Neuro-Spicy: Discussing ADHD with Dr. Kristin Carothers

Noted clinical psychologist Dr. Kristin Carothers joins Trevor and Christiana to discuss ADHD. The three demystify the condition, how it’s diagnosed, how it manifests, and its impact on everything from education to relationships to professional sports.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Trevor Noah?

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• 0:45Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, booked forever, forever.

• 0:48Speaker 01

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• 1:12Trevor Noah?

  But this is my ADHD as well. When I'm in a dirty car, like a car that has everything in it, all I can see and hear is the trash moving while you're driving. So I don't know if you've ever taken the time to do it. Don't, because it'll throw you. Like, depending on what type of car you have, while you're driving around, the like, the sand is jumping in the mat. It's like you literally see it like bouncing, and then you see on the dashboard, it's like a little colony of dirt that's celebrating at every stoplight.

• 1:41Speaker 02

  Doesn't bother me.

• 1:42Trevor Noah?

  Be like, no. And then, and then, and then there's a plastic cup that rattles at every turn and every stop. And I'm like, how are you living like this? How are you living like this?

• 1:51Speaker 02

  I have like an extra pair of socks in the door.

• 1:52Trevor Noah?

  Oh, no!

• 1:53Speaker 02

  And a, a knife, just in case somebody tries to run up on me.

• 1:58Speaker 02

  Have like one of those things that you could crack the window.

• 2:03Speaker 02

  Like all in this pocket and then in the middle pocket, I have lotion and contact lens solution and an inhaler and like a badge. Oh my God, you got everything. And then you open this drawer, there might be like a greeting card, just in case I'm going to a birthday party. You want the car, you in the car. Wow, wow, wow. My makeup, like if I don't get a chance to put on makeup in the morning, yeah, there's foundation on my steering wheel. I shouldn't be proud to say that, but it's just like, it's a car. Like it's like, it's just, who cares?

• 2:32Trevor Noah?

  This is What Now with Trevor Noah.

• 2:45Trevor Noah?

  Well, Dr. Karathas, thank you for joining us on the podcast. You're a clinical psychologist.

• 2:49Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:50Trevor Noah?

  Just to set the scene for the, for like the conversation I wanted to have today, help me break down what you do and how it applies to ADHD.

• 2:57Speaker 02

  Okay, I'm a clinical psychologist and when you work with children and adolescents, one of the predominant disorders on mental health presentations you're going to work with is attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

• 3:08Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 3:09Speaker 02

  And so for me, I diagnose ADHD in its three forms. I provide intervention and I do consultation or coaching of parents when it comes to kids. Now, uh, my practice has taken a bit of a turn and I work a lot with adults who have just learned they had ADHD or they have it and I'm teaching them how to manage like parenting and having a relationship and having a career while you're trying to also live a life with ADHD.

• 3:40Trevor Noah?

  Does, does everyone have ADHD?

• 3:42Speaker 02

  We all have characteristics, but that does not mean we meet clinical criteria for the diagnosis.

• 3:50Trevor Noah?

  But we meet TikTok criteria.

• 3:51Speaker 02

  We definitely meet TikTok criteria. Everybody.

• 3:53Trevor Noah?

  Everyone has ADHD.

• 3:55Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:55Speaker 03

  Explain the difference because some people actually dismiss the validity of ADHD as a diagnosis. They're like, well, everyone has it.

• 4:03Trevor Noah?

  And then some people inflate it the other way.

• 4:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:05Trevor Noah?

  And they go like, oh, I definitely have it. And I'll say, no, you're just disorganized.

• 4:09Speaker 02

  So first of all, what is it that you have? Because there are three different forms.

• 4:13Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 4:13Speaker 02

  So there's hyperactive impulsive presentation.

• 4:16Trevor Noah?

  Wait, hyperactive impulsive?

• 4:18Speaker 03

  And what does that look like?

• 4:18Speaker 02

  That looks like you are always on the go, Energizer Bunny. You keep going and going and going. You talk nonstop. You're doing fifteen different projects. You are moving from one topic to the next. You're running when you should be walking. If you're a little kid, you're climbing when it's dangerous to climb. You're just acting before you think.

• 4:38Trevor Noah?

  Can this be presented like, so I know with some people, it's like the persistent tapping? Is that the hyperactive?

• 4:43Speaker 02

  Okay, so that hyperactivity, okay.

• 4:45Trevor Noah?

  Like their knee will be constantly moving? Or they can't sit still in a chair for a while?

• 4:49Speaker 02

  So people can be anxious and do that. People can do that to self-soothe. There can be lots of different functions of certain behaviors. So that's another thing. Like, the tapping doesn't mean you have ADHD. But what you will find is that people with ADHD tend to be a little bit louder. They tend to move their bodies more. They tend to have difficulty being aware of like their bodies. And that their bodies are moving. And that sometimes it's restless energy. But that can, you can also see that for people who have like anxiety. Then you have the inattentive presentation, which is like space cadets. You are forgetting things. You're losing things. You're drifting off into space. You're supposed to be focused on one task. And before you know it, like bunny runs across your path and you're on to the bunny.

• 5:30Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but I mean, everyone should look at the bunny. I always worry about people who don't look at the bunny. If you're living your life and a bunny runs across your path and you don't look at the bunny, who are you?

• 5:39Speaker 02

  Who are you?

• 5:40Trevor Noah?

  What life are you living?

• 5:41Speaker 02

  I don't know, but it's not a good one. And so you got hyperactive impulsive type. You got inattentive presentation. And then the third is the combination of all three.

• 5:51Trevor Noah?

  Oh, the big boss.

• 5:52Speaker 02

  The big boss, which is where in some settings you're hyperactive impulsive. In those same settings, you might be inattentive. And this is when you see people really start to struggle. And you have to have

• 6:07Speaker 02

  Disruption in social and occupational functioning. What that means is this has to be negatively impacting your relationships, or it has to be causing trouble on your job occupationally, right? If you're a kid, you don't have a job, you have school. So what you see is difficulty like getting through a test, or forgetting to turn the homework in even though you did the homework.

• 6:30Trevor Noah?

  Right.

• 6:31Speaker 02

  Or losing the worksheets. Uh, with my kids that I work with, I'll have them bring the bookbag in, and it looks like a war zone.

• 6:41Speaker 02

  But for adults, uh, and I'll talk about myself, the house is organized, but if you open a drawer, or you open the closet, it looks like.

• 6:51Trevor Noah?

  It's chaos.

• 6:52Speaker 02

  Chaos.

• 6:54Trevor Noah?

  That's, so I was, I was diagnosed with ADHD. I don't know when this wa- maybe, it was definitely during the pandemic-ish time.

• 7:04Speaker 02

  Welcome.

• 7:06Trevor Noah?

  But what happened is one of my best friends, he was, he was going through the most, is the best way to put it. He, he thought he had depression, and then he thought he had something else, and he thought, and then someone said he was bipolar. He went through this whole journey, and then came out on the other side of it, a almost completely different person. And then he told me, he said, hey, man, I, I was diagnosed with ADHD, and this is what it means. And I was like, okay, I mean, I took it seriously, but also, we're friends, so I didn't take it seriously. And then he said, this changed my life, and, and I, I felt so emotional, and the world has never looked like, and I, I feel like I've, I've wasted so many chances in life now. And I was like, damn, this is getting deep. Yo, you just forget things, calm down.

• 7:45Speaker 02

  Calm down.

• 7:46Trevor Noah?

  And he said, no, now I take medication. And then he, he explained some of the symptoms to me.

• 7:50Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 7:51Trevor Noah?

  And I was like, huh, that sounds like me. But we're so different personality-wise, that I could not believe that we had the same thing. Because in my head, he was describing a personality.

• 8:01Speaker 02

  And it's not a personality disorder. They're personality disorders, mood disorders, uh, disorders of, uh, regulation. They are not the same thing. And I also kind of want to move away from the u- the term disorder.

• 8:14Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 8:15Speaker 02

  Right? Your brain is. Wired to function differently in a di- in different settings. In some settings, the way that your brain functions is optimal. In other settings is suboptimal. And so rather than saying like, oh, we're disordered because we can't focus. Well, when it comes time to solve a problem and we're down to the wire, we don't have a lot of time. Your brain is willing to think creatively.

• 8:37Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 8:37Speaker 02

  To problem solve.

• 8:38Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 8:39Speaker 02

  But it can be depressing for you if you're in a setting where everybody seems to be able to go with the flow. And go with the grain. And you're like, I am dying. I am miserable. Yeah. Going along with this. This is driving me crazy. And nobody gets why you're so bothered. And that's what I find uh happens when you finally get validated or you get the diagnosis, you know, they're like, okay, I knew I wasn't crazy. This is actually boring for me. This is not the way my brain is reinforced. This is not what I'm meant to do in life. And I, the reason I said congratulations to you is because I think once people know what's going on with their brains,

• 9:22Speaker 02

  then they can like not just look at it from like a negative point of view, but almost like embrace it like, okay, so this explains it. And now that I know this, I've got to figure out how I work.

• 9:33Speaker 03

  Hmm, I'm, I'm curious because you're, you specialize in children. And the thing about early childhood is that it's very difficult to articulate.

• 9:41Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 9:41Speaker 03

  Your own experience.

• 9:42Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 9:43Speaker 03

  And what's going on in your brain.

• 9:44Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 9:45Speaker 03

  A lot of the things you describe, you're like, oh, that sounds just like a toddler.

• 9:47Speaker 02

  Right.

• 9:48Speaker 03

  Well, that sounds like a.

• 9:49Speaker 02

  Right.

• 9:49Speaker 03

  Five, six year old.

• 9:50Speaker 02

  Right.

• 9:50Speaker 03

  So how, for parents with young children that are displaying some of this behaviors, how can they know the difference between it being like, okay, this brain is wired differently? And this is just emerging childhood.

• 10:00Speaker 02

  Okay, so hmm, couple of different places. ADHD used to be diagnosed, you had to have the symptoms before age six. Now we say you have to have them before age twelve. There are.

• 10:10Speaker 03

  Oh, why do they make it?

• 10:11Speaker 02

  Because the researchers said, I don't really know. But the researchers said with the new addition of like the manual that we use to diagnose, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders.

• 10:22Trevor Noah?

  That's DSM.

• 10:23Speaker 02

  DSM five, that it was based on the research that people were presenting with symptoms as late as age 12. And so they wanted to make sure that they could be, I guess, more inclusive.

• 10:32Trevor Noah?

  Okay, so before what was happening is they said, if you don't show it by six, you don't have it. You're good.

• 10:36Speaker 02

  You're good. But guess what happens at age six? Some kids are just entering formal school.

• 10:41Trevor Noah?

  Oh, and now you get exposed.

• 10:42Speaker 03

  And then you see it.

• 10:43Speaker 02

  Now you see it.

• 10:44Trevor Noah?

  Now you get exposed.

• 10:45Speaker 02

  But if you don't send your kids to preschool.

• 10:47Trevor Noah?

  Oh, yeah.

• 10:47Speaker 02

  And then you wait until they turn six for kindergarten. And then at kindergarten, it's like this kid cannot stay in a seat. This kid is, I've walked into classrooms where I'm coaching and I'm looking for my client, and they're under the table. And the teacher's like, okay. That's classic, right? And like, where is this kid? Oh, under the table. Okay, time to go with me, right?

• 11:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 11:08Speaker 02

  And so you, your original question was, how do parents know if it's like typical behavior or behavior that is different? First, as a parent, you have to know what your temperament is. Is there a mismatch between your temperament and your child's temperament? That doesn't necessarily mean that there's a problem with your child. That's number one. I think what you want to look at is how that kid interacts with other kids and what it takes to get that kid through a day. Because typically, if you have a kid who's really hyperactive, it's gonna take a ton of energy and organization and routine and planning and accommodating to get this kid through the day. Whereas you may have other kids where you can say, put your shoes on, come back five minutes later, the shoes are on.

• 11:51Speaker 02

  With this kid, if you say, put your shoes on and you come back, they're gonna be off to the next thing. But we want to look at age.

• 11:57Speaker 03

  Or they've stolen someone's shoes.

• 11:58Speaker 02

  They've stolen somebody's shoes. They've stolen shoes. All these things, okay?

• 12:03Trevor Noah?

  My, my, um, my record with my mom, the, the story that she keeps bringing up is one day I came home from school. I had no backpack and I had no shoes.

• 12:16Speaker 02

  Come on.

• 12:18Trevor Noah?

  And then my mom said to me, and my cousin always tells a story as well, because he says that day I got one of the all time beating.

• 12:23Speaker 02

  All time.

• 12:24Trevor Noah?

  And he says he remembers like watching me going, but this could have been avoided. He was also a child. He says he watched me and he he thought to himself, but he could have avoided this. And what had happened was, I came home. And apparently my mom was like, where's all your stuff? And I said to her, I said, the bag got heavy.

• 12:43Speaker 02

  Put it down.

• 12:43Trevor Noah?

  So I put it down. I literally left it on the side of the road. I put it down. To me, logical. And then she said, and what happened to the shoes? And I said, the shoes were new. And I didn't want to finish them, so I left them somewhere close to school so that I don't have to wear them out on the way home. Because you know, like, your shoes would get worn out on the on the sides, right? Like, we couldn't afford new shoes the same way other kids could. So I noticed kids always had like a flat heel on their shoe.

• 13:08Speaker 02

  Look at how observant you are then.

• 13:10Trevor Noah?

  Exactly. And then my shoes had the slant.

• 13:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:13Trevor Noah?

  That looked terrible. So I was like, okay, if I can preserve my shoes, then I won't get laughed at as much. So I'll leave the shoes near school and then walk home barefoot. And we went back and everything was where it was, which means my plan worked technically.

• 13:27Speaker 02

  Technically?

• 13:27Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but she she couldn't understand. And my brain, I remember thinking, this made sense and.

• 13:32Speaker 02

  To me.

• 13:33Trevor Noah?

  To me, it makes complete sense.

• 13:35Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 13:35Trevor Noah?

  Now, I don't have the kids, but I also have ADHD.

• 13:39Speaker 02

  Right.

• 13:39Trevor Noah?

  So I find myself very comfortable with a child.

• 13:42Speaker 02

  Until it's yours.

• 13:42Trevor Noah?

  Who has ADHD.

• 13:43Speaker 03

  I have a question on top of that. So I have a bunch of friends who are now, they're high performing girls in school, super bright. And they're nearly forty and they're like recently diagnosed and it came up in postpartum.

• 13:55Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 13:55Speaker 03

  Everything fell apart. And a lot of things that their therapist and the people they're working with, we we miss it in girls. We miss it in girls.

• 14:03Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 14:03Speaker 03

  We miss it in girls.

• 14:04Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 14:04Speaker 03

  I don't want to get into the gender binary and all of that stuff. But you know. The girls I see even in my son's preschool and my, they behave very differently. Even when they're energetic, they're energetic in a different way.

• 14:15Trevor Noah?

  Yes, yeah.

• 14:16Speaker 03

  How do parents of girls who may not have the same presentation make sure that these girls don't go under the radar for a long time and maybe never get diagnosed? What are you seeing in girls as children?

• 14:29Speaker 02

  So that story that I told you about the kid under the desk was a girl. And the, for girls, unless their behaviors are so hyperactive that it is like really problematic, girls tend to fly under the radar, I think because of confirmation bias. We expect that boys are gonna be more likely to struggle with attention and focus. Or we'll say like, oh, it's part of being a boy, but then if it goes too far, it's like, okay, well, then we probably need to look at this boy. I think a lot of girls present as inattentive initially. And people miss inattention.

• 14:59Trevor Noah?

  Hmm.

• 15:00Speaker 02

  Or the girls that get caught are the girls who are super talkative, super busy, super on the go. And, and so for girls, you could meet those six out of nine criteria for hyperactivity. But if it's not at a level comparatively to like a boy who's hyperactive or another girl who's super hyperactive, you could get missed. It's like based on like our cultural expectations for girls behavior, for boys behaviors, which make it tough.

• 15:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, but there are girls, girls who are struggling.

• 15:29Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 15:30Speaker 03

  What would you look for, I guess?

• 15:32Speaker 02

  I think you would look for how the girl is doing in friendships.

• 15:36Trevor Noah?

  In friendships?

• 15:38Speaker 02

  Are they making friends? Are they sustaining friendships?

• 15:41Trevor Noah?

  Whoa, wait, wait, wait, wait, uh, uh, let's, let's break this down.

• 15:44Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 15:45Trevor Noah?

  Why is that one of the signifiers of potentially having ADHD?

• 15:49Speaker 02

  Because children with ADHD are most likely to struggle in social relationships. They're gonna be the last to be picked to be on teams, and we've got research for this.

• 15:59Trevor Noah?

  Wow.

• 16:00Speaker 02

  What happens is. They stay little and people developmentally move on. So it's a lot of fun to have a hyperactive friend when you're three or four. When you're nine, 10, not so much.

• 16:12Trevor Noah?

  Huh.

• 16:13Speaker 02

  Okay, if we're three or four and you're breaking the rules and you're running, it's like, ha ha, fun. This is so much fun.

• 16:19Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 16:20Speaker 02

  I'm gonna follow you, I'm gonna play. But by the time we get to playing like the video games or we get to like, there's a sport and you gotta be really agile physically. That's another thing that kind of tends to cooccur for people with ADHD. Is physically, when it comes to sports and activities, they don't necessarily excel in some of those because coordination.

• 16:38Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 16:39Speaker 02

  Right? So you may be more likely to be clumsy and so you need a lot of input.

• 16:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:43Speaker 02

  Like if you're playing baseball, you gotta stop, you gotta watch. That can be really boring for a kid. Soccer, for a kid with ADHD, you out there on the, or, you out there.

• 16:52Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, there's, there's moments where they're just watching, nothing's happening.

• 16:54Speaker 02

  They're picking the flowers out of the dandelions.

• 16:59Speaker 02

  A basketball team, we gotta get you to be able to look and, and follow cues. And so your social functioning is major when you have ADHD. And so if you have a girl or a boy and you're worried about them and wondering, look at their social functioning. How are they doing with friends and on sports and activities? Then academically, talk to the teacher about what's happening in the classroom.

• 17:24Speaker 02

  Is the kid able to sit in a chair or do they stand the whole day? When you put the kid under timed pressure, do they do poorer or better finishing an assignment? Is this kid likely to stay on task, like to do the assignment until it's done? Or do you have to give constant reminders? Think about it at home. How long does it take to wake the kid up? How long does it take for the kid to get dressed? Does the kid lose things? Can they follow a routine without a constant reminder? And it takes a lot of like, external stuff to be able to get them to that point where they can. So it's possible.

• 18:08Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 18:09Speaker 02

  But you're gonna have reminders everywhere. So like, for me.

• 18:13Speaker 02

  Last two days I've been in New York. I have decided not to really set my alarm, which is not a good idea.

• 18:22Speaker 02

  I like winged it and I made it, but I made it down to the wire. That's another thing. Wait till the last minute.

• 18:28Trevor Noah?

  Oh yeah, that's classic ADHD. Yeah, that's completely.

• 18:31Speaker 02

  I can do this in eight minutes.

• 18:33Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, it's time blindness.

• 18:34Speaker 02

  Time blindness.

• 18:35Trevor Noah?

  It's completely time. You know, you know what I'd love to do is break down each part to help us understand the whys behind it.

• 18:40Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 18:40Trevor Noah?

  Cause I think a lot of people will, you know, a lot of people will recognize this stuff, right? They'll go like, oh yeah, that's me. I can't wake up or I'm late or I'm. Help us understand the why. So. Why is it hard to wake up if you have ADHD?

• 18:54Speaker 02

  You likely don't have great sleep hygiene. You know, you should go to bed at eight o'clock, but you really want to watch that show and you get fixated on that show.

• 19:01Trevor Noah?

  Down that rabbit hole. Why do you not go to bed then?

• 19:05Speaker 02

  Because your brain is like, but I could just watch this one episode and it won't be that bad. And then you get hooked on the episode and you're like, but now I want to watch another. Or you're like, I want to read this book and my brain isn't tired yet. So I'm gonna read a few chapters of this book. Like I need my brain to be exhausted to fall asleep and stay asleep.

• 19:22Trevor Noah?

  Okay, but then why is your brain wanting to do another episode?

• 19:25Speaker 02

  Brain is reinforced by dopamine.

• 19:29Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 19:29Speaker 02

  What is happening with ADHD is your brain functions differently.

• 19:33Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 19:33Speaker 02

  And so the dopamine or the reward centers of the brain need a lot of input for reinforcement.

• 19:40Trevor Noah?

  Okay. And what's happening with a, with a regular brain?

• 19:42Speaker 02

  With a regular brain.

• 19:44Trevor Noah?

  I like to call it an office brain.

• 19:45Speaker 02

  An office.

• 19:46Trevor Noah?

  I don't call it the disorder. I call it, I call it a non-office brain.

• 19:50Speaker 02

  An office brain is like.

• 19:52Trevor Noah?

  Tell us what office brain people do.

• 19:53Speaker 02

  Office brain people are reinforced by being in the office and getting their work done.

• 19:58Trevor Noah?

  Okay. When an office brain person wakes up.

• 20:01Speaker 02

  Task oriented.

• 20:02Trevor Noah?

  They wake up easily because they have to wake up.

• 20:05Speaker 02

  They're probably more organized and have better sleep hygiene.

• 20:07Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 20:08Speaker 02

  They're routine and structured. So they go to bed. They have a routine.

• 20:12Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 20:12Speaker 02

  They sleep while they're in bed.

• 20:14Trevor Noah?

  And their brain's giving them dopamine for doing that.

• 20:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't know that it's giving them dopamine, but their brains and bodies are reinforced by having that eight hours of sleep. They know they need it to function. It really helps them to get through the day. It makes them feel comfortable and secure. And so they prioritize it. For a person with ADHD, sleep isn't necessarily a priority. Getting stuff done and having fun is a priority. Like, doing as much as you can in a day is a priority. Like, being able to multitask even though you might not be good at it, that's the priority. That's what's reinforcing. Like, usually I have to get up at six ten to wake my son up, but hey, got somebody waking him up because I'm not there.

• 20:52Trevor Noah?

  So you switch your schedule.

• 20:53Speaker 02

  So I switched my alarm back thirty minutes. And before I left Atlanta, one day I decided like, ah, I'll just take him to school. Forget getting on the school bus, right? That's me deciding I'm not going to engage in routine because I just decided I didn't want to. But I am training my child to respond to an alarm. And so I was still in the bed and got a knock on my door. And my child is like, it's six thirty. And I was like, oh, I was going to take you to school today. He's like, I'm dressed. And I was like, okay, get on the bus.

• 21:24Speaker 02

  So, yeah, so.

• 21:25Trevor Noah?

  So, okay, so it sounds like to me you, you have ADHD.

• 21:28Speaker 02

  Absolutely. But I was like, good, look at me, I'm making excuses. So in school, I don't think my teachers would have complained about me. I just talked. I just talked and I had to doodle.

• 21:38Trevor Noah?

  But did you know when you got into clinical psychology? Did you, did you know by that time or did you know afterwards?

• 21:42Speaker 02

  I'm black. And when I got into my clinical psychology program, I had never been to therapy. All of my white colleagues, most of them had been to therapy before, they had seen psychologists. So I decided to do this sight unseen. I would never went to therapy or nobody in my family went to therapy. Like, we don't do this. You pray.

• 22:00Trevor Noah?

  I mean, that's what we did.

• 22:01Speaker 02

  And you say, it's nothing wrong with that girl. Ain't nothing wrong with her.

• 22:04Trevor Noah?

  No, we just gonna pray.

• 22:05Speaker 02

  We gonna pray. They like, get out of here. You don't have no problems, we got problems. Like, you know, like, that's how it goes. So like, when I went to grad school, I used to take copious notes so that I could focus. And then I would doodle. And then in undergrad, I remember getting called out by a professor because they knew I was doodling, which is pretty embarrassing at the collegiate level to get called out for doodling. Like, I'm in college, like, this is my fifth grade. But I got called out. But I've always just figured out how to make it work.

• 22:37Speaker 03

  Because that's like, there's like different cultural expectations, right?

• 22:40Speaker 02

  Yes, and my grades were high. I got everything done. But I just know that there's a, there's a book that talks about ADHD and functioning, and they talk about like brain glitches. And one of the glitches is go ahead and forget it. Like, go ahead, you're gonna have enough time later. Go ahead and do what you want, you're gonna be able to cram that in.

• 23:01Trevor Noah?

  Oh, yes. I call that now and not now.

• 23:04Speaker 02

  Talk about that. What is that?

• 23:06Trevor Noah?

  So, for an ADHD brain, there are only two modes. There is now, and there is not now. Okay?

• 23:13Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 23:14Trevor Noah?

  So when I meet other people, I'm always really impressed and fascinated by how they are able to see time laid out in, in a more gradual fashion. So, somebody says to me, let's say it's now like 5pm, and they go, dinner's at 8. In my head, what I've heard is dinner is not now. Okay? Then, at like 6:30, they'll start like dressing. They'll go, alright, I'm gonna go get dressed. And I'll say to my friend, I'll be like, you're getting dressed? Why? They go, so we can go to dinner. Then I go, wait, what's the time? They go, it's 6:30. And like Seesway, Seesway, I have Seesway on the podcast all the time. He's like the antithesis of ADHD. He is the, like, the furthest thing possible. So he'll start getting dressed at like 6pm or 6:30. We're, dinner's at 8.

• 23:56Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 23:57Trevor Noah?

  And then I go, but dinner's at 8. Seesway, and he's like, yeah, so I'm gonna get dressed now. And I go like, oh, but that's not now. Like, dinner's not now.

• 24:03Speaker 02

  You could do so many other things now.

• 24:04Trevor Noah?

  My brain is going, I mean, I could watch a movie. I could watch a few episodes of a TV show, I could read something. This is, this makes no sense. Because how long does dressing take? Dressing takes approximately 6 minutes, right? Like 6 minutes to, to get your whole outfit together? That's what I'm, I'm going with.

• 24:19Speaker 02

  Plus or minus 30.

• 24:21Trevor Noah?

  It's like 6 minutes, you put your things on. And then I'm like, and then what? To get out of the door, that doesn't even take time. That's like 6, 70 seconds at best. And then when you're in the car, what does Google say? Oh, 11 minutes. Okay, so it's gonna take 11 minutes to get to the place. So if we combine all of this time, 27 minutes is what I need. And I'll, and I'll be, this is what my brain says. Sit on the couch, sit on the couch, sit on the couch, sit on the couch, sit on the couch, sit on the couch. Then at some point, I even get anxious or I get, I get annoyed that the time is not happening. So I'll look down and go, what's the time now? 7:15? Aw, now I have to wait 15 minutes before I can start doing stuff. And I'll sit with that. I'll sit with that and look at it and look at it and look at it. And then finally, at seven thirty, I'll wait for that three minutes because I know I need twenty seven minutes.

• 25:07Trevor Noah?

  I wait for the three minutes. I'll be like, all right, time to go. And then, like, my phone will ring. And then that now has thrown off everything because someone phoned me for like four minutes. You've just killed my twenty seven minute plan. And then now I'm not running.

• 25:20Speaker 03

  And then you're gonna be like.

• 25:21Trevor Noah?

  Because it's not now. That's the thing. And and like, I think that's why I say like with kids. Part of it is because I don't take things that seriously. But when I talk to people's kids who have this. I articulate it to their parents with them because I go, no, I know you're making it serious. And a lot of parents of ADHD children feel like their kids really undermine them.

• 25:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 25:43Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 25:43Trevor Noah?

  That's like the biggest thing.

• 25:44Speaker 03

  Defiance. It feels like defiance.

• 25:46Trevor Noah?

  But it also feels like prank defiance. Because think about it. You send a child into another room. Just just think of it from a parent's perspective. Please go into your room.

• 25:56Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 25:57Trevor Noah?

  And put on your jacket and put on your shoes. We're leaving. We're leaving in ten minutes. The kid goes into the room. Fifteen minutes later, you're like, where's the kid? You go to the room.

• 26:08Speaker 02

  Shooting hoops, playing something.

• 26:10Trevor Noah?

  They do not have the jacket on. They don't have the shoes on. They have books on the bed that have they've opened up. They've started reading something. They've started building Lego. They've started. And you're going, what are you doing? And the child looks at you and goes, what? And you're like, your jacket. And then, what? And you're like, what are you? I just need. And I see how many parents, because it feels like you're being undermined. It feels like somebody, please go and grab something for me. They never come back. You know, and so I like, I love that you're saying that thing of like the brain, the brain glitching. Because I think people take that for granted. And I also understand, a lot of people are just like, this is, this is bullshit. Come on. There's no way your brain works like that.

• 26:50Speaker 02

  It's absolutely not bullshit. If you've got a kid with ADHD, or you have ADHD, you've got to do one thing at a time. You give one command in the room where you want it to occur. You wait for the person to start, so then you can reinforce the fact that they're starting. Thank you for listening. Because you're trying to get them to listen to you.

• 27:05Trevor Noah?

  Oh, I love this. Wait, so let's, let's play the scenario out. You want the best result for your kid and from your kid.

• 27:10Speaker 02

  Yes. Or from your partner, who might have ADHD.

• 27:13Trevor Noah?

  Okay, oh, I like, we'll get to that, actually.

• 27:15Speaker 02

  Yes, yes.

• 27:15Trevor Noah?

  We're gonna get to that. So we start with the kids. So you're in the room.

• 27:19Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 27:19Trevor Noah?

  So, or you want something to happen. You want your kid to make their bed.

• 27:23Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 27:24Trevor Noah?

  Okay. You don't tell them to make their bed from the living room. You're saying you go with them.

• 27:28Speaker 02

  You're supposed to go with them. And nobody has time for that. That's our issue, right? We don't have time to go, I need you to go to your bedroom and make your bed. Actually, you go to the setting where you want the behavior to occur. Okay. In order to increase the chances that the behavior will occur. So A, B, C, antecedent, behavior, consequence. Antecedent. We're gonna go to the kid's room. We're gonna say, if you're gonna get some information, you give it now. Uh, I need you to make your bed. The room's a mess. You don't have to throw in the room's a mess, but I need you to make your bed.

• 27:53Speaker 03

  I'm gonna throw in the room's a mess.

• 27:55Speaker 02

  The room's a mess. I need you to make your bed. Please make your bed. And you can say please because it models a social skill. Being polite when you make a command. And it's not a question. It's not like, are we ready to clean up the room? That's like a question? No, it's a command. So this is not gentle parenting where it's like, oh, I'm being nice to the kid for the sake of being nice.

• 28:12Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 28:13Speaker 02

  Got it? There's a difference. So, please make the bed. You wait, you say nothing. The kid starts to make the bed. Great job, listener. I'll be back in two minutes. You think you could get this done in two minutes? Like, make it a little game. Kid's like, yeah, I got this in two minutes. You go, come back. Make it a game, gamifying task. That are non-desirable or non-reinforcing is a big thing for people with ADHD. You set that timer, you see if you can beat it. So back to the kid. We want something done. We have to do the command in a setting where we want it done. If you do it from afar with multiple parts, they're gonna lose it.

• 28:50Speaker 02

  They're just gonna lose the task. Because their brain is not wired to keep up with multiple tasks at a time.

• 28:56Speaker 03

  I'm really curious because you said I'm black.

• 28:59Speaker 02

  Yes, sorry.

• 28:59Speaker 03

  Said I'm black.

• 29:00Speaker 02

  I'm I'm not sorry I'm black.

• 29:02Speaker 03

  And your focus is children.

• 29:05Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 29:05Speaker 03

  And we know that black children, minority children in this country tend to be really under diagnosed.

• 29:11Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 29:11Speaker 03

  And as a result, they're often expelled. It's like, that's a bad kid. And we know about the school to prison pipeline and there's something, I can't remember the statistic about how many people in the prison system actually have ADHD.

• 29:23Trevor Noah?

  I think it's sixty to seventy percent.

• 29:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's like a huge, huge swath of like, black men in this country who were once black boys with ADHD who were never diagnosed. And because of, you know, historical and social factors, so you're a bad, you're a bad kid.

• 29:37Speaker 02

  Systemic racism.

• 29:38Speaker 03

  Systemic racism.

• 29:39Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 29:40Speaker 03

  So we're in this kind of very negative loop that becomes multi-generational because I think culturally, sometimes we don't have the words. Someone's anxious, they may say, my nerves is bad. They're not going to say that like, I have anxiety.

• 29:50Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 29:50Speaker 03

  So there's no, none of the cultural language. So I I'm wondering like, what can we do for those children around us where they actually have internalized the idea that they are bad? The school is saying that they're a bad kid and they're on that expulsion track. How do we get them out of that? Because it seems that once you're on that track.

• 30:09Speaker 02

  It's hard to get off.

• 30:10Speaker 03

  It's hard to get off.

• 30:11Speaker 02

  I think the first thing, and this is like what I've learned as a behavioral psychologist, is we don't discuss like children's traits, characteristics. We talk about the behavior, right? So we're externalizing a behavior from a kid. So it's not that you're bad because you won't sit down and listen. It's because it's hard for you to sit still. You have difficulty sitting still for long periods of time. That doesn't mean there's something wrong with you. It's just better for you to be able to move around. So getting parents to see behaviors as behaviors and not as children's personality or what they're going to be when they grow up.

• 30:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 30:43Speaker 02

  The other thing that we've got to be really aware of is like, uh, messages that get passed down through generations and through families that can be really kind of negative, um, and trying to like compare kids to people around them.

• 30:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 30:57Speaker 02

  Who we think that they're like, and we we have all this anxiety and this angst and this worry about whether or not our boys are going to be okay or what the future is going to hold. And so we want them to like conform to all of these, like. Behaviors that are gonna ensure that they're successful. And now we're learning that there's no perfect recipe.

• 31:16Speaker 03

  I mean, look at him.

• 31:17Speaker 02

  Come on. There is no recipe for this. But for black people, it's like, well, if there's no recipe, if you can't just be good and go to college and get a good job, what do we do now? And we're learning that that's not necessarily the recipe.

• 31:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:32Speaker 02

  You know, but that's the recipe that's kind of been pushed, which is why I think a lot, and if systems around you, I hate to go here, but whatever. If systems around you are built so that you don't succeed, then you gotta wonder if people are gonna be more likely to blow you off and dismiss you for any difference. Rather than looking at it as like a positive or saying, this is my kid who likes to talk in the classroom. So I'm gonna have him stand up and explain to the class what I just said.

• 32:06Trevor Noah?

  Oh, interesting, interesting.

• 32:09Speaker 02

  If this is my kid who likes to beat on the table, then I'm gonna say, if you all get through this assignment, I'm gonna let you come up with a beat on the table and the rest of you all dance. If this is my kid who likes to challenge and question, then let's have a debate about this subject. But you gotta care. And you gotta believe that this type of behavior is functional.

• 32:28Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 32:29Speaker 02

  Right? You've gotta believe that there's functionality to being busy. There's functionality to thinking outside of the box. There's functionality to like, thinking. And many systems aren't set up for that.

• 32:42Trevor Noah?

  We're gonna continue this conversation right after this short break.

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• 34:13Trevor Noah?

  I'll often say to my friends, I say it half joking, but I do believe it. I go, ADHD isn't necessarily a problem. ADHD is just like the enemy of capitalism. I truly believe this.

• 34:22Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 34:23Trevor Noah?

  And what I mean by that is if you think of what, how ADHD presents, most of the things that ADHD presents are, they're like sort of bad for a factory worker.

• 34:35Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 34:36Trevor Noah?

  I joke and I call people office thinkers, but I know some of my friends love organizing and being quiet and reading and looking at lists and putting numbers together. Good for you, good for you. But you have to admit that the world has also been designed that way.

• 34:50Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 34:50Trevor Noah?

  Right? So the world is great for people who wake up early.

• 34:54Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 34:54Trevor Noah?

  The world is great for people who wish to sit in a cubicle. But what does the world do for you if you do want to talk or if you do want to run or if you want to jump or if you want to? Now luckily there's some outlets, like for instance, in the same way that prison, athletes over index for ADHD.

• 35:09Speaker 03

  Oh, I didn't know that.

• 35:09Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, a lot of.

• 35:10Speaker 03

  How do they train?

• 35:11Trevor Noah?

  No, but that's.

• 35:12Speaker 02

  No, no, that's what reinforces that.

• 35:13Trevor Noah?

  That's what reinforces that.

• 35:14Speaker 02

  Oh, okay.

• 35:14Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 35:15Speaker 02

  Their hyper focus is their sport. So I'm intrinsically, internally motivated to do this activity that I love, this athletic, and so I can do it for hours, I can train for hours, I'm around my people who also love it, I'm so reinforced by it that I just want to be in this setting.

• 35:30Speaker 03

  Interesting.

• 35:31Speaker 02

  And I can, I can perform and I can excel.

• 35:33Trevor Noah?

  It does two things that I've seen firsthand is like, number one, it's, it's routine and it's rhythm.

• 35:38Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 35:39Trevor Noah?

  But it's just not boring routine and rhythm.

• 35:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's true.

• 35:41Trevor Noah?

  So it's, it's high intensity. Someone's throwing a ball at your face. This is not like, like if you read a textbook and you miss a line, you're not walking out with a black eye. Do you know what I'm saying?

• 35:50Speaker 03

  Yeah. Trevor, normally I agree with you when you say stuff about like. Capitalism and office workers.

• 35:55Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 35:55Speaker 03

  An ADHD brain. I'm with you on that, but I think that ADHD brain can make you a bad partner, like in a relationship.

• 36:03Trevor Noah?

  Definitely.

• 36:03Speaker 03

  You know what I mean? Like, if, but, but imagine you didn't even have a job and all, you have all the money in the world.

• 36:08Trevor Noah?

  Oh, that's what I disagree with.

• 36:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, wait, your wife is saying to you, I need you to pick up the dry cleaning.

• 36:14Trevor Noah?

  But you know what's interesting about the athletes, you know, before we move on to, to, to relationships is um. A lot of athletes don't know that they have ADHD. That's what I've realized as well because. Especially in America, like sports started at such a young age.

• 36:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 36:28Trevor Noah?

  So they just know that they excel.

• 36:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 36:31Trevor Noah?

  Right? A lot of them don't even realize that it's their ADHD brain that makes them excel. So they're able to think of multiple plays at the same time on the court. They're, they're noticing small.

• 36:41Speaker 02

  It's a level of genius.

• 36:42Trevor Noah?

  It is a level of genius.

• 36:43Speaker 03

  For sure.

• 36:43Trevor Noah?

  But they, they never get diagnosed and they never present it.

• 36:47Speaker 03

  But maybe in their personal lives, though. I, I know, that's why I mentioned the partner thing, Tom Brady. I'm not saying he has ADHD, but like.

• 36:55Speaker 03

  His life kind of fell apart when he retired, right?

• 36:58Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 36:58Speaker 03

  And then he has to go back to the thing and then, you know.

• 37:00Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, no, look, you never know. You never know with anyone. But that's what I mean is like, because, but I think also for, even in those situations. Like you, you, you listen to some of the, the, the top performing athletes. The ones who have, I would say like the most rigid routines are generally the ones who do the best because even in their personal lives. Their meals are at a time with the family.

• 37:20Speaker 02

  Up at five.

• 37:20Trevor Noah?

  They have this. So the family has to also fit into the schedule because the schedule is so intense.

• 37:25Speaker 02

  So then that to me goes to the conversation about partners, right? So the athlete is hyper focused in doing what they have to do to maximize what their bodies can do. Maximize their amount of time. But then that is one part of your life.

• 37:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:38Speaker 02

  And you miss out on the other parts of your life that are kind of orbiting around that.

• 37:42Speaker 03

  That's not your life.

• 37:43Speaker 02

  It's your livelihood, but for many of them, it's their life.

• 37:46Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, it is their life. And it's been their life.

• 37:48Speaker 02

  It's been their life. It's finally where they feel secure and productive and they may not have, and it is a way out. Of poverty is a way out. It's a way to help family. It serves so many functions. But when it comes time to being a partner of a person. You've got to be able to be empathic and to understand what it is you need.

• 38:10Speaker 02

  And what it is your partner needs. And so can you give me an example about what might make it hard to be in partnership with somebody with ADHD?

• 38:19Speaker 03

  Um, I don't wanna look at it strictly through a heterosexual lens, but I think domestic labor is something most couples, wherever you are, struggle with.

• 38:28Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 38:28Speaker 03

  Who does the washing up? Yeah. Who gets the laundry? Who's kicking today? Who's cleaning like the house needs to be a certain way? And when you have children, that's even compounded, right? For the most part, women take on a lot of domestic labor. We talk about the mental load all the time. It's women doing that. And I speak to a lot of friends whose husbands have ADHD. And they're like, we're already dealing with the gender differences that come up where I'm doing a lot of the domestic labor. But this man is also forgetful and but he's not being an asshole. Do you know what I mean? Cause sometimes there's this idea that like, you know, the lazy man is like, he's struggling. He, he genuinely forgot to take out the trash, even though I can smell it.

• 39:08Speaker 02

  Right.

• 39:08Speaker 03

  Right, it stinks. He forgot to take out the trash. He didn't make the bed. He didn't pick up the dry cleaning. Um, I organized the cleaner. You forgot to get the cash to pay the cleaner. Do you know what I mean? And like, that can cause a lot of tension in relationships. And then you think that that person dislikes you. Because I think when you're in love with somebody, it's like, if you love me, you'll do this thing for me. But they're incapable of doing it.

• 39:29Speaker 02

  But love is not transactional.

• 39:30Speaker 03

  Well, for some people it is.

• 39:32Speaker 02

  Okay, so that's one thing. So if love is transactional, then you need to know what the currency is.

• 39:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:38Speaker 02

  My currency and your currency is gonna be different. Your currency is gonna be organization.

• 39:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:43Speaker 02

  You are gonna be able to like, make sure the kids have the schedule, make sure that the cleaner is scheduled, make sure that we know what day the trash goes out. We know how much money is in the bank account. The other person's currency may be like fun stuff. And it can be hard when you are the person of the currency of responsibility and the other person seems like to do the, gets to do the fun stuff. But it's like making sure that you all are having family outings. The person who has relationships with everybody in the neighborhood. That might be the person who's able to make sure that they check in with the family to make sure that you all are gonna have a family vacation. So it may seem like one person is like day to day, like what's happening right here on the ground. The other person may be bird's eye view.

• 40:25Speaker 02

  And I think you've gotta know what your strengths and weaknesses are in the couple. So if you are the partner of a person with ADHD and you know that money management is not their thing, then we don't want to put all money responsibilities on them. We want to make sure that they're knowledgeable, but we may say, hey, so we have a system and there's a budget. Your budget is this. We have a credit card that is set to this amount. And once that amount is over, we're done. There's gonna be some tension there, but you're helping that person to structure. But then you're also reinforcing them by saying, like, look, since we were able to stay within our budget, we have this much more to take that vacation you wanted. You wanted to plan this great vacation.

• 41:09Speaker 03

  This could go either way because there's a lot of wives who have the ADHD and the husband does, like it.

• 41:13Speaker 02

  It can go either way, but I think really you've got to be honest about who you are.

• 41:17Trevor Noah?

  You know, this is something that I know like I've struggled with. You know? After being diagnosed with ADHD, I then went back and I was like, oh, wow. Half of the issues I had in my relationships were from ADHD. And then 90% of the issues I had with my mom was just ADHD. Just me realizing, oh, oh, I was never, I was never quote unquote naughty. My brain was just trying to be stimulated. I wanted to see what would happen if I threw rocks at all the windows at the houses in the neighborhood. And I know now as an adult, it's now the logic has caught up to it. But I still think it's an exciting endeavor, right?

• 41:50Speaker 02

  It's fun.

• 41:51Trevor Noah?

  But how do you find the, the difference between being incompatible slash an asshole? And, oh, no, this is the person's ADHD. Because I, I can understand in, in anyone's defense, who's with someone who has ADHD. To your point, they might just be ignoring your requests and they might not be, but then there's a person with ADHD who's going like, damn, I really, really, really didn't want to forget that. And I really didn't want to be late for dinner. And I really didn't want to be.

• 42:22Speaker 02

  Overpromising and underdelivering, which I think is another ADHD thing that could come up in relationships.

• 42:26Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, like I, you know, the biggest thing that helped me genuinely

• 42:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:30Trevor Noah?

  is now, and I, I, I give this advice to anyone who has ADHD, is I go start with no. Changed my whole life. Start with no.

• 42:41Speaker 02

  Let me think about it.

• 42:42Trevor Noah?

  Everything people ask you, start with no. And you'll be shocked at how it like changes, because that's what I realize happens to ADHD people. Our brains are moving so quickly. Someone says something, we love being stimulated, and so Cristiano goes, hey, uh, can you babysit my kid this week? Yeah, I'd love to.

• 42:56Speaker 02

  See.

• 42:57Trevor Noah?

  I said it immediately.

• 42:58Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 42:59Trevor Noah?

  And then I leave the conversation. I pull out my phone and I go, oh, this weekend I have a, oh, I've got a, I've got a gig.

• 43:06Speaker 02

  Welcome to my world.

• 43:06Trevor Noah?

  I've got a gig that I have to do and I forgot about this thing. But now, and then you send me a text going, thank you so much for agreeing to babysit. I'm like, ah, damn, what do I do now? Um.

• 43:16Speaker 02

  You think you're letting everybody down.

• 43:18Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, now I'm like, okay, wait, wait, wait, I think I can do this. So wait, what time is the actual babysitting? Okay, from four to six, my gig is at six thirty, so I, I could make, it's a twenty, twenty-seven minute drive. I think I can, and now I'm back in that loop, I'm back in the twenty-seven minutes.

• 43:31Speaker 02

  Right.

• 43:31Trevor Noah?

  And then what happens is, I disappoint you on the day.

• 43:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:35Trevor Noah?

  Because I get overwhelmed, because the day comes, my times aren't lining up. I, I can't get to you on time. And, and then what, what happens to a lot of people with ADHD I know is, there's the shame that comes with it.

• 43:48Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 43:48Trevor Noah?

  Because you were, because you were trying to do the thing for everybody. What happens is you fail everybody.

• 43:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:55Trevor Noah?

  And because rightfully so on their side, they don't know what you were going through. And so they just go, why didn't you just tell me? Then why did you agree to do this?

• 44:04Speaker 02

  Why are you so flaky? Why do you put so much on your plate?

• 44:06Speaker 03

  Is this part of why people with ADHD have higher levels of depression and suicide?

• 44:11Speaker 02

  Let's talk about it, absolutely.

• 44:13Speaker 03

  Is it that experience?

• 44:14Trevor Noah?

  I think so, yeah.

• 44:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, you internalize it, and I think already, the research, we don't, technically, I don't think we have a ton of it just yet, but anecdotally, I believe that many people who struggle with ADHD often have underlying anxiety and depression. For kids, anxiety and depression tend to kind of co-occur, it's hard for us to tease them apart. But what happens a lot of times is kids who, once they're medicated, or once a person is medicated for ADHD with a stimulant medication, which actually slows your brain down, then we start to see all of these anxious thoughts come up. And it's not that the medication is causing those thoughts, it's that we can hear them now.

• 44:51Trevor Noah?

  Oh.

• 44:51Speaker 02

  The person was so busy or so distracted that all we were focused on was their behaviors, and we didn't know what was happening in their minds.

• 44:59Trevor Noah?

  Damn. So on the partner's side, what advice would you give someone? Like, how does, because I, I think, like, if I'm just being fair to everyone here. I would hate for some people to use ADHD or their diagnosis.

• 45:13Speaker 02

  To get out of stuff.

• 45:14Trevor Noah?

  As an excuse.

• 45:15Speaker 03

  I would, like I use pregnancy not to do stuff.

• 45:17Speaker 02

  But no, no, but you should be able to use pregnancy to get out of stuff.

• 45:19Speaker 03

  No, but I'd be like, I go.

• 45:20Speaker 02

  I can't, I can't breathe.

• 45:22Speaker 03

  He'd be like, can you switch on the light, I'm pregnant, the lights.

• 45:24Speaker 02

  I can't breathe.

• 45:25Speaker 03

  The lights like that, I'm pregnant.

• 45:26Speaker 02

  I can't breathe.

• 45:27Speaker 03

  I do have an excuse for everything.

• 45:29Speaker 02

  Pregnancy should be used as an excuse for everything.

• 45:32Trevor Noah?

  If you were talking to the partner who doesn't have ADHD.

• 45:35Speaker 02

  And.

• 45:35Trevor Noah?

  How would you counsel them and say, okay, this is where I think your, your boundary should be, or this is what I think you should look for. And then we'll move on to the partner with ADHD.

• 45:42Speaker 02

  Okay, so anecdotally, what I tend to notice is that we attract opposites. A person with ADHD is typically going to attract somebody who's more structured, routine, right? It helps them. A person who's more.

• 45:55Trevor Noah?

  All my exes could pack bags very well.

• 45:57Speaker 02

  Uh huh, you expected them to, right?

• 45:58Trevor Noah?

  No, really, no, I didn't, I didn't. They were just like.

• 46:01Speaker 03

  You said it, not me.

• 46:03Trevor Noah?

  They were just like, no, I didn't.

• 46:04Speaker 02

  Did you pack my bag?

• 46:05Trevor Noah?

  I didn't at all.

• 46:06Speaker 02

  But if they did, you were happy.

• 46:07Trevor Noah?

  No, can I tell you something? It's the opposite. I hate someone packing my bag.

• 46:10Speaker 02

  Sorry to attack you.

• 46:10Trevor Noah?

  No, I hate someone, I don't feel attacked. I hate someone packing my bag because then I don't know if the thing I want is in the bag.

• 46:16Speaker 03

  And you don't know where stuff is, right?

• 46:17Trevor Noah?

  Do not pack my bag for me. Like that, you don't want to talk about anxiety?

• 46:20Speaker 02

  That's called control, and that's what I was gonna say. A lot of times, people who are with someone with ADHD start to get engaged in overcontrolling behaviors because you are so worried about what happens when the person with ADHD forgets something.

• 46:36Trevor Noah?

  Oh, okay.

• 46:37Speaker 02

  So you overcorrect.

• 46:39Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 46:39Speaker 02

  And then the person with ADHD becomes resentful because they think you're trying to control them.

• 46:44Trevor Noah?

  Huh.

• 46:45Speaker 02

  And really, what you are trying to do is manage your anxiety about something being forgotten.

• 46:50Trevor Noah?

  Because they forget everything.

• 46:51Speaker 02

  Because they do forget everything.

• 46:52Trevor Noah?

  We do forget everything.

• 46:53Speaker 02

  But they're not forgetting everything to get at you or to be annoying, it's just something that happens. But what then you may do is list out a schedule, make sure that everything is just so. And when that person doesn't comply, you lose it. When they do comply, you're happy, but what you're teaching them is not to engage in the behaviors on their own.

• 47:10Trevor Noah?

  Oh, okay.

• 47:11Speaker 02

  So if I am scheduling all of your appointments, packing all of your bags, when do you have to think and when do you learn to do it yourself? Okay, so what you have to watch for if you're the partner of a person with ADHD and you don't have ADHD is that you could start to do too much. And then you start getting into this control dynamic. And then the person starts to resent you because they think you're trying to control them.

• 47:31Trevor Noah?

  And then you resent them for doing double the work.

• 47:33Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 47:34Speaker 03

  And do you know what, something you said there, because I feel very ignorant to ADHD because I think my brain is probably wired the opposite way. When you said that piece about the control and you're doing it for them, you're saying that people with ADHD are capable of doing these things.

• 47:48Speaker 02

  Absolutely, you just need a system.

• 47:50Speaker 03

  Okay, because in my mind, I'm like, oh, you just can't do it. But they are capable.

• 47:54Speaker 02

  You're capable, but it's that your system may not look like the person who's over controlled system. Your system may be, okay, when it comes to packing a bag for me, I'm gonna set that bag out three days in advance. But guess what, an hour before it's time for me to go to the airport, I'm still rifling through that bag.

• 48:10Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 48:10Speaker 02

  Because there's something I've forgotten, or I decided like I had two blazers. And then I'm like, I don't like these blazers, throw the blazers out. And then I'm like, well, maybe I'm gonna need the blazers, put the blazer back in. So I start to question myself. My brain is getting busy, I'm getting distracted, I'm overwhelmed. So even though I had the goal of being prepared, I still find myself struggling an hour before I'm supposed to go. So.

• 48:33Trevor Noah?

  Because it's not now.

• 48:36Speaker 03

  Because it's not now.

• 48:38Speaker 02

  But when it's now, I'm like, well, gotta go with what's in this bag.

• 48:41Trevor Noah?

  Exactly.

• 48:42Speaker 02

  So yesterday I had to go buy a blazer.

• 48:43Speaker 03

  So it requires.

• 48:47Speaker 03

  I love how it was about me.

• 48:48Speaker 02

  Hey, it's about me. So I'm gonna be real with you all, I'm not gonna point fingers and I pull, you know?

• 48:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, do you know what, that, I think that means for the person who is not neuro spicy and is wide, very, is wide in a very typical way, it requires a lot of acceptance, because part of me is judging, I'm like, what's wrong with you?

• 49:05Speaker 02

  But guess what, when you wanna have fun.

• 49:08Speaker 03

  Who do you call?

• 49:08Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 49:09Speaker 03

  Trevor.

• 49:10Speaker 02

  See? Because, and if he doesn't come, you're sad. Because you're like, I'm not gonna be able to push myself to have fun the way I have fun with Trevor.

• 49:18Speaker 03

  It's true, it's true.

• 49:24Trevor Noah?

  Have you ever thought about all the crazy, specific jobs out there? And I mean like crazy and I mean specific. For example, did you know a company is currently hiring for a psychic in California? This is a real thing. Yeah. This job and others like it are what inspired a special part of today's episode. Next big opportunity brought to you by ZipRecruiter. Every day ZipRecruiter helps 10 million candidates with their job search, which means no matter the role or industry, they can help your business find qualified candidates fast. And when they say no matter the role or industry, they really mean it. You can see for yourself by going to ziprecruiter.com/trevor. Christiana, I always wonder what jobs do you think you would be good at?

• 50:09Trevor Noah?

  Like, do you think you'd be a good life coach?

• 50:12Speaker 03

  No. No.

• 50:14Trevor Noah?

  Wow.

• 50:14Speaker 03

  I wouldn't be a good life coach. No, because I would probably tell you that it's not gonna go well for you. And you need someone like inspiring, you know? I think I'm just too cynical and real to be a life coach.

• 50:25Trevor Noah?

  I'm gonna go the opposite way. And I say, I think we need a few more life coaches who tell people, hey, man, this is not working. Just give up.

• 50:31Speaker 03

  This rap thing, uh-uh, it's not working out for you. Yeah, this rap thing.

• 50:34Trevor Noah?

  I actually think if we had more life coaches like you, people would be in better careers and the world would be a better place. And not everyone would try to go viral on TikTok.

• 50:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'd just be like, medicine, medicine, accounting, engineering. We need more plumbers, electricians. I'm just gonna tell you to do regular jobs and make some money. But the rest of the stuff, no, not for me.

• 50:58Trevor Noah?

  I can't believe that people are hiring psychics.

• 51:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, I feel, yeah. If you're gonna get your witch, that's word of mouth. A witch is not something you go.

• 51:08Trevor Noah?

  What do you even ask in that interview? I would just sit there and I'd be like, well, you know what my questions are, aren't they?

• 51:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's true. You know the questions.

• 51:18Trevor Noah?

  Maybe I'm a little too close minded. But if I was working at a company and they said, hey, guys, I know things have been going bad for the past few quarters, but the good news is we've hired a psychic. I'd be like, huh, okay. Um, if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go on ZipRecruiter and see if there are any other companies out there who are hiring for my position.

• 51:38Speaker 03

  Well, I do wanna work somewhere that's open to the spirit realm, but that's a bit too open. You know what I mean?

• 51:44Trevor Noah?

  I actually do like that. I would love to work in a company that had a psychic on staff just for the vibes.

• 51:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 51:51Trevor Noah?

  Do you know what I mean? Just like lunchtime vibes, just go check in with the psychic, see how things are. I like that, actually. Cause we've worked in a dog office, why not have a psychic friendly office? Well, whatever role you're looking to fill, ZipRecruiter can help. With smart matching technology and handy tools like the Invite to Apply feature, you'll find a potential hire in no time. ZipRecruiter is the hiring site employers prefer most, based on G2. In fact, four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. See for yourself. Try it now for free at ziprecruiter.com/trevor. That's ziprecruiter.com/t-r-e-v-o-r. ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire.

• 52:35Trevor Noah?

  It's also, it's also difficult to try and explain to people how many fights in their relationship aren't necessarily fights, but they're a manifestation of ADHD meeting up with non-ADHD. So I didn't, until I like delved into all of this, I didn't know that for an ADHD brain, for the most part, not all brains, but for most ADHD brains, arguments are fun.

• 53:00Speaker 02

  Yes. Coercive cycle of interaction, there's a term for it.

• 53:03Trevor Noah?

  Coercive cycle of interaction.

• 53:05Speaker 02

  You are reinforced by your coercive behaviors. And this is what we teach in Behavioral Parent Management Training, another plug for an evidence-based intervention for ADHD.

• 53:15Speaker 02

  And behavioral parent management training, the first step is teaching parents about the coercive cycle of interaction and how their kids are reinforced to continue arguing because they eventually get what they want and parents are reinforced to be more punitive because they eventually get what they want. So when you get, when you've done that as a child with your parent and then you get into a relationship and you're like, I can prove that I'm right. I can get you to see that the way I'm thinking is the way you should be thinking. And you just continue to engage in this spiral until you win and the other person is pissed or they give up because they're exhausted.

• 53:44Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, they're exhausted most of the time.

• 53:45Speaker 02

  They're exhausted.

• 53:46Speaker 03

  Because the ADHD person can keep.

• 53:47Speaker 02

  They can keep going a lot of times and you'll be like, can you just stop? And they're like, no. So instead of telling them to stop, you'd give them the positive opposite behavior, the to do behavior. So instead of would you stop talking? It's can we take a quiet moment? Can you be quiet? What do I want you to do?

• 54:05Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 54:06Speaker 02

  So instead of, uh, stop arguing, can we change the subject? Or sometimes you gotta kind of just turn away and like wait for, to catch them being good and then turn back. Like if you're taking me down that spiral where you're trying to argue with me, I'm gonna like turn away, pretend to do something else. And then the minute you get quiet, even if it's by accident, thanks Trevor for being quiet.

• 54:28Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but I think, I think sometimes people take for granted, and I'm saying this from experience, is like ADHD people, we are not, we are not arguing.

• 54:36Speaker 02

  And you're not an ADHD person. You are a person with a neurodivergent brain.

• 54:40Trevor Noah?

  Okay. I think all I feel like you did there was like, it's like going, you're not homeless, you're unhoused. That's what you just did to me.

• 54:48Speaker 03

  She said the poetic part.

• 54:49Trevor Noah?

  You really did. You really did. You're like, no Trevor, you are not a homeless person. You are a person who does not have a home to live in.

• 54:56Speaker 02

  You are, no, seriously, it makes a difference.

• 54:58Trevor Noah?

  Okay, okay, fine.

• 55:00Speaker 02

  You're Trevor who happens to have a brain that is neurodivergent.

• 55:04Trevor Noah?

  Okay, okay, I'll take that. All right. So.

• 55:06Speaker 02

  Sorry.

• 55:06Trevor Noah?

  I go, no, no, this is fine. So I think what people take for granted is this. And sometimes it's because we don't know to articulate it as people. Sometimes we don't even, we don't even know what's happening.

• 55:18Trevor Noah?

  Some people think of it as an argument, but it's not an argument.

• 55:21Speaker 02

  It's engagement.

• 55:22Trevor Noah?

  Do you get what I'm saying? So the ADHD brain is just having fun.

• 55:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 55:25Trevor Noah?

  And it's going.

• 55:25Speaker 02

  It's attention.

• 55:26Trevor Noah?

  Let's discuss the merits of. And you just go.

• 55:28Speaker 02

  It's just attention seeking behavior.

• 55:30Trevor Noah?

  Exactly. And you're spinning and you're spinning and you're spinning and you're spinning and you're spinning. But you're just having fun trying to figure this puzzle out. Now, a non ADHD person goes like, no, but, but, but why you? No, just let it go. They're getting triggered, they're emotional, yeah. They're getting angry. And then at the end of it, and I've seen this happen, like in my group of friends. All the ADHD friends will like hang out together. All the friends who have a neurodivergent brain.

• 55:52Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 55:55Trevor Noah?

  They.

• 55:56Speaker 02

  Thank you for using that term.

• 55:57Trevor Noah?

  They'll be energized at the end of a group argument. And they'll go like, that was fun. And then all the friends who don't have a neurodivergent brain.

• 56:05Speaker 02

  Are pissed.

• 56:06Trevor Noah?

  They are pissed.

• 56:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 56:07Trevor Noah?

  They're with, they're worn out. They're carrying it. I can't believe you, you said, why did we? You know what? I, I, I'm tired of, and you, and you, and the, the rest of us are going, wait, what? This was fantastic. This was fantastic. We argued the merits of Mesopotamian laws and, and from that we understood why we shouldn't be eating fried chicken tonight. Just the understanding of it helps because to your point. If you understand that I'm not doing something to you.

• 56:33Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 56:35Trevor Noah?

  Then you don't think of it that way. Like, so, you know, some divergences, we'll call them, whatever they may be, physical or mental, are more apparent than others. If somebody's blind, we normally can see that they're blind. If that person bumps into you, most rational human beings will never go, yo.

• 56:54Speaker 02

  Right.

• 56:55Trevor Noah?

  What, what, what's where you're going? You bumped into me. You'll be like, oh, man, the person's blind. Oh, person's blind. You know what I mean? If somebody rolls up in a wheelchair and they can't go up the stairs, no one goes like, get up the stairs. You go like, oh, they, they, let's get the ramp or can we help someone? Because we, there's a signifier that tells us that this person is divergent physically. Mentally, there's almost no signifiers for this. So you meet someone with ADHD, you don't realize. That you started speaking. Their brain hadn't even started pressing the record button.

• 57:27Speaker 02

  Right.

• 57:28Trevor Noah?

  You started a whole conversation. You got home, you started talking to your partner. Oh, hey, honey, you know, I was just thinking we we got to do and don't forget the thing and you know, I can't believe. And then the the person goes like, what? What just happened? And they're like, oh, my God, did you listen to anything I just said? Uh.

• 57:43Speaker 02

  And that's so annoying.

• 57:45Trevor Noah?

  Yes, and it's not that they're not listening to you. If there was a way for you to be sick, you know, if they could signify it, you'd realize, oh, the record button wasn't on. You hadn't paused for a moment. The same way I've seen people pull out their phones. Stand at a concert and record a moment. And then I look at their phone, I realize they never pressed the record button. But then they they blame themselves. They go, ah, I didn't press record. I'm an idiot.

• 58:09Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 58:10Trevor Noah?

  And I sometimes say to people, you, I know it's a bit of a burden, but think of it that way when you have an ADHD partner. Ask yourself if you've pressed record. Like, one of my best friends taught me this, and he has ADHD, but he literally will be talking. And he'll notice that my brain is, I'm finishing an email. He'll say like, oh, man, I got to tell you this thing that happened. So. The I was at the office and and then he'll pause and he'll go like, I'll wait for you to finish.

• 58:32Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 58:33Trevor Noah?

  And I go, no, no, I'm I'm here. He's like, no, no, no, finish the email.

• 58:36Speaker 03

  Do you know, the funny thing is, I, hearing you both speak today, I think there's something about. If you're the non ADHD parent or partner, whoever you are in relation to someone with ADHD. I think it can really increase your empathy and your sense of patience if you really sit with the diagnosis.

• 58:56Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 58:57Speaker 03

  Because what you're saying right now, whether somebody has ADHD or not, to say to your partner, let me. Just finish what you're doing and we'll talk when like you can give me your full attention.

• 59:08Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 59:08Speaker 03

  Would change so many. Or even dealing with your child, because sometimes I like, you just say things to a kid. But maybe the kid is like with their Legos, with their dolls or whatever.

• 59:17Trevor Noah?

  Had they, have you pressed record?

• 59:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, have you pressed record? You haven't pressed record? Okay, we'll we'll come back to it.

• 59:22Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 59:22Speaker 03

  It'll kind of just transform.

• 59:24Trevor Noah?

  Oh, I need you to press record right now. That also helps me as well. Someone goes like, hey, no, no, can you put that down?

• 59:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 59:29Trevor Noah?

  No, no, I need I need you. Then I'm like, oh, okay. You even, even, even signaling urgency helps an ADHD brain.

• 59:35Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 59:36Trevor Noah?

  So if you say to me like, if you as Christian, you go like, oh friend, I need your help. Immediately my brain goes like, yo, what's happening?

• 59:42Speaker 02

  I love that.

• 59:43Trevor Noah?

  What's happening? And then I, I focus, I won't look at my phone, I won't. But if you just tell a story and it's like the music of it doesn't signal urgency. And my brain just goes like, oh, she doesn't need me. And I don't realize my brain's doing this. I'm thinking of four things at the same time.

• 59:59Speaker 03

  So it's how you communicate to an ADHD person.

• 1:00:02Trevor Noah?

  Make sure record has been pressed. Then you can like fight with them if they're not doing the thing you hope them to do. But I, I promise you the difference it makes is insane. You say, I need you to listen to me right now. Or you say, let me know when you're done. And all of a sudden, it just changes the dynamic that you have with somebody.

• 1:00:18Speaker 02

  And that's the antecedent intervention. That's setting up the environment for success.

• 1:00:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:00:22Speaker 02

  You saying, press record or let me know when you're ready to press record. Signals to his brain that I've got to do something, I've got to behave differently.

• 1:00:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:00:31Speaker 02

  And then he's able to follow through and then you reinforce him because then you continue to talk to him. Once you know that he's ready to listen. Consequences, you all are connected. So like right, what you all just did right now, there was connection there.

• 1:00:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:00:43Speaker 02

  You gave feedback about when you're able to really hear her. And then you were like, thank you for giving me that feedback because now I know how to cue you in when I need to talk to you. And that's what doesn't happen in partnerships and relationships.

• 1:00:55Speaker 03

  Whether it's parent to child, romantic.

• 1:00:58Speaker 02

  Parent to child, spouse to spouse, family to family. That's what we don't, that's like a process thing.

• 1:01:03Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:01:03Speaker 02

  We don't take time to process things because we're so focused on moving forward and getting to the next thing. And so to have the opportunity to say, especially to your significant other. I need you to press record or I need you to say, hey, can you put your phone down? Because even like with kids, we're accustomed to like snatching a tablet, turning off a screen to get them focused. As adults, we're just as guilty of, of being preoccupied with Instagram, with our screens, with our phones. And sometimes we need help to get away from those things so we can actually attend to each other. You know, and like, one of the things I say to little kids that I'm working with in intervention is give me your eyes. Thank you for looking. At me. Now that I know that you're looking, I think you can listen.

• 1:01:44Speaker 02

  Please pass me that. And then we continue to maintain eye contact. It really helps them to know that I'm engaged. And so in a relationship, if you have ADHD or you don't have ADHD, I think that's a skill that we could all learn. Because many of us think we have ADHD because we are so wired to screens right now. We're so reinforced with screens. We're so reinforced by multitasking. We are hearing a lot of noise and we don't take a lot of time to be fully present and aware in this moment.

• 1:02:11Speaker 03

  I had to, I have a question.

• 1:02:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:02:13Speaker 03

  About setting up for success that I've seen a lot of parents grapple with, and it's the question of medication.

• 1:02:20Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:02:20Speaker 03

  Now, I'm a millennial and I.

• 1:02:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, me too.

• 1:02:23Speaker 03

  And I think we're like the Ritalin generation as well. And there's a lot of millennials who felt that they were overmedicated.

• 1:02:29Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:02:30Speaker 03

  That they look back at their childhood and they're like, I felt like a zombie. They're trying to figure out who they are without the presence of some sort of medication. And I think a consequence of that is that a lot of millennial parent, people who are becoming parents now who are medicated as kids are maybe reluctant to medicate their children. Do not know when they should introduce that modality. What are the ethics of it? Can you even, you know, I struggle giving my kids Tylenol. I'm like, is this a gateway drug to some other shit?

• 1:02:56Speaker 02

  Okay, so let me talk to you about that gateway drug thing. In my opinion, that is a cultural belief that comes out of the crack pandemic, right? We know that there were specific plans and things that were done to make sure that a certain group of people were destroyed by a drug. And over time, we have become very wary and suspicious, and it is healthy cultural paranoia about the use of medications and drugs.

• 1:03:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:03:22Speaker 02

  How can we get hooked? How could this ruin life for us? Because we had a whole generation that this impacted. What I want you to know when it comes to stimulant medication, any of the psychotropic medications is consider the ways that you are self-medicating. Are you using gummies and weed just to get out of the bed and have a good time? How much alcohol are you drinking? How much are you indulging in overeating? Is this a symptom of some difficulty that you are having in your life? The medication you take for depression is not the same class of medication that we take to address ADHD. And so what you need to know is for stimulants, stimulants can be abused. And they're the same class, like they're amphetamines.

• 1:04:05Speaker 02

  Those things, amphetamines are similar to uh what's in coke cocaine, right? It's an amphetamine as well. The difference is it's highly regulated, it's been studied. It's been studied in children and we can pretty much tell that there have been, there's at least thirty years worth of data about people being successfully treated. One thing about stimulant medication is once it's in your system, eight hours typically is out of your system. Unlike other classes of medication that take weeks to build up in your system.

• 1:04:31Trevor Noah?

  That's like like antidepressants.

• 1:04:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, it takes about two weeks to build up.

• 1:04:33Trevor Noah?

  You can't go off of them instantly. So I'll tell you like one of the craziest, craziest things I learned, actually made me really, really sad because then I had to go back and think about how it affected my relationships.

• 1:04:48Trevor Noah?

  I have had this crippling feeling whenever I travel.

• 1:04:54Trevor Noah?

  Day one of any trip.

• 1:04:57Trevor Noah?

  I'll fly somewhere, I land there, vacation, and immediately I go, I need to go home.

• 1:05:04Speaker 02

  Oh, anxiety.

• 1:05:04Trevor Noah?

  Immediately. And my brain is like, I need to go home, I need to go home. What am I, what am I doing here? I need to go home, I need to go home, I need to go home, I need to go home, I need to go home. So what would happen is sometimes I'd be on a trip. I would be with my partner, we're somewhere. They couldn't get me to leave the hotel room.

• 1:05:18Speaker 02

  You couldn't relax.

• 1:05:18Trevor Noah?

  They couldn't get me. And they would be like, what is going on? I was like, I, I, I think, I think I need to go home. And I can't, I can't imagine what they were going through. But for me, I was, and I was, I was trapped. And until I understood how dependent an ADHD brain is on routine.

• 1:05:35Trevor Noah?

  Did I then understand what was happening was like, oh, because it's new place. Time zones have screwed me over. I also have nothing to do, which is the most crippling thing, funny enough, for an ADHD brain. What are we doing? What do you wanna do? What do you mean, what do I wanna do? I don't know. My brain jams, my brain, I know how to, give me a schedule that's from, you know, eight AM until midnight, I'm fine. Give me space, the brain panics, cause ADHD, you know, too many choices. And then now, literally what I'll do is, I'll only medicate most of the time when I'm traveling, first day, because I just know for that first day, it just brings my brain down. Wow. I don't think about what's tomorrow, what's the next day, what's the next day, what am I doing on the trip?

• 1:06:17Trevor Noah?

  Cause I would rush to the conclusion of the trip, and I know a lot of people will do that with ADHD, in the now and not now. Yeah. Is, your brain has the ability, but I mean infinitely. So, do you know how many ADHD people I'll, I'll speak to as like kids or parents or just people? And I have such empathy for them, cause I go, you don't understand what you're experiencing. So you might think, for instance, you, you are, you have depression. But I go, no, no, you, your depression is from ADHD, it's not just like a depression, which it could be on its own. Yeah. But sometimes this is what, like, my brain will do, and I've spoken to a lot of people who experience this. I'll wake up in the morning. I go, what time is it? Oh, it's thirty minutes before I need to get up. Okay.

• 1:07:01Trevor Noah?

  Should I sleep? No, maybe I'll wake up. Okay, I'll wake up. Then what I do, I gotta go brush my teeth. Then I've gotta shower, and I've gotta get dressed, then I've gotta leave the house, then I've gotta go to the office, then I've gotta have that meeting, then I've gotta have that next meeting, then I've gotta have that other meeting, then I'm gonna do that thing, then I've gotta go to the dinner that, that those people have planned, then I'm gonna come, oh, then I've gotta find time to work out, then I gotta, oh, then I've gotta plan my outfit for the night. Wait, then you do it the next day? Mm-hmm. You do the same thing? You brush your teeth again? Oh, you gotta get clothes again, wait, how many years does this happen for? Wait, like, so we, we're just gonna do this for like eighty years, ninety years? It's a spiral. We're just gonna keep on doing this? A- a- and then what, the next generation does it? And then it's, why am I waking up? Wait, I'm gonna come back to bed anyway, what's the point of leaving the bed? Why am I lea- why am I waking up?

• 1:07:46Trevor Noah?

  What are we all doing? Why are we building these things? Why are we, no, and you, you will be shocked at how ADHD brains can do this for everything for people. So, even in a relationship.

• 1:08:00Trevor Noah?

  You'll have a fight.

• 1:08:01Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 1:08:03Trevor Noah?

  And then your brain goes, oh, fight. Uh, this is, and this is how, and this is how, and what's the point of relationships? End.

• 1:08:10Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:08:11Trevor Noah?

  Everything ends with end.

• 1:08:12Speaker 02

  There's typically a time of day. There's a place. Everybody's got one.

• 1:08:15Trevor Noah?

  Yes, you're not wrong.

• 1:08:17Speaker 02

  It's a prime day.

• 1:08:18Speaker 03

  Ruminati and just.

• 1:08:18Speaker 02

  Oh, the rumination is, and that's an anxiety thing too, but that rumination as part of ADHD is major.

• 1:08:23Trevor Noah?

  It really is.

• 1:08:24Speaker 02

  And if it's a certain time of day, I'm a nighttime person, I can lose my mind at night.

• 1:08:28Trevor Noah?

  I, can I tell you? So if there's one thing I've learned for my brain, the mornings is where I have the biggest feelings of what is the point of this whole thing we're doing? Right? The evenings is where I have the, I mean, anything can happen.

• 1:08:45Speaker 03

  So it's like. Ex- existential mornings, crazy evenings.

• 1:08:50Trevor Noah?

  Yo, the, the morning, the morning, no, the mornings, let me tell you something. In the mornings, can I tell you something? The worst thing you can do to me in the morning, the worst thing you can do to me in the morning, and I've experienced this. I remember someone turned to me in the morning and said, hey, do you love me? This is in the morning.

• 1:09:08Speaker 02

  Well, do you love me?

• 1:09:10Speaker 03

  Did you love them?

• 1:09:10Trevor Noah?

  And my, I did, no, but I did, but I did, but my brain went.

• 1:09:15Speaker 02

  What?

• 1:09:16Trevor Noah?

  How does anyone define love? What is love?

• 1:09:20Speaker 02

  Oh, and that pissed that, oh, you, oh, that poor person.

• 1:09:23Trevor Noah?

  And what is it about my words that'll make you feel like your day got better or worse or?

• 1:09:27Speaker 03

  You're like, I don't know.

• 1:09:28Trevor Noah?

  And then my brain was like, huh, and my brain did that, and for, in my brain, maybe this was two seconds, but it lasted a lifetime.

• 1:09:34Speaker 03

  But to the person.

• 1:09:34Trevor Noah?

  To the person that went, whoa, what was that pause?

• 1:09:36Speaker 02

  What was that pause?

• 1:09:37Trevor Noah?

  And then I go, no, no, no, yeah, of course, I love you. Then they go like, no, what was that pause? And now we're in fight land. The day just started.

• 1:09:44Speaker 02

  We're in fight land.

• 1:09:45Trevor Noah?

  Right? But we're in fight land because the person, I can't believe you pulled, why did you pull? Now, if I explain it, it's, it's terrible. Well, but why would you even think that? What kind of person would think?

• 1:09:52Speaker 02

  Okay, wait, so message for the person or the person with a person with ADHD is not always about you.

• 1:09:57Trevor Noah?

  That's hard to learn.

• 1:09:58Speaker 03

  That's hard because it always, it should be what is about me.

• 1:10:01Speaker 02

  But it's not like that pause or that like reticence is not necessarily about you. It's about something that's going on in that person's head that you don't even know about.

• 1:10:10Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, and then the nighttime version is, and I know this with like a lot of my ADHD friends. That's like, we call that sugar time.

• 1:10:18Speaker 02

  That is sugar time. What is that?

• 1:10:20Trevor Noah?

  It's literally, it came from.

• 1:10:21Speaker 03

  Start zooming.

• 1:10:22Trevor Noah?

  No, it came from the direct thing, which was sugar. So we all start craving sugar.

• 1:10:26Speaker 02

  Uh huh.

• 1:10:27Trevor Noah?

  I, I, I can't eat sweet things in the morning. Pancakes, or I don't know how people do that. I'm like, no, ugh. Sugar cereal, I can't, I'm, I, nighttime? Let me tell you something. If there is sugar hidden in your house, I will find it.

• 1:10:40Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:10:41Trevor Noah?

  If you think there's sugar in your house and you're not sure where it is, call me over at night and I will find that sugar for you. And then my brain then goes like, but for, and we call it sugar time because it's like the, it's sort of the, the manifestation of sugar as a concept. Is it like sugar time for everything? Then it's like, what's happening? Where's it happening?

• 1:10:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:10:59Trevor Noah?

  Who's it happening with? Where we going? What do we do?

• 1:11:02Speaker 02

  That's what the sleep is so bad.

• 1:11:04Trevor Noah?

  No, this is, sleep is terrible. Nothing good has ever happened during sleep.

• 1:11:07Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:11:08Trevor Noah?

  Tell me one great story that involves sleep. None.

• 1:11:10Speaker 02

  What about a, what about a good dream?

• 1:11:12Trevor Noah?

  History is, there's no, I mean, okay, MLK had a dream.

• 1:11:15Speaker 03

  But he was awake.

• 1:11:18Speaker 02

  No, but he first had the dream of sleep.

• 1:11:20Trevor Noah?

  He had the dream, so maybe, that's the one, that's the only great thing that's happened in sleep was his dream. The rest of history happened while people were awake. I love that you said that because it's, it's, it's learning yourself, being honest with yourself. And if there's one piece of advice I would give people, think of the ADHD as this little gremlin passenger in my life, who I have a fun relationship with, by the way.

• 1:11:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:11:44Trevor Noah?

  I don't resent it.

• 1:11:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:11:45Trevor Noah?

  I don't hate it, but what I will, I'll do is I'll call it out. Like I'll actively say, at times, you'll find, if you leave a microphone in my home. Randomly, you'll hear me going, ah, hello, ADHD. I just say this every now and again. I'll just be like, ah.

• 1:12:00Speaker 03

  Trevor, don't say that. Cause my mom's gonna be like, it's the spirit.

• 1:12:03Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, my mom.

• 1:12:05Speaker 03

  It's the spirit.

• 1:12:07Trevor Noah?

  My mom, actually.

• 1:12:08Speaker 02

  Love it. Yes, spirits, come on, talk about it.

• 1:12:11Trevor Noah?

  I promise you, I do that all the time.

• 1:12:14Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:12:14Trevor Noah?

  Because I've also learned for people with ADHD, it's nice to, to, to remove the shame.

• 1:12:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure.

• 1:12:21Trevor Noah?

  Because people will tell you the thing you're experiencing is, is bullshit. They'll tell you that it's not real, that you need to get over it. You just need to work, just to function, function, function. People just say this to you. But it's like, no, just trust me. Take it out of yourself and say, huh. Hello, old friend.

• 1:12:37Speaker 02

  Exhale it, hello.

• 1:12:38Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, you're just like, ah, look at you. Who wants some ice cream, do you?

• 1:12:41Speaker 02

  No ice cream for you today.

• 1:12:42Trevor Noah?

  And then I'll, I'll even play the game. I'll be like, okay, how about this? If you have very cold water and you still want ice cream 30 minutes later, you can do it.

• 1:12:50Speaker 02

  Ooh.

• 1:12:51Trevor Noah?

  And then I'll go and drink like a cold glass of water and see what happens in 30 minutes. 90% of the time, I don't want the ice cream afterwards.

• 1:12:58Speaker 03

  You've moved on.

• 1:12:58Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but it's also because I've started to learn. I've started to learn that sometimes the thing that you look, look, this is for everyone. The thing that you're craving is oftentimes a manifestation of lacking something else.

• 1:13:10Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:13:10Trevor Noah?

  So what I've tried to learn to do is go, ah, what is happening right now? I'm craving ice cream, but what is ice cream? It's a cold thing, it's a sweet thing. Let me try to break it down. Start with the cold.

• 1:13:23Speaker 02

  You're a thinker.

• 1:13:24Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, I'm an over thinker, yeah. So I start with the cold.

• 1:13:27Speaker 02

  Uh huh.

• 1:13:27Trevor Noah?

  And then I go, and also what does it do? Okay, it also does hydrate me. So I'll go with something cold and hydrating that has no sugar, see how I feel. And most of the time, I find those small things, but I gamify everything in my life.

• 1:13:40Speaker 02

  Too, right? So that's the ADHD brain again, the superpower. You're a thinker, you think very deeply, and then you are willing to try different interventions to solve your problem. So you don't just give up and give in to the ice cream. And a brain that's like maybe depressed might just say, well, forget it. It's hopeless, it's worthless. I'm just gonna give in to the ice cream. You're like, no, this is serving a function. I need to try to figure out what the function of this craving is. How can I come up with a plan so that I don't engage in this behavior? Like, there's multiple levels. And that can be exhausting if you have to do with every decision you make, which some people get into like analysis paralysis when it comes to that ADHD, because they're overthinking whether or not, and it's not necessarily anxiety,

• 1:14:24Speaker 02

  but it's like trying to plan out the consequences.

• 1:14:26Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 1:14:27Speaker 02

  Because you're a problem solver.

• 1:14:28Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 1:14:29Speaker 02

  And problem solvers are very tied to consequences of behavior. So it's like, well, if I did it this way, this might happen. If I did it this way, this might happen if I did it this way. And then you've lost track of time while you're doing all of that.

• 1:14:41Trevor Noah?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:14:41Speaker 02

  So I think it's good, though, to be a thinker.

• 1:14:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:14:44Speaker 02

  Which is also why the capitalistic society is hard, right? To bring it back.

• 1:14:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, why this has been so useful for me, I just think for people that are in community, with people in, with ADHD, whether you're a parent, partner, a friend, it's like our job is to like understand the superpower, like understand how you, how it works, understand if you're drinking some water late at night. Oh, they probably wanted ice cream, they're having the water. Leave them, don't be like, why are you drinking water? A cold glass of water at twelve thirty in the morning, just be like, this is their way of coping.

• 1:15:17Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm, and you just said a word, community.

• 1:15:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:15:20Speaker 02

  We need to be in community with people and other people who have similar and dissimilar experiences, because it can get very lonely.

• 1:15:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, it sounds like a lonely experience.

• 1:15:29Speaker 02

  It can be very lonely, you gotta be in community.

• 1:15:31Trevor Noah?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:15:32Speaker 02

  Like, you gotta find your tribe. And this is a big thing for me right now with the young adults I'm working with who have ADHD. It's like they have not found their tribe.

• 1:15:42Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:42Speaker 02

  And then they internalize it and then they feel super depressed, like, what is wrong with me? Why does it never work? And so I want, I want to tell young adults with ADHD and teens with ADHD, you will find your tribe, but you have got to seek them out. And that tribe may not be the people who like look like you or who have the same interests, but the superpower of having ADHD. is you're willing to put yourself out there and take a risk. And so you may have to take a risk with different people. You have a tribe, you haven't found it yet. Because you haven't found your tribe, doesn't mean you'll never find your tribe. Because I also get worried about those people in terms of suicidality. Because there's the loneliness. There's the like, does anybody care about me? I can't get anything right. My relationship's in, what's wrong with me?

• 1:16:25Speaker 02

  And so, just like having some hope and knowing, there is, you got a tribe. And then, parents, leave them alone if the tribe is online. Like, they have a tribe. I just want you to have some social connections, safe social connections. I don't want you playing with like adults if you're a kid. But, we need to have, that's why we have kids in sports and doing activities. We want them to build relationships with different groups of people. But as adults, once we get into our careers, we can become isolated. And so, you've got to have community, you gotta have a tribe. You gotta have community.

• 1:16:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:16:57Speaker 02

  You guys are a tribe.

• 1:16:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, reluctantly. I love it. Wouldn't have it any other way.

• 1:17:05Trevor Noah?

  Don't go anywhere, because we got more What Now after this.

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• 1:18:05Speaker 01

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• 1:18:35Trevor Noah?

  You know, there's an idea that I have. I'll often say to Christiana, I go that there's moments where I dream of being a dictator of just like a small, of like a small island.

• 1:18:45Speaker 03

  He said this enough times. The way you think is real. I'm concerned.

• 1:18:50Trevor Noah?

  I would, I would love to be a dictator of a small island, though. Like just a small place where, because I think the small number helps you be a little more nimble.

• 1:18:57Speaker 03

  I'd be your advisor.

• 1:18:58Trevor Noah?

  Like Sweden, for instance. I'd love you as an advisor. You know, Sweden's four million people or whatever. It's like, it's easy to, it's easier to do things and see how they work. 300 million people is chaos.

• 1:19:09Trevor Noah?

  And, and one of the experiments I would love to conduct, because I, I, I'm sure there will be second system effects, don't get me wrong. But I wonder what would happen, two things. One, I wonder what would happen if we treated almost everybody who we think is an outlier in society just for ADHD. And I know this is a, a gross mal-practicing of science and medicine. So don't cosign this at all. I, I'm just telling you about my crazy world.

• 1:19:39Trevor Noah?

  I would love to see what would happen, no joke, if everyone who is homeless gets ADHD medication, like people in the street, like we always people like that person's crazy. I genuinely would love to see what would, I just want to see what would happen. You give all of them ADHD medication. You give everyone in prison ADHD medication or every kid who's been expelled ADHD, everyone. I'm willing to bet money.

• 1:20:02Trevor Noah?

  Yes, there will be, please, terms and conditions apply. There's obviously gonna be some people.

• 1:20:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, because we don't want them to be manic. If they're manic and they have ADHD medication, it'll go very bad.

• 1:20:08Trevor Noah?

  There you go, so that's what I'm saying.

• 1:20:09Speaker 02

  Or they have a heart problem.

• 1:20:10Trevor Noah?

  Terms and conditions apply.

• 1:20:11Speaker 02

  Right, those are terms and conditions.

• 1:20:12Trevor Noah?

  Terms and conditions apply. I'm not saying, but I'm willing to bet. You will see a massive amount of that population no longer have the problem. And I can't help but think to myself, how many people in our society are one intervention away? And not a massive one, by the way.

• 1:20:30Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:20:30Trevor Noah?

  One intervention away from being fully back in society, fully part of a community, and fully being back to who they wish to be as a human being. Do you know what I mean?

• 1:20:41Speaker 02

  Yeah. So, I'm from Chicago originally, and Cook County Jail, at one time, they're, the person who was in charge of the director was a clinical psychologist. I think this was a few years back. And she did a program where she had, when people came in and they were repeat offenders, they got psyche vows. As part of the psyche vows, they were able to determine that many of the people who were coming through this system, this program, actually had met criteria for diagnoses, and then they were able to get them medicated. Right, they were able to get them, or even if it wasn't medication, they were able to get them some psychotherapeutic intervention.

• 1:21:17Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:18Speaker 02

  And the types of gains that can be made from doing that type of intervention. Right, so even if you don't have an island, what would happen in terms of reform in the justice system? If people had access to high-quality mental health care before they got there? Right, I'm in private practice. People will ask, why don't you accept insurance? Insurance companies don't value mental health right now.

• 1:21:42Trevor Noah?

  Damn.

• 1:21:42Speaker 02

  So, they're starting to understand that if we can treat depression, you're more likely to follow through on your medication regimen when it comes to hypertension, when it comes to like the diabetes, right? If you're not depressed, if I treated your depression, you're gonna be more likely to change your lifestyle factors. Exercise, diet, et cetera. So if we address mental health first, we could actually do medicine, physiological medicine of big service, because people would be engaged and invested in taking care of their bodies and making different choices about the way they ate, et cetera, et cetera. But it's almost like mental health care is an afterthought. And so, I think there are many different avenues to actually make what you wanna see happen, happen.

• 1:22:25Speaker 02

  It could be school systems, it could be like, um... Juvenile justice systems, it could, I just think there's ways, I don't think that's a farfetched idea. It may not be an island.

• 1:22:36Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, I mean.

• 1:22:37Speaker 02

  You know, I don't think it's a farfetched.

• 1:22:39Trevor Noah?

  In, in, in South Africa with our foundation, the, the thing we did was we, we brought in psychiatric help to the schools because they didn't have it. And we found the results were insane, it was exponential. Just, and here, here's one of the most interesting ones we learned. We learned at our foundation, just having someone to talk to.

• 1:22:59Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:22:59Trevor Noah?

  Improved kids' scores.

• 1:23:00Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:23:01Trevor Noah?

  You literally didn't have to fix the problem. There were kids who were coming from homes where they were neglected, they were abused, they were beaten, they were, whatever it was. And we were like, what do we do? How do we fix this? And then we were humbled to realize that most of the kids weren't looking for someone to fix it. They just needed somebody to speak to. And all of a sudden their grades would improve. They just needed somebody to say, you're not crazy. Your parents aren't treating you well. Your community isn't looking after you. And yes, you, you, you're validated. And the kids' scores would go up and you're like, this is, come on, this is, this is beyond basic. The other thing I, I think of, and you know, we, we've said it multiple times in this conversation, and I love how you've tied in.

• 1:23:45Trevor Noah?

  There was a, a beautiful conversation that I had on The Daily Show. With a woman who is one of the foremost like disability advocates, advocates in, in the US, right? So she was part of the team that was behind the Disability Rights Act in America. So people take for granted, there was a time when. Places didn't have ramps.

• 1:24:04Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:24:04Trevor Noah?

  Places didn't have any accessibility features at all. It was like, oh, you can't come upstairs? Tough luck.

• 1:24:10Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:24:11Trevor Noah?

  And she said something really fantastic to me. She said, you know, the biggest arrogance and mistake people make is one, they always assume that they will never be disabled. Right? She's like, no, you just, it, it can happen to you through age, through accident, through whatever it is in life. It can always, it's, it's, it's an opt-in service, surprisingly.

• 1:24:31Trevor Noah?

  And she said, you also take for granted how. The idea that seems like a burden today because you're doing it for others is actually the thing that's gonna help you.

• 1:24:43Trevor Noah?

  So they designed ramps at supermarkets for people with disabilities. Do you know who uses ramps more than anyone now? Is people who are fully able-bodied and have found it's an easier way to roll things up and down into a supermarket.

• 1:24:59Speaker 03

  I'm always with my, um, with my stroller.

• 1:25:02Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:02Speaker 03

  Ramps are game changers for me. I can take all three kids into a supermarket because there's a ramp.

• 1:25:08Speaker 02

  Cause there's a ramp.

• 1:25:08Trevor Noah?

  And then you go, thank you disability advocates. Do you get what I'm saying?

• 1:25:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:25:12Trevor Noah?

  All the things, and it's like, it seems, and I think of it, let's, let's go through everything we discussed today. We start with the kids.

• 1:25:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:25:20Trevor Noah?

  Right? You go, everything you're talking about for an ADHD kid, if we learn how to implement those systems for ADHD kids, other kids benefits.

• 1:25:30Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:25:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:25:31Trevor Noah?

  How do you make a classroom more engaging?

• 1:25:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:25:33Trevor Noah?

  How do you talk to your child? How do you engage with your child? How do you empathize with them? You apply that to a non ADHD brain, it's still gonna be rewarded. It's still gonna reward you. The things that you said about athletes and finding purpose on the other side of life and the pivot.

• 1:25:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:25:51Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, that's great for ADHD, but you know who it's also great for? Everyone else. People are gonna switch careers. People are gonna change what they're doing in life. People are gonna find themselves a little unmoored. And this is the same thing. All of a sudden, you found a path. You go to relationships. Yes, your partner might have ADHD. And so it helps to say, hey, are you listening to me? Or I need you to listen right now. Or actually, hey, I, I noticed you, you're in your trigger right now. Go relax, go sleep. Let's not do this now because you, you're gonna. You know who that also helps? People in normal relationships.

• 1:26:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:26:22Trevor Noah?

  It's just ADHD is the most acute example I find, and it's also the most obvious at times. But I think like, if we solve the world for ADHD people. It solves the world for everyone. We're almost like the canaries in the coal mine, I think, where I genuinely think we are.

• 1:26:38Speaker 03

  You're showing like the sickness in.

• 1:26:40Trevor Noah?

  Let me tell you something now. I'll tell you now. If a kid thinks it's boring, they're right.

• 1:26:45Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 1:26:46Trevor Noah?

  Do you know, because people be like, kids don't, kids can't pay attention. Yo, kids can play eighteen hours a fortnight.

• 1:26:51Speaker 02

  They can definitely pay. I was in, I took my son to like a dinner. And we were like forty-five minutes through and he said, how do you guys listen so long? It's like ten more minutes and we're out. And he was right. Like it was just going on and on and on. And it was like, yes, we don't have to do all of this.

• 1:27:10Trevor Noah?

  Yes. Do you know where I was never bored as a kid?

• 1:27:13Speaker 02

  Where?

• 1:27:13Trevor Noah?

  You know where I was never bored? Black church.

• 1:27:15Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:27:16Trevor Noah?

  Never. Because someone would be like, no, it's about listening. Yo, when we would go to white church?

• 1:27:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:27:21Trevor Noah?

  It was just, all right, here we go. John three verse sixteen. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever loved him shall not perish but have eternal life. I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Black church, I don't care if you were four years old or forty years old. That pastor made that sermon come alive.

• 1:27:38Speaker 02

  Call and response.

• 1:27:39Trevor Noah?

  Exactly. You're engaged.

• 1:27:42Speaker 03

  Standing up.

• 1:27:42Trevor Noah?

  You're standing, you're in the, and even as a child, I was like, yes. In Jesus's name.

• 1:27:48Speaker 02

  Praise the Lord.

• 1:27:49Trevor Noah?

  I was like, wow, what is, I might not understand all these concepts, but I'm, you.

• 1:27:54Speaker 02

  My kid says, what is happening? Like, it's to go down then, I'm like, hey.

• 1:27:58Trevor Noah?

  And the pastor will like repeat something.

• 1:28:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:28:00Trevor Noah?

  You know, I don't think you heard me.

• 1:28:02Speaker 02

  I'mma say it again.

• 1:28:02Trevor Noah?

  I'mma say it again.

• 1:28:03Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:28:04Trevor Noah?

  I'mma say it again.

• 1:28:05Speaker 02

  Because he knows we have ADHD.

• 1:28:06Trevor Noah?

  You see what I mean? But no, that works for the whole congregation. And so I feel like, like in these things, sometimes people, I can understand. If you don't have ADHD, you're going like, ah, this silly sounding, because it really sounds like a little quirky, little, you know, disorder that people have.

• 1:28:22Speaker 03

  Everyone has ADHD. That's the response.

• 1:28:24Speaker 02

  Everybody does not.

• 1:28:25Trevor Noah?

  I also struggle to get out of bed. Get over it. You think I like the office? Get over it. Oh, please, you can't pack your suit. Get over it. I understand where you're coming from, but mark my words. If you listen to ADHD people and you quote unquote fix the world for them, you will live in a better world.

• 1:28:45Speaker 02

  I grew up someplace that was not quite as loud at night, but our brains can exist.

• 1:28:50Trevor Noah?

  I think they can, and I think sometimes if you take that, so I'll, I'll challenge my friends who are parents of ADHD kids and I'll say this to them, I'll go, and I go, please, I say this with all the compassion in my heart, because I know you're busy, I know you're tired, I know, I know all the, I'm not saying you're not, and even a person who's in a relationship with someone with ADHD, I know it's, I know it's annoying, I know how much you hate repeating yourself, I know how much you feel like you're, you know, going through the same cycle of, I, I say all of those caveats, but you'll be shocked at how much fun you can have and how much it can benefit you to take it as, as a fun challenge. So for instance, I say to parents of ADHD kids, sometimes your child with ADHD, who's like climbing on the couch and then like standing on a thing and then doing some assaults in

• 1:29:34Trevor Noah?

  the living, you know what they might actually expose for you if you're willing to listen to it, they might show you how little you move.

• 1:29:40Speaker 02

  Ooh.

• 1:29:42Trevor Noah?

  Do you know what I'm saying? Because you're living a sedentary lifestyle.

• 1:29:46Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:29:47Trevor Noah?

  You barely move, you sit at the office, you sit in your car, and then you sit at home. Now, another child is able to mold themselves to match what you're doing. An ADHD kid cannot, they need to get the thing out of their body.

• 1:30:03Speaker 02

  The wiggles, as you call them.

• 1:30:04Trevor Noah?

  It's pent up energy, pent up energy, but now they're exposing it, like, like you, you, you go like, this kid can never sit still, but sometimes you should ask yourself, go like, huh, I've noticed that we sit still quite a lot.

• 1:30:17Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:30:17Trevor Noah?

  Like, look at that as a challenge and go like, okay, every time they do that, do 20 squats with them, do jumping jacks with them for a minute. Oh my god, I'd be so exhausted. Yes, exactly, but this is.

• 1:30:26Speaker 02

  You're already in good shape, but you'll be like.

• 1:30:27Trevor Noah?

  This is my point, this is exactly my point, is that sometimes you can find things that you've taken for granted that can actually help you as well.

• 1:30:38Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:30:38Trevor Noah?

  And that, like, the gamification can go both ways is what I'm saying, but it's like, yeah, solve the world for others and solve the world for yourself.

• 1:30:46Speaker 02

  I love it. That's a beautiful refrain. Yeah.

• 1:30:48Trevor Noah?

  This has been so much fun.

• 1:30:49Speaker 02

  It was so much fun, thank you all.

• 1:30:51Trevor Noah?

  I hope we have you back again. And, and by the way, thank you for being a bridge as well, you know, I think, as you said, you know, like, I'm black. People just take for granted how culturally certain cultures are gonna catch up to certain ideas in different ways, right? And I remember when I was diagnosed, my first time actually, was when I was diagnosed with ADD. Back then they just called it-

• 1:31:10Speaker 02

  Attention deficit disorder, when it was just ADD.

• 1:31:12Trevor Noah?

  In fact, no, back then they called it hyperactivity. That's all they called it.

• 1:31:16Speaker 02

  Okay, so that was like-

• 1:31:18Trevor Noah?

  This was, I was like six or five-

• 1:31:20Speaker 02

  So you know what it probably was, was the I C D ten, which is the international system-

• 1:31:25Trevor Noah?

  Probably.

• 1:31:26Speaker 02

  Was calling it one thing, and then the United States system was calling it ADD.

• 1:31:30Trevor Noah?

  Right.

• 1:31:31Speaker 02

  And so now they try to be on the same page.

• 1:31:33Trevor Noah?

  So they said to me, your child, they said to my mom, so the school said to my mom, I guess they did a good job. They said, hey, you need to take this kid for evaluation. He's very smart, but he's chaos. But not, he's not rude, he's not anything. He's just chaos, though. And she took me in and they told her that. And when we came out, my mom, I said, what did they say? And my mom said, I, so these people, they, they said, you, you, you, you are hyperactive. I said, he's a child. And they said, no, but he's very hyperactive. And I said, so what do we do? And she says, honey, we pray. We pray, honey.

• 1:32:06Speaker 02

  Let's move on.

• 1:32:06Trevor Noah?

  And I said, but we've been praying.

• 1:32:09Trevor Noah?

  I said, but we've been praying and it hasn't worked. And she said, yes, sweetie, and that's then, once the praying doesn't work, then that's what the beatings are for. She said, we will, we will beat it out of you, my child. Don't worry. And yours was my favorite thing is, she made it seem like it was gonna be a team effort. My mom didn't make it seem like I was gonna get beaten.

• 1:32:26Speaker 02

  She was like, you're gonna be so afraid of it.

• 1:32:28Trevor Noah?

  She was like, honey, not even a threat. She made it like, honey, you know what, baby? We're, we're gonna beat this thing. We will take a, a stick and we will beat this thing out of you, baby. We're not gonna let it win. And I'm there like, this sounds like a team talk, but I'm the one who's gonna be beaten in the same talk. But no, I, the reason I say thank you for bridging the gap is because it doesn't matter, black, Latino, you know, you name it. My, do you know how many of my Asian friends have told me in a different way? They've had like a, it's not the spiritual one. Their one is like a, no, no, suck it up, keep moving vibe.

• 1:33:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:33:03Trevor Noah?

  I was like, oh, but my brain, no, no, no. What do you mean your brain? Hey.

• 1:33:06Speaker 02

  You make it work.

• 1:33:08Trevor Noah?

  I think it would be great for us to find those bridges because somebody sees a doctor who looks like them, sounds like them, is a... So you don't roll your eyes when someone says, "That's the, that's a spirit, that's a, that's a demon." You don't go like...

• 1:33:21Speaker 02

  They bring up a spirit, I'm totally, I'm gonna be like, "Okay, you did it first."

• 1:33:25Trevor Noah?

  But you see, I think, I think so you see, to me, that's what I was gonna say, yes, that's what I was gonna say. We take for granted that most of the ideas of professionalism that we've adopted in society are a homogenous idea of professionalism, right? So we go, "That's not professional." What we mean is, that's not stock standard white man, like WASP-y white man as well. Because southern white man, I, my southern friends, they have a different vibe of what professionalism is. They'll say things, "Hey darling," it's like, "Hey, hey, that's not professional." You don't call people darling, but there you do.

• 1:33:56Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:33:56Trevor Noah?

  You know, and then you go all around the world, Italians have different professionalism, French people have different professionalism. And I think that's something we take for granted. When we're treating people, helping people, discussing things with people, we forget that, guys, an African doctor will joke with you in a setting where no joke would be told, you know what I mean? Like, a white person would go, "I cannot believe..." Because an African doctor can come in, just be like, "Eh, so you're dying." And you're like, "What?" "Yeah, you're dying, you're dead, dead this week." "No, I'm joking, I'm joking, eh, no, I'm joking." "No, their blood test came back, you're looking good." They'd be like, "That is unprofessional." There's an African, there's an element of like, "Ah, you're, come on, how can, you can't be serious all the time, eh, you can't." And I think those things are beautiful to examine.

• 1:34:40Trevor Noah?

  It's like, it's fun to be in a space with somebody who knows you even though they've never met you. Because then I think they can help you get to the place where they're helping you fix the problem, but they're not seeing who you are as part of the problem. They're not seeing your culture as part of the problem. They're able to split it and go, "Oh, no, no, no, that's not a problem, that's just black. This is the thing we're actually trying to solve."

• 1:35:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:35:02Trevor Noah?

  So I'm, it's been really wonderful meeting you, thank you.

• 1:35:05Speaker 03

  You're doing the, you're doing the good work.

• 1:35:13Trevor Noah?

  What Now with Trevor Noah is produced by Spotify Studios in partnership with Day Zero Productions. The show is executive produced by Trevor Noah, Sanaz Yamin and Jodi Avigan. Our senior producer is Jess Hackel. Claire Slaughter is our producer. Music, mixing and mastering by Hannes Brown. Thank you so much for listening. Join me next Thursday for another episode of What Now.

• 1:35:51Speaker 04

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• 1:36:17Speaker 01

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