You have probably heard me say, “You can’t save the rainforest if you are depressed.” The truth is that eco-shame and eco-perfectionism can get in the way of our taking steps toward better functioning. If you have ever felt guilty for not being “eco-friendly enough,” this episode is for you!

Rebecca Gray is an environmental epidemiologist. With her master’s degree in public health, she studies disease, the patterns of disease, and health at population levels within communities and countries. She also studies how factors in the environment impact health by causing and promoting disease. Rebecca works with government agencies like the EPA and CDC to develop water guidelines to keep pollutants out of the water supply.

Show Highlights:

How Rebecca has experienced forms of eco-shame in her profession
How some people push the environmental movement in ways that are able-ist
The trap we fall into to “embody the archetype” of the space we occupy
How social media plays into the eco-perfectionism pressure we feel
Why functionality matters more than the morality of what we do in care tasks, eating, the environment, etc.
Rebecca’s view of today’s environmental movement
Why we should ask ourselves how an eco-behavior affects our health and well being
What really does need to happen to prevent climate change
How our capitalistic society colors what we can do to be eco-friendly
How differing narratives make us feel pressured to make individual changes and collective changes to “save the world”
How to identify what we need to function well, fill in gaps with eco-friendly behaviors, and learn how to conserve our energy
How to take a more reasonable–and less stressful–view of sustainability swaps
Actions that have the least impact and the most impact on environmentalism
Rebecca’s advice about letting ourselves off the hook for the decisions we make

Resources:

Connect with Rebecca: LinkedIn

Connect with KC: TikTok and Instagram

Get KC's Book, How to Keep House While Drowning

KC Davis 0:00
Okay. Hello, you sentient balls of stardust. I'm KC Davis. And this is struggle care, the mental health podcast that does not expect you to save the rainforest when you're depressed. Today, I'm talking to Rebecca Gray, who's an environmental epidemiologist, and we're going to talk about eco perfectionism and eco shame. So if you've ever felt guilty for not being eco friendly enough, this one is for you. Hello, and thank you for joining me today. One of the things that I've talked about a lot in my channels, and I talked about in my book is my principle, you can't save the rainforest if you're depressed. And it's basically talking about how eco shame and eco perfectionism really can get in the way of us taking steps towards better functioning. And I wanted to do a couple of episodes on this. And the guests that I have today is Rebecca gray. She's an environmental epidemiologist, and I'm gonna let her introduce herself. Rebecca, tell us your sort of background and what you do for a living?
Rebecca Gray 1:01
Yeah, great. Thank you so much for having me, I'm really excited to be here. So first of all, I have my master's degree in public health, which means that I look at disease and health at a population level. So if medicine were the individual, I look at communities, countries, etc. And I'm an environmental epidemiologist. So I feel like the word epidemiology has gotten a lot of press during the pandemic. But essentially, it is the study of patterns of disease in human populations. And the environmental part comes in because I study how things in the environment impact our health either promote it or cause disease. So that could be chemical pollutants and our air or our drinking water. Or it could be more physical characteristics of our environment, like temperature, or extreme weather events, etc. So obviously, climate change overlaps with that quite a bit. That is like kind of the overall gist of environmental epidemiology. In my job, specifically, I work with government agencies. So I've worked with the Centers for Disease Control, and the environmental protection agency to help develop water guidelines for different pollutants in our water to keep the community safe from getting sick from bad things in our water.
KC Davis 2:13
Awesome. So you and I connected when I actually made a tick tock that said, I want to talk to someone who is an environmentalist that can talk about, you know, eco shame, eco perfection. And you know, you and I connected and you reached out. And what I really was drawn to is that you not only had professional experience, and environmentalism and knowledge, but you also have quite a bit of personal experience and sort of what I've been calling environmental perfectionism. Can you share a little bit about that?
Rebecca Gray 2:42
Yeah, absolutely. So I would say, as a college student, and then a graduate student who was training to be not only an environmental scientist, but also an environmental scientist focused on human health, I felt an immense amount of pressure to be kind of a poster child for both eco conservation and a picture of human health. Obviously, both of those things are unattainable. But in terms of, you know, from standpoint of eco perfectionism, it was things like feeling really compulsive and obsessive about reducing my carbon footprint, not using single use plastic, not creating food waste. And obviously, I was never able to have not been able to achieve any of those things perfectly, which caused a lot of like, very crippling anxiety and guilt. And that really fed into again, a lot of this pressure I felt to be perfectly healthy person. So I really struggled with an eating disorder called orthorexia, which is unhealthy fixation on kind of eating the quote unquote, right foods or a fear of eating the quote unquote, wrong foods and contamination. And I really, you know, for several years, the level to which my anxiety about being an imposter, as both an environmentalist and a health scientist was debilitating and did interfere with my ability to do my job and live my life productively.
KC Davis 4:05
So yeah, it was so interesting is, you know, the study of how the environment affects our health. And there's also this sort of, like, you're kind of in the upside down where it's like, this is an example of environment affecting housing health. Yeah. But it's like all of the good things about being an environmentalist, it's trying to achieve a good thing to perfection ends up having this really negative impact.
Rebecca Gray 4:32
Absolutely. And, you know, I say that, as a person who has a lot of privileges that actually make it I think, very easy for me to fit into the environmental movement. I am a white person, I am a thin person, I'm an able bodied person, a middle class person. So all of those things give me access to these spaces and having, you know, more marginalized identities on top of that, I think, I imagine would make it even more difficult. So yeah, I don't know the idea of like a poster. child or a perfect embodiment of these values definitely has weighed on me in my life and is
KC Davis 5:07
I recently had Imani Barbara and on and she's a disability activist. And we talked about the intersection between disability and environmentalism. And she was sharing with me about how much of the environmental movement is ableist. Or at least the ways in which people are pushing environmentalism can be ablest can be anti black. And it was a fascinating conversation. Because when I think about, you know, what you're describing is like the poster child for environmentalism, I do always picture like a thin white woman who is like drinking out of a ball mason jar, right. And like, who is, you know, biking to her job that allows that is somehow close enough to bike to, but as paying her enough that she can buy things that are more expensive, because they're more sustainable. And it's truly it's such a nuanced intersection. And so I think it's really interesting to talk to you and hear you say, you know, I kind of am someone with these privileges that fit into that mold. And even for you, it was damaging.
Rebecca Gray 6:18
Yeah, absolutely. And I think something that I love about your content, and the work that you do is separating morality and functionality. And I think such a contributor for me personally, and for a lot of people is the feeling that embodying this archetype is moral, but archetypes of people don't have morality attached to them. And, you know, while individual behaviors can absolutely be productive, and moral and contributing, engaging in everything all the time looking and being a certain way, all of the time is not a good measure of our worth, or our contribution as people because we are always going to fall short of that.
KC Davis 7:00
Let me tell you, when you said the words, embodying the archetype, I got chills, like I got goosebumps. And I almost feel a little choked up. Because I feel as though you've put into words, something that I've experienced my whole life, I've occupied several different spaces. You know, I occupied the recovery space when I was in recovery from drug addiction, sort of the 12 step space, the absolute space space, I've occupied, you know, the evangelical space at a time in my life, I have occupied the mental health space. And I really resonate with what you're saying, even when I was in my addiction. For me, when I was having this root fear of not being enough of not being worthy of love, what I always sort of tried to do to fix that was to look for whatever space I was occupying, be it culture, institution, subculture, I was always striving to be the perfect embodiment of the archetype. So when I was using it was, how do I be cooler? How do I get better drugs? How do I be perceived as, you know a badass how to why and I was striving for that, and I felt I could not reach it. And then I get sober. And I learned so many things. And there were so many really great ways that I became healthier. But that route of feeling unworthy of love, just at some point shifted its focus to now I need to embody the archetype of recovery woman. And that imposter syndrome that you're talking about remained right, I move into the church and I find myself I want to stand in the front and I want to be a missionary, and I want to be on staff and I want to be an recognizing and actually did become a missionary and then had sort of a crisis of faith fall apart during it. And it was around this idea where I realized, so much of what I've been striving for isn't actually fueled by my real beliefs. It's fueled by this promise, this intangible promise that if I can embody the archetype of this space, I will finally be good enough, I will finally get love. I will finally like myself and others will like me too. I just have never really been able to put that into words before so I thank you. That's, I think, like a gift that's gonna stick with me forever. And it applies here, too, right? When we start to occupy spaces that we actually might really believe in with causes that we really do care about, but we can kind of get hijacked by that primal human need to be loved and to be worthy and to belong.
Rebecca Gray 9:39
Yeah, absolutely. And I think, I mean, you're gonna thank me for putting into the word into where it's like, I'm gonna thank you for putting into words care tasks are functional, not moral. I mean, I think that so much of like my growth and learning and recovery from an eating disorder and an anxiety disorder came from honest sleeves social media seeing people who had done this and had spent time thinking about it put feelings that I had into words that helped me understand them. That happened to me, you know, when I was getting recovering from orthorexia. I hadn't found like the term intuitive eating yet, but I was like starting to think it I remember telling friends, like, it's just easier if I don't like think too much about what I'm eating. And then like a year later, I'm on Instagram and like, kids eating color is like, it's it's called intuitive eating, and things like that, which I think, I don't know, social media is like such a great tool. I love social media.
KC Davis 10:37
Me too. I always laugh if you've ever seen like, sometimes every once in a while, it happens a lot. Some artists will draw like these kind of metaphorical representations of like the evils of technology, and it'll be like two people in a room, but they're looking at their phones. Yeah. And I'm always like, where's the artists who's gonna draw like the woman suffering from postpartum depression? Who's like Lifeline is coming through that social media? Yeah,
Rebecca Gray 11:03
I'm like, people want to knock Instagram infographics, as if I haven't learned like, most of my like activism from Instagram and Tiktok,
KC Davis 11:13
I have I have learned most of my activism from tick tock, and tick tock in particular, has put me in touch with creators that I would never have come across. Like I just I live in a very white space, I live in a very abled space. And sometimes, you know, the value of not just being surrounded by that, but at the same time, purposefully, trying to be friend, a person of color, because they're a person of color is also like, not, not it, not it right. And so there is this sort of how do I diversify my mind? How do I decolonize my views and social media has been the way that's happened by following these creators that I never would have been able to cross paths with in real life. And so I totally get you there. And, you know, it's interesting, because that aspect of social media has been so helpful. And I'm sure that social media has also been part of the issue with eco perfectionism. You know, because we do see people post only their best moments.
Rebecca Gray 12:15
Absolutely. And I think, you know, I would say, like four years ago, I don't know about anybody else. But my Instagram was filled with, again, the archetype of a zero waste girl, a slow fashion girl, like mainly white women, mainly thin women with expensive, sustainable clothing, with plastic free bathrooms with I don't know, who had time to like bake bread twice a week, and like, filming Instagram video of it. And I was like, in grad school, and technically, my income was below the poverty line. And I'm like, Well, I guess I'm doing it wrong,
KC Davis 12:51
even when I like so I have an online shop, I sell a lot of digital downloads, but I also sell some physical products. And as I'm moving into this space, where I want to start selling like workbooks and planners and things like that, there is the option of like, sustainable packaging, and all these sorts of things. And as I look into it, it's like, it's more expensive. And I know that the majority of my demographic like, probably can't afford so I'm always trying to look for how can I make this the most accessible resource or the most accessible product, while still keeping the business running? And you have to choose between the two sometimes, right? And I think one of the other things that you said that really hit me was when you were talking about intuitive eating. So I actually read the bucket diet by Caroline donor a few years ago, and I've been, you know, my philosophies and struggle care have been supremely influenced by the intuitive eating anti diet movement, where we're taking the morality out of food. And so, you know, taking the morality out of care tasks, was something that I started talking about, especially with people who are struggling with mental health, chronic illness. And one of the ways when I stopped thinking it was this moral obligation, I realized that there also weren't any rules. And then I could kind of get creative about how can I make these rhythms and rituals of care tasking work for me, and for me, as a person that was, you know, I was at home, I had some postpartum depression, I had ADHD, I was finding these what I call adaptive routines, like, okay, my dishes are going days and days and days, and I'm getting bugs because I can't and then I'm overwhelmed. But if I put my dishes in the dishwasher at seven o'clock every night and I run the dishwasher, that's more manageable. And then I found that if I do it a half a load, like if I don't wait until the dishwasher is full, I'm less overwhelmed. I'm less paralyzed. I don't. And so when I started talking to people about these adaptive routines, I would get comments and they were usually pretty cruel about I guess you don't care about the environment. If you're going to wastewater like that. I talked one time about how, you know all calories are good calories when you're grieving. And, you know, I had a radical vegan comment about how you know, we were killing other mothers just to save human mothers. And there's this like visceral cruelty with environmentalism that is really pretty horrifying and toxic. Yeah. And so I'm curious to hear as an environmentalist, you know, what kinds of things do you think that the environmental movement, as it stands today? What things are we doing well, that are actually helping? And what ways is some of the avenues we're taking the environmental movement not being helpful? Or maybe even being oppressive?
Rebecca Gray 15:39
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think like your example of the dishwasher is such a good one, because it's like, okay, it helps you be a lot more functional and taking care of yourself and your family. And it used twice as much water. So like, obviously, there's a cost environmentally there. But I think an exercise that I have tried to work on doing over the past few years that I would really encourage other people to do is when thinking about like an eco behavior or sustainability behavior, asking yourself and being really honest with yourself, can I engage in this behavior and honor my health and well being? And that answer is going to be different depending on the person and the behavior. So something that you bring up that I really like is, I think it's like 1000, unseen privileges and barriers. So like, for example, for years, I was a vegetarian, because I was like, Well, I have an understanding that vegetarianism is good for the environment, and it's good for my health. Actually, turns out being a vegetarian and restricting my food is not good for my health, because I'm a person with a history of Ed, for other people, vegetarianism is a great way to engage in an eco behavior and reduce their carbon footprint, and it works really well for their health. That wasn't true for me, it was not a behavior that I could engage in healthfully, like on the flip side of that, I really like to walk places when I can, instead of driving, that reduces my carbon footprint, I have a lot of privileges that make that accessible to me, you know, I'm able bodied, I have the relative luxury of time, I live in a really walkable community, and I enjoy doing it. So that fits into my life, it might not for somebody else with different privileges and barriers. And, you know, sometimes it's even more clear cut than that there are people with chronic health conditions or injuries who need single use plastic to stay alive. Not that it has to be a question of, you know, yes or no survival, but a question of, I think your functionality and your happiness, and the only person you can really have that conversation with is yourself. So like in on the topic of which behaviors are really good and work and which don't, I think it is so nuanced, and so personal. And I also genuinely think that, you know, humans are pretty inclined to be moral and contributing. And when the answer is yes, this behavior does fit into my life, people are pretty inclined to engage with it, of their own freewill. I mean, most of us do use washable reusable dishes instead of single use ones unless circumstances make it challenging to do that. So I think the pressure on the individual to perform perfectly is a real negative of the environmental movement. And I don't know, like the idea that each of us individually is responsible for changing the outcome of climate change, or the trajectory of the world by remembering our reusable bags every day is a pretty unrealistic myth.
KC Davis 18:34
Yeah, one of the things that I have found interesting is this hyper focus on the individual, like, you know, it's up to all of us to not use straws to save the world. And, you know, this is not my area of expertise. But what I'm learning is that there's a lot of misplaced impetus on who is really capable of saving or damming the world. And, you know, I don't want to move into a space where we think oh, because, you know, since what I do doesn't matter, who cares, but there's got to be some sort of nuance that we can wrap our heads around, like, what really does need to happen to prevent climate change?
Rebecca Gray 19:15
Great question. Yeah. Well, I think what you're getting at too is in America, we live under capitalism, capitalism places, the onus on the individual for their success. And capitalism has placed a lot of the onus on us, the individuals to stop climate change, and a lot of that time that involves us buying things to be or look sustainable, or investing our time and energy which are limited.
KC Davis 19:40
So I just have to say that again, what you just said, you said, you know, we live under a capitalistic society. That's just a neutral statement. It's just a truth. And a lot of the environmentalism that we are taught or given is based around us purchasing something because that's what keeps capitalism going or Having the time and energy to engage in behaviors or activism, time and energy that is typically only available to people in upper classes in a capitalistic society?
Rebecca Gray 20:12
Absolutely. I mean, having the time to walk somewhere to wash and reuse something, too, like buy food in bulk, and prepare meals at home time is a limited commodity, especially where we are in society right now.
KC Davis 20:29
Well, on top of that, this idea that production is morally superior to rest, where we feel like, you know, if you say, Well, it's a luxury to have the time to do this. I think there's a lot of people that think, well, I, I technically have the time, you know, if I didn't have hobbies, or rest, or look at tick tock. And there, we feel like there's this moral imperative to produce, produce, produce, produce produce. And so we feel like resting, relaxing, recreating our indulgences, they're disposables. And that if we're doing something like that, you know, unless we're replacing every minute of our day, with something productive, we still have time. And so if we're not using that time to do A, B, and C, we feel guilty.
Rebecca Gray 21:14
Yes. And, I mean, I think that's true from an environmentalism lens. From what I'm not a parent, but I understand that to be true about parenting, about our academic lives, our work lives, our relationships, we are constantly being pressured to produce and churn something out and move forward. But in terms of I mean, who is collectively responsible for fixing climate change, there are like 100 corporations in the world that are responsible for like 70% of climate emissions. I mean, who is responsible for climate change? It is like enormous corporations, it is the US Department of Defense, it is huge entities that are, for the most part out of our individual control. And I don't say that to be nihilistic. Because another kind of myth that I think we've been sold about climate change is that it's something that is going to happen, that's going to be catastrophic event, like at some point where we're going to go over a cliff, and suddenly life will change. But the reality of climate change is that climate change is already damaging people's health, it already takes lives every year, it is the result of it are already some people's reality, and have been people's reality. And if you are in a position to not be directly feeling it, it's probably because you are living in a place of relative privilege. And so it's not really helpful to think about it as like this doomsday kind of thing that we all have to band together before a certain point, or we're all going to get blown off the face of the earth. You can think of it as small actions in your community, smaller initiatives organizing, and kind of, what am I talking about progress over a big sweeping change?
KC Davis 22:53
Yeah, so when we talk about these 100, corporations, and so we recognize, okay, this is kind of where the make or break, change will happen. And I feel like there's kind of two ways in which that could change. One narrative that we're given is, if we all band together, and stop the demand of these plastics, waterways, blah, blah, blah, right? Like we all band together and stop buying water bottles, then these companies will have to change. That's one narrative that I've heard. And then the other narrative is, if we all band together, and place collective political pressure on our government, to regulate, you know, industries that are within our country's control, that is the way to go. And so I'm just curious, from your perspective, which of those narratives is more accurate? Which of those narratives should we be focusing on? Which one's more realistic?
Rebecca Gray 23:50
I think that they both have their place. And in terms of the first question, which kind of a boycott economy, right, let's keep our money, realizing that that is not always realistic, again, due to personal finances, what people need to live like plastic water bottles have their place, other forms of single use plastic have their place, political action, I do think is important and effective. And something that I learned working as a contractor for the EPA and the CDC, for the past four years, you know, I worked for those agencies under the Trump administration. And what was interesting is there were a lot of really good scientists and activists at those organizations doing their best to chug along and perform good science and get things done. And so I think that continuous political pressure is worthwhile. Especially, you know, we tend to think of things at the national level, what's the presidential administration doing? What is our Congress doing, but at the state and local levels as well, organizing and pressuring politicians does work and does have an impact and voting for people to put in office? Who will protect and promote programs and social services that align with your values does have an impact. And as important,
KC Davis 25:09
I think what the majority of people that I talked to that are really struggling when you know, they're looking at, okay, when I don't buy prepackaged food, I tend to not eat that day. Or when I, you know, my dishes pile up in the sink, my anxiety goes nuts, and I don't have the capacity to engage right now at this time without kind of like selling my mental health soul, so to speak, right? And so when these people are asking themselves, you know, what can I do? And I like how you sort of painted this picture of start with, you know, what do you need to function, and then fill in the gaps with more compatible, eco friendly behaviors that work in your life. And I also want to encourage people, you know, I think that especially when it comes to mental health disability, sometimes because we're struggling with perfectionism, we can't, by ourselves, determine what do we really need, because we're always thinking what we really need is just us being lazy, right? And so I think talking to a therapist, or a counselor, or even just a friend that you trust, allowing someone to have some input on to know, Casey, just buy some paper plates, like you need to eat, right, like letting someone else that you trust, have a voice in that conversation, because I think that we tend to have just the right amount of self loathing to say, Oh, if you, you don't really need that you're just being lazy. And a lot of times, that's not true. And so getting someone else to help you with that conversation on what adaptive routines Do I really need to live and thrive in my life? And once you sort of realize that, how can I then fill in the gaps with some eco friendly behaviors? In that moment, when we talk about how can I fill in the gaps with eco friendly behaviors? I feel as though we are sort of drawn to the boycott economy narrative as like, that's where we should go first, like, okay, how can I have less plastic? How can I do this? And those things are all good behaviors. But if it's true that the more impactful behavior might be getting involved politically to make those changes, then would you say that it's valid for a person to say if I have this limited capacity leftover, the best use of that capacity is not getting, you know, obsessive, or worrying about how much plastics in my house, but is using that energy instead? To see what's going on with my city council or something like that?
Rebecca Gray 27:39
Yes, I think energy is, again, it's such a limited resource. And you know, things like voting, think voting is very important. Voting takes like a lot of energy. In some states, you can't register on the same day, you might have to find time off of work, you know, find childcare, this takes a lot of energy. And like if voting and being involved politically aligned with your values, then conserving energy in order to engage with that, instead of, I don't know, cooking all week to make sure that you don't have any food waste at the end of it has value, especially I think, in terms of conserving energy, something that I find useful is to remember to conserve energy when I have it. So like, oh, it's like a Saturday afternoon, I've had my little iced coffee, I'm feeling really good. And I'm thinking to myself, Okay, it's time to clean the house top to bottom or get ahead on any other tasks, thinking to myself, What would two hours of lazing around, like do for me right now, it might do a lot, and it might give me a little bit more Go Go juice for the rest of the day or the week or whatever.
KC Davis 28:48
I love that. And I mean, I'm even thinking about, you know, you can even get smaller than, you know, city level. I mean, there are parents who might be able to participate in a PTA, where they can bring up, you know, is there a way we could send home digital announcements instead of paper announcements, right, where, you know, it might be that using paper plates for dinner gives you the capacity to attend a PTA meeting, where you can push for what's going to be a much bigger impact of, you know, a school, even just one school, reducing their paper usage or something like that.
Rebecca Gray 29:26
Absolutely. And I also think that specifically in terms of, I think, a lot of sustainability swaps center on food, like what should we be buying? What bags should we be using? How should we be cooking? What plates should we be using? And I just want to like, let everybody buddy know, give them some peace of mind from an epidemiologist. The biggest way that food impacts yours and your family's health is the importance of getting enough of it and getting enough variety. And so if eating off paper plates if ordering in if buying Less expensive produce that wasn't produced sustainably allows you to feed yourself and your family in a way that satisfying and you know, bonus if you get to meet all your nutritional needs, like that has inherent value, it's going to make our bodies more resilient to any kind of environmental stressors. This is especially important, you know, communities that are experiencing the most intense effects of climate change, are tend to be communities that are poor, that are of color that already faced food insecurity and nutritional deficiencies. And, you know, our very basic human needs of food and you know, shelter, etc. Those usurp our need to engage in environmentalism.
KC Davis 30:41
So when we were emailing back and forth, I was asking you sort of like, what do you view as sort of the most the actions that have the most impact and perhaps the Eco actions that have the least impact? And one of the things you said that was surprising to me, as you said, using the social programs that are available to you is one of the most impactful things you can do in terms of environmental behaviors. Can you talk about that for a minute?
Rebecca Gray 31:03
Yeah, sure. So when I say using social programs that are available to you, I mean, things like Medicaid, if you have any food related benefits, so snap, or chip, or WIC, these are programs that the government puts money into to make sure that your basic human needs are met, they are imperfect, and a lot of the time, they are not successful at meeting everybody's basic needs. But the government uses the amount of money spent on those programs year to year to budget for them. So essentially, if you qualify for those programs, and you use them, not only is it hopefully going to benefit yourself and your family, it's going to tell the government, okay, this community needs this investment, it's using this investment. And that's really important, especially because, again, the communities most impacted by pollution and climate change, tend to be communities that have a lot of people in them who qualify for those programs. So, you know, for example, a low income community might live near a highway, they might have higher rates of air pollution, adequate nutrition in that community is going to help make their bodies more resilient to examine environmental stressors. And making use of those programs is going to tell the government that these things that meet basic human needs need to be prioritized.
KC Davis 32:22
So are you saying that when we use social programs that we social sort of safety programs that we qualify for like this, that we're not just saying, Oh, this is affecting my family, but that in doing that, we're actually communicating back to the government, which communities need the most assistance, even in other areas.
Rebecca Gray 32:42
Sometimes, the government definitely has research initiatives, where we look at the kinds of communities and the socio economic characteristics of people who require and use services, but even more, so it will help the government to understand the needs of your personal community.
KC Davis 33:01
Yeah, that makes sense. Okay. And then you talked about limiting air travel.
Rebecca Gray 33:07
Yeah. So this is, I'm not here to tell anybody that they can't get on a plane. First of all, there are lots of good and valid reasons for air travel, you know, maybe your loved ones are far away, or I don't know, I like vacation as much as the next person. But if you are truly feeling overwhelmed, and having shame around your carbon footprint, I just am here to let you know that all of the little actions day to day that you may engage in are really barely making a dent against the amount of carbon that is emitted from taking a single flight. So if you can find opportunity, if you're really looking for environmental behaviors, to engage in finding opportunities to forego air travel, is, it's a lot of bang for your buck.
KC Davis 33:52
I love that. So it's not something to necessarily beat yourself up over if you're taking airplanes. But it's a lot of bang for your buck in terms of I'm having a really hard time functioning this year. And if I could just replace one vacation that we would travel on an airplane with a road trip to a closer location, then maybe that gives somebody sort of the sigh of relief of I'm doing my part. And now I can just kind of focus on getting kind of surviving the rest of the year. Yeah, absolutely.
Rebecca Gray 34:23
It's really just, again, give yourself that peace of mind if you are experiencing intense shame or intense guilt, because I don't know, you talk a lot in your content about how those feelings don't actually lead us to functionality or productivity. So any tool in the toolbox to combat guilt and shame. I'm a fan of
KC Davis 34:45
Yeah. And then in terms of the behaviors that have the least amount of impact, you talk about, you know how some conservation behaviors are just naturally rewarding. But, you know, your approach to environmentalism is really Human health focus. And so I love that you talk about giving people permission to prioritize their own health and happiness. You talk about that, too. I mean, we've kind of been talking about that the whole time. But
Rebecca Gray 35:10
yeah, absolutely. I think in terms of behaviors that have the least impact, again, like I mentioned, any time that you are feeling that little Goblin and your brand, say, I need to go out and buy this thing. In order to be more sustainable, I need to buy this jar, I need to buy this water bottle, etc. Just take a breath, and ask yourself, Do I already own something that could fulfill that purpose, like plastic takeout containers, I mean, like things in your house, they don't have to look photogenic, it does not have to look like a zero waste Instagram page in order to be sustainable. So I would say like, you know, rushing out or to like buy sustainable fashion pieces, which I have been guilty of in the past, like, it's okay to just wear your fast fashion pieces that you own, and you love they're already made. You're not creating waste by doing that. And I think, again, in terms of honoring your own health and well being while engaging in environmentalism, when you think about a behavior just clocking, am I feeling excited about this? Does it feel doable and accessible to me? Or is it giving me a really bad feeling in my gut of like, I already know that I'm not going to be able to sustain this commitment. And I'm already experiencing shame about it, I would invite everybody to just take a deep breath and ask themselves, why am I feeling this? antagonizing shame? It's probably related to barriers in your life, either due to circumstance or your health or your identities and releasing yourself. Easier said than done. Right. Okay.
KC Davis 36:44
The other thing that you said was was so great, you said if the government is allowed to consider practically when setting environmental health regulations, then you're allowed to do the same when thinking about your own behavior. So the government is asking themselves questions like, can I afford this? Can we do this program and still be able to do the other programs we need? And so your point is kind of like, you know, you as a person get those same sort of Li ways?
Rebecca Gray 37:12
Yeah, absolutely. Again, I work on setting drinking water guidelines for the EPA. And on every project, every drinking water guideline, we have a dedicated team of economists saying, what is it going to take to enforce this? Can we reasonably ask people to do this? Can we follow through? Again? Do we have the money? Those are questions that you are allowed to ask yourself? And the answer is allowed to be? No,
KC Davis 37:36
it's okay, if you do not embody the archetype of eco warrior.
Rebecca Gray 37:41
That is okay. I don't know that any of us ever do. So.
KC Davis 37:46
Awesome. Well, I love everything that you've said, I think this picture of seeing sort of eco friendly behaviors as a buffet, where, you know, you can pick and choose ones that are complementary to your life that match your capacity at the time. And even if there's a period of time where somebody is truly focusing on surviving, you know, your period of survival is not going to make or break us
Rebecca Gray 38:16
know, also, in service of that, when you're going through your period of survival. There are other people out there that are remembering their reusable bags and not using the paper plates. And, you know, maybe your circumstances change at some point, and you're able to engage with those behaviors. Maybe they don't, that's also fine.
KC Davis 38:33
And for me, I feel like that motive would work even better to me where it's like, okay, if I have the opportunity to, like, do the extra thing, being like, you know what, I'm going to do the extra thing today, you know, so that someone out there can eat that pre packaged salad. That's what they need.
Rebecca Gray 38:49
Yeah, exactly. And I like, I don't know, something that I've noticed in your closing duties videos you're like, and the last thing I do for closing duties to set myself up for success is I brew cold brew, because I want that in the morning. But then sometimes you're like, actually, I was surviving. And I decided I'm gonna get Starbucks tomorrow. Yeah. And then living in peace with that decision. Getting Starbucks on Friday allows you to, again, maybe then you have the energy to make your coffee at home the rest of the week.
KC Davis 39:16
Awesome. Well, Rebecca, thank you so much for spending the time with us. And is there anything that you want to say in closing?
Rebecca Gray 39:24
Oh, gosh, I would love for everybody to just let themselves a little bit more off the hook, then. I think we are inclined to do just take a deep breath. It's okay. I feel like as an environmental scientist, sometimes it feels like taboo to say like, it's okay. But it is and taking care of yourself is okay and allowed.
KC Davis 39:47
We have better things to do today then hate ourselves over a bag of clothes. We can't manage to get to the donation bin.
Rebecca Gray 39:53
We absolutely do. So many better things.
KC Davis 39:56
Awesome. Well, thank you Rebecca, so much

KC DavisOctober 3, 2022

02: Q&A: Too much self compassion?

Welcome to another episode of Struggle Care! In our first episode, you heard my conversation with Dr. Lesley Cook about executive functioning. Because she has so much great information and wisdom to share, I decided to bring her back to discuss self-compassion. Is it a bad thing to have TOO MUCH self-compassion? Join us for the conversation with Dr. Lesley!

Dr. Lesley Cook is a psychologist who does a lot of work with ADHD and other neurodivergencies. Born and raised in Hawaii, she now lives in Virginia and works with children, adolescents, adults, couples, and families.

Show Highlights:

How to find the balance between the message of self-compassion and the need for better life management and progress

A basic understanding of self-compassion from Dr. Kristin Neff’s writings

A closer look at shame and how we experience it in relation to self-compassion

How to gently shift shame into self-compassion

How self-compassion can become a learned behavior that we pass down to our children

Resources:

Connect with Dr. Lesley: TikTok and Instagram

Connect with KC: TikTok and Instagram

Get KC's Book, How to Keep House While Drowning

KC Davis 0:10
Hello, you sentient balls of startups. This is struggle care, the podcast that will eventually get a tagline. It doesn't have one now. But you're you're, you're good here. We're happy you're here. Anyways, I'm KC Davis. And welcome back. I've got Dr. Leslie cook with me, psychologist extraordinaire. And we've just been rolling through some Q and A's that I get into my inbox into my comment section. And most of y'all know that I'm a therapist. And so we're just putting our little psychology heads together. And I have a couple of questions here. Leslie, thank you for coming back. First of all,
Lesley PsyD 0:47
yeah, thanks for having me.
KC Davis 0:48
Okay, so I want to roll through a few questions here about like ADHD and kids, because I know you have a lot of experience with that. I want to start with this one. Well, this one's not about kids, but it's just in general. Okay. It says, Do eight, does being on ADHD meds actually help with everyday life, like running a household? Or is it more useful for academic type focusing?
Lesley PsyD 1:08
That's a fantastic question. I don't know that I've ever been asked that question in that way. So the answer is a general Yes, with a lot of caveats. So ADHD medications are in different classes, usually, people are talking about stimulant medication. So we'll talk about that, at least at first. One very oversimplified way to think about stimulant meds is that they help to wake up the parts of the brain that function like a brake pedal. So without those medications, sometimes ADHD feels like having a wonky brake, where sometimes it works. And sometimes it doesn't. But it really doesn't work when you need it to work. And that does not end well. So stimulant meds have wake up the part of the brain that lets us break or not break when we want to. So in general, yes, it will help you. If you're a good candidate for that, that medication, it will help you focus what more when you want to, and it will help you have less, usually less anxiety about what you're going to choose to attend to. So instead of having to do that manually, and think about things, you may find it easier to say, it makes sense for me to do this first and this second.
KC Davis 2:23
That's a good answer. I can really only answer from my personal experience, because I actually got on stimulant medication. When I was a stay at home mom. So like, I wasn't going to a job, or work or school or anything like that. And I can say that, for me, the main thing that it did for me what will two parts one was like task initiation. And like, energy, like I wouldn't say motivation necessarily, because like you and I have talked before, like, motivation is about like understanding the value of something like wanting to do something. This was more like, it was almost like now I'm excited that I'm gonna get this thing done. And I'm able to do it. And the difference for me was very much like, before I was on meds, I'd be sitting on my chair. And I'd be like, I need to get up and do the dishes. And I'd be like, I need to I need to, but it felt like the transition from sitting in the chair to like getting up to the dishes was like walking through mud. And it also felt like I couldn't like forecast with enough tangible illness. What the reward of getting the dishes done would feel like, does that make sense? I was like I could know cognitively like yes, I'll probably feel better. But it wasn't real to me, compared to how stuck and inert I felt sitting in the chair.
Lesley PsyD 3:56
Yeah. And I gave you a little bit of the clinical answer first and then you give this lovely real world experience. So I'll tell you that as a person that takes stimulant meds, the more fun answer is I can do the dishes when I take my medicine without feeling I don't know another way to describe it besides like mental agony. Yeah, without medication, every task in doing the dishes is its own task. And it's so difficult to just make my brain stay because it doesn't I guess it doesn't just believe that this is going to be finished. And my medication helps me just do it. It helps me be in my body and do the task and not have all of the things with it. So for me it quiets my mind more than anything else.
KC Davis 4:42
I also this image of like if you've ever tried to pull like a sled over concrete, like I'm from Dallas, Texas, and we never get any snow but every time we would get like an eighth of snow I would like demand my dad took me out on the sled and so like even though the the snow Like the ground is white, you would just all you could hear was just like or have been like pulling this metal sled over concrete. And that's what it feels like to like get myself up and moving towards like a thing I need to do. Whereas when I take for me, I take Vyvanse, when I take a stimulant Med, it's, it's like I'm suddenly on. I'm a cart on greased, like rails. And it just slides like the transition from getting up to getting to the it just slides. And I'm able this is like a weird part for me. But I'm able to forecast, like, viscerally the reward that I'm going to feel once it's done. And that feels motivating. Does that make sense? Like that makes me want to get up. So it's not just I need to get up, I've got to get it's like, I want to get this done. And I can make myself stand up and go do it. And that's kind of my experience. And what's interesting also is that when I first got on, I was told like the old line of like, you need to take your tolerance breaks. So it'd be good to take it like try not to take it on the weekends. Which is like, I first of all, I love my psychiatrist, and I don't think my psychiatrist is misogynistic at all. However, I think that old line that just gets passed down about taking breaks on the weekends is like such a patriarchal, stupid piece of advice. Because you know, who gets to rest, you know, who doesn't need to be productive on weekends? Men? If anything, I needed more on the weekends. Yeah, absolutely. Like, that's when especially now like I actually am working nine to five, but like, the weekends is where I have my kids all day, it's where I need to make a 9000 Snacks is where I need to reset the whole house and get the laundry done and, like, pack us up to go do something fun. Like that's it? So the answer to that question is yes, yes. Okay. And that's also by the way, why it makes me so mad when I hear people say that they tried to talk to their psychiatrist about meds? And the answer was, well, you're not in school, so you don't need them. That makes me furious. Okay, number two, how can an ADHD parent adjust to all the routines and requirements of having kids in school?
Lesley PsyD 7:21
Rule number one is self compassion. When when we're trying to make movement, as an ADHD person, we're gonna take as a given the premise that days will be different, that there isn't one goal we're trying to get to where we've mastered ADHD and life is always going to be good part of this diagnosis is understanding that things are going to be harder and easier, depending on the day.
KC Davis 7:48
You mean, I can't just aim for the perfect morning routine. And that will fix all my problems.
Lesley PsyD 7:52
No, or the or the best planner or the best token system for your kids. So it's an unsatisfying answer, I think for some, but it's very, very true, that part of really moving from one phase of life into another with this diagnosis, is also bringing with us the understanding that it's going to be easier and harder. I think the other thing to think about when you're transitioning to parenthood is what is already working for you and bring that into your parenting. So if it works for you to be slightly disorganized during the day, and then on the weekends reorganize. Don't try to become a Pinterest mom, tomorrow when you have a baby. Stay with what works. Invite yourself to be curious about how you can apply what's already happening and going okay, in your parenting.
KC Davis 8:44
Yeah, I also I'm thinking like I was talking to some moms last night, and they were talking about feeling overwhelmed by the amount of things that need to be like signed and filled out. And we were talking about the suggestion and their kids are a little bit older, the suggestion of like, putting a folder on the wall somewhere, and then being like, it's you're like, Okay, kiddos, it's your responsibility to like, put your papers into this. And then every day at seven, you know, I'll go through and sign it. But I'm also thinking like, because I just went through this, I just put both of my kiddos into school. And it's like the amount of paperwork and small tasks about like, download this form and then fax it to the doctor and then text the doctor and then we'll send it back and then download it as a PDF and then upload it to the school site, which you have to use the QR code in order to get in and then set your password and then verify your email. It's like it's such a nightmare of like many tasks, like am I and I tasks. That's really hard.
Lesley PsyD 9:43
It's so hard. So another tip I would give people is don't be afraid to utilize your support people. If you've got folks in your life that you trust a best friend, a mother, a father and uncle a spouse who is very good at some parts of this it is okay to offload parts of it, if you're not so good with the tech, try to negotiate with your support people and don't do the tech, it's okay. You don't have to do everything. Your other point was lovely. And we also we have like a Dropbox area. So when papers come in, they're not beautifully sorted in a color coded thing on the wall, they go into one box. This is the to do box, the stuff that needs to get done. And next to it, we have a whiteboard. And so anytime someone says, Hey, Mom, by the way, I run to that whiteboard. I have a meeting on Friday after school that goes on the whiteboard, and then you're done. So really trying to make things visual and simple. Don't overthink it. Try not
KC Davis 10:38
to I put a lot of things on my calendar. I also love the website monday.com. Love Monday. It's like a task management one. But it's really intuitive. And what I find is that I don't do well with like different informations coming out, right. So it's like, okay, sometimes I'm getting emails from teachers, sometimes it's a notification on this app, sometimes it's a folder I'm supposed to check in or whatever. And what I find is that, as I'm going through, especially my emails, like when I'm getting school related to dues, like having that little app, that Monday app where it's like any school related to dues that I get during the day, I'm putting on that like list. And then maybe like after the kids go to bed, I can like sit down for like, if I have some uninterrupted time, it's it's easier for me to get through all the many tasks versus like trying to work and be like, oh, there's this email, or, Oh, I've got to get this form. So that might be helpful. Okay, let me let me get you another one here. Who, so I love this. So this one is about my book, How to keep house while drowning. And it says how do I teach my kids the principles in your book, I don't want them to connect worth with cleanliness. And I love this question. And I've talked a little bit about it on my channels before. But I you know, it's sort of like the great experiment that I've been doing with my kids. And I know you have kids that are older. So I just thought this would be fun to discuss shortly for a short time, which is like trying to teach I mean, here's my theory, here's my like, if I get my kids to age 18, and they have never cleaned successfully, like the way I would like them to, but they have a morally neutral relationship to care tasks. And I have taught them the skills about how to do things. That success. It's annoying, it's stressful. But it's success, because they might be 25 or 38. Right. I was like 32. When I woke up one day and went, I'd like to put systems into my house so that things are more functional. I know my mom would love that I had wished I'd done that at 16. But conversely, and I'm not saying it has to be just one way or the other. But also like, there are a lot of parenting techniques that I could use to like force behavioral compliance for my kids in areas of like tidiness and chores. But what I don't want to do is get my kid to the edge of age of 18, always having like a spic and span clean room. And then like immediately when they're out of my house, they're like, finally, I don't have to do that shit anymore. And then they don't actually have like, the relationship to care tasks where they understand like, these are functional tasks to care for myself. And then like, that's the most important skill to me. So I try to teach that to my little kids. And I have all sorts of like weird ways of doing that. But I'm just curious what your thoughts are?
Lesley PsyD 13:44
Well, two parts. The first is when it comes to parenting and these kind of like value building a value system, which I think is what you're talking about, mostly. That primarily comes for most kids from observation of what is being modeled. So the great news for all of you who are listening who are parents, especially of young kids is you don't have to be perfect. You just have to be you don't have to be we invite you to be kind to yourself. And here's the big part I see results with with my older kids is your language. Talk to yourself during these tasks, right. So look at your dishes and say, Well, if I do all of the plates and cups, and just rinse the other things that will be enough for tomorrow and that's okay. You don't even have to be telling your children but that helps you hear it. It helps you utilize these principles and the children will internalize these voices over time. And I can zoom you ahead because I have a 20 year old who's going into her second year of college and she is just as messy as I currently am and was at that time, but she is capable of solving crises. She is capable of asking for help when she is not doing as well. She is capable of making friendships and choosing those friendships based on whether those folks are going to echo her values. And when she has to, she can clean up really, really good. She's got the skills in there. So I would echo that, that your goal isn't to put a child out there who has a better housekeeping home, your your goal is to put a child out there that has all of the skills and abilities to exist in the world and be kind to themselves.
KC Davis 15:31
And one of the things that I do with my kids, and most of my kids are two and four. So if you're at that stage, you know, things that I've been trying is, I don't Institute things for my kids, or like limits or structure that seem arbitrary. So we don't have like a you have to clean up every night before you go to bed. Because that's not connected to anything in my kids brains. So what I've been doing is, now I might say you need to take all the toys back to the playroom, because mom can't function in the kitchen, if there's Paw Patrol on the floor. But I don't have a leg now everybody has to clean up their, you know, put everything back. But what I have been doing is I'll wait until I can tell that my four and a half year old is in a spot where functionally something's not working, and she recognizes it. So this will be she trips over a toy. She steps on a Lego, she can't find something she's looking for. She wants to have a dance party, but the space is too cluttered. And all y'all like jump on that moment and be like, Oh, no, you tripped. I'm so sorry. That happened. What can we do to make the space a little more functional? So we don't trip? She's like, let's clean up, right? And I'm not saying it's like some magical dust that my kids like excited to clean up. But like you said, like, my goal isn't to like make her because she then she'll say I don't want to. And it's like, alright, well, fine, keep tripping, I guess. And I will like, I never want to put out this idea that I've like just like I'm magic. Like, I will absolutely get to the point where I'm like, I'm canceling your playdate. If you don't pick the freaking Paw Patrol up, right, like I get to that point. However, I'm also like, like you said, like helping her make those connections of like, functionality of her space, directly impacting her like, right now experience. And I also clean up with my kids all the time. I think we really overestimate like, I think we both overestimate and underestimate, like what kids are capable of. Like, I still do tasks with my kid, like, I can get my four and a half year old to maybe go feed the cats by herself. But everything else she wants to do with mom. She wants to do the exact same task. So it's not. She does not help me pick things up, right? I'm always helping her. It's always me helping her. That's always what cracks me up. When people see my messy house. They're like, why don't you just teach your kids to pick up? Like I do it? What world do you live in that teaching small children? How to do care tasks? Is like less of a burden. Yeah, no, it's more work. Right? So anyways, that's what I've been doing. It's just like pointing those things out verbally. And I think that's helping. Yeah,
Lesley PsyD 18:15
I also love like the idea of building small things or routines into the normal rhythm of the day. That makes sense. So it's not when you get home from school, make sure you do your five chores before you go out and play. It's when you get home from school, I understand that you're going to be tired. So do what you want to do. But after dinner, if everyone could just hang around for about five minutes and pick one of we have a list that says how can I help today. And it's just got a list of random stuff. Nothing's assigned. But it's like right, pick one thing. And and when you have enough people in there functioning, even if they're little guys, if what they did is bring the cups from the table to the counter, you're building a value system, they're around help. It's also building experiences with your parents, I think we underestimate how important it is to just be around our kids for these little moments and not seeing an hour of face to face Barbie play. I'm saying five minutes of putting music on while you unload the dishwasher. These things are very impactful for a very long time.
KC Davis 19:17
And I also think like, I have this story that I told one time about, like my kid, she took I think she was three she took all the diapers out of her diaper box. And I was like, You need to put all of those diapers back. She was like, No, we can't. No, no, not gonna not kind of can't. And I was like, Oh, yes, you can. She was like, No, I can't. I was like, you can't your arms are broken. And we had this like, you know, like, very classic argument about it. And then she finally because I have done a few things right. She like kind of broke down and then got really vulnerable and was like, but there's so many I can't pick them all up at once. And I was like, Oh, she's not unwilling. She's overwhelmed. Yeah, absolutely. Like, it doesn't make sense to a three year old brain like When you say pick all of those up, her three year old brain hurt, literally put them all in your hands at once. So I had to break it down to like pick one up and she picked one up now pick three up, I'll be four. Now pick two what like cuz she's learning her numbers, right? teaching her like the five things tidying like, okay, we're all gonna get, we're all going to reset the space. And she's like mixtures in that phase. Everything's cool with mom. And I'm like, let's find all the trash and we put a song on and look for all the trash. Let's find all the laundry, put us on that look all the laundry. And it's not only like you said, like that moment we're having together. But I'm also like, it. I think when we talk about like teaching our kids, we default to like teaching them discipline and responsibility when it's like the bigger skill is like, how do I break down a big task intuitively into like, smaller steps that don't feel like I want to like, you know, yeah, drive off the
Lesley PsyD 20:55
front door. Yeah, we bathrooms are a really good example for my kids. So growing up, I used to have the written list of the steps, which is still helpful for some kids. And some kids will actually write it in whiteboard marker on the mirror. I don't know if people know you can do that. And it just wipes right off. Now what I have them do even the older kids, even the 16 year old, I'll say do the bathroom and they say great what first and I'll be like Mears that's the blue bottle, right? Yep. And then they'll come back. Okay, toilet, that's this thing, okay, and then they'll come back. So there's support there, they don't have to hold all that information and working memory like you we have music on. It's a cooperative tasks are not alone, right. That's another piece of this too, is that children, even adolescents aren't just little grown folks, they get more easily overwhelmed. So for you and I cleaning a bathroom might be just one or two tasks. But them knowing that you're right here with them, can help break down that anxiety, which can lead to that escape avoidance behavior that parents tend to really parents I'm pointing at myself, tend to get frustrated with because we're tired.
KC Davis 22:02
And then can you walk us through you had a really great video one time on your tic toc channel about helping your son clean his room, and you had like a really unique approach to it. Can you tell us about that?
Lesley PsyD 22:16
Yeah, so we have a couple of approaches, and I let him pick the approach every time but the one he usually picks is that we take everything that's on the floor, and we throw it out into the hallway indiscriminately. And then whatever's left in the room, we just set it up really quick. So it looks nice. Now that's very easy, because most of the stuff is on the floor. They're not on surfaces. So the room with all the junk in the hallway, the room looks great, it looks finished. So he already within 10 minutes feels accomplished. Then we put again, we put music on not everybody or sometimes a YouTube video. And basically we sit together and we bring items back in that we want in the room. And we put them where they go. So I'll be like airplane. Yes, I want that. Okay, cool. Where was where would airplane live? Oh airplane could live here. And then we'd put it there. A lot of times as he's getting older, we don't need this as much. But I also would limit that. So we would do 10 minutes. And then yes, there would still be a pile in the hallway. And sometimes that pile would be there the next day. But pretty much because there's not a lot of anxiety about it, it was more of a fun task, we would move through it pretty quick.
KC Davis 23:21
I love that I also love like, what I was talking in a different episode about how when I need to do a task, I often like overestimate how much time it's gonna take. And I know cognitively that it's gonna feel good when it's done. But I can't like really viscerally. See it in my mind's eye enough to be like, Mm, it's worth it. And I feel like getting the room to that like space where it looks really nice. Everything's super functional. It's like immediate gratification of like, oh, yeah, I do like this. I do like this. Because there's nothing more overwhelming and defeating to me than trying to clean up a room or tidy up a room where I'm just like picking up one item at a time. And trying to put it away somewhere. And like my brain doesn't see any progress.
Lesley PsyD 24:12
Yeah, and I think doing it in this way. And so for for adults, this is kind of the bulldozing method that I've used before where I take everything on the floor and put it into one corner. It's more of a treasure hunt than your room is already clean, like I clean my room. And now I get to hunt through this pile of stuff for things that I want. So instead of this deficit model of I'm trying to climb this hill, it's Oh, I love this shirt. I forgot I had this shirt. I'm gonna put this shirt away. I think it's just really about rewriting the story of what taking care of your space is about. It's not about resetting it so it looks pretty. It's about liking the things that you have, and being able to locate them frankly and use them when you want to.
KC Davis 24:55
I love that. Okay, here's what I'm going to end with and it's not a question it just is Just a comment, which made me laugh not at this person, but just laugh because it was, frankly funny. So, if you don't know, I did a tech talk video where I said, Hey, like, what questions do you all want me to answer? This one says, my mental health is a dumpster fire.
Lesley PsyD 25:18
There's no question. We all just nod slowly in agreement, like,
KC Davis 25:28
yes, I've been there. Not to you. Yeah. Welcome. I love it. Okay, we've got about four more minutes before I'm going to allow you to leave. I'm going to take this whole time. We don't have enough time to answer this in full. But this is my tricky way of trying to get you to come back and answer more questions with me. Okay, where's it? Where's it? Where's it? Just because, okay, it says, Before the pandemic i have i Okay, let's start, let me start off. Before the pandemic, I had a whole life before 6am workout read journal emails, I quote unquote, earned my sunrise. And now I cannot get out of bed before 7am.
Lesley PsyD 26:21
Interesting. I feel the same way. But my brain doesn't frame it as I can't get out of bed before 7am. I think my brain frames that that my values have been realigned. The pandemic was a scary time for a lot of us. Even if we felt like we weren't physically at risk. It was dysregulated and disruptive. And it changed who we are and what we think about our time. And so I guess I would invite people to consider the fact that maybe that shift is in your favor. Maybe that's okay. And that even if you do return to doing things at 6am, I'm kind of pulling back that way. Now, it's by choice. It's not because we're needing to earn it, it's because we've decided that we want to do it that way, because we like it better.
KC Davis 27:11
That's what really stood out to me. And I would bet you money that that phrase, earn your sunrise is from some motivational, Tony Robbins esque speaker out there, which we could get into a whole episode about how I feel about those sorts of gurus. Because you're right, you do not have to earn your sunrise, you don't have to earn your sunsets, you don't have to earn any of that. And doing those things before sunrise is great if that is great for you. But I have always detested how sort of commercial self help has put this huge emphasis on like the moral superiority of waking up early. Like there's so many self help books out there that like when you really get down to like their quote unquote, advice. It's like wake up early. Like, I don't want to, I'm not going to, I have my entire life and continue to roll out of bed at the last second. And that doesn't make me like less productive than other people. It doesn't mean it's not about willpower. Like I quite literally just have a different brain and body. And there's no difference between doing something at five and doing something at 10pm. Unless there is a functional difference for you and you're enjoying it, enjoying it that way. Like I just really want to invite everyone who has been either trying to make themselves like an early morning earlier or sunrise person that like you can just stop. It's okay if you like it if it works for you keep doing it. But I just want the rest of us to stop feeling this like weird subtle shame about the fact that we don't wake up early and I don't want to.
Lesley PsyD 28:56
I am in agreement. 100%
KC Davis 29:00
So, well, once again, thank you for being here. Do you want to plug yourself real quick where people can find more of your excellent tidbits?
Lesley PsyD 29:07
Sure. I'm on Tik Tok at LesleyPsyD. And I'm on Instagram, although less frequently at Leslie Le s le y underscore PsyD, and I'd love to see you stop by
KC Davis 29:20
awesome and you guys know where to find me at domestic blisters on Tik Tok at struggle care on Instagram. And you can also check out my website struggle care.com
Lesley PsyD 29:29
Thank you

KC DavisOctober 3, 2022

01: Executive Functioning with Lesley PsyD

Today, we are diving into executive functioning, which is a popular term being bounced around in mental health communities. I want to take a closer look at what it means and how it shows up in people’s lives. Join me to learn more from today’s guest!

Show Highlights:

A common-language definition and explanation of executive functioning
How executive function deficits show up in someone’s life
How shame, guilt, and inconsistent performance are clues to executive function problems
The difference between motivation and task initiation
Why the underlying issue with lack of motivation is more about what a person values
How a person’s sense of self is affected when they believe their authentic self is “bad”
Why external supports are necessary when an internal system is down
Why rhythm is better than routine for those with executive function disorder
How neurotypical people experience interruptions with executive functioning on a regular basis because of overload and anxiety
How blips in executive function occur in neurotypical people with predictability and response to intervention—as opposed to someone with a diagnosis
How someone with ADHD can have incredible deficits in executive function on days when everything is going their way–and won’t respond reliably to normal interventions
How to build into each day differing levels of acceptable outcomes–and give yourself permission to choose what fits your needs at that moment
Lesley’s advice to those who think they have executive functioning issues

Resources:

Connect with Dr. Lesley: TikTok and Instagram

Connect with KC: TikTok and Instagram

Get KC's Book, How to Keep House While Drowning

Find great resources about executive functioning:

www.understood.org, www.psychologytoday.com, and www.chaad.org

KC Davis 0:03
Hello, you sentient balls of stardust. I'm KC Davis. And this is struggle care, the mental health podcast that promises never to tell you to journal. today. I'm in the studio with psychologist Leslie cook. And we are talking about executive functioning. So pull up a chair, use this time to do something kind for yourself and enjoy the conversation. Hello, you sentient balls of stardust, welcome. I'm so excited for this episode, because I have Dr. Leslie Cook, who is a psychologist, and she does a lot of work with ADHD and other neurodivergent sees and actually met her on Tik Tok. So Leslie, thank you for being here.
Lesley PsyD 0:42
Thank you for having me, this is really exciting for me, because I feel the same way about you and your content. So this is going to be a great talk.
KC Davis 0:51
Oh, I'm so excited. So I wanted specifically for us to talk about executive functioning, because I feel like it's a real buzzword right now. Or buzz words, sort of floating around the mental health community. And I really wanted to learn more about it, I have such sort of like a cursory knowledge of it as a therapist, but I have heard you in your content, talk about executive functioning. And I just thought, you know, this is someone who I really want to sort of pick their brain, about the way that executive functioning shows up in people's lives and the way that it relates to trying to do everyday care tasks.
Lesley PsyD 1:29
Yeah, I think that this is an area that is both extremely exciting for me that people care about, because I don't think it would have been a buzzword a year or two ago. So that makes me happy. But I also love that we're going to talk about how it applies, you know, both to people with diagnoses, but also just to folks in general, because if you have a central nervous system, you have to use these functions on a daily basis.
KC Davis 1:51
So what's interesting is that I used to run a family program for a drug rehab. And one of the things that we would talk about was about how we had this little Did y'all ever do this, it was like the hand, like made the fist to talk about like the different parts of the brain. Yep. And we'd be like, Okay, this is the brainstem by your wrist and your little thumb coming over is sort of the seat of like the instincts and the fight or flight. And then your prefrontal cortex is the front. Except when I was talking about that to clients and families, what I was focusing on was actually the fight or flight aspect of it, and talking about how when your fight or flight gets triggered, you kind of go, your frontal cortex goes offline. And since that's the part of our brain responsible for impulse control, and sort of cause and effect, it would help families and clients think about how when they're feeling really activated, whether in therapy or just in the world, how all of these amazing coping skills that they're learning in rehab might temporarily go offline. So I really focused on talking to them about that part of the brain kind of getting hijacked, focusing on the fight or flight. But now that I've been diagnosed with ADHD, and I've been doing this work around helping people who have functional barriers, deal with care tasks around their home, for the first time, I'm starting to want to learn more about that frontal lobe, that part that's going offline, like, what all is that responsible for? So I wanted to start I send you like, kind of six questions. And I would love to hear you describe executive functioning for a layperson, like someone who doesn't know any type of psychological terminology or therapeutic language.
Lesley PsyD 3:34
Yeah, this is actually something that I am continuing to hone, because it's really hard to translate. It's really complex. So hopefully, this will be easy to understand. And thank you Disney feel like I should be paying them for the movie Inside Out. The best image I can think so as I talk through this, a good visual image is that control panel inside of the main character's brain. So there is the what are the behavior that she's engaging in, which is more choice based in that movie, then there's the emotions, and they have an effect on the control panel, but they're not the control panel themselves. So executive functions are these eight core functions of that control panel that tell our body, how to do things when why, to what extent when to stop. And here's the list of them. There are abilities to inhibit, like, stop ourselves, to shift from one thing to another. Controller emotions, start a behavior, remember things as we're learning them, how to plan and organize, how to monitor what we're doing in the middle of it, and how to monitor how we're feeling about what we're doing. So you can imagine how complex this control panel is. Wow.
KC Davis 4:47
Yeah. A lot. That's like, I feel like when you describe those eight functions as a therapist, that's like everything that I'm trying to teach someone is like how do we be are aware of our emotions? How do we regulate our emotions? How do we think through things? That is such a great, great summary, it almost kind of gives me like the visual of like a dam. And you know how you can like open the dam a little or you can open the dam a lot. But like that dam is really in control of what is coming and going, and in what amount, whether it's attention, or feelings or emotions. And so I could definitely see how like if somebody's control panel is shorting out, or someone's dam isn't like letting in or out the right amounts of things. Why that would make life so complicated.
Lesley PsyD 5:37
Yeah, incredibly, so in for diagnoses, like ADHD, it's like those emotions showing up to work every day in Riley's brain. And somebody's like, a shift is down today. Oh, man. All right, Colin, task monitoring, he'll have to work an extra shift. And you really can't predict like what's going to be offline or on line on a given day. So you can imagine how that would not only make your day difficult, but also would affect emotions in the opposite direction, then you get frustrated that you can't shift when you need to.
KC Davis 6:07
So what does it look like when somebody has issues with executive function like when there are disruptions? So that control panel like, how does that show up in someone's life? Like, What would someone have to tell you like in a session to make you go, I wonder if there's some executive functioning issues here.
Lesley PsyD 6:23
So a lot of the time, the first way that shows up is people expressing how bad they are at something. So I always get curious when someone says, you know, I know that my difficulty, like losing things is really impacting my life. But I'm just so terrible at that. That's usually some kind of note to me to ask more questions. Because if you were just terrible at that, you probably would never do it. Usually when that shame kicks in of like, look at this part of me that so bad, I'm not doing well, it's because you feel like you should be able to, or you feel like, you know, I can on this day. So maybe it's just my effort. So whenever I hear shame and guilt in there, I'll ask more. And there's a difference between not being great at a skill, and then having an actual executive function disturbance. So I am not great in developing physical systems to organize my stuff. But I am fantastic at developing tracking systems for my work. If I'm great at developing tracking systems from my work, then my tracking system should work every day, but they don't system. So that's the second factor is inconsistent performance, even with effort and energy,
KC Davis 7:36
which is interesting, because I think that somebody who is experiencing inconsistent performance like that, that's the reason why they assume that they must just be lazy, because they go to work. And they never miss, you know, a work call, they're on top of what they need to do at work. And then they came come home, and can't seem to motivate or activate themselves to do the dishes in the laundry. And they're confused, because they're like, it's the same skills, I'm going to work and I'm seeing what needs to be done. And I'm doing it. But then I come home, I see what needs to be done. And I can't seem to do it.
Lesley PsyD 8:11
I would add to that, that when I see clients in my office that present with that kind of concept, they're even harder on themselves, I hear, I can go to work and manage a multimillion dollar contract, but I can't do my laundry. So they also kind of push these care tasks down in important importance in their life somehow, like I should be able to do this, it's so much easier. But it's not really laundry is about 15 different tasks. And so that's another thing that I'll look for is when they say I'm good in this environment, but I'm terrible over here, that's usually a sign that there's something else going on.
KC Davis 8:46
Yeah, and I totally see that too. We especially the comments that I sometimes get off tic TOCs was just clean as you go, just put it in the dishwasher, just do your laundry, because for people whose executive functioning is firing on all cylinders, like they don't recognize that they're actually doing 12 different steps and utilizing eight different skills to do something like their brain has automated that to the degree where it feels like a simple, non complex task,
Lesley PsyD 9:15
if there was something that came up the most, that is the bit of information that's really helpful I found for family members who don't experience executive function problems is that because you don't perceive that you're doing 15 tasks, does not mean that you're not doing them, it means that your neurology showed up to support your motivation. Those are two different things. You can't motivate yourself into better executive function you can't
KC Davis 9:40
fascinating and you know, one of the questions that I had, and we'll sort of skip around just because coming up is I want to kind of talk about the difference between motivation versus task initiation. Because those things I think, get confused and I think there's a lot of people showing up to their therapists office saying, I'm just not motivated. I'm just not motivated. And I think a lot of therapists are getting curious about what does that mean? What does that look like? So they're jumping right to sort of interventions that can help with motivation, when the actual issue is task initiation. So can you talk about the difference between those two things?
Lesley PsyD 10:15
Sure, motivation is either the desire to do something or the acknowledgement that it's really something that would be good if it gets done now. So it's more of a sensation than anything else. Motivation is a feeling, look at that pile of laundry. So even though that's full of dread, that's motivation, I'm not looking at the pile of laundry going. And I really love that that is an art sculpture, I hope that never goes anywhere. Which is might be true, that's where I've reached that level in my life. But motivation can be positive, or, you know, I hate to use negative, but it can have a distressing component. But then there's the behavior of task initiation. And actually, that is even multiple tasks in itself. So the signal to the body to move for individuals who do not have ADHD, or other forms of executive function disturbance, the motivation is followed by activity to that motor cortex almost immediately, they think it they do it, they just do it, and they don't have to tell themselves to do it. Anyone who has depression or significant anxiety, or ADHD knows the feeling of staring at the task and saying, move, get, move your leg, just move a foot, just do something. So there's a disruption there, the motivation is not leading to the body moving, and then we have to fight to get up. And so task initiation goes from what should be a seamless reflex almost, to a mountain to climb. And that can be incredibly distressing in itself and make us feel real bad about ourselves. It's interesting,
KC Davis 11:43
because what you're describing sounds exactly like what I described when I first got on Vyvanse, where I said, all of the sudden, the transition from sitting in a chair, to getting up to do the laundry was seamless, like the rails had been greased, it was not a hard transition to make. Whereas before, I would sit in the chair and think about how I needed to do the laundry. But I just so badly, either didn't want to or couldn't get up. And it took a long time to almost talk myself into and create. And I had to come up with all of these methods of creating momentum, so that I could get myself to go do the laundry. The other thing that reminds me of so most of my career was an addiction. And I have totally had those conversations with clients where it was a lack of motivation. And the way that they describe it is I don't care, I don't care that the laundry is not done. And sometimes it's really frustrating because you're sometimes talking about addiction, or you're talking about something unsanitary. And the poor families are like how could you not care? How could you not care that you're dying? How could you not care that you're not taking care of yourself? How could you not care that you have dirty clothes, and you smell and they would literally say I just I don't care, I can't make myself care, I feel complete apathy, when I think about those tasks, or they say, I don't think that I deserve those things. And so I have no motivation to do them. And that, for me really helped realize, oh, so motivation, a lack of motivation. And you can correct me on this shows up more like apathy.
Lesley PsyD 13:18
Yeah, lack of motivation is the best way that I can think about it is motivation is a sensation, it's not an action. It's just something that you feel. And so there's probably 1000 different versions of motivation, you can be slightly motivated, you can be not motivated at all. But what I see a lot when I have clients with actual motivational issues, is that they can convince me all day long, why they should do something. But then when we get down to it, and I say, Do you want to do this? Is this something you want in your life? They'll kind of exhale and be like, No, and I don't understand that. Like, what does that mean about me? And it's okay, we can deal with motivational issues. There's interventions for that. But confusing, the two really leads to a shame and guilt cycle.
KC Davis 14:03
Yeah. And a lot of times, especially around care tasks, when people talk about, you know, I just struggle with the motivation to do XYZ. And maybe it's something like clean my room. And sometimes it's a task initiation sheet, right? I want it clean, I function better when it has some order. But when I look at all the things there are I get overwhelmed. I don't know where to start, I get distracted. I have overwhelming emotions. But sometimes when people say, Oh, I can't find the motivation to do it. When you get really curious, you find that it is an actual value issue. Actually, I don't value a cleanroom I only think I should value it because of the way that I was raised. But I function fine and a messy room. And so sometimes you find that the motivation is about what you value and you just, you don't actually value that thing. You just feel like you're supposed to or that's what good people are supposed to value You
Lesley PsyD 15:00
that is exactly why in all of my interventions related to this, the first question I asked someone is, if no one was watching, and no one could say anything to you about this, how would you do this? Just you and people, not only have most of them have never even allowed themselves to think about it that way. But usually, there's a big realization at that point, oh, I think if it was up to me, I would probably just leave all the laundry in the laundry room, I wouldn't be moving stuff all over the house. And so then we say, alright, so if that's what your brain wants, can't we just build a system around that? So you don't have to fight yourself?
KC Davis 15:36
Yes. And I think, you know, one of the pillars of struggle care that I talked about is that shame is the enemy of functioning, and how shame can create short term compliance or short term change, but it doesn't really create long term change, nor does it create or sustain any type of intrinsic motivation. And I think it's what you said exactly about, at some point, you're alone. And shame is always about what someone else thinks of you, or the fear that you won't be accepted. Or, you know, I'm full of shame, because I'm a piece of shit, I'm a bad person, I'm not lovable, I'm not good enough. And that all has to do with the need for belonging and acceptance in your tribe. But if your tribes not around all the time, like you're going to default to whatever motivational or initiation issues are there. And so the shame doesn't work. And as someone who went to long term residential behavior modification for 18 months, you know, I was on point I followed every rule, I did really well, like I won, I won the game. And I functioned really well, when there was constant. outside pressure outside, it was like having an external control panel, right, there was always an external pressure, and external accountability. You know, these rules, regulations, structure, peer pressure monitoring. And once I left, although I did learn lots of great things there, there were so many things that was like, Oh, I'm two days in, and I'm not getting up at the crack of dawn and doing chores and doing all these things that were so easy for me when I was in structure.
Lesley PsyD 17:17
And I think that what that in both of those examples in your example of leaving that highly structured environment and the other example of people having what they often describe to me as relapses when no one's around, what's really happening in those moments is that people are returning to what is authentic, and guilt and shame causes us to interpret authenticity as bad. So imagine what that does to our sense of self, when being who we truly are, is the bad way to be. How do you escape that?
KC Davis 17:47
Yeah, well, and then you carry it into every relationship, because no matter how much someone says, they love you, no matter how much praise or validation, you get, there's always this voice inside your head that says, if you only knew, and what's interesting, you know, kind of going back to talking about the way we show up at work, the hardest job I ever had, was working at a restaurant, I worked at a really high end restaurant for Hillstone Restaurant Group, and they ran their waitstaff, like a boot camp. I mean, I can't even describe to you like everything was very regimented. Everything from like, you had to memorize certain abbreviations, you could only walk into the kitchen and one door, you had to have things in your hand, as you left the door, you had to put drinks on the table, within 30 seconds food on the table, within 10 minutes. Everything was highly, highly regimented. And so as you're going through your shift, you're having to multitask, prioritize, work with your working memory. And I was excellent at that job. But there was this structure there, there was this external structure, and there were all of these other people. They're doing it with me. And I think it's so fascinating how there are environments in which my executive functioning can fire on all cylinders. And then I can go home and look around my home and not be able to sort of turn everything back on. And I will assume it must be because I'm not trying hard enough. It must be because I'm not good enough, as opposed to, there is an obvious environmental difference between work and home.
Lesley PsyD 19:23
Absolutely. And that's what we talk about as, as clinicians who work with people with executive function disturbance, and in this case, especially ADHD is that if our internal structure is inconsistent, and we know that then we need to build external supports. So if we do that, right, that's not good. And then we shift that if we do that, effectively, that in a way that works for us, we do it so that it enhances our view of ourselves because if we notice that our control panel shift button is down that day, we can complement it with other external support. So we can utilize that concept or really well, I think what happens is, we don't teach people about this, when they're well, we're not teaching children and teens about executive function. So we have all of these assumptions, I can do it at work, but not at home. That must mean I don't care as much about my home, well, no work is set up perfectly for you, you've got all these external supports that help you so that no matter what function is down, you've got a compensatory strategy. And I find that that's a lot of your work that I witnessed and have on a daily basis, is you're really helping people figure out where you know what system is down for them, and how not just individual solutions, but how to think about yourself and your environment, to provide your own external support that goes with you from place to place well,
KC Davis 20:43
and I find that so many of the resources that talk about like running your home, and setting up systems and routines are very intimidating, because there's like, you know, 9000 checklists for the day, and it's really all consuming. And I think that we can write those things off as if no, no, no, those things are for people who have their shit together. Those are for healthy people that are on top of it, that are using those kinds of strategies, as opposed to I mean, and you see this too, with like, when you watch the TIC TOCs, about people like restocking their pantry, like when you look at the all the clear containers, and that like that gets written off as Oh, that's something Pinterest moms do. But in reality, there's some real functionality to having clear canisters where you can see things and having a time of the week where you restock everything. It's just that we sometimes I think need help making those systems accessible. And so it reminds me of when I started having a cleaning schedule, I always said no, I'm not going to do that. And then I started one and I really call it a care tasks at schedule. And it's literally one thing a day just one like I do laundry every Monday. On Tuesdays, I restock bathrooms. On Wednesdays I clean one thing in my kitchen. On Thursdays I do the sheets and on Fridays, I do the floors. And then on Saturdays, I do the groceries. And so it's really simple. It's nothing that anybody would like all over Pinterest in but setting up that system mirrored some of the more structured environments I've succeeded in in the past and circumvents ways in which my control panel short circuit so because my working memory is unhelpful to me at times, I found that when I do laundry on Mondays, it took about a month but now the idea that laundry is supposed to be done on Mondays is not something being handled by my working memory. It has been filed away in short term memory and contextualize. So that Monday and laundry are inextricably linked in my mind and my associations. So from the moment I wake up on a Monday, it's like it gets flagged it goes it's a laundry day. And before when I was just waiting to do laundry for when we ran out of clothes, it had no associations. So I'm either procrastinating it not doing it getting into the wash and forgetting about it, getting into the washer, the dryer, but then putting it on the floor. And it totally changed my ability. I mean, I literally can't tell you, Leslie, I have never been able to do laundry in a timely manner and have clean clothes put away until eight months ago. And what else is funny, I was looking at it tic toc that I did recently where I talked about how I used to try to be on the house's schedule. Like oh, I noticed that the clean sheets are dirty time to clean the sheets. And when we run out of food or grocery shopping, we run out of clothes, all laundry, and I never could keep on top of anything. And so when I started washing sheets every Thursday, all of a sudden, the sheets were getting washed. And it was for some reason it kind of went to like an enjoyable activity because I felt like I was participating in the routine. And I was doing it and that felt really good. So it even changed my like reward system relationship with the task. And I think it's really funny how for Casey Davis, the only two options for the frequency of how often I wash sheets is every week, which I recognize is too often or literally once a year. Like that's it.
Lesley PsyD 24:20
But I love the idea that that's based on trying things and then honoring yourself. And when you find that thing that starts to work really leaning in and not worrying about is this what I'm supposed to do isn't weekly too much. I don't think I have to do that. It doesn't matter if you are finding a rhythm and I think rhythm is a really important word. For people with executive function issues. Rhythm is better than routine for a lot of people routine is like you said it and then I have to do it that way. That's how I do it. Rhythm is paying attention to how it feels and leaning in when it feels right.
KC Davis 24:54
Wow, that gave me goosebumps rhythm is more important than routine. And I think that that must be What I'm feeling because rhythm is so satisfying to me. Rhythm is even if it's, it could be the most monotonous task. But if it's on a rhythm, if it's in the flow, all of a sudden, I feel a sense of reward when it's accomplished only if it's in the rhythm and in the flow.
Lesley PsyD 25:17
Exactly. It's funny because I think we're both going to say things like in the last year in the last eight months, because the pandemic really created this opportunity to really look inward. In all the time we have with ourselves. I really found in the last year that I enjoyed the fact that my family all slept in later, because they weren't going to school, both of my kids stayed home and fully homeschooled. And so I don't sleep in past seven, I never have, it works for me, I like it. And all of a sudden, I had an hour, from seven to eight of this pristine quiet. And what I found is that I was starting to get a cup of coffee and sit in the same chair and do my notes, my notes for work for if anyone who's not a psychotherapist, it's kind of the bane of our existence. Usually, we need to do it. And it's important, but it's not fun. We like the people, right? We like working with our people. And so I hate notes, and I would often get behind. But what I found is I started getting up at seven, no one's awake, sitting in my chair with my cup of coffee, doing my notes, and then all of a sudden, that became a really joyful time for me a peaceful time. And if I heard footsteps, I very kindly reminded a child not until eight, you have to, like stay in your zone. And so I agree with you, I think when we find our rhythms, and we lean in, we really are honoring ourselves. I think it's just hard in our modern society to feel like we're allowed to do that. Well, I
KC Davis 26:40
love that you came to that rhythm gently. Because that's been my experience with all the rhythms that work in my house. Now I came to them gently, I wasn't forcing them. And so what I mean by that is like you didn't say one time, like, you know what, I'm gonna start waking up an hour earlier, so that I have some time to myself, and then you know, you wake up and you snooze, you don't it was like it kind of accidentally happened, and then you realize you liked it. And so all of the things, the rhythms for me that stick are the ones that I sort of happen upon gently, they're not the ones where I'm trying to force myself into a routine or force myself into a schedule. And that's kind of what I'm hearing about your rhythm too.
Lesley PsyD 27:19
Yeah, I'll give you an example of how two people can utilize the same compensatory strategies in opposite ways. In my house, we don't have a set day for any task, because that didn't feel rhythmic. To me, it didn't feel authentic to me, what I do is in my brain is surfing. So I have a rhythm of the things that need to be done, not on a daily basis, but more and more like monitoring the house. And I do what feels right that day. And I just don't repeat the same thing two days in a row. And so that's another way to utilize the same skills to get the same result, but in a completely different manner. And that really, I think, speaks to why it's so important not to just look at someone else's strategy and say, I'm going to copy that exactly. And if it doesn't work, that's my fault.
KC Davis 28:06
Yeah. And that's why I try really hard not to make it sound like when I'm talking about what works in my home, that I'm not handing it out as a prescriptive routine, like, oh, everyone should do this. This is the answer. Because people are so different. This is just what works in my house. And maybe it'll work for three weeks, and I'll try a new system, maybe it'll work for three months, and then I'll try a new system. One thing I know about me now is that the challenge and the novelty is really important. And so if I use a system for a rhythm for three months, and then I stop using it, I don't have to, I can either just kind of go with the flow and naturally get back on it. Or I can go maybe it's time for a new rhythm, a new system, it doesn't mean that I failed, or that I've done something wrong, or I've relapsed, I can't keep on a system for the life of me. Maybe it's just my natural need for novelty and challenge. And so instead of sort of beating myself up and trying to force myself back onto something I can go, so what's a way that I can do it now what feels right now that will still get those same functioning goals done. And I think it's okay to change your rhythms as they change.
Lesley PsyD 29:16
Absolutely. And I think that's what I really enjoy about your content is the strategies that you provide are kind of like a bouquet of flowers, you might pick these flowers to hold and smell today. And maybe later, you'll be like, I want to go back to closing duties. And we've implemented your concept of closing duties in our house. And what I noticed is that we do them for a while, and then they become pretty easy to do. And we don't look at the list anymore. And then all of a sudden we'll kind of notice and noticing is by the way, just as a pause. It's a really helpful concept with executive function disturbance. Because noticing is different than criticism. So Oh no, I'm not using my planner can become. Oh, that's interesting. I haven't used my planner in a week. So when we noticed that in the evenings, we're feeling more stressed. Faster, there's more mess, we'll just recenter ourselves and be like, Oh, time to go back to closing duties. And if you do it that way, it's really a way to think about having this variety of tools in the same toolbox.
KC Davis 30:11
And it's totally fine. It's funny, because last night, I had my three year old do her closing duties, and then I did my foreclosing duties. But I honestly hadn't done either one of them fully in a week. And I had that same noticing of just non judgment. It's not Oh, I haven't done this, I need to do it. It was, you know what it would feel good to do them tonight, it would feel good to have these done for the morning. And that's totally fine. Because I get that question all the time. I feel like I start out strong, and then I fall off, what do you do to get back on the horse? And I think the answer is there is no horse. Yeah, there is no horse, there is no falling, there is no horse, it's just meandering through the woods. And sometimes, you know, you start to walk off path because it's interesting, and it meets your needs. And then, you know, when you get a little disoriented, and it serves your needs to get back on the sort of beaten path, then you do that there's no moral judgment on either side. So let me ask you this. One thing that all of this sort of came to head for me was, although I now know, looking back that I've had ADHD my whole life, when I had my second daughter, and I was postpartum, in a pandemic, that's when the majority of the executive functioning came to a head where I couldn't function anymore, right, I look back on my life, and I see where ADHD has been. And and then at the same page, I see all these compensatory behaviors. But when I was postpartum, in a pandemic, it was as though the control panel broke down even more, and the compensatory sort of tools I had didn't work anymore. And one question I wanted to talk about, because we've been talking about ADHD, and depression and sort of these diagnoses that cause executive dysfunction. But certainly there are instances or circumstances or seasons when even someone who's neurotypical can experience interruptions with their executive functioning. And I wonder if you could talk about that.
Lesley PsyD 32:03
Yeah, not only can that happen, it happens for everyone, at some extent, probably every few days. So one of the things that's challenging to really cover in full on a short format, social media, like tick tock is all the nuance that's involved in this. So I like to kind of make the quip that you know, if you have a central nervous system, you have executive functions. And if you have executive functions, then you're gonna have days with executive dysfunction, it's just how we were we're homeostatic. So you know, we deplete ourselves of calories, we get hungry, we eat. And that's the same for all of these self monitoring strategies. The biggest thing that impacts executive function, the two biggest things are overload, and anxiety, any kind of anxiety, not even clinical anxiety, just that pressure and nervousness, predominantly impacts things like working memory, and focus for every human being. So if all of a sudden, you are home with your kids all day, and you still have to work or take care of your home, and that is your primary work, and they are having a tantrum, there's a lot going on. So you could be overloaded on two counts, which is going to decrease some of these executive functions. So you might be in the middle of, I was just gonna say, Well, everyone who listens to this, maybe find this to be familiar with, let's say, you are cleaning up a mess that a child has created. And then you have another child who's on the bathroom, you know, on the potty and needs to be wiped, and then someone else who's crying because they're hungry, that's too much for a human being to process in the moment, you're going to have to sacrifice something, it's very likely that if you had another task, you're going to either let it to the side on purpose, or you're going to forget completely. We also know that because just because you mentioned being postpartum, we do know and there's emerging data that shows that estrogen fluctuation, and to some extent other hormones as well impact executive function for all people, especially so for ADHD. But even for neurotypicals, it's not unheard of that folks would have all of a sudden more difficulty with their attention and focus, you know, Miss An appointment, misplace their keys when their estrogen is particularly high or low. Problem is we don't have concrete evidence, whether it's the high or the low. And we don't know why it affects some people and not others. Interesting.
KC Davis 34:23
And when you say that, like worry and anxiety can affect executive function, even for neurotypicals. What came to mind for me was I think everyone's had the experience of being at work. And you know, you're in the groove, you're being productive, and then you get the email from your boss says, hey, I want to talk to you at 430. Right? And then all of a sudden, it's like, it's impossible to go back to work and be productive again, like you can't focus you can't think you just have this worry and anxiety. And so that totally makes sense to me. You know why that can happen if someone is experiencing stress or anxiety or just overload?
Lesley PsyD 34:56
Yeah, and those things can compound each other. So I think one of the things As the pandemic did is not only did it remove a lot of people's external coping, it compounded our anxiety in a way that we've never experienced. So gonna be anxiety provoking to teach your children at home. But when you have the extra worry of making sure that they're safe and early in the pandemic, we were, you know, washing the grocery bags and leaving are outside. I imagine for a whole lot of people, they found themselves experiencing a whole lot more disruption in these areas than typical and that may last for quite a long time.
KC Davis 35:31
Yeah, I wonder if you would say, you know, when you were talking about how there are people who have these kind of long term diagnoses, who will experience executive functioning barriers, but then a neurotypical person experiences them every once in a while, or even once every couple of days. And to me, you know, because there is a real difference between the way that someone who has a diagnoses whether it's the degree is different, or the frequency is different. And it almost reminded me of, you know, when somebody is chronically ill, their experience of medical problems and medical issues and barriers in their life is completely different from someone who's not chronically ill, who's not chronically ill, and but even someone who's not chronically ill get sick sometimes. Right? And so there's some way in which they think they can relate, you know, someone who has had the flu might look at someone who is chronically ill talking about being fatigued and having a fever and think, Oh, I know what that's like. But contextually, you know, the degree to which someone experiences executive dysfunction can really make a quality of life difference between someone who is just sort of on the normal course of life experiencing little blips here and there.
Lesley PsyD 36:44
Yeah, absolutely. And the way that I explained this to folks is that for someone who does not have ADHD, but is having a particularly stressful moment, and finding that they have some executive function challenges, maybe they just feel overloaded, or they forgot a bunch of things. Their challenges with executive function are two things, they're more predictable. So it makes sense when they happen, oh, I can see why, gosh, it's been a crazy week at work. And my kids are yelling, so they're more predictable, and they respond to intervention. So in the middle of it, if an individual who does not have an actual diagnosis does not qualify for that says, whoa, slow down. All right, you know what, I'm going to take some things off my plate, I'm going to take a minute for myself, their executive function skills will probably return right back to typical because they're more bound by the environmental stress. The core feature of something like ADHD is that the symptoms are fundamentally unpredictable. And don't make sense with the environment. People with ADHD can have incredible deficits and executive function on a day where everything is going their way, there is nothing wrong, they feel great. And conversely, they could be having the worst day of their life and remember everything and they don't respond to typical interventions. So things like just slow down and focus, just use a planner, right? Just use a planner, don't you think you should get more rest, stop drinking so much coffee Wanderlei have done all of these things today. They don't respond reliably, they may respond sometimes, but they don't respond reliably. And that's why ADHD can be hard to diagnose, especially in very young children, because we need that pattern and the severity, to understand it. So for folks who don't have ADHD, try to imagine yourself on your worst day where you were the most disorganized. And imagine that that worst day could happen at any moment, with no warning and didn't respond to anything you did. That's what it feels
KC Davis 38:36
like. And I think that's probably also you know, what we're talking about the shame and beating ourselves up. Because, you know, if you get a phone call in the middle of the day, and you get some sort of scary health news about a family member, and then shortly after that, you suddenly kind of lose all motivation to do anything else with your day, you're gonna go well, that makes sense, right? I've had this big stressful conversation, I'm, well, I'm worried. And there, it's easier to be kind to yourself in that mess. Maybe I do need to just take it easy today. But if you have ADHD, or really any of these diagnoses that can create executive functioning issues, and you wake up one day, and you're going about your day, and then randomly at 12, you don't have a phone call, but just randomly everything goes through and just powers down. And you don't want to do anything else with the rest of your day. We don't tend to give ourselves the same kind of kindness of Oh, well. Let me just you know, that makes sense. That seems valid. Let me just take it easy today. And I think the biggest difference that I have been able to experience since getting my diagnosis. Was it being easier to be kind to myself, and I'm incredibly privileged, that the stuff that I work on in terms of my struggle care platform is very flexible, and I control my own dates and goals. because to some extent, because I will wake up going, I'm gonna get this and this and this and this done. And then all of a sudden, everything just powers down at 1030. And I get to go, Well, I guess it's not getting done today, or I guess it's only kind of going to get done or I guess, let me see if there's some other sort of flow that I can jump into, and maybe just switch projects completely. Now, we don't always have that option in life, there are things that have to get done at certain times. But even when we have to sort of trudge through the ability to sort of be kind to ourselves, and I think that's been my experience is trusting myself and honoring myself that if I feel that power down, that is something that really just happened. I don't know why maybe there was no triggering point, but it did happen. It was not a moral failing. It's not laziness, and it's okay to just kind of go with it.
Lesley PsyD 40:50
Yeah, absolutely. There's a model that I use with clients that's so similar to this. And it's been expanded upon by my friend, Abby on Tiktok. She's at Proactiv busy body of the stoplight model. So those of us with these challenges, we typically have red, yellow, and green days. And a Green Day is where for some reason, we're just firing on all cylinders, we're doing really well. And on those days, we don't need as many supports as we usually would need. And we can kind of raise our expectations for ourselves. So if we wake up, and we're feeling great, that's the day to say, Alright, I'm gonna get some extra stuff done, we have our yellow days where you're feeling a little uneasy, you're doing okay, but you could really use maybe some extra supports. And then we have red days where we wake up, and anyone with ADHD typically will will resonate with this. And by half an hour after waking up, we know what they were about to have, we've already lost our keys three times and then found them in the freezer. And on those days, we need to lower expectations and increase supports. And moving through those lights is a way to both hold ourselves accountable, right? We're not that's why it's not laziness, we're not saying it's a red day, I'm doing nothing. No, we need to increase our supports, and really decrease our expectations to focus only on the most important things, which always, by the way, includes self care.
KC Davis 42:09
It also reminds me of why you know, when I did sort of build myself this care tasks schedule over the week. And when I did my closing duties, I tried to build into each one of my routines, differing levels of acceptable outcomes. So like, I have a list of things that I do for my closing duties when I closed on my house, and it's like six things. And then I have a another list that I call survival day closing duties. That is just two things that absolutely need to be and I have full permission to choose whichever list fits my needs and my abilities in that moment. And the same thing with when i This is always my suggestion when someone says I want to try a cleaning schedule, what do you suggest. So I suggest, you know, if picking a room or a task a day, but when you say Tuesdays as bathrooms, it doesn't mean on Tuesdays, I clean every single bathroom, it just means on Tuesdays, I clean something in a bathroom. And that allows you to stay within the rhythm that feels good while still honoring sort of your needs of that day. Because it might be a day where you go in and you wipe the countertop off, and then you walk out. Or it might be a day where you go in and clean the whole bathroom top to bottom or every thing in between. And so that we don't feel like when we have a day where we can't accomplish the whole thing that we failed, because any of those options within one thing, or all the things is acceptable, and frankly, no things is acceptable to I have things on my little cleaning schedule that auto like almost week to week, barely ever get done. And sometimes they do. So as we sort of land the plane here. I want to kind of talk about, you know, if someone's listening to this podcast, and they're really relating, and they're thinking, oh my god, I think maybe some of my struggles might be related to executive functioning issues. Where would you suggest someone start? I want to ask this in two parts. Where do you suggest they start in terms of who is the right maybe person or provider to look for? Because I don't think all providers are really knowledgeable about executive functioning issues. And then for people who maybe don't have access to one on one providers, any resources that you would suggest to them?
Lesley PsyD 44:28
Sure, yeah, we have in psychology right now in particular the area of support for Neuro divergence, we have an issue, clients and community members not being able to reliably tell if we are going to be helpful to them and we are working on this. So the biggest suggestion that I make is if you have access if you have a mental health benefits through insurance going to a licensed clinician making sure that they have a credential of some kind and make sure when you make contact with them if you're looking for supports that you interview them, ask them questions, ask them Do you know what executive function is this is what I'm specifically looking for. This is one of the things that I find that people don't realize they're allowed to do. And any good clinician would welcome. So if you have access to those kinds of benefits, a psychologist or a therapist, really just starting with even psychology today.com, which is a little bit limited, or just Googling your zip code, and executive function, and therapists, it will give you a nice fat list of a lot of people more than you could contact. But working with a licensed clinician, if you have access to that is really helpful. If you don't have access, or if you want to do something to start dipping your toe in this pond and figuring out if this sounds like you, I absolutely love understood.org. It is a wonderful website, I do not make any money from understood.org. Just so everyone knows, I'm not sponsored by them. I'm just a patron, they have a wealth of articles, they have a simulator so that if you have this disturbance, and you'd like someone in your family to know what it feels like, you can have them do a simulator for executive function challenges. And there are also articles about what concretely to do to start helping yourself and also how to reach out for support. Those are my favorite two suggestions.
KC Davis 46:10
Awesome. Yeah, and I will say, as a licensed professional counselor, I have a Master's in Counseling. And I can honestly say that my education did not provide that much information. In fact, I don't remember hardly any information about executive functioning. Certainly, my education and counseling gave me the tools to understand what I was learning when I went out to learn about executive functioning. But I just wanted to sort of echo it's definitely something to ask of a therapist, because not all therapists are going to have experience in that area.
Lesley PsyD 46:43
Yeah, absolutely. And they're even if you don't have ADHD, Chad, CH A D is.org is another resource. Sometimes individuals forget that. If you don't have a diagnosis, that doesn't mean you might not benefit from the information. So it's really okay. You don't have to feel like I have to have the diagnosis to even look at this. There's probably a wealth of information that can be helpful to you.
KC Davis 47:05
Awesome. Well, thank you so so much for all of this do you want to go ahead and plug your socials and where you are and how people can watch you and contact you if they want to?
Lesley PsyD 47:16
Sure I am predominantly on Tik Tok. It is my favorite social media platform that's ever been invented because it's everything is one minute, which works for me. I'm also on Instagram. My Tiktok is Lesley Psy d l es el EYPSY. De my Instagram is actually Lesley underscore Saudi. And that'll be more of the professional information. I'm not on Instagram as much so Tiktok is the best way to peruse my contents.
KC Davis 47:42
Awesome. Well, thank you so much.
Lesley PsyD 47:45
Thank you for having me. This
KC Davis 47:45
is wonderful. This has been an incredible talk. And so if you are listening, I hope you guys check Lesley out and thank you for tuning in.

KC DavisOctober 3, 2022

Struggle Care Trailer

Meet KC Davis! Struggle Care is a podcast about self-care by a host that hates the term self-care. Therapist KC Davis, author of the book How to Keep House While Drowning talks about mental health, care tasks, and more!

Stay tuned for more episodes coming 10/3/22!

KC Davis 0:00
I think for me what I found when I was struggling and looking for support from like the self help genre, I found that most of the advice was this really canned, commercialized one size fits all advice.
And the worst part of it was that when people would give this sort of, quote unquote self care advice, it was always just some extra task that I was going to need time and energy to complete. And I like the reason I was struggling is because I didn't have enough time or energy.
And, like, when I feel when I feel like I'm drowning, and I'm overwhelmed, the last thing I need is something else on my to do list that I'm going to feel like a failure when I don't get it done. And if I if I have one more person telling me to journal, I am going to scream. And please don't tell me that I'm gonna feel better if I clean my house. So the reason that it's hard for most people to clean their house is because they already feel like shit. Like that's the barrier. And so that's kind of like a nonsense piece of advice.
So where do we go to get real mental health and self care advice? Oh, God, I can't even I hate the term self care. I wish there was a better term for it.
But like, what if what you really need is a place that promised to skip the pop psychology and the one size fits all advice, and just talk about real struggles and real nonjudgmental, practical help?
Well, that's what this podcast is.
Welcome to Struggle Care.
I'm KC Davis, the therapist and author of How to Keep House While Drowning. Each week, I'm gonna bring you a new episode where we talk about how to care for ourselves, even when we struggle. Sometimes I'll bring on guests that will share their expertise and long form episodes. And other times I'll take some listener questions and short q&a episodes. So I hope you subscribe. Join us. Until next time, take care of you sent to you ball of stardust. You deserve to function.

KC DavisSeptember 8, 2022Comment

Hi there! I’m no longer recording the Struggle Care podcast, but I’ve left up all of the episodes for you to browse. Enjoy!

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