7. ADHD vs Highly Sensitive, What's the Difference? with therapist Avery Wasmanski

What if the overwhelm you’ve always blamed on anxiety or “being too sensitive” is actually ADHD… or both?

In this episode of Real Parenting for the Sensitive Mom, Adrienne Bishop and Leah Andeoni sit down with licensed, trauma-informed therapist Avery Wasmanski to unpack the complex and often confusing overlap between high sensitivity, ADHD, anxiety, and trauma in motherhood.  

With both professional expertise and lived experience as a mom with ADHD, Avery helps us explore why so many women are diagnosed late (or not at all), how ADHD shows up differently in moms, and why executive functioning, emotional regulation, and rejection-sensitive dysphoria can make parenting feel impossibly hard.

Together, we talk about:

• The key differences and overlaps between high sensitivity and ADHD
• Why anxiety and burnout are so common in undiagnosed moms
• Executive functioning struggles vs. sensory overwhelm
• Emotional reactivity, impulse control, and parenting under stress
• Rejection-sensitive dysphoria and how it impacts moms and kids
• The role of trauma in amplifying ADHD symptoms
• Why self-compassion and understanding your brain are essential (not optional)
• Small, realistic steps to feel more empowered and less overwhelmed

If you’re a mom who feels like your brain never shuts off, you’re exhausted from masking, or you’re wondering whether ADHD might be part of your story, this conversation will help you feel seen, validated, and less alone.

Avery's contact information: https://averywasmanskilpctherapy.com/

📲 Share this episode with another sensitive parent 🌐 Visit adriennebishopcoaching.com or risingsuntherapy.com for more support.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Hello and welcome to Real Parenting for the Sensitive Mom, the podcast for moms who feel everything and still show up. I'm Adrienne Bishop, your co-host and parenting coach. And I'm Leah Andrione, your co-host and family therapist.

SPEAKER_01: 0:12

Today we will be talking to Avery Wozmanski, who's a licensed trauma-informed therapist about supporting women and moms with ADHD or suspected ADHD, anxiety and trauma. Avery incorporates psychoeducation, mindfulness, and other holistic and somatic techniques in her therapy while always focusing on the relationship between client and therapist as the primary tool for healing and change. Avery's lived experience of being a mom of two young girls, as well as being a therapist with ADHD, gives her a unique understanding of what being a mom with ADHD is like. Avery, I'm so excited to be talking to you and thank you for being here. Happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00: 0:55

So, Avery, both Leah and I, as you know, specialize in supporting moms who are highly sensitive, but there can be some overlap in the symptoms of being highly sensitive and having ADHD. So for some moms, it can be confusing when you're not sure if one or both are present. And a lot of the moms I work with also have kids with ADHD and also have ADHD themselves. So this is very challenging in regards to parenting, both kids with ADHD and being a mom with ADHD, or maybe even being highly sensitive and parenting kids with ADHD. So we're super excited to talk to you about these real issues that a lot of the moms we work with face.

SPEAKER_01: 1:29

Avery, I love that you support moms with ADHD, especially because it's so helpful right now, as there's so many women becoming late diagnosed because they're realizing what they've been struggling with their whole lives. How did you start working with women with ADHD?

SPEAKER_02: 1:46

I started working with women with ADHD after I was diagnosed with ADHD and kind of went into hyperfocus mode on learning everything that I possibly could about how ADHD presents in women. So uh after my second daughter was born, I had been working with my therapist for a long time and she was like, I don't think it's just anxiety. I think there's something more going on here. I think it might be ADHD, and I really had not even considered that as a possibility and didn't really know that much about it. And then after I had some time to process, I was like, actually, this makes a lot of sense, and also makes a lot of sense for my family members too. Yeah, it was a really um intense, like eye-opening experience of as as I was navigating, you know, becoming a parent of two kids. And so I did a lot of self-education and reading and listening to all the podcasts that I could to just teach myself as much as possible about how this looks like in women and moms in particular. And so at the time I was working in a group therapy practice, and then I was noticing as I was working with some of my clients, like, oh, this also isn't just anxiety for them, or this also just isn't just depression for them, or they're coming to me and they're sharing some things that kind of sound like this could be ADHD. And then I found that I really like to work with that population. So now my whole practice is based on working with women and moms who suspect they have ADHD or maybe already have a diagnosis.

SPEAKER_00: 3:18

So you were saying that anxiety and depression were two symptoms that you were like, maybe there's more going on. So I'm curious when you're thinking about determining, you know, maybe I should get a diagnosis or maybe I should get evaluated. Like, what are the the symptoms? What are the reasons why you would recommend either throwing your clients, or maybe for what when you also were experiencing, maybe I should get an evaluation or figure this out? Like, what did you see in both your clients and in you that made you want to do that?

SPEAKER_02: 3:46

Well, so I think there's multiple reasons why you might want to seek out a diagnosis. I mean, one, if it's if you feel like your symptoms are like so incredibly impactful on your day-to-day functioning and we're not able to do the things that we want to do, or feel like we're chronically overwhelmed and we're chronically feeling like we're stressed all the time and it's never going away, or it's impacting our ability to be present with our partner or kids, or that we're having these big kind of responses to our children and or our partner, that might be when we might want to be seeking help. And so when we're noticing that like the anxiety or the overwhelm or like the low points of maybe more depression-like symptoms are really having a significant impact on your day-to-day functioning, that would be time where we might want to seek that out. Going back to maybe that point about people coming into therapy with anxiety or depression symptoms, a lot of times what we see is somebody's coming to therapy because they're anxious about doing all of the tasks that are required in motherhood. And that is so overwhelming to the point that it's paralyzing for some people. Or they're so overextended that they're just kind of chronically in this fight or flight state, and they're just on edge all of the time. And so the difference between somebody coming with like, I'll put this in air quotes, like just anxiety versus anxiety that it might be fueled by ADHD might be that there's anxiety that somebody's gonna find me out, and somebody's gonna figure out that I don't actually know what I'm doing, or somebody's gonna notice that I'm late to something, or somebody's gonna think something about me, that I'm not the perfect parent here, and I'm overcompensating in all of these ways so that, and this is often when we see like this high masking kind of parenting, or you know, being a mother or woman, and so we're overcompensating in all these ways so that somebody doesn't actually see what's actually happening underneath, versus more like the more generalized anxiety that like we're just worried about every single thing, or maybe something like very specific, a little bit different when we're thinking about ADHD being the what's pushing that anxiety.

SPEAKER_01: 6:03

Sounds like almost a more intense anxiety or a more intense reaction to life versus, like you said, being worried about everything in general and just kind of living in those what ifs. The anxiety fueled by ADHD sounds more like I can't function because of it. It's deeper.

SPEAKER_02: 6:24

Yeah, and it's almost for a lot of people, I think, especially when it is kind of how that presents in terms of anxiety, is our brain is never stopping, it's never slowing down, it's never giving us a chance to rest. And so it's also really exhausting, which of course can happen for people with more generalized anxiety, but that never shutting down, that never being able to quiet our brain down is something that I hear so frequently.

SPEAKER_00: 6:48

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And actually, what I'm thinking about now is the highly sensitive side and how those two kind of correlate because there's a lot of comorbidities anyway, where with high sensitivity, you're gonna have overwhelm with a lot of the senses or the sensory piece, or even anxiety is a huge part of being highly sensitive. So I'm just wondering if you had any experience with the differences or maybe even the commonalities that we can kind of help people understand what are the differences, or maybe I have ADHD, I thought it was high sensitivity, maybe it's both.

SPEAKER_02: 7:19

Well, so I think there are quite a lot of similarities. Like people with ADHD and people that are identified as being highly sensitive tend to feel things very deeply, right? And they might get overwhelmed or overstimulated by a lot of sensory input. But someone with ADHD might have all of those things happening, and they might also have a really hard time with paying attention to things and having kind of an inconsistent focus or trouble with more executive function like tasks, like trouble with starting the tasks, planning, breaking them down, those kinds of things. Even if we want to be doing them, that tends to be a challenge. And so if we're thinking about somebody who might be strictly experiencing those highly sensitive traits, those challenges might not necessarily be showing up.

SPEAKER_00: 8:05

So it sounds like the executive functioning skills are the kind of missing piece, if you want to say. Like those are the things that people with ADHD struggle with, but maybe highly sensitive people don't. It's just that maybe they have overwhelm or anxiety from some of the sensory overload or some of the overthinking or perfectionism, things like that. I do think that a lot of times with uh with people with highly sensitive um personalities, they end up having a little bit of procrastination because of perfectionism and maybe discomfort in wanting to avoid something. But that's also an ADHD symptom in this sense, right? Procrastination or something maybe not following through. And so I think a lot of times we do have to figure out like, like, what's the cause of some of these challenges people are facing, even though they might look very similar on the outside. And also, we just did a podcast on the physical sensitivities, and one of the uh senses, one of the internal senses is interoception. And that is awareness of all the things happening in your body all the time, all the time. And I think a lot of, well, some highly sensitive people end up having hyper interoception where they're noticing everything and it can be a lot. And that kind of sounds similar to what you're saying, but again, is it creating non-functioning situations or is it something that you're like, okay, I can just manage this or learn tools on how to work through this, this being hungry or noticing every thought or every feeling or every emotion. Can I parse out some of these things and actually work through them? Or am I unable to focus on any of those little pieces during the day or even those thoughts that are coming through? Am I able to pick out thoughts and actually process them? And I feel like I don't, from what I can tell, don't have ADHD. And so I think that seems like one of the bigger differences is from when I talk to people with it, it's like there is a million thoughts and they can't grab any of them because it's just too much. So I think if you can and you can kind of parse through some of that, it might not be a symptom. It might be, but you know, does that sound accurate from what you've experienced?

SPEAKER_02: 10:01

Yeah, and I I think it's an important um point that you bring up about interoception because I think a lot of the women that I work with who do have ADHD or suspect that they do, they are actually very out of touch with their internal experiences, right? So there's a lot of lack of mindful awareness of I have to use the bathroom, or I am hungry, or I'm tired and or I'm overstimulated. And that is why I might have this kind of big, big experience.

SPEAKER_00: 10:31

So that makes a ton of sense. And I was wondering about the self-reflection piece, is it's almost like self-awareness, self-reflection. And it tends to be very common with people that I know that have ADHD. It's like all of a sudden they're like, oh my gosh, I'm having eaten in five hours or whatever. And it seems to be like that is definitely something that they're struggling with. So it's good to kind of understand maybe there is something with interoception that's happening and whatever side you're on might tell you a little bit more about where what direction to go in. It sounds like.

SPEAKER_01: 11:01

What comes to mind is that because it can be very difficult to know whether the highly sensitive piece is just the highly sensitive piece, or is it go into the ADHD? And it sounds like, you know, the executive functioning obviously is like the big key piece that I'm hearing. But then it also comes back to, I think, why it takes so long to get a diagnosis is that women, right, will be very highly functioning most of our lives. And like you said, avery masking a lot of it. And then once we hit a certain age or just things in life become too much and we can't do it anymore. Do you think that that's why so many women are misdiagnosed with ADHD depression for so long? And then maybe why some of them never get diagnosed is because it can be so difficult to piece it out if they really don't know what they're looking for.

SPEAKER_02: 11:54

Yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot of reasons why women tend to go quite long or forever with not being diagnosed. I think part of the reasoning there is the research is based mostly off of male children, right? And so when all the research is based off of that, we don't have the full picture in the actual criteria to diagnose because it's not based off of our reality. Because when we really understand what ADHD looks like in girls and women, it is a lot of times a very different experience compared to what it looks like in boys and men. And so even if we think about part of the criteria relating to hyperactivity, in, and this is not a hundred percent true all of the time, but this is a very common experience that maybe in boys or men, the hyperactivity comes out in these more kind of physical ways, right? Like a lot of times we have this idea that a boy with ADHD looks like a little kid, you know, bouncing around, jumping from the couch all over the place. And we might not think about that in terms of how that might show up for girls and women. And so if we're looking at that and we're seeing, oh, this child is very calm and she's sitting there quietly staring out the window or has her head in the book, we're not seeing this. But if we can identify that what often is true for girls and women is that if we have a girl who's presenting as anxious in like school age years, that should be a red flag. That should be an indicator that like there might be something else going on there when she's having social difficulties, or if she is actually a very good student and she follows all of the rules to a T, but then also gets home and totally has a meltdown, perhaps, that that might be an indicator that there might be something else going on there. And so we often see either this uh experience where girls are more dreamy or kind of they're maybe staring out the window, or they're also not presenting as super hyper, but in their brain, it's this constant chatter and it's never slowing down. And so it's more that hyperactivity of the mind versus this externalized hyperactivity.

SPEAKER_00: 14:07

I feel like when we were growing up, it was the spacey. Yeah, like that was what they called people that you know, girls that maybe had ADHD was like, oh, they're so spacey. And you're like, but they're actually kind of smart. I don't, that doesn't make any sense, you know? But it's interesting that you said anxiety because we do know that, well, this is what I've discovered is that it's a kind of almost like a result of having ADHD because you realize you can't trust your brain to function in the right way. So the anxiety ticks up because you can't trust it and you don't know what's gonna happen. So that's very scary. And I feel like as a maybe even as a mom or as a as a woman in general, you're in your maybe 30s, 40s, you can't trust your brain. Like that's really anxiety inducing, I would imagine. And so I I think that's a really good plot, is like the anxiety should be maybe a key to understanding like maybe where is this coming from? Do you find that most people that you work with that have ADHD tend to also be anxious? Does that correlate?

SPEAKER_02: 15:05

Absolutely. No, I I mean, yes, I would say nearly all of the clients that I work with, and maybe it's those specific clients that I'm, you know, attracted. Right. They're coming to get help. Almost all of the clients that I work with um have some level of anxiety that is absolutely like ever present.

SPEAKER_00: 15:25

And also I've had a lot of people with ADHD and they're and they're older kind of, I guess, say in sort of, you know, anecdotally that they're, I think it's self-esteem can be lower. So I think that that might be a result of, again, not being able to trust your brain and not being able to like trust the fact that you can follow through on something or that you can handle something in a certain way. And so as a parent, as a mom, that's pretty much like a ton of what you're doing is following through on things and organizing your family and planning and making sure that everybody has what they need. And I can imagine like that must be so much more difficult if you have also have ADHD and maybe it's even undiagnosed or you're still trying to manage it. So I'm just curious, like, what do you, what do you recommend for some of the women in your practice that maybe have ADHD and they're struggling with parenting or they're struggling with organizing their personal life or their work life or their relationships? Is there some specific things that you do to help them?

SPEAKER_02: 16:20

Yeah, I mean, I think of course it depends uh a little bit like where they're at in their process, whether they because I work with a variety of women like some who have been diagnosed for quite a long time and then they become parents and then they realize how much ADHD is actually impacting, or people who, you know, might not know or did not know for a long time that they might have ADHD, and now here we are just kind of processing that together. And so, I mean, for both of those types of clients that I might work with, I feel like the number one thing is to educate yourself about what ADHD actually looks like and how our brains might function a little bit differently. Because if we don't know how our brain is actually working and what drives certain types of maybe challenging behaviors like the procrastinating, the becoming overstimulated, or struggling to regulate ourselves in a moment where things are really intense and our kids are losing their minds, we are not going to be able to make much meaningful changes without understanding that. Because we know that in order to follow through with a task, we need something to be super motivating to us, or we might need a deadline to make sure that we're gonna get something done. If we don't know that to be true, a to-do list is not gonna fix anything for us. Or a strategy that someone on the internet told us is a great organizational structure for all things kids related, it does not gonna work with our brain if we don't know what actually works best for us. And so I think educating ourselves about ADHD, of course, I do that a little bit in in treatment, but I provide solid resources that I trust and I encourage my clients to read and listen to podcasts. And there's a couple YouTube uh channels that are really solid and and really great resources. And so the next step would be kind of pairing self-compassionate talk with educating our brain because if we know how our brain works, we can also learn to speak with ourselves with a little bit more self-compassion. If we don't know how our brain works, how can we be kind to ourselves and understanding about why we just can't do something the way that other people do it or the way that we believe we should be doing it because that's what we've been taught for our entire lives?

SPEAKER_00: 18:40

I feel like the the self-compassion is really important because there is a lot of, I wouldn't say stigma, but there could be some stigma on like even being diagnosed, or even like thinking, oh my gosh, I have this thing that's preventing me from being who I want to be, or maybe they just struggle to accept it in general. And so I think the self-compassion is is huge. And I'm wondering if you think that that might be part of a motivation to get a diagnosis, is to actually have the ability to say, hey, it's not my fault. Nothing's wrong with me. I just have a different brain that works a certain way. And do you do you see that that's like a benefit to people that get diagnosed?

SPEAKER_02: 19:17

Absolutely. I I mean, I think that is oftentimes the major benefit to obtaining a diagnosis. And so when we have a better idea of how our brain is functioning, it allows us to just understand ourselves better, to let go of some of that self-blame often that we're experiencing and a lot of shame that comes up in regards to when we're growing up as kids and we're here, whether it's coming at us directly or we're seeing the way that other people talk to kids around us. If we're seeing that a teacher or parent is telling either ourselves or someone else that like they're not doing something the right way, and that is not the way that our brain is functioning or the way that our body is working, we learn that there is something wrong with us, and I need To hide that, right? Or there is something wrong with us, and therefore there's something wrong with me as a human being. And that's where the self-esteem kind of Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 20:09

People that are highly sensitive have similar self-talk, which is this idea of something's wrong with me, I'm broken. And then when they find out, like, oh, maybe it's just these compilations of traits that I happen to have, and so does other people too in the world. It's very freeing. It can be very helpful just to have that label and to have that understanding of yourself. So it's always about, I mean, I always talk about self-awareness. That's like my number one thing, including in parenting and having your kids be self-aware and understanding themselves, can cause a lot, a lot more ease in just relationships and life in general and behaviors. So there's two questions I wanted to ask. One was about the regulating emotions for people with ADHD, for moms with ADHD. And also the other one was I'm very curious about the relationship of trauma to ADHD. So I guess maybe we'll start with the emotional one. Like we, as highly sensitive people, can also have big reactions or very strong feelings. And I think that's also a commonality with people with ADHD, but I think the difference could be the impulse control. So can correct me if I'm wrong.

SPEAKER_02: 21:06

No, I would agree with that.

SPEAKER_00: 21:08

Okay, so how do you work with or how do you, even as a personal situation, deal with some of these big emotions that you might have, considering there may be some impulse control challenges also?

SPEAKER_02: 21:19

One is reminding ourselves that we are human. And again, going back to the self-compassion, right? And so not that that fixes everything because it doesn't, you know, uh keep us from maybe having that impulsive kind of big response when our kids, for example, do something that is incredibly frustrating. But I think if we can be self-compassionate, we can also learn to pause and slow down in moments where things feel really intense. And this is something that I've been working with my therapist for five plus years, and this is still really hard. So this is something that we have to acknowledge. Like, this is not an easy fix. It's not something that medication is gonna solve, it's not something that we are just going to be able to fix overnight. But I do think we can practice being mindful and being aware of what's happening for us in our body. And over time, we can learn to pause and slow down in moments where we are feeling really frustrated, right? Like we're not gonna be able to automatically or quickly access skills that we're not able to in the moment, in the heat of the moment, when we're really dysregulated, we're not gonna be able to access those skills if we also don't have the capacity when we're calm to maybe practice some of these things. And so one thing that I often suggest to some of my clients is let's not, let's not focus on like the moments where we're having these really intense responses, but let's actually practice doing these mini moments of pausing or slowing down throughout our day, even when we're not really dysregulated. Even if that means maybe we're at the sink washing dishes. Can we just pause for a moment? Maybe we put our hand over our heart and take one breath before we move on to the next thing so that we're teaching ourselves that we can actually slow down. We don't have to be going a million miles a minute.

SPEAKER_00: 23:11

Yeah. And that's something that I work a lot on with my clients. This idea of in the moment, you might not necessarily have the skills, but to practice it throughout the day or throughout your week, just in general, have those self-regulating tools and just keep practicing them, even whenever you can remember. It doesn't have to be on a regular schedule, but that makes a lot of sense that that can help train your brain to take pauses when you might be in that moment of more high reaction. And I'm curious about if you have ADHD as a mom and your kids also have ADHD, is that is that your situation?

SPEAKER_02: 23:45

Uh not officially, but we have yet to see.

SPEAKER_00: 23:50

Yeah. Well, in general, if you've seen it with your clients or know about that dynamic, is there specific challenges that you would face as a mom in that situation? I mean, I would imagine.

SPEAKER_02: 24:01

Absolutely. And we know that the heritability of ADHD is super high. So this is a very common experience where we have one or both parents who have ADHD, and then we have one or multiple kids who might also experience some of the same things. And so, yeah, when we have, we're struggling with our own emotion regulation, especially when we're thinking about, I'll just use myself an example, but like late diagnosed with ADHD, still learning skills to navigate all this on my own. And then we have a kid who is highly reactive and has really intense experiences and can get really loud, and also it's really overstimulating for the parent. And so then you add the dogs and the cat and whatever else is happening, that it becomes really a really intense experience. And so it can be incredibly hard to keep yourself calm and regulated in a situation where on a day-to-day basis we're overstimulated and we're trying to regulate our child while we're also struggling to regulate ourselves.

SPEAKER_00: 25:06

I mean, I know how that is for me as a highly sensitive mom. It sounds like it's even magnified more when you have ADHD and there's a lot here going on up in your head and hard to parse out different sounds or hear what you're supposed to be hearing. All that stuff can be, I can imagine, super, super difficult.

SPEAKER_02: 25:23

Yeah. It also reminded me too, like in the beginning of the school year, my daughter started first grade, which was her first full day school experience. We were half day kindergarten. So before the school year started, I'm thinking about, oh my gosh, she's gonna have homework this year. She didn't have homework last year. How am I gonna keep all of this stuff organized for her to make sure she's doing her homework when it's already hard enough for her to remember perhaps to do the homework? And so I had to kind of create like a whole new system for how that works in our house because I I knew that I wasn't gonna just gonna be able to remember to check the binder, or my daughter wasn't gonna remember to check the binder. So things like that that come up in terms of the day-to-day organizing or like task completion related to everything that has to do with the kids. It's a lot.

SPEAKER_00: 26:10

I mean, there's just so much going on with kids in general as a parent that it's just, I think even someone that doesn't have ADHD or isn't highly sensitive is still overwhelmed by all of it. So it just makes it that much harder. And then the expectation, right, of the culture and our society is very high, especially with activities. So I just know it's a huge challenge for a lot, a lot of moms. And I think a good thing to do is to just normalize that. It's not something we should expect of ourselves, you know what I mean, in the sense of we have to be 100% perfect or we have to be able to manage all of it calmly.

SPEAKER_02: 26:46

Yeah. If we have this idea of how parenting young children is supposed to be, do we actually have to be signed up for all the activities or is that just our expectation, right? How can we actually make this work for us because my kid doesn't function well, and neither do I, when we have activities in the evenings on a school night?

SPEAKER_00: 27:02

And I agree with you in that very strongly. I had a couple of clients who had like a five, three, and one-year-old, and they had the five-year-old in like three sports, and they were dragging the three and one-year-old with them, and they both worked full time. So I basically said to them, I was like, guys, is it possible you could just delay putting some of the, you know, the kids in some of the sports or some of the activities? Because it's creating that much more stress in your family that you just don't need. Most kids are not going to be in professional sports. They're not going to need to start at five. And I think sometimes families with younger kids, they just kind of think that's what they're supposed to do. And yeah, I mean, there are lots of benefits to it, but it's really evaluating like how are you feeling when you do all these things? Is it creating more stress or is it actually relieving stress? Because sometimes people enjoy it or the kids enjoy it, or it makes them get active, you know, get out there and move and then they're happier. Um, so really just not going with the default and signing up for everything just because. And I think a lot of kids, I talked about this in a couple episodes, need more downtime than others. And I think it's important to recognize that that's normal. Like I have a kid who has in a ton of ADHD. He needs almost a full weekend to recoup from school. And I think it's because he uses a ton of emotional energy to just function. And he doesn't recognize that necessarily, but you can see it in him like on a vacation. He's able to do so much more. But as soon as school comes into play, you have a whole other set of skills that he's trying to desperately do when it's really hard for him not to forget his water bottle and his homework and make sure his book bag is there and pay attention to everything all of his friends are saying at the same time and his teacher. And so I can tell it's exhausting. So I think a lot of times just reading your child can be super helpful and not, I mean, it's hard to do when the expectation is there, but to just really pay attention to yourself and your kid and what are they responding well to and not.

SPEAKER_01: 28:51

Yeah. And that makes me think of what you guys have been saying earlier, that self-awareness and being able to eventually get the diagnosis so you're aware of how your brain works, but then have the self-awareness of what your brain and your body are saying to you. And whereas ADHD, you're sometimes very disconnected. We're highly sensitive. You are very connected. Like I know exactly every creak and pain and anything that's off in my body, I know where it is at all times. I'm not disconnected from my body for better or for worse, but it's having that awareness. And then, like you said, practicing, I call it practicing the pause. We're gonna practice, we're gonna pause, we're gonna take notice of what we need because then we're gonna be able to notice what our kids need. Because if we don't, we're just gonna keep on going, put them in all the sports because that's what we figure they need, and that's the expectations, and also, you know, constantly challenging those expectations for ourselves and our families. So I think it's really important to really understand, you know, the difference between highly sensitive and ADHD, because it might be slightly different treatment. Sounds like a lot is overlapping, but it's still slightly different when you incorporate the executive functioning skills.

SPEAKER_00: 30:09

Yeah. And I was thinking about the idea of support, having people come to me specifically because I work with highly sensitive families. And so when they have someone that understands that trait, the support can be, I mean, life-changing essentially because you're not alone, you're not trying to figure it out by yourself. And there's people that know more than you do. So you don't have to do everything on your own. You don't have to research it all on your own. I think it's a good idea to do that first. But like if somebody came to you, Avery, with ADHD, they would have someone that's knowledgeable and can actually bring them to where they need to go and they feel understood and they feel heard and they don't feel as, you know, alone or out there with what's going on for them. And I think that can be incredibly healing. And I know that's what you said in your bio, this idea of the relationship is so important between the provider or whoever that is and the client because that can be super, super healing. And so I think that that's just something to keep in mind that if you think this might be something you're going through or you're not sure, definitely getting support is going to be a game changer for everyone, I think. And then we'll go back to this idea of trauma and ADHD, because you did mention that was something you work on. So I'm curious, do you see a connection between the two? And what does that connection look like?

SPEAKER_02: 31:21

So I see a lot of coexisting trauma and ADHD, big time. I would say the majority of my clients, not necessarily all, but the majority of my clients have some level of trauma history or traumatic experiences that lead to challenges that make sometimes managing ADHD even more difficult. Because what we also know is like symptoms of unresolved trauma can also mimic some of the same symptoms of ADHD. And so when we, even if we think about if as a kid we struggled with being bullied significantly, we know that people with ADHD tend to be very hypersensitive to any perceived rejection, criticism, anything along those lines. And so having that experience and having being perhaps like ostracized or rejected from peer interactions or a social group can be extremely impactful. Not that it can't be impactful in other situations, but can be extremely impactful. And that can dictate just how we navigate relationships with people and our self-esteem and just how we navigate our life forever. And so when we have that experience, it really takes a toll on, you know, our self-esteem, our self-worth. And when we also are undiagnosed and have that experience, you can kind of imagine how negatively impactful that can be in terms of how we feel about ourselves and entering perhaps romantic relationships or partnerships, and that all comes together and can be really intense. Or having the experience as a kid, maybe being criticized or overly corrected so many more times than maybe a peer who doesn't, or a sibling who doesn't have the kind of like overt challenges that somebody with ADHD doesn't have. When we have that experience over and over and over again and we're told, like, you're doing it wrong, you're doing it wrong. We also then struggle again with self-esteem, or we struggle to kind of go the opposite direction and enter in that perfectionistic, never want to make a mistake, always want to do things exactly the right way because we're feeling anxious that like we don't want to do it wrong.

SPEAKER_00: 33:33

Yeah, all of it goes together, it sounds like in a way. The anxiety, the trauma, the ADHD. And actually, I did write rejection sensitive dysphoria as one of my questions because I think people don't really understand how serious this is and how impactful it can be for people with ADHD. I mean, as a highly sensitive person, I'm very sensitive to criticism and correct correcting. And a lot of times with the parents I work with, I'm like, you have to stop correcting the child. I know it sounds like completely crazy, but there's other ways to do it. They're gonna take it so terribly, you're gonna get worse behavior. And so it's a really big piece of some of the clients that I see. It's a huge, huge, huge problem. Um, and I think it's because as parents, we're like, well, they're doing it wrong or they're saying something wrong. I have to make sure they know what's right. And it's like, yes, but the self-esteem of the child is more important at this point than making sure the person is 100% right and or doing something correctly. And so there's a lot, there's you can get you can do feedback, you can ask questions, there's so many things you can do. But I feel like the trauma of a kid with ADHD, having someone correct them over and over is so real. I mean, you cannot have that happen with high criticism or high correcting and not have that impact your life. So I think that's huge when it comes to working with parents and moms and making sure that they understand the impact that that can have. And not necessarily we're not going to be walking on eggshells around our kids, but just knowing it's real. Like this is not something we're just enabling them around, right? It's not like we're just being too nice or something. It's more about the makeup of the brain. And what do you, what have you noticed about this rejection-sensitive dysphoria idea in your clients and maybe kids?

SPEAKER_02: 35:14

I mean, it comes up in pretty much every aspect of their lives. So whether we're thinking about being in a partnership with our husband or wife, that if we feel like they are criticizing the way that we're parenting, that can feel like a big hit. If we feel like our kid doesn't like us or they're mad at us, that can feel like a big hit.

SPEAKER_00: 35:39

It's a really good point.

unknown: 35:41

Yes.

SPEAKER_02: 35:42

If we feel like other parents are criticizing the way that we're parenting, even if they haven't said anything, it might just be the fear that they might think that we're not a good parent, like when we're out in public, that can have a big impact on our ability to, you know, to parent and to parent mindfully. Because if we're chronically thinking about what is this person going to think about how I'm interacting with my kid, you're actually not present with your kid. You're not focusing on the actual interaction, you're focusing on how other people are perceiving you.

SPEAKER_00: 36:16

And then that can heighten your emotional situation. And then you're gonna make mistakes more because you're more anxious. That's just the way it is. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 36:23

And then you're gonna probably say or do something that you didn't really want to do, and then you're gonna be stuck in this shame spiral that, like, you just messed up and now you're a bad parent, and it's just reinforcing the whole cycle.

SPEAKER_00: 36:33

I had a client who I knew had ADHD, and I think her child was diagnosed with ADHD, and she came to me specifically for parenting help. That's what that's what I do. And every single session, she would argue every single point, every single piece of change that I suggested, she would argue it. And it was contentious the entire session. And I'm like, am I doing something wrong? Am I saying it wrong? Am I criticizing her in some way? And then we would get to the end of the session and she'd be like, Well, you know, you're probably right. Okay, I'll try it. And for this entire 45 minutes, we'd be at at odds with everything I said. And then I got done with a couple of sessions and I was like, oh my God, she has rejection sensitive and dysphoria, which is what's creating her thinking. She's a she goes, she actually said the words to me. When you suggest something, I feel like a bad mom. I feel like I've failed. And it was so difficult. So I'm like, but that's what I'm helping you with. Like, we I can't not suggest things. That's why you're here. We wouldn't get anywhere, you know? But she really, really struggled with this. It was like really, really clear that that was what was going on. She felt like I was criticizing her and saying she had failed. When in reality, I was like, listen, everything you're doing, most people do that. There's nothing wrong with what you're doing. It's just that it's not working for you or your kids. So we're gonna adjust it. There's nothing to do with what you're doing correctly or incorrectly. But she just couldn't get past that. And it was, it was really difficult. I definitely think that that's one of the things that people do is get defensive. And if you have a relationship where someone's getting defensive, it's really difficult to have a communication or it is. It's a key issue in people with ADHD, I think, and also in high sensitivity people because of the criticism. But do you have any ways to work through that? Like specifically regen rejection sensitive dysphoria?

SPEAKER_02: 38:17

I think if we can be aware and mindful of when it's happening, we can kind of name it and externalize it a little bit. And so if we can get, I mean, we could even give it like a silly name or we can just name it for what it is. I'm experiencing RSD or rejection sensitivity right now, we can then maybe like step outside of that situation for a moment and be able to reflect what is actually going on here. Like I'm fe I got defensive because this happened and this showed up really intensely because of this. And it doesn't always mean that we're gonna be able to do that in the moment, but I think at least to start, if we can name it and be aware of when it's showing up in these various settings or situations, we can then be able to maybe learn to be mindful of that in the moment as it's happening because it's hard and it shows up everywhere, right? Like it's not just in one specific situation.

SPEAKER_00: 39:11

Yeah, it's interesting that you said your kids saying certain things create it, which makes a lot of sense when you think about your reactivity to the kids. Like if somebody, if your kid says, I hate you and you have ADHD and maybe RSD, you're gonna take that to heart and react. Whereas if you didn't have those situations happening, it might be easier to be like, well, this isn't about me. Like my kids just upset. So that's like a huge piece of keeping yourself in a calm or regulated place as a parent. And if that's something that's your brain's already not really good at doing, it can be that much more difficult to change those reactions, I can imagine.

SPEAKER_01: 39:45

Well, I really want to come to the question of who our listeners are. And for those who are overwhelmed on a daily basis, whether it's the highly sensitive or more ADHD, because I know. Working with my clients, even offering a suggestion or say, you know, let's try this for this week, they can already be overwhelmed just with daily life. So I was wondering, Avery, if you have anything that can really help them feel empowered in taking control of the things that they can control. They have this new diagnosis, or they're like, okay, no, I'm just highly sensitive. Okay, now what? How can I be empowered? What's the next, I say baby steps, what's the next teeny tiny step that they can do or do daily to really help themselves? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 40:31

Well, I mean, I think going back to my typical like number one suggestion is to educate ourselves about ADHD and what that looks like in terms of how our brain functions. And so I always go back to baby steps, or how can we break down this into like a more manageable piece, or how can I remove any barriers that are keeping me from reading the book or educating or whatever that looks like? How can I make it more palatable? And so if it's like step one of purchasing said book or taking it out of the library or whatever, let's highlight that small win. And then how can we make it more accessible? And so, if we're talking about maybe a step of wanting to educate ourselves and learn more about ADHD, how can I make sure that I'm not gonna forget that that's what I'm supposed to be doing or that that's what my goal is? We think about a way that the ADHD brain tends to work. We need things very visual and in our face, and if it's hiding, it does not exist. Like if it's hidden in a cabinet somewhere, we're not gonna pull that book out. And so can I either give myself a reminder somewhere, a visual reminder? Maybe that means putting my, you know, book on uh a shelf at eye level in my kitchen so that that's there and it's kind of a reminder for me to go back to that or kind of you know put something on my calendar as like a little task for me to complete that I know is manageable in a short period of time rather than getting overwhelmed by oh my gosh, I have to read this entire book. No, we can read for five minutes and and eventually get through that.

SPEAKER_00: 42:05

I also use with my son a lot of reminders on Alexa as a way to have to like take me out of the equation. So I'm not always reminding him, which I think has been really helpful. And then we also do a list. And I know you said like to-do lists aren't always the be all end all for for a lot of people, but for him, we write it together. And for some reason, he likes it. Like he actually likes using the list. And so for the mornings, he can do it all by himself. And I think even for adults and kids, like just giving them that tiny little bit of confidence of like, hey, guess what? I can do this independently. I can remember these things because I have them in the list, or I have this small thing that I know works for me, or I know works for my kid. Just keep experimenting and seeing what works. And then if you're gonna be working with a kid that has ADHD, really helping them to be a part of the solution and not just do it for them or tell them what to do, which is so hard. That is so hard.

SPEAKER_02: 43:01

It is so hard.

SPEAKER_00: 43:02

It's really hard to like not do it for them or not instruct them. Yeah. Like he was making a smoothie like yesterday and he kept getting distracted. And I was like, it's okay. Just let him take his time. He can take an hour to make the smoothie. It's not the end of the world. But you know, it's one of those things where you have to constantly remind yourself it's more important that he gets the confidence back than he does it perfectly or he does it quickly. And I think that's kind of where even if you're an adult in that situation, what's like the smallest thing that you can do? And then really feel like, hey, I accomplished this and keep reminding yourself of the fact that like it's it's possible the capability is there. I do that for myself all the time. So it's like it's good for everyone.

SPEAKER_02: 43:42

Exactly. Well, and don't minimize the success because a lot of times I what I see is, you know, I have somebody who's really struggling with they want to clean the room, for instance, and they're having a hard time getting started and it's feeling really overwhelming. And then I meet with them the next time and they're like, I did all these things, but I still have a hundred more things that I want to do rather than being able to say, wow, I've been sitting on this for like three weeks and haven't touched it. And between this session and last session, I did 10 different things they wanted to accomplish, and I can be proud of that.

SPEAKER_00: 44:11

Yeah, definitely. I think that's a really good point. So if people do want to contact you or want to get a hold of some resources, maybe from your website or something, do you have a way to for people to reach out?

SPEAKER_02: 44:21

Sure. So the best way to get in touch would be to visit my website. It's Avery Wesmansky LPCtherapy.com. It's a mouthful, but I have a contact form. Somebody wants to reach out with some questions and to schedule an initial consult meeting to get started. I do have an online booking form on there.

SPEAKER_00: 44:39

All right, awesome. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Thank you so much, Avery. In the meantime, as always, you can find Leah and me on social media. My Instagram at Adrian Bishop Coaching, and Leah's is at Leah Andreoni. Hope to see you soon.