Podcast: Stories on Self Worth
Unknown Speaker 0:00
I still remember my first day of kindergarten, I'm walking in with my white mom. And I look around, and there is not a single person that looks like me. And my family looks different from everyone else's. And I can still remember from that point, that difference was not okay. And at four or five years old, I've made my mom go home, I spent the rest of the day on my first day of kindergarten by myself.
Unknown Speaker 0:34
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've found most helpful in transforming our lives. I'm your host Sandra. I'm a white mother, writer, coach, and educational specialist. I'm also a black cisgender woman transracial adoptee and fellow neurodiversity after my own ADHD diagnosis 40. Just like you, I'm learning, unlearning and healing. 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.
Unknown Speaker 1:15
Hey, everyone, welcome to my podcast. This is Episode Four. It's great to be here. Today I'm talking about scarcity and lack. And I'm talking about it from that place of worthiness that you could do tonnes of episodes on worthiness and I've actually set this was part one, like I'm going to actually remember in the future when I do another one that I've already done a part one of this but yeah, anyways, that's what it says in my notes. I know you could talk about this forever and ever, especially, as you know, ADHDers and other neurodivergent types because this is where we are like where are we live in this during some parts of our lives we do live feeling that we're not not. And, and there's no surprise that when God, like we were just raised that way, especially whenever you live for a long time, not knowing and you get diagnosed later in life when I got diagnosed I was 40 it's been a whole life being told how I do things differently and how it's not quite right now, you know, I could just be like this person, it would be nice if I could just be calmer and, you know, control my emotions better not take things so seriously. And Oh, if I could just remember to do this or that or keep organised in that way. You know, it goes on and on, on like, we've all heard it. There's no surprise that it's ADHD or so you hear like 20,000 more negative comments than our neurotypical peers growing up. And I think that that number just gets higher for anyone who is marginalised group or in an intersectional group, if some sort I think that the more different we are from that ideal, or that box that society, places on us and expects us to fit into, I think the more we struggle with different things, the heightened emotions are because I think we're hyper aware of all of the ways that we're different. That one thing that we hear about, it connects to all the other things, and they connect to each other. So we grow up hiding symptoms, and we're apologising for ourselves all the time. And then we have all of these executive function skills crap that nobody teaches you but expects everybody to be able to do at the same time, at the same level and just kind of get by osmosis. And then when you can't get diagnosis, I suppose this is the right word. And I think so. Then you start feeling shame. So you hide more things. And you always look around the world because everyone's telling you how messed up you are. And you start believing that.
Unknown Speaker 4:16
And then No, we look at what's happening outside ourselves to figure out okay, well then if I'm really messing this shit up, well, then that person looks like they're doing okay, so I'll try to be like them. Oh, but that person is doing better. So then I'll just try to be like them. You never, ever being yourself. And nothing ever ends up being good enough. I started this podcast because I was really struggling with trying to figure out, you know, even after I'm taking my medication, I'm learning how to organise and prioritise and be all the things that are neurotypical. Why do I still feel like shit? Well, obviously the first part is that I'm not neurotypical. I don't do things. That way, and learning how to do things my way was helpful. I still had all of these scars and wounds from living, growing up hearing, knowing that no matter how hard I worked, or how much I tried her, how many ways I did things, as close to neurotypical as I could, it was never going to be enough, not in school, not in my work was anywhere in a quest to fit in, was never going to be fulfilled. I was never going to do that. And all society can keep doing is shame us. And then you add into the fact you know, black female, and adopted growing up in white spaces, and it's white families, nobody having an idea about things like institutionalised racism and the impact of white supremacy in society and how Yes, your own family can be racist to without knowing it. Especially whenever they are adopting children back, you know, when there's not a lot of training or understanding about society in the world. It added to my symptoms. It made me even more hyper aware of what differences I had. It made me more of a perfectionist, it made me hide more of myself.
Unknown Speaker 6:37
When we grow up, thinking about all the things that we're not to get that approval, we start betraying ourselves. Nobody's like us to there's just that sense of isolation that is just you. And if anybody actually understands or finds out about your secrets, you don't even really realise that you're hiding at this point anymore. Then you feel even more ashamed. In a quest for me to gain acceptance. Me Me never really learned about boundaries not only for others, but even for myself. It was like I didn't feel like I deserve them because I just couldn't meet the expectations set for me. But because I was so inconsistent with myself, it made it hard for me to even trust myself to be able to do the things I need to do to feel at my best anyways. It was all of these different things that just seem to layer one on top of the other. That just made me feel like I was never going to win. I was never no matter what I did. I could never really celebrate it. I could never Really, except that if I did something well, because there's always something that I could be doing better. And when you grow up that way, like I was saying, in my last episode, it was really hard for me to even understand to be grateful for things that were happening in my life at the present, because all I could think about was all I didn't have all I still needed to accomplish, so that I could just be enough so that I could look in the mirror and go, you have done it. But it never really turned out that way.
Unknown Speaker 8:36
Because since I've gotten diagnosed, you know, there's some things that I really, really learned that have shifted, how I think about myself. Now, there's still a lot of work to do. There's still a lot of self healing that I'm doing. There's still a lot of understanding about how all the things I'm learning and continue to learn keep impacting me and what I think and how I show up in the world. But the more than I learned that I wasn't just dreaming, stop work, making up stuff like there really was that pressure from when I was even a little kid, like four years old, I still remember my first day of kindergarten. And I'm walking in with, you know, my white mom. And I look around, and there is not a single person that looks like me. And my family looks different from everyone else's. And I can still remember from that point, that difference was not okay. And at four or five years old, I made my mom go home. I spent the rest of the day on my first day of kindergarten by myself terrified and putting on probably one of my first masks as I pretended that everything was okay. So that people didn't realise that my family wasn't like anyone else's. So when you grow up like right from the start, I knew about that difference, any difference, wasn't okay.
Unknown Speaker 10:21
This sort of feeling of not enough, it's what keeps us all so small and keeps us hidden. Because we don't feel like we were ever meeting that potential that we see that's just dangling in front of us, but we can't quite reach it. And anytime we get a touch of it, we think we're almost there. Or we might even grasp it for a second. And we look at it and go, Oh, but that's not really it. It's that one over there. And then we're doing the same thing over and over again. You know, because we it's not even just struggling to reach have potential, but then there's that fear when you get it, you're not gonna be able to manage the expectation, you're not gonna be good enough to actually do the thing that maybe you even studied for your whole life to be able to do. But because everyone else can do it, then you start like, I don't want to ask for help or anything like that, because I've got to show that I can do this thing. And it just keeps going. Because the more that you hide, the bigger it goes. I feel like it just spreads. For me, you're seeing something went through my whole life and within my finances and went through how I manage my time it went through how I thought about myself, you know, how I treated others around me.
Unknown Speaker 11:39
You know part of that came from knowing and understanding that me being as different as I was, was not okay. And then having that on diagnosed ADHD. I think just blows that up, your feelings get more, you know are intensified around being different.
Unknown Speaker 12:06
And the more that you try to control everything by, you know, watching what you eat really work for me I have problems with disordered eating. And so for example, I would do something like you know, I'm always going on diets. Why? Because I'm trying to be as skinny as possible because I need to look like all the white girls that I see who keep meeting all these people and are so popular, and they're all really skinny, and their body types don't look like mine. But if I lose way too much weight, then maybe I won't have those curves that they don't have. So then I can fit in like that in that way, even though I'm black. Like in that becomes something that I hyper focus on, has something that I become obsessed with.
Unknown Speaker 12:56
But if I don't have that kind of difference, Don't have to worry about that. It doesn't have to impact my ADHD in that way. I think anybody that's marginalised or living on intersections, different groups understands that has their own examples of that. And those things just, I don't know, they eat away at you, because you keep hiding. And there's just gets bigger and bigger. I mean, in shame. Then I learned in the time about the world not being made for us. And at first it was like, yeah, you know, the neurotypical world is not made for us and, you know, we have to try to be like everyone else and, it doesn't work for us and executive functions this and that and I'm start reading more and more into it. I'm like, Yeah, I got the neurotypical rather then I'm reading more and more into it. I'm like, Nah, man. It's patriarchy and it's white supremacy and it's all of those things. Those are the things that are making up the society. And all those different things have a view of how I'm supposed to be as a woman. What they viewed me as a black woman. And on top of that, my own undiagnosed ADHD influences that and how distorted I see myself and understand the world around me. And then even as a woman that's diagnosed, I'm looking around going okay, now that I know this, like, I've got to unlearn all of those different coping mechanisms, all of those different ways that I've talked to myself and treated myself so that I can actually learn to speak up for myself that I can actually learn how to create the spaces that work for me find the jobs that work for me, and be able to accept the differences that I have, I know my strengths, know how to advocate for myself and speak up for the things that I struggle with and feel comfortable and feel okay and feel confident in the fact that I don't have to be like, society
Unknown Speaker 15:09
has shamed me and beat upon me to be, I can be okay with that. And then I can get feeling like I'm worth more. But until it comes back to me really understanding and knowing I always had worth I know I have a feeling it more and embodying it more. No amount of work on any organisation I prioritise, and I do is bringing that back. There's so much healing and forgiveness and compassion that I need for myself so that I can actually take back what I didn't even know was mine in the first place because it had been taken from me so So long ago before I was in kindergarten, before it was a little girl that walked into it kindergarten, it was like this. I'm different from everyone and it is not okay.
Unknown Speaker 16:12
Because I was looking at me like what you carry around stuff like that. And you have undiagnosed ADHD for 40 years. You know, these are the things that we've got to be okay with and work through and find peace with. So that we can be who we are brave enough to create life that really matters to us. That fits exactly so closely to how we need so that we can be at our best.
Unknown Speaker 16:51
So, I guess for me, this is an ongoing part of my journey. I can't I say that I am completely oh my God, it sounds like I'm close to being better than this I don't think I am. But there is some things that I've done to shift my thinking from at least feeling like I'm just a victim and that I'm just spinning to at least knowing that I have worth and knowing that I have power to make changes. And I think that's been a great start for me. So, after you know, I've learned about ADHD and my ADHD, how that looks how that manifests in different situations and presentations. And through knowing and learning about who I am now, with that ADHD then it's a weird feeling because then you start on our thing. Other things, like I said, I think in my first episode, like when you get that diagnosis, you start thinking, what else do I not know? What else could I learn? And I'm going through that I'm always going through that the more than I know about myself, and what I need a better life I know that I can make for myself. So that's always going to be the number one thing for me is knowing about myself and learning about myself. The second thing that I've done that's been really helpful for me is just knowing others, and sharing my story with people who get it finding people who understand where I'm at and what I'm going through. I am very careful about who I talk to at this point about the diagnosis I have. I know I'm still working through bits and pieces of it myself, but I do know that There are people in my life that I have told who know what I need. And I can talk to a lot more freely about the things that helped me at my best. I've had to learn how to do that how to speak up for myself, I'm still learning about that.
Unknown Speaker 19:21
But I have found that when you spend your whole life knowing that you're the only one and being able to connect with people that tell you that you're not has been so helpful for me, the Instagram community has been, you know, amazing for this. I'm so grateful for each and every one of them for that. The other things that I've had to do for me to just really, it's not that I shift my mind into thinking about abundance, or unworthiness. Because I think for me it's about at this point is making it possible and thinking, Oh, yes, I am worthy, even though I'm still struggling with that sometimes there is abundance around me. So I don't have to think about all of the things that I lack. So, for me, I think the third thing has been my gratitude practice and in particular learning about abundance, and finding that in my everyday lives, and noticing where abundance shows up for me, whether it's in the fact that I've written for so many days in a row, or whether it's in the fact that I've, you know, anything that I tracked for habits, any small self care promises I've kept to myself, you know, I meditate at headspace and it has tracking so I can see how far I've come with that. And those little things that help them mind me that there is a lot of good that I've done for myself. And there's a lot of growth that has happened.
Unknown Speaker 21:07
And when I get down on myself, I try to remember those things, or at least look at those things. And then on the days that are really good, I just keep tracking and telling myself like, Wow, you've come a long way. And I think that's helped. Another thing that I think is really important that I've done is look for the evidence around me to support what I'm doing now. That is good for me what I'm doing now, that is enough what I'm doing now that is amazing. Because we can look for the things that we you know, if we think that we're not if we think that we've messed up in some area of our life, we'll look for that evidence. We will find that evidence around everywhere to convince our brain that that's what we've done. So sometimes it has has taken me to purposely look for things in my life that have shown that you know, I am enough or that I have abundance or that I've made positive changes. I dive into this a lot since being diagnosed since being managed better with my ADHD because I want to keep collecting this evidence I write down things too, that I've done, so that I know that I'm on the right path. You know, I'm not 100% there, but I'm know I'm in the right direction. And that can be with all the things that I've tracked to, like the habits or things that I've started.
Unknown Speaker 22:41
And the other thing that I've done, and this has been quite interesting, but in a way, it really worked for me, and it was affirmations. But I think most affirmations are bullshit because we don't really connect them to a feeling that we have that's negative. We just kind of go 'Oh, this is affirmation sounds good. So I'm going to start saying it to myself', but you're not connecting it to anything that actually matters to you, or changing a thought that you're thinking into that in a way where you actually believe it. So, I listen a lot to 'The Joy Junkie Podcast,' which I love, because it's a couple, but Amy Smith, she does a lot of the professional development stuff. And she has a thing called progressive language affirmations. And this has been awesome.
Unknown Speaker 23:33
And I put these in my phone and on alarms, especially in the beginning. And every time my alarm would go off, I'd have it written in my phone, what the affirmation was, and what makes it progressive is that I'm at a point where I feel worthless and awful. I can't go to the point where like, look at me, I'm enough. I am wonderful. I'm not. I do not believe that. I'm calling myself out on the bullshit but instead What she suggests is putting a disclaimer in front of it. Something like even though I'm learning about what worthiness looks like to me, Sandra, you're enough. Or, you know, even though I'm learning about listening to my body, Sandra, you're doing that. You know, it just that little disclaimers what you're thinking it bridges from where you are, to where you want to be in a way that is believable to you. Brooke at 'The Life Coaching School,' she talks about that too, about, you know, just making slight changes to your affirmation language to something that you can be like, yeah, okay, right now, yes, I can say that right now. Like, you can't go from being like, Oh my gosh, my thighs are so bad, like all the time. And then being like, I have a wonderfully slim body it does this or that. But it's like, maybe it's just going, when you hear that you've got now Yep, I have the thighs. Maybe it's just like that, that simple. Just to neutralise the language that you're talking to yourself about. So the journey to worthiness is something that is ongoing for me. I'm making progress. It is not always easy. But I understand now, and I'm still learning about the impact of society, and how I grew up, and how all of those things play a massive role in how my ADHD presented itself as a child, and how I learned to hide it so well, until I was 40. But knowing what I know now about the world around me. And what I know now about myself. Things I do now is that, you know, I'm capable and is possible to create whatever life I want for myself, regardless of what society has always said. I know we all can.
Unknown Speaker 26:20
So that's all I've got for today.
Unknown Speaker 26:23
Oh my god, I almost forgot. You know what would be really awesome for you to do as an action. Maybe you need to write up your own progressive language affirmation. Think about something that you are saying to yourself a lot that is rubbish, and how you can change that to neutral language. I'm going to get some examples in the show notes to kind of give you an idea of what that could look like if you're listening and then write them out in alarms on your phone. I had mine going off about two or three times a day and I would just it would go off and I would look at it. I wouldn't read it. I just take a couple deep breaths. I would just keep going. I didn't do it all the time because you know, ADHD, but I did it more times than not. And take a listen to the joy junkie podcast is fantastic. She's got lots of actionable steps. It's funny, and when she gets into the lessons that she's doing there step by step, and they're really clear. And I found them to be really helpful.
Unknown Speaker 27:26
All right, now, I'm done. Have a great day, guys. Bye.
Unknown Speaker 27:32
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 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 things 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 leap and I'll see you next time. Bye