Podcast: Issues with Self Trust
00:00
You control what we can't trust. You can't love and control at the same time.
00:07
Hey there, you're listening to the ADHD good life podcast. Each week we explore stories, ideas or topics around neurodiversity, an intersectional lens, and the personal growth strategies we found most helpful in transforming our lives. I'm your host Sandra. I'm a wife mother, writer, coach, and educational specialist. I'm also a black cisgender woman, transracial adoptee and fellow neurodiversity after my own ADHD diagnosis. And just like you, I'm learning, I'm learning and feeling so I can step into my uniqueness and create a life that truly allows me to flourish. Thanks for coming along on this journey with me. You ready? Alright, let's get started.
00:48
Hey, everybody, welcome to Episode Seven. I'm still here.
00:57
This episode is about self trust. And I'm going to be completely honest, this is an area that I'm still learning more about. I think I'm going to be unpacking this one for a while. And I still think that I have maybe scratched the surface a little bit. But I think this one runs quite deep for me. And I am going to share a little bit about what I've learned so far.
01:30
I'm also going to start though be talking a little bit about my past and why I think it's been quite a hard or challenging journey up into this point is Glennon Doyle l think, that said, something like, we control what we can't trust. We can't love and control at the same time and this is a really big thing for me because Part of my issues with control, obviously go back to my inability to trust, not being able to trust myself from a very early age. In my life, there was a lot of space for trust.
02:16
I was adopted when I was three and a half. But before that, I was placed back and forth between my birth mother and foster homes. And from what I know, especially the last foster home that I was in, when my birth mother finally decided that no, she could not manage both me and my little brother. The last place that we were in, was kind of a sad state. There weren't many toys, the environment wasn't very inviting. The adults there were basically at war with each other. They're both going through a divorce. So it wasn't a very healthy animal. environment by the time my parents came around to take us home.So I guess you can imagine how little we've learned to trust myself when it wasn't really modelled for me in the times where I really needed it.
03:18
So then I come into a space where I realised that okay, actually, I'm the only black female here. Everyone else doesn't look anything like me. There's no representation from me at all. And I have to learn how to fit into this space. The space isn't made for me. But I need to figure out how I need to make this work. And I think that is a big part of where you know the self betrayal and things start that I Think that we all have innate beliefs and ways if you see yourself and think about ourselves, you know, they run so deep, and maybe even from such a small small age is four years old.
04:13
But all of that just gets taken out of us. Because society says we have to be like this, so do like that. And I think that it's different from how we see ourselves, feel about ourselves. So I felt like, I was four. No, I felt like independent I felt strong. I felt like I could be or do, you know, what I put my mind to? But I wasn't allowed to do that.
04:56
I had to be quiet. I had to be like this. I had to you know, be the good girl, I couldn't speak up, I couldn't act out in ways that not appropriate for this environment or that it didn't match, it didn't add up. So for me to be able to start to fit in, that's gonna start denying who I am or who I think I could be. I think that's where self betrayal started. It's hard to trust ourselves when you're told over and over again, a narrative that doesn't match with what we feel and think about ourselves and know about ourselves. And we hear it so much, then we start to think okay, well, maybe I'm wrong then. Maybe they're right. But I felt it so deeply. How could I been so wrong? And then that's, I think where it starts. I think as ADHDers we grew up being corrected so many times about so many things get corrected. So Often How can we start believing that we're capable of doing things or knowing things? When we get corrected so often? It's like when kids and teens You know, when they are always being nagged and corrected, and over and over again. All we're teaching them is that they aren't capable of doing things without our help.
06:27
So, when we start teaching them that, what are they going to do? Of course, they're going to end up looking to other people to figure out what to do. They don't have the confidence and trust in ourselves, our own capabilities. We've been taught that So we got to look to others, to see what to do because we can't trust ourselves. And I felt like that was where I was at. And I spent my whole life with I think that being a big part of my foundation. You see, lack of trust for me. And how that connects with, you know, having undiagnosed ADHD for so long. It looks like not listening to my body, my intuition. Okay, yes, everything did go so fast. My brain is always going 100 miles an hour. Life passes me So, so quickly. I couldn't really hear my intuition.
07:36
But also, it was stopped out of me anyway. So I think even if I had the moment or chance to be able to stop and listen and feel what my body was trying to tell me, I don't think I would have believed it anyways, I'd already been taught that what I felt and thought it didn't matter. It wasn't correct. It wasn't right. There was a right way to be and do and say, and it didn't match with mine.
08:06
You know, for me, it also looked like not remembering the lessons that I learned from my past mistakes, like not making that connection. It's repeating the same things over and over again, making such small changes, but or not and hoping that they would be different. Then when things didn't go well, or even making things better myself, I would blame them on on not self discipline enough, not willing to make this change. I'm not determined enough. And it would always be that, you know, way of blaming myself, and in having that blaming, as a way to have an answer for what I was struggling with. I didn't have to learn how to take any kind of responsibility to make any changes. But I didn't have the memory to even think of, Oh, well that happened last time I did this. Maybe I can change it or do something differently. No, I just blamed myself. And when I'm blaming myself as much as I am, you guessed it, I'm not trusting myself.
09:21
And just like everyone else, I got told over and over again about the mistakes I was making, what I shouldn't do, what I shouldn't be like, I should be like, and the thing is, is that when I compare that to the good, I was told, it doesn't add up. Our brains need three times more good news, more good things to hear about ourselves than bad. But we grow up hearing the opposite and when we hear that much negativity, anything good doesn't even feel like it's real or meaningful. Oh my gosh, I feel like I feel like when I hear something good I'm like wondering, are you talking about me? Tell me why we can't take compliments. We screw up not hearing them. And then we're like, what? No, that's good thing. What? Oh my god, I don't know what to do about that. Maybe that's just me.
10:12
I also think that for me, my lack of self trusted comments and like, learning to listen to everyone else around me, and not myself. That turned into people pleasing, which I'm going to talk about a little bit more later on. But when I was able to listen to everyone else and do what they wanted. I learned that my needs never mattered. And I think another thing that definitely connected with my ADHD and it's like, trust is the feelings I had, are always so intense.
10:53
Because they're so intense, you just want to turn them off. They just become so overwhelming. You're so difficult to manage. So, for me, when I was feeling something that I didn't like to feel that it was really hard for me, I would just try to bury it. I would try to avoid it. I would try to do anything I could to make it go away. But the problem with that is is that behind every emotion that you're feeling, there is a thought. And when you're avoiding that feeling and emotion, you're avoiding that thought to that's making it that's causing it. You can't know it, you can't understand it. And then you don't have the chance to actually challenge if it's something that is real for you. Is it a voice that is yours? Is it something that you can change for you so that you don't have to keep thinking that
11:57
I never thought do that. So I showed myself that there was no trust there either because these feelings and coming up, these thoughts are coming up, and I'm ignoring them. I'm pushing them away. I'm not listening to myself. And that, you know, was how I live my whole life and trying to undo all of that has been. Yeah, it's not an easy thing for sure. Because with that, issues around trust, came problems with control, because control was necessary for me. It was a survival for me because I could not trust my self.
12:50
So I compensated for this in a few ways.
12:57
One of the first ways was my profession. So this is something that really was trying to find ways to control the inconsistency in myself, you know, living with undiagnosed ADHD, you know, things I think I'm doing well, I realised I haven't done well because, you know, lack of focus. I've made silly mistakes. I'm like, How the hell did I do that? I checked that over like 10 times. How did I miss that? It's me thinking that I'm doing so well, socially, and I have so many friends but then they're all disappearing, we're all going away.
13:38
And it's like, learning. I'm actually not really good with people much and all that. I'm not really looking at them listening to them. But I'm trying my best. I'm putting all of this out there to be perfect to not make mistakes yet because it is at that moment. Don't even know that I have. I'm making them all over the place. And I can't even notice them. I can't even see them to make any change at all. And it didn't just come in like my need to be the expert, my need to be better than everyone else, which, you know, somewhere along the line I learned as being black and like, I had to be twice as good as everyone else. I had to work three times as hard as everyone else. In order to get a quarter of the respect a quarter of the first a quarter of the pitch, then everyone else around me. And I've learned that along the way, too. Even though in my being in my head, I'm like, I'm as good if not better than anyone. I'm working with. Anyone that I'm meeting. They're telling me I'm half of what they are. You know, what they how they treat me. And then microaggressions that I'm dealing with, in whether they decide to be my friend or not.
15:10
And so now I'm starting to think in that way too. I'm thinking, Oh, well, I'm thinking that I'm I'm enough, but they're telling me otherwise they're showing me otherwise. So now, I've got a really over over overcompensate for that to get a portion of what I actually really deserve.
15:33
But it was a way that I felt like I could get some control where there was none. At least in my life anyways. And that's when I started getting obsessed with my weight in the shape of my body. And you know, what my hair was like and all of that because I was told like, this is not what a body looks like. So I would have good body look like you want to be accepted, you've got to look like this. And again, it became something that I hyper focused on. And I felt like I could be a certain way, my body could become a certain shape, I could maybe do that, then I could be accepted by them. Everyone I couldn't be enough. There were so many comments I heard my whole life about no the way that I but not the way that this look the way that that look, oh, you need to lose weight here. And you know, if you didn't have this or that, or you had this hair, that hair you know. And because I listened to everyone, I started to take that on in those kinds of narratives have been so hard to unbreak to break and just take apart but he'll because I try to control so much and really thought that I had power over the outcomes. So when I made mistakes and No things messed up. Things didn't go the way that I planned. Because Well, they were going to undiagnosed ADHD and already having heightened emotions, I feel even worse, because I'm putting in all this effort. So I think
17:15
yet it's not producing the results. I see yet another way, I can't trust what's going on for me. If I'm putting in all of this effort, why are the results not coming out like Karen a corner there, this half of what I have to do, and I am twice as smart as her or twice as this is not as her.
17:44
And no, I do think that's a lot to do with the environment around me as well and the society too, because I was trained and believed that I needed to do that effort. I just could not understand how I could keep messing up so much.
18:08
Control came to me is people pleasing as well. And on the outside, it seems so lovely because you're like, I just want to help others. I just want to be, you know, a good person and do what I can for other people. But this is about manipulation and control. And looking back, yeah, it really was because everywhere I went every job I worked at every social group I was a part of. It always did the same thing. Always the same thing. It was about looking at the group, trying to figure it out, trying to see who was who and what they were about, what did they wear? What did they do
18:58
so I could find my weigh in. It's about working environments and knowing what mask I need to wear, what things I need to say what I can't say, how they're going to interpret who I am based on what I look like and I've got to manage and manipulate all of that in order for people to like me. I also had undiagnosed ADHD and which was putting a bomb and most of that because well, Miss social cues, lack of focus, emotional dysregulation probably came off seeming unkind or aloof.
19:37
But I never saw any of that. All I felt was like resentment. Because I'm like, I'm working so damn hard over here. Why is this not working? While your people still not wanting to really be my friend or really care about me? But then again, my brain doesn't quite Remember that it doesn't, it's a strategy that's not working very well. And instead, it remembers the drama, of trying to manipulate the grip trying to get in and trying to fit in and trying to win at getting that acceptance. That's the part that's really stimulating, not the part that asks me to self reflect and think about what I need, and start changing my own thoughts and behaviour so I can respond differently. That part's not as stimulating. I didn't really figure that out. I didn't know. All I knew was that I needed to survive and I needed to have control or feel like I did. People pleasing was a way I did that.
20:54
This part what i'm trying To do to build self trust, this is very, very slow process. But it's one that I know has made a difference for me. I do mean slow because, you know, I just talked about my background, I've talked about how the self trust issues a turn to control and how that's gone through most of my life in most areas of my life. So I feel like the self trust issue is like the size of CN Tower or something and I'm starting at the very bottom and I'm like, Oh, my God, I've gotta climb all the way up there. And I'm a little pebble like next to it. Sometimes it feels that big, but it's baby steps, right.
21:57
So learning To trust myself, it really started with one thing. It was about keeping promises to myself. This is simple, and it's a bit brilliant. And you keep at it and it spirals into other things. But it really starts with one small promise. And I start to see that, oh, I've been able to do this thing. So, hey, I did this for me. I'm starting to trust myself a little bit, but I could probably show up for myself again in another way. That's what that's about. When keeping a promise to myself, I'm choosing something really small that I can do not fail in two minutes a day. Because I have ADHD, I'm going to get bored, I'm gonna get overwhelmed. I do this in a way that might connect to a feeling that I have. So if I want to be more mindful, then rather than saying I'm gonna meditate for two minutes a day, when I get up, I'm gonna fall out of bed and just sit on the floor, meditate for two minutes, which is how I started meditating, by the way. I literally woke up out of bed and meditated for a minute at a time. And I would track that.
23:31
But meditation is one way for me to be more mindful. I also put an alarm on my phone to be more mindful laundry in the dishes. So I have a mindful break then, or when I work to work to have a mindful minute there. Because sometimes I think we put all that pressure to do that one thing and to keep doing that one thing forever, and
23:56
I think that's just too much. But I've learned that if I want a feeling, maybe there's a few ways that I could actually show up for myself in that feeling. Because then I don't get bored, then the pressure is a little bit low. But I could do one of those things, I could do two of those things. I could do three of those things if I wanted to in a day. Or I could do one of those things for like, a month and a half. And then all of a sudden, I want to switch over to something else.
24:23
The idea here is to choose something that you know you could do without feeling that you quit and give yourself a chance to build on something so you definitely need I always say this track what you're doing so that you can see it. And then it doesn't become Oh, I've done this for like a month straight or a month and a half and then I skip this day. It becomes I've done this five out of seven days this week. I've done this 21 days. I've done this three months. Or I missed six days in the last three months and becomes something like that they compare with yourself. I also think it's okay to skip a day or two and start practising, how to be self compassionate. And go, okay, no, I missed that day. I'll get back on it tomorrow, or I missed that day. You know what, I think I was kind of bored with that. Maybe I need to switch over here tomorrow.
25:25
And that's okay. Because that's what my brain needs to keep going. So, I'm starting to think that even whenever we're keeping promises to ourselves, we're not just learning how to show ourselves that we can trust ourselves and showing you care for ourselves because the promise has to be connected to something that you would do to take care of yourself. But also, it gives you the chance to be compassionate with yourself to do this in a way that works for your brain. You know, and giving yourself that permission is a really good start. Because, you know, we're starting to learn to trust ourselves a bit more. Just like I learned how to ride a bike or just like I learned how to kick a ball or whatever, just like I learned about teaching in my first year of teaching was crap. But by my 12th year, like, I had that shit down. The first of anything, doesn't go as well for anyone, ADHD neurodivergent or not. Except, I know that sounds really hard to hear, because I've been dealing with that myself, because we're so used to everything going bad for us. You know? Like to hear that, actually. Whoa, wait a minute. The first thing isn't great for everyone. Yeah, that's my hurt. I know. So Even being able to practice that kind of compassion, I think is good in this keeping small promises to yourself sort of thing.
27:08
And I think that when you start to keep those small promises,that's whenever they start to be a little bigger.That's when it looks like you're starting to think about, oh, I've been doing this one promise that whether it's you know, drinking a glass of water every day for, you know, every morning as soon as I get up, Oh, actually, that really feels good for me. I might try this. Or someone might actually ask you to, well, you know, I need you to do this thing first thing in the morning and I'd be like, you know what, actually, I'll do that thing after I do, you know, X and X first.
27:09
And all of a sudden it goes from being one small promise to you just setting a boundary and saying what you need. Now it seems so far away. But it's, it ends up being like that. So I wish I had more to say about what I've learned to do. But that is the one thing that has helped me on my way is keeping that small self care, promise to myself and start tracking how long I've done that.
28:32
And then all of a sudden, you start looking around and you start seeing other evidence around you have other things you've been able to keep doing consistently, that benefit you that you're like, Oh, I didn't realise I actually do this to there. I've done this too. And all of a sudden, like, over time, you start to pick up on a few more things. actually have been beneficial that have helped you that you've been able to do. But you've just been clouded by all of the negativity that you've never been able to see before starts to come up.
28:33
So what I think you could do is really pick that one small thing. I'm going to leave some examples in the show notes, but it could be getting up in the morning and drinking a glass of water first thing, it could be falling out of bed and doing two minutes of meditation before you do anything else. It could be something as simple as deciding you're going to make your bed. You know, it could be deciding that you're going to put on your running shoes once a day. Many, many things. I'm going to put a few in the shownotes like I said earlier.
29:52
All right. I hope you guys had a great time. I'm done for today. Take care. Bye
30:01
Hey, thanks for listening. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please feel free to leave a five star review and comment. It helps people find the podcast, especially if you're listening on Apple podcasts. Don't forget to check out the show notes for any resources mentioned on today's podcast. You can find my own free resources links there, and links to get in touch with me on instagram and facebook at the ADHD Good life. I'm so grateful you could join me today. Have a great week, and I'll see you next time. Bye.