a lot of what we see — and again, this is like relational as well — lot of people with ADHD love a debate.

A lot of people with ADHD love a spicy argument because it's like it gives us something to latch onto. It's an intellectual back and forth and it allows us to sort of put our like creativity and our fast — paced thinking into something that feels like we are giving ourselves a win.

And so I think being aware of that and just recognizing the fact that ADHD can to a certain extent make arguing fun and like maybe even like a little bit enjoyable even if it doesn't feel enjoyable in the moment. So it's — it's just really important to go into arguing with a clear picture of what are we trying to accomplish? What are we trying to establish? And then once that loop starts, doing everything in your power to end it as quickly as possible so you're not just languishing in that repeated arguing over and over and over and over.

Our last mailbag episode moment comes from Jenna who says, "No question, I just want to say that your book is fantastic. I love that the audiobook comes with a downloadable PDF." Thanks, Jenna. I appreciate it.

All right everybody, that is the end of this week's very special mailbag episode here at "Sorry I Missed This". As always, I'm your host, Cate Osborn. If you are interested in submitting a question to be considered for a mailbag episode, you can always shoot us an email at sorryimissedthis@understood.org. But until next time, remember to be kind to yourself.

Thank you for listening. Anything mentioned in the episode will be linked in the show notes with more resources. Have a question, comment, burning story you'd like to share? Email us at sorryimissedthis@understood.org. This show is brought to you by Understood.org.

Understood.org is a non-profit organization dedicated to empowering people with learning and thinking differences like ADHD and dyslexia. If you want to help us continue this work, donate at understood.org/give. "Sorry I Missed This" is produced by Jessamine Molli and edited by Jessie DiMartino. Video is produced by Calvin Knie. Our theme music was written by Justin D. Wright. Production support provided by Andrew Rector. Briana Berry is our production director. Neil Drumming is our editorial director. From Understood.org, our executive directors are Laura Key, Scott Cocchiere, and Jordan Davidson. And I'm your host, Cate Osborn. Thank you so much for listening and I'll see you again soon.