Why are Transitions Hard with ADHD?
Why are transitions so hard with ADHD? Big ones, little ones, rare ones, daily ones, it seems like changing context from one to the next is like running through three feet of mud when everyone else is floating on air.
It might be your big transitions — holidays, vacations, big blocks of time. It might be little transitions — leaving for work, coming home. It might be micro-transitions — going to sleep, waking up. It might even be surprise transitions — transitions you didn't know were coming at all. Whatever the kind of transition you struggle with, you're not alone in that struggle if you're living with ADHD. This week, we're talking all about transitions, and have some tips for you to make your transitions a little bit easier.
Don't forget: It's not too late to check out ADHD Group Coaching and get yourself signed up today!
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Pete Wright:
Hello everybody, and welcome to Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast on True Story FM. I'm Pete Wright, and I'm here with Nikki Kinzer. Hello, Nikki.
Nikki Kinzer:
Hello, everyone. Hello, Pete Wright.
Pete Wright:
We're talking about transitions today. That's good news.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yes.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yes.
Pete Wright:
Because that's-
Nikki Kinzer:
They're hard.
Pete Wright:
... they're so hard. And you know what? I don't think we make a big enough deal out of them. I really don't.
Nikki Kinzer:
I don't think so either.
Pete Wright:
I don't think so either. We've talked about them a couple of times. This is a little break between guests. We've got a parade of guests coming up and schedules change, and so you and I get a chance to do this episode that we've been talking about doing for a long, long time, which is talking about why transitions are so hard with ADHD. And I think my hypothesis is, Nikki Kinzer, that if you boil down all of the challenges that I have with ADHD, in some way, shape or form, they are all influenced by the challenges that I have changing contexts in my life day-to-day.
Nikki Kinzer:
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Pete Wright:
Yep. I'm excited about it.
Nikki Kinzer:
That's why it's an important topic to talk about.
Pete Wright:
Huge. So huge. Before we dig in, head over to takecontroladhd.com, get to know us a little bit better. Listen to the show right there on the website or subscribe to the mailing list and we will send you an email each time a new episode is released. You can connect with us on Facebook or Instagram or Pinterest, but the coolest place to hang out with us is on our Discord server, takecontroladhd.com/discord. You will be whisked away to the invitation screen where you can log in. If you're an existing Discord user, you can just use your existing Discord login and password and be delivered unto our public community channel. If you would like to support the show, you can become a patron over at patreon.com/theADHDpodcast. For a few bucks a month you get access to all kinds of super secret stuff over in Discord. You get access to different channels depending on the level of support that you offer, all the way up to our supreme level where you get access to group coaching with Nikki and talk with Pete. Coffee with Pete.
Nikki Kinzer:
That's platinum level.
Pete Wright:
Platinum. Exactly. Platinum. The supreme level is also good, but Platinum is the one where you get to talk to us about tech. It's just a lot of channels. There's so many channels to choose from. Again, patreon.com/theADHDpodcast. We deeply appreciate your support. More than anything else it allows us to continue to invest our time into the show and grow the stuff that we're doing over there. So, it's incredibly helpful to join and support at whatever level you can help us. It means a lot. Nikki, we have news?
Nikki Kinzer:
Yes, we have a couple of coaching groups that are happening at the end of October, and if you happen to be listening to this and it's already past the deadline, that's okay. You can still come visit our website under group coaching and you will see what's coming up and you can put your name on the waiting list. But for right now, what we have opened is we have a parent coaching group. It's going to be for all parents of ADHD children, or parents who have ADHD, or all families who have all ADHD in their family. Whatever that combination looks like you are welcome to come join us in that group. And then we also have another group going on, and it's going to be around the overwhelm that we fell with ADHD.
How do you know where to start once you get that diagnosis? What strategies should you try? Anything that's feeling real heavy or overwhelming, we're going to talk about. And both of these coaching groups I am doing along with other TCA coaches. So Aviva's going to be joining me with the parenting group and Ian is going to be joining me for the overwhelm group. So go check it out. We would love to have you. It's a great opportunity to connect with people that are just like you going through the same things. You don't have to explain yourself because they get it, and maybe learn some new things when you walk away. So there you go.
Pete Wright:
And let's just really hang a flag on how exciting it is that you're doing these coaching groups with new TCA coaches.
Nikki Kinzer:
That's right. It is.
Pete Wright:
That is fantastic.
Nikki Kinzer:
And it also leads into our guests for the next few weeks. You are going to be introduced to those coaches because they are going to be guests on our show.
Pete Wright:
Outstanding. I can't wait.
Nikki Kinzer:
Very exciting.
Pete Wright:
Cannot wait. So, again, check out takecontroladhd.com and look for coaching in the services menu right at the top. You'll find it and it's where you can sign up. Thank you, everybody. And now let's take a hard transition into transitions. Some sort of grinding sound effects, a car crash, maybe Dahmer's voice.
Nikki Kinzer:
Mind-blowing.
Pete Wright:
Yes.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, right?
Pete Wright:
Yes, really. Okay.
Nikki Kinzer:
Well-
Pete Wright:
Nikki, transitions. Why are transitions so hard with ADHD?
Nikki Kinzer:
So many reasons, but one of the reasons that I wanted to specifically talk about this right now is it's a really nice follow-up conversation from our interview that we had recently with James Ochoa because he taught us in that interview the importance of really taking time to reset our thinking patterns and calm our nervous system with breathing, right? We didn't really talk about transitions last week when we had this interview with James Ochoa, but when I was thinking about this particular show, I thought, "Wow, what a great resource that could be easily used for transitions." But before we talk about all of that, I want to start with the basics of what we really are talking about.
Pete Wright:
Okay. Okay, let's do that.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, what is a transition? What am I talking about? And this is the thing. Transitions can be big, medium, or really tiny, but they all have a huge impact, and they're all really difficult to do. So when we look at life-changing big transitions, we're looking at maybe making the choice of going back to school or changing your career, getting a new job, moving. It could be moving to another country, moving to a different state. It could be moving down the street. It is still a big deal. Getting married is a transition. Starting a family is a large transition, or a life changing transition. So these are these big things that take a lot of consideration, time, a lot of emotions are involved. [inaudible 00:06:48]-
Pete Wright:
These are the things that people think about as the hard transitions, right?
Nikki Kinzer:
Right.
Pete Wright:
When you think about transitions are hard, these are the ones that I think people really lean in on. And these can be hard for anybody, right?
Nikki Kinzer:
Exactly.
Pete Wright:
These kinds of transitions are hard for a lot of people, ADHD or not.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right.
Pete Wright:
Okay.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right. And then we have these medium ones that are more around, "I'm going on vacation." And how do you transition from your daily, normal life to, "Oh, I'm supposed to now relax and forget that I have 5,000 emails in my inbox," right? How do you transition from daily life to a vacation? But then let's say you do get settled into your vacation and now you have to go from vacation back into that daily life. And that can be a really hard transition. If we go back to when we spoke with Casey Dixon around burnout, that taking a vacation isn't going to help your burnout when you have to come back to whatever you felt you had to leave, so that can be very difficult. It can also be difficult when you are coming back to work after a long weekend.
Pete Wright:
Or any weekend. Or Monday.
Nikki Kinzer:
Any weekends.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Right.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah. Monday. Sunday to Monday is a hard transition, or if your weekend is in the middle of the week, whatever that day looks like. But it can even be smaller ones, and this is where ADHD is so affected, is starting a new project. So even if you're really excited about something that's in your attention now, that you have to pay attention to, it's really still hard to get started on it, even if you want to, right? We know that that is a difficult thing to do. It's very difficult to task switch during the day. So if you are working on something and then now you have to go to lunch, it's probably why so many people skip lunch, because they don't even think about lunch because they're into their thing.
Pete Wright:
And leaving for lunch is hard. Coming back from lunch is hard.
Nikki Kinzer:
It is hard.
Pete Wright:
These are the microtransitions that I feel affect me so much. And I've talked about it before. I'm going to hang a flag on it again here. Waking to sleeping and sleeping to waking is another transition-
Nikki Kinzer:
Absolutely.
Pete Wright:
... that's incredibly difficult for me, and-
Nikki Kinzer:
Incredibly difficult.
Pete Wright:
... my brain. Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
Well, and it's also hard even to take a moment to stop what you're doing and go to the bathroom because-
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Right. I've been wearing a diaper for 15 years.
Nikki Kinzer:
... what can happen. What?
Pete Wright:
[inaudible 00:09:28]
Nikki Kinzer:
Because think about all the things that can happen between where you are right now to the bathroom and then back from the bathroom. The chances of you getting back into what you were doing is probably lower for ADHDers because there's so many interruptions that can happen. So there's a lot of task, or what you said, context switching?
Pete Wright:
Context shifting. Yeah. Context switching.
Nikki Kinzer:
Shifting. That's right. Yeah. Another big one that I saw a lot during COVID is, a lot of people lost the transition time from going to work to home and then going from home to work because they lost their commute. So there's that transition that we'll be talking about here shortly. But this is the thing. When we talk about why? Why is it hard? And we have to look at the executive functions, and this is part of ADHD. Executive functions is what basically helps you organize and it helps you manage your time and make decisions. And when these things are altered, then it makes these things harder, so it makes tasks hard to get started and to stop.
It's hard to organize and plan what to do next when your mind doesn't think literally. Time blindness will get in the way because you never really know how long something is going to really take you until you start doing it and get it done. And you could do the same thing over and over again and it can have different timeframes depending on what you're thinking about that day, or what your environment is like that day. So a lot of those executive functions are compromised. So that's one of the reasons why transitions can be really difficult. But there's also this emotional toll that we don't always talk about. It is like an emotional troll, isn't it?
Pete Wright:
It's an emotional troll.
Nikki Kinzer:
It is. I don't think that that was a mistake. I think it's a troll that's running around-
Pete Wright:
Yeah. That's trying to get in your business.
Nikki Kinzer:
... that's trying to influence you. Yeah. And this also makes a lot of sense. When you think about how hard it is to get started on something, you finally get started on it and now you don't want to stop.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Right. It's like a huge gift when you finally find the momentum in anything, that there is immediate regret at the fact that eventually it's going to have to stop without being finished, if it's a larger project. That's the thing. I immediately start thinking about the next transition and that is hard to shake. That is this omnipresent stress, anxiety, fear that I'm never going to be able to find this groove again.
Nikki Kinzer:
Mm-hmm. Well, and you bring up a good point that I didn't even think about until you said this. Finish. There's all or nothing thinking that comes into play subconsciously. You may not even be thinking that this is happening, but if you think that you can't leave until it's finished, then that's a lot of times is going to give you a really hard... It's going to be a very difficult roadblock because things don't just finish. Very few things just get finished, right? So that's definitely something to think about, too, why this can be so hard is with that all or nothing thinking.
Pete Wright:
For sure.
Nikki Kinzer:
And it takes so much energy to transition. When we talk about attention and we listen to the experts, they'll say, "It's not about attention deficit, it's about paying too much attention to some things." And so it takes so much energy to pull that attention away to something else. And so that, again, makes it very difficult. It can be very stressful and overwhelming to get started again. So I have to leave, but I don't know, when am I going to come back to it? And if I do come back to it, I probably am going to feel like I have to start all over again because my memory's bad and I can't remember what I did anyway. So just this loop, and this ties everything together. It's just one of those things when you're feeling like you're in a good flow and we've talked about this before, you just don't want to stop. You've got the momentum going.
Pete Wright:
That's true.
Nikki Kinzer:
I did mention COVID before and I think it's important to highlight this a little bit, that people probably had commutes or some time in the car or on a bus or however you traveled to your workplace. And when we lose that you don't really realize what you lose. I mean, there's some gain there. You don't have to do the commute anymore, but the loss is that you probably had some time there that you didn't realize you really had to really reset and switch roles on whatever it is that you were doing. So what do you think? Does this all make sense? Anything you want to add?
Pete Wright:
It really does. I feel like I want to go back to, and I'll use the sleep to waking one as an example. I feel like it's even the unconscious transitions, the things that we have to do automatically or autonomically that are really challenging for me because I often don't recognize that I'm coming up to a transition consciously. I'm not aware that things are about to get hard and so I can't prepare for them. And so I think it's just important to be aware, even if the only preparation you can do is know that eventually I'm going to have to give myself grace for feeling bad. Eventually I'm going to have to let myself off the hook for not making this an easy transition. Eventually I know that something will surprise me and it will put me into a crisis state that is unanticipated and forgivable at the same time. I have to remember those words are so important to me and some of the hardest words to access.
Nikki Kinzer:
To say. Yeah. Well, and I think that there's two things here, awareness and acceptance. I think that awareness is really helpful for you to understand and the people that are listening, that you're not the only one that feels this pain. It is definitely part of the ADHD, is part of how your brain is wired to what it pays attention to and what it doesn't pay attention to. So it's important to understand that this is normal for ADHDers. You're not by yourself. But I think you're right.
It's also this acceptance of being able to give yourself grace and be able to understand that this is what's happening and accept that. I think that if you're looking for, "How can I make transitions easier?" It's not so much that they're easier. It's that you're accepting of them and you are leaning into them. So you can't make all of a sudden transitions go away because we do them all the time. We're going to stop podcasting in a few minutes and then we're going to go into a meeting. Well, we're now podcast hosts and now we're going to be business people.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, business people.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right? It's a transition of even what our role is. So it happens all the time, but it's also something to accept that, "Okay, I know this is going to be hard," and give yourself that grace and not try to beat yourself up over it, or try to make it go away, because they just won't go away. So it's working with it.
Pete Wright:
That's it, right? They won't go away. They are unavoidable, unassailable realities in our life. We are going to have to get out of bed at some point, even if at a bare minimum it's to go to the bathroom, or to clean myself up because I didn't want to go to the bathroom and get out of bed, or to eat, or to... You know what I mean? It's gross. But the reality is, eventually I have to deal with state change. And so that's where I want to bring it back to the last week that I have experienced with the guidance of our seven time Hall of Fame appearance from James Ochoa. The seven time Hall of Fame guest on the ADHD podcast, because that trick is the first breathing exercise that I've done.
And just a review, the breathing exercise is the five breath pressure exercise and we can look at it from last week's show where he walks through taking five breaths and then holding it and then releasing it and then taking a deep breath and waiting until you feel the pressure in your head. And there's a sort of discomfort that comes with that that triggers an emotional state change, because for the way I was describing it, my experience with it as he walked us through it last week, it was that it reminds you of the really important things because you get that little dose of, "Oh, my God, I can't breathe." My life preservation instinct kicks in and reminds me of more important things than whatever I'm stressed about at the moment. I don't know. Is that a fair reminder of your experience with it?
Nikki Kinzer:
I think it's a fair reminder and I think it's a great place to put that information because that is one of the things that you can do when you need to do that transition, right? Is to give-
Pete Wright:
Well, and that was it, is because this last week I've been really using that and it's the first time a breathing technique has not been targeted at specifically meditation, relaxation, head clearing, like I have to sit down for five minutes and actually get my thoughts straight. This is like pulling an emergency stop on a train. It's just like, "I'm out of control right now and I need some sort of a tool to stop me from being out of control right now so that I can figure out what happens next." And that is an extraordinary gift.
It has been in my last week. As things get challenging, being able to take 30 seconds and pull that emergency stop belt so that I don't get lost in my head but can remain in the moment and clearheaded and make hard decisions quickly and all of that stuff. That's been pretty powerful. I really want to underscore. Last week was pretty powerful stuff. If you haven't tried it, it's worth giving it a shot.
Nikki Kinzer:
Absolutely. Well, and when you were talking about that transition of getting up in the morning, which is really difficult for a lot of people, too, I think it's something you could try to put into that little morning routine, but when you wake up you can get that first alarm of either putting a breathing exercise like this in it, or some kind of intention or meditation or something like that. What do you need to do to make that transition smoother?
Or if you need to make it shorter because you're taking too much time in bed and not getting up, what are the things that you can do to help you with that? And I'm always amazed because I work with a lot of clients that in the past have had these rituals of how to get themselves up in the morning, and it is different things like that. One client actually gets out of her bed and then goes on her couch because she knows the couch isn't going to be as comfortable as her bed.
Pete Wright:
Smart. S-M-R-T, smart.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right?
Pete Wright:
Yep. Absolutely.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah. So she'll get up sooner because she's on her... So there's little things like that that are helping with the transition, so that's what I want people to definitely think about. And we've got other tips that I'm sure you guys have heard of, but I always think it's worth reviewing them because it is, again, these transitions come up all the time and they can be so hard. With those bigger transitions I would say definitely take some time off in between, if you can. So if you have a vacation, take a day off before you go back to work, after you come back from the vacation. Give yourself that day.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, buy yourself a transition day. Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
A transition day to get settled. I don't know, Pete. I know you recently went on vacation, too. When I came home and it was weird. I just wandered around. I didn't really know what to do. I didn't really want to unpack. I didn't want to go to the grocery store. I didn't know what to do. So there was this period of time where I just wandered around until I figured it out. But you got to let yourself do that and not feel bad.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, you really do. I feel like sometimes we get... I don't know, judged is probably not a fair word, but I'm going to use it anyway. We get judged for not doing the right kind of relaxation or the right kind of reset when we take a vacation with ADHD, and I call that out because it's important to remember that sometimes making transitions to or from a vacation can be made easier by the kind of vacation that you allow yourself to take. You don't have to go rafting down the river. You don't have to take an adventure vacation. You also don't have to do a vacation where you just sleep all day and really rest and read books by pools. My last vacation was a writing break. I took a week and I went to Montana and I wrote a book. And that experience, just the act of doing something wholly different than I normally do, was a massive break for me.
It totally reset my brain and my energy, and coming back and being really focused to get back into making podcasts for people and marketing and communications work and design, all of that was easier because I gave myself permission to have the kind of vacation that my brain needed. And just because I was still working hard doesn't mean I was not taking advantage of that reset. I wonder how we could apply that same mentality to making transitions from these other little microtransitions? Is there something you could look forward to during your lunch that might not be lunchy? We call lunch the break for eating, but what if you eat real quick and do something else to change context enough that you have something to look forward to that might give you the energy you need to come back to work? I don't know. I don't know what that is for you, but I know that that kind of thinking helps me.
Nikki Kinzer:
Well, and it also, it goes into our next tip here, too, because we want to be very mindful of how we plan our days. I think that that's also a very difficult thing to do when you're not planning at all, right? When you're just reacting and you're doing whatever the email says or whatever the text says, and you're really feeling out of control, your day is going to be very chaotic and we want to slow down a little bit. I think that matching with what you're talking about with vacation, it's all about slowing down and resetting. And so I would have people look at, how are you planning your day? Do you have to make appointments? Maybe you take one off and slow it down. Make sure you have some buffer time in between appointments. Make sure you're taking that lunch or whatever it is that you need to allow yourself to reset.
And now that you know what's going on, again, that awareness and that acceptance that I need this time, you can start to plan for it. The other thing I would say about that time though is get up and move. That's almost like the breathing. The breathing is getting you to reset that thought process, that storm that you might feel like you're in. Well, getting up and moving can also re-energize that focus. You're giving your attention to something else. So get moving, go outside. We know that nature and being outside does so many positive things for us, so really thinking about how you want to use that transition time, too. My last one, I know people are going to roll their eyes and they're going to say, "I do this, but I don't listen to them and I don't pay attention to them." It's the alarms and reminders.
Pete Wright:
Oh, yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
They get such a bad rap.
Pete Wright:
We're not good for this particular topic because I think we're harder on people for that excuse.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, and they really get a bad rap. But, man, they are so useful when you use them, right? And I go back to what Ari Tuckman said in our last interview with him. "It's not the alarm's fault that you didn't do what you were supposed to do, or you didn't stop what you were supposed to stop." I think that they get a bad rap because I think they're overused and they're probably not used at the right time. And so maybe reevaluate a little bit on how you use your alarms and reminders so they don't have that instant, what is it, resistance or that... like, "Oh, stop."
Pete Wright:
Right. The alarm isn't working because I hate it is not the right use of the alarm, right?
Nikki Kinzer:
Right, right.
Pete Wright:
The alarm is not working because I ignore it, those kinds of things. The alarm's not working because you are not using it. You let it go. You're alarm blind. And so maybe rethink your strategy about alarms and [inaudible 00:28:38]-
Nikki Kinzer:
And it can work with transitions, right? I mean, that's the thing, too, is that especially if you're trying to get out of the door, this is the go-to example that I use is, you're trying to get out of the door to go wherever you are on time, and those alarms, if they're put in a strategic way in your phone or whatever alarm you're using, it can help you with the time blindness because it's right in front of you saying, "Okay, you leave in 15 minutes. Okay, now you leave in 10. Now you leave in five." It is helping that blindness, but you have to be able to do what you said you need to do at 15, 10, and five to get out of the door. So there's some practice that needs to happen there. But-
Pete Wright:
And that's okay. It's okay.
Nikki Kinzer:
It's okay. Yeah. Yeah. And I think the two things again that I would want most people to get out of this is that awareness and acceptance. And if you can use the tools and strategies, I hope that you find some success, but also just understanding that it is hard. It is. It is. You're not by yourself.
Pete Wright:
Sure.
Nikki Kinzer:
But there are some ways to make it, I don't know if I would say easier, but livable. Tolerable.
Pete Wright:
Okay. Yeah. Yeah. But you can't get rid of it. And that I think is the real trick. You're not going to get rid of your transitions. We've got them all our lives, but we can make them livable. I think that's the goal. That's a better goal. All right.
Nikki Kinzer:
There you go.
Pete Wright:
Thank you Nikki Kinzer. Thank you everybody for downloading and listening to the show. We appreciate your time and your attention. Don't forget, if you have something to contribute about this conversation, we're heading over to the show talk channel in our Discord server, and you can join us right there by becoming a supporting member at the deluxe level. And by the way, I should say that after I say these next words, the music will come up, and for many of you, the show is just going to end. It will just stop and it'll move on to your next podcast.
But if you were a supporting member in our patreon.com/theADHDpodcast, the show would go on because Nikki and I stick around and we talk some more with the people who have been chatting with us in the live stream in Discord. So as questions come up and comments come up, we're going to stick around for the members. In case you didn't know that, that's one of the other cool things about becoming a paid patron. So thank you to all of our patrons. If you are a patron and you're listening to this in your own personal podcast feed, we'll be right back after this music. For everybody else, we'll see you back here next week on Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast.
