This is a Global Player original podcast. I also, it's important to say, I also think it's a big part of my menopause as well. So, you know, there are two things going on here. But I've talked before about the fact that I wish I were someone who was better at remembering birthdays, etc.
And I've tried to come up with strategies for that and they never work. So there are some areas where having a terrible memory is a good thing. I can watch the same movie a number of times and have the same rollercoaster emotions every single time because each time is the first time. That is a wonderful thing.
I sometimes wonder whether that is why I love to watch the same movies again and again and again. Because there's a vague recollection of what's going on, but I still have the same feeling. And I do, I am one of those people who will sit down. I've watched Sense and Sensibility about 300 times now, I think.
But, you know, when Emma Thompson says the word Plymouth, I love the same every single time. And it's always surprising. I've read books. I've read murder mysteries where I've got to the end and three pages before the end gone.
Oh, no. I've read this before. I haven't remembered in murderers. You know, it's things like that.
I just. It can be a real problem for you as well. Oh, it can be a real problem. I mean, obviously, lost car keys are a real problem.
Losing a car in a multi-story car park. That's a real problem. That's a real problem. Especially when you forget which multi-story car park you put your car in.
That's a real problem. And it's at times like that that I wish I had stopped to think, you need to remember this before you walk away and, you know, go and have lunch with a friend in a strange city that you don't know very well. Because those can be enormously disempowering situations. Yeah, totally.
And we laugh about it. But actually, it's something that you've expressed before. It's something that sometimes makes you really fed up. What we thought we did today is get some really practical advice, look at some tips and tricks of things that you can do to, if not improve your memory, at least compensate for your ADHD.
So to help us explore this, we're going to be joined by ADHD coach Aoife Hughes. She specializes in helping people with ADHD build practical strategies to manage their challenges and unlock their potential. And we'll speak to Aoife in a moment. Aoife, hello.
Thank you so much for joining us. Hi, Katie. And hello to Sam. And thank you so much.
It's my one. I'm honoured. Great to have you. So help.
I think that's my first question. Am I beyond help, Aoife? Is there anything I can do to make my memory better? There is.
But we need a lot of support. And I think the first step is acceptance around that. And especially as women in our perimenopausal and menopausal states. That's just as a whole other layer.
But the thing that I'm most passionate about sharing with anybody when I'm talking about ADHD is once we understand the science of what's going on, our brains love when things make sense. Even if we might forget it five minutes later, our brain loves when things make sense. So when it comes to memory, it's not just talking about memory. There's actually a few different types of memory, all related to different parts of the brain.
So the first one then is long-term memory. So this is controlled by the hippocampus, which is located in our limbic system, our emotional brain. And it's essential for retrieving long-term memories, retrieving and forming long-term memories, such as personal experiences and learned knowledge. So those of us with ADHD, we can struggle with encoding and retrieving long-term memories due to distractibility and difficulty focusing during the learning process.
So a couple of strategies that can be helpful are repetition. Repetition is a great thing. And I find as well, if there's something that I want to learn about, for me, if I listen to it or if I sing it or if I can clap it out in a rhythm or a beat, so you're adding that kind of tangible aspect to it as well, it really helps me. And then the more we can reinforce visual aids, and a lot of, especially my adult clients who are late-diagnosed, there's so much around radical acceptance that comes with being an ADHD-er, and it's okay to say, my brain needs support with memory.
And it doesn't matter how many times you tell me, if it's not in a calendar, in three different calendars, there's a very strong likelihood my brain is going to forget. And I don't say I forget, I say my brain forgets. And then that gives me permission, you know, and it helps with the acceptance piece around saying, oh, my brain needs support, my ADHD brain needs support. So any sort of visual aids, and as ADHD-ers were really creative, we have two whiteboards here in the house, in case we lose one, there's a book on there.
Brilliant. So we can remember where it is. Not only do you have to have plans in place, it's really helpful to have contingency plans in place, because when the wheels come off for us as ADHD-ers, which they do inevitably, all the plans go out the window. So it's the contingency plan that I find, and I would apply that to all of the strategies that we as ADHD-ers can learn to implement.
Yes. Now, contingency plan, that is a big one, actually, because I rely a lot on tech. Like you, I have opting calendars, and I'm a great one for speaking out loud. If I want something to go into my brain, saying it out loud or singing it, that's also a great way for my brain to remember.
The problems occur when, say, my phone's run out of battery, right? I've forgotten to charge it, and suddenly I lose my calendar, and the alarms I set that morning can no longer ring because my phone is dead. Are there any ways in which we can help ourselves to remember those things without having to rely on technology like our telephone or our whiteboard or whatever, if we're out and about? What are the ways that we can sort of be more like the general public and able to rely on ourselves?
Well, the first thing is to notice what happens in our nervous systems and our brains. If we start to feel stress, which we more than likely will, then that flooding of adrenaline and cortisol is going to impact our memory straight away. So the first thing is just checking in with ourselves and asking ourselves, right, what can I control? Now, and in terms of just managing that stress level, that anxiety.
So, you know, I actually met a fellow ADHDer in the supermarket, and, you know, she said to me, I forgot my list. So for her, it was, you know, the movement piece. So she was moving, pushing her trolley. So when we move, it activates her brain, and it helps reduce, you know, those stress levels.
So staying in one spot isn't going to help us. So moving and, you know, maybe even grabbing hold of our fingers, you know, might help to prompt us in some way. And joining the dots going backwards can be really helpful, even if you have to really become so granular with, okay, I just got out of the car. What did I do before I got out of the car?
You know, and again, it's whatever your brain needs and whatever your brain responds to. And it's like when you're looking for something, you'll never find the thing you're looking for. You'll find the thing that you lost three weeks ago. So it's the same when you start joining the dots going backwards.
It's almost like you're clearing the path. And if you just go back through the basic steps, then my experience has taught me is that there's a better chance. And when you're doing that as well, it's kind of a mindful practice, right? I mean, don't tell the ADHD to be mindful when there's stress, because they're just like, I can't, you know?
So if you can go right, I'm going to join the dots going backwards. And if you can, if you can write it down, or if you can, you know, use your fingers on your hands again for those physical cues and notice what's happening in your body and do your best to support yourself in that. And I'm a huge advocate of movement. So there was this other lady that I met in the shops and she was like, I forgot my list.
So the way she was supporting herself was, first of all, was the acceptance piece and the understanding and not, you know, berating herself. When we start to berate in shame, our adrenaline cortisol levels are going to, and we move out of our logical brain and into our emotional brain. You know, our working memory is already impaired, but we need to be operating out of our prefrontal cortex, our logical brain, in order to be able to retrieve those memories. I'm fascinated by that, because I mean, a big part of my therapy was about radical acceptance and accepting that I'm not going to get rid of my ADHD and I'm not necessarily going to change the pieces of my behaviour that are there, but what I am going to do is remove the stress and the shame and the guilt around that.
And however, with all that said, we've talked about this before, I would say I'm somebody who doesn't really struggle with memory issues, and I think it's because I'm hyper-organising, clearly at some point I've recognised that I need to, you know, overcompensate, but there is quite a lot of stress that comes with that. You know, I always put things in exactly the same place. I'm constantly tidying up. I have a sort of running mental list of all the things I've got to do.
I'm constantly sending myself emails, and it just strikes me that actually, even with strategies, the process of trying to make sure you remember can be very stressful and can be very exhausting. Well, that's what I was going to say. It is exhausting, so what's driving you there is fear. And as you said to yourself, you're overcompensating so that you don't forget.
And when you're in that mode, that's not, your brain isn't in logical mode then. Your brain is operating out of its emotional brain or even its survival brain. In order for this not to happen, I have to do that. And when we're operating from a place of fear, then that's going to bring on the anxiety.
And as you said, that becomes exhausting. I read about these brain training programmes, and I see them on my social media now and then. Of course, you know, social media knows I have ADHD now, so I get thrown all of this selling about how I can improve. And one of the things is, improve your memory with, is it possible for an ADHD-er to train their memory to work better?
I think it's going to be up to each individual person. And again, it depends on what you have going on in your life. You know, right now, we're moving house. And I have a terrible emotional memory of moving house because we've moved 10 times in 15 years.
But I know I have to get through with it. But that's going to impact me then remembering, as I was shopping today, I had my list, but I still forgot the most important thing, dinner, tomorrow, evening, and we're all going to be wrecked, you know, after the big move. And I think it's all about looking at where you are right now and who you are right now and what you need right now, rather than is this ever going to be fixed? The answer is no, we're always going to struggle.
But when, you know, when things are going really well, it tends not to impact us as much, you know, or we can cope with it better. Everything comes with practice. I would say with all of my clients when they're working on implementing new strategies, because a huge piece, everybody knows, all the adults I chat to, they know, they know what to do. I know all of these, if I know all of these, it's remembering to implement them.
And a lot of what drives us is our emotions and our nervous system. And so when we understand, let's say, the fear for you, Sam, when you have that fear driving you, right, if you imagine yourself as a six-year-old with that fear, how would you speak to yourself and how would you mind yourself within that, you know, and what does your six-year-old self need? And when we do that, we're switching on that self-compassion piece. And one of the things, I think, for the first time, and I know I keep talking about moving, but the thing that I have learned, and especially since learning about my nervous system and my brain and the radical acceptance piece, if going through nine other moves or eight other moves oblivious to the fact that she's neurodivergent, is I ask for help.
And I just reach out and I'm like, right, we need somebody else to help us. I need somebody else to go into the house and help me pack and unpack, because my brain actually can't cope with this anymore. So it's not about will this ever be fixed. We will have great moments and tough moments, because that's ADHD.
And I think the biggest piece is permission and recognising where we are right now. And it's great if we have all the strategies, but I think the contingency plan for me is asking for help and giving myself permission to ask for help. And knowing that it's okay to admit to all your listeners that we're having chicken nuggets and chips tonight, it's like, and they're not even homemade, and that's okay, you know? It's so true.
And I have, listen, I've had therapy where I've had to actually think about that six-year-old and realise that this, I've got to manage, I've got to squash this in, I shouldn't feel like this, I should be able to do this, I shouldn't be able to do that. That feeling comes from a young age, and it was something I'd had to work on, something I'd had to unpick. I just want to ask you a question, Katie, in the middle of all this thing. So how does that feel, if you're saying to you, do you know what, you need to accept that you're going to be successful?
Basically, yes, you are beyond help, is what you're saying. No, you're saying, ask for help, ask for help. Are you okay to say, I'm not always going to remember things, and I need to ask for help? Oh, well, you know, it goes back to what you both talked about earlier, doesn't it?
That whole radical acceptance thing. Because actually, I do think what a lot of this boils down to for me, you know, yeah, okay, so I forget, I've read a novel and find I'm rereading it again, ten pages before the end. That's funny, that's funny, and actually, there are advantages to being able to enjoy the same novel twice, without remembering all the same movie twice, and to have the same exhilaration both times. The problem is when it comes to relationships for me.
So it is things like knowing that a friend will be telling me a really important story about themselves, and I think I'm hearing it for the first time, and actually, they've told me about it before. And there's shame in that, and there's a feeling that I am letting them down as a good friend, because I don't remember that they've told me that story before. Now, sometimes I do remember those things, and it's not that I'm not interested, and it's not that I don't care, it's just my memory, for one reason or another, did not file that story away under, this is really important to them. I do sometimes wonder, if at the end of conversations, I should literally be doing weird things like keeping notes on my friends, you know, so that the next time I see them, I can ask them about that event that has happened to them.
It feels like a form of dementia sometimes, that inability to remember the important stuff in other people's lives. One thing to forget that stuff in mind, because that's my responsibility, and that only affects me. But my God, being a good friend to somebody is about remembering things, and that's really hard sometimes. Absolutely, and I hear you, and there's one word that I've heard you both use quite a bit, and it's should.
I should remember this, and I should have everything organised. And in the coaching world, we have a saying, don't should on yourself, because that word in itself just carries so much pressure. And I hear you, Casey, talking about, you know, oh, God, I'm not remembering whether my friend told me this or not. And when we go into shame, we're going back into that emotional brain.
Once we're in our emotional brain, then we're making it difficult, harder for us to remember what it is they're saying. Yeah, so it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. And presumably in that as well, there is, you know, one strategy for talking about practical things you can do, is actually to make sure all the people you're talking to, and that you love and you're concerned about, are aware of your ADHD and know what you like. It's all about safety, you know, because if you feel safe sharing with the other person, listen, I've ADHD, you know, please don't take offence, you know, please know this about me, please know I care.
And if I take notes, this is a reason. If I put a reminder on my phone, this is a reason, because I'd rather do something that seems A, into you, but also be a good friend rather than sit here and pretend and ask. But that comes with a radical acceptance piece. And then you'll find out very quickly who your safe people are, you know.
And if they're not open to that, then you have the option and the opportunity to ask, right, well, what does my brain need to support me in this going forward? And it very well could be putting notes in your phone or writing them on your hand or, you know, whatever the case may be, sending yourself a voice note to remember. I know you were talking about technology and moving away from technology. While it's a great tool and there's so many wonderful apps, all of those apps are also beside very distracting apps.
Yes, that's true. I also wonder whether my memory has gone a little bit worse because of my over-reliance on alarms and lists on my phone. You know, it's so central to how I behave out there in the real world now. I do wonder if a part of me has stopped trying to remember or, you know, because I just go, I'll just make a note today and it'll be on there.
And sometimes I go back to my... do list it can be 150 long because i forgot to actually look at my to-do list that complicates things to a certain extent as well absolutely and so i you know i've had quite a few experiences i'm a huge advocate for myself but it's just the value of writing things down and whatever your diary or notebook or anything looks like it's what our brains love as well as feedback so when we do a job and we actually get to physically cross it out or give ourselves a tick i'm a fan of the ticks my little five-year-old self loves it i like a line i like a line through things and i will i will do that thing on the computer that actually puts lines through things as well to see it digitally as much as okay okay but when we when we're actually physically doing it there's so much more going on than we're just making a note of it you know it's like we're drilling us into we're helping embed it even more into into our memory because once you type something you're literally on to the next thing you know it's the next the next the next when you write something you have to physically hold a pen you have to physically open the page and then you're very excited i'm going to go back and i get to cross it off and i think that's been one of the things that i find really hard about devices is that already as adhders we struggle with emotional dysregulation and there's a big disconnect between our brain and our nervous system and so that attunement piece is missing so you know like smart watches and all these health apps we're checking them all the time to see how we feel but we're not actually checking in with how we feel on a personal level so it's the same with our memory we're expecting this device to remember everything but we're not giving ourselves the opportunity to do the remembering in a way that's more supportive and it's ticking but you're also writing yeah there's dopamine there's dopamine in that tick that sounds like a really great message for one some practical tips of how to remember things also for katie just to maybe be a bit easier on yourself radical acceptance it's been so great to chat thank you so much for the time thank you so so much katie and sam i thought evil was really great did you find that useful i really did ah the whole concept sam of radical acceptance you know do i just need to let it go and tell people i'm terrible at remembering things and therefore that's me and i have to make sure that my friends know that and strangers i need to for the first time know that about me but i i think that's a wonderful concept you know yes there are strategies that we can use but ultimately we've got to accept that this is who we are yes but we also talked about taking the pressure off yourself taking some of that guilt and shame away part of that acceptance actually just calms you down in the situation and allows you then to make a choice about putting a strategy in place or saying hang on a minute can i sort of count backwards through my movements and try and remember and sometimes the block to remembering is the panic oh absolutely because you can't think straight when you're panicking can you so you know of course you're going to be in a right mess if you allow yourself to panic and then the cortisol rises and then your brain is in a spin and i do sometimes think the act of memory the act of remembering is sometimes about taking a beat and breathing in that moment and sort of almost giving yourself space to concentrate you know not wandering away from the car immediately but stopping and going right where am i what floor am i on put it in my phone take a picture off of the car and where it is and then i'll be all right when i need to remember where to come back to there you go strategy to live by thank you so much for listening to your wrong about adhd if you found this episode helpful do please subscribe leave a review and share it with anyone else who might benefit and don't forget to follow us on social media for updates or on instagram and we're on tiktok and get in touch with us by our email adhdpodcastatloaded.com until next time take care your wrong about adhd is made in association with apex content adventures this is a global player original podcast