On this episode of The ADHD Mums Podcast, Jane is joined by Ange as they explore the theme of perfectionism and its relationship with ADHD. They share personal experiences, starting with a humorous account of their chaotic mornings, highlighting the imperfect aspects of their lives. Ange, an ADHD coach, reflects on her perfectionist tendencies, rooted in childhood, where she would tear out entire pages if not perfect.
Ange delves into her ADHD diagnosis at 35, sharing the challenges she faced in transitioning from one-on-one client work to leadership roles. The conversation navigates through various dimensions of perfectionism, discussing its impact on tasks, work, and self-worth. Both Jane and Ange emphasise the connection between perfectionism and shame, exploring how negative feedback and societal expectations contribute to this mindset. They discuss the difficulty of breaking the cycle and the importance of self-compassion, self-discovery, and courage in the recovery process.
Ange highlights the need for individuals to recognise their values, strengths, and preferences, encouraging authenticity. Ange shares a coaching example where challenging ingrained beliefs about laundry allowed a client to reclaim her Wednesdays. This episode sheds light on the complexity of perfectionism, its intersection with ADHD, and the steps toward recovery and self-acceptance.
Find out more about Angie here:
Transcript
Hello, and welcome to the next episode of ADHD Bums. We have a really anticipated theme that I have been trying to find the right person to do for a long time, and that is perfectionism and ADHD and who could be better than Angie, the ADHD coach to discuss that with me. So welcome to you,
Ange:Angie. Thank you. I'm excited. So
Jane:we were saying that we have gone off to the most imperfect start. So basically, as I was trying to log on and I was also frantically eating lunch, Sickbay called from one of my kids schools and I thought, of course, oh my god, Angie's waiting and I'm going to have to go. And then, of course, they let me know that I had not packed any lunch for one of my kids and then I had to give them credit card details to try and get them, I suppose, get my child sorted. And the fact that they knew me and knew my usual process, Was terrifying to me that I'd become commonplace call to the mum and Angie also had a similar morning. If you want to share
Ange:Angie. Yeah, absolutely. So I had a doctor's appointment at eight 30 and I decided I had time to boil some eggs at about 10 past eight. So I was doing that and then needed to get in the car and book it to the doctors and couldn't find my keys. So then I was like, that's fine. I. I had a bit of a rummage when I couldn't find them. I was like, I've got the Tile app, so I'm just gonna call my keys from my Tile. And, sure enough, the battery had run out on the Tile. And so I couldn't find the keys. Turned out actually the keys were on the front seat of the car for anyone who wanted to take the car overnight. And then, right before I left to come here to the office to do this podcast with you, I lost my phone and I thought That's fine. I'll, I've changed the battery now in the tile. I'll call my phone from my tile and found the phone in the rain outside under the, you'll have to excuse my word finding abilities at the moment, the clothesline. That's the word. So it's been working for both of us. Yeah. Yeah. It's fine. It wasn't heavy rain. Thankfully it was just spitting. Okay.
Jane:Okay. And then Angie, of course, had to email me because she hadn't sent me the Riverside link. Well, I hadn't sent her the Riverside link. And then I said, Oh, Angie, what was the other episode that we did before? We should really talk about that. And then neither of us could remember what the episode was about, which is a good one. So we've looked that up and it is called bored and tired. And then I said to Angie, funny, I forgot that because that's actually in the top 10 episodes of all time. So, the fact that we didn't remember doesn't reflect poorly on the episode. It's actually one of the most downloaded episodes there is. So, there is that there. I just realized I haven't even read your bio yet, Angie. This is going to be a ride. So, for those of you who haven't listened to Angie's other episode called Bored and Tired, which is so my weekend, by the way, Angie is a wife, a mom, an ADHD coach, and a co founder of the Sunshine Coast ADHD Professionals Network. with Dr. Laura Bennett. Angie was diagnosed in October 2020 and her ADHD diagnosis was a surprise to no one. Angie loves to support ADHDers to understand their unique brain wiring, appreciate their gifts and create the life they love. I truly believe that ADHDers are uniquely wired to change the world. That is a very positive spin on it. So if you haven't listened to Angie's other episode, Bored and Tired, I absolutely highly recommend that you do. Angie was one of the first, or probably I think the first guest that I ever reached out to because I really liked her Facebook. So give her a follow on Instagram. I always have a look at, I like all your memes too. I often re share them. I'm like, Angie, that's a good one. So today we were talking about what theme to do. And I had said to her that I had been trying to search for the right person to do perfectionism. And so I love the irony and the imperfect start that we have had. But we will persist because we are both hardcore perfectionists, which is an interesting jam with ADHD.
Ange:Absolutely. I think, though, it goes hand in hand, and I'm sure we'll get into that a little bit later on. But I would say I'm definitely a recovering perfectionist. I'm doing much better than I used to be. Okay.
Jane:Okay. Well, that's great. I'm still in it. So this is going to be excellent for me to be around somebody who's starting to move towards recovery. So Angie, for people that don't know you and haven't listened to your last episode, can you give us a bit of an overview about your diagnosis, journey, medication, and, and kind of who you are before we delve into the specifics of perfectionism?
Ange:Sure. So a lot of girls get missed because they present more with the inattentive type. I got missed and I was the definition of the hyperactive little boy. I had the masking tape square around my desk at school and all sorts of other things. So it's just interesting. I guess it was the time that I grew up in was really the factor that contributed to me not getting my diagnosis until 2020 when I was 35. So that happened right around the same time that I returned to work after the birth of my second child. And. I just remember forgetting things constantly and doing some really strange things that made me question myself. So I ended up going to the doctor thinking that I had early onset dementia, which eventually after a whole bunch of other, yeah, eventually I got my diagnosis in 2020 after I saw a psychologist and then later saw a psychiatrist. So from there, I Tried lots of different medications, have landed on Vyvanse, but at that time that I got diagnosed, I'd just taken on a promotion at work as well, and I moved from doing the work that I loved, which was one on one client work, into leadership, which meant that I was doing task oriented work, and I realized very quickly that I had shot myself in the foot. And so, In my reading and researching, as most of us have experienced after we get our diagnosis, we go down the rabbit hole. I had come across ADHD coaching and decided to give it a try. Unfortunately, I didn't have a great experience and didn't get a lot out of it. So I sort of dismissed it for a while, but later revisited it as a possibility for myself. Cause I thought my work in mental health might translate really nicely into ADHD coaching, which is where I find myself now. And so I've been full time in my ADHD coaching practice since October last year. So. Just turned one and I started out in June. So I've been doing this for about a year and a half now, close to, yeah.
Jane:Congrats, I think one year in your own business. It's not for the faint hearted, especially with ADHD, you've got all of the things, all of the jobs, including all the ones that you hate. So congrats. That's a big achievement.
Ange:Thank you. Yeah. I actually knew from the get go, if the business was going to fail, it would fail on admin or finances. So I was really. Intentional about getting the finances and the admin side of things sorted before I even got started.
Jane:Nice, nice. Yes. Nice. Okay. So let's jump into perfectionism and ADHD. I was wondering, I suppose, straight up, if you could talk about yourself as. An example for perfectionism and ADHD, and then maybe we move into the why afterwards. Just so people can kind of hear, because I didn't really realize I was a perfectionist until kind of a year ago, and I was like, oh wow, I think I am actually one of those people.
Ange:Yeah, I think it's difficult to see yourself as a perfectionist until it becomes a problem, but even looking back in primary school, I remember if I didn't get everything right on the page, I would tear the entire page out, or if I made a mistake. With my spelling, I would tear the entire page out and start from scratch. So. The beginnings of my perfectionism were there already when I was nine, 10 years old, and it only got worse from there. And so I remember many times missing events because I didn't look the way that I wanted to look. I had a vision of how I wanted to look for the event. And if I didn't match that image, then I just wouldn't go. And there was nothing that anyone could do to convince me otherwise. And I mean, there was some other, there was an eating disorder in there and probably some body dysmorphia as well, which as we know, often go along with ADHD, but that perfectionism was always there driving that as well. And then, Oh, and I actually nearly missed meeting my husband or getting to spend time with my husband for the first time, because I had one of those situations where I didn't look the part. The way that I wanted to look, I didn't like how I looked, so I wasn't going to go to this big dinner that we were all supposed to go to, and in the end I went, I felt horrible about myself, I was in a foul mood, but they sat me next to my now husband, and we got to know each other, and he later became a big part of my story. Oh that's so
Jane:funny, because you would have looked perfect
Ange:to him. Well, yeah, he says so, and then I used to tell him his standards weren't high enough. Yeah. Oh, That's funny. Oh yeah, sorry. We regress. You continue. Sorry. And then more recently, More recently I, and when I say recently, probably going back to the time of my diagnosis, I started seeing a therapist and the thing that I took to therapy most often was. My inability to invite anybody over to the house because my standard for cleanliness was so high and not in the sense that there was any OCD, but the thought of inviting somebody over when the house wasn't showroom perfect was. debilitating for me. And so I would take this to therapy all the time. And I remember I had started to allow people in just gradually. And my son has a friend who lives down the street. Her dad came to pick her up one day and I thought, Oh, he's a guy. He won't care. I'm just going to sort of test the waters, a little bit of graded exposure therapy. And I invited him in. And he sat down, my husband had been cooking this, these Dutch doughnuts and so he sat and chatted with us and had doughnuts. And not too long later, we had a lot of people over for a Halloween gig, we love to do the Jekyll Lanterns, so everyone was coming over to carve the Jekyll Lanterns. Anyway, when he got to the door, he was the first one to arrive and his wife was behind him. And he said, Oh! What's happened here? And I said, what do you mean? And he goes, it's clean and I nearly died. I wanted to sink into the floor. And you were thinking, this is why, this is why I don't invite people over because of that comment. Yeah. And I don't think it was even really that bad because my house usually wasn't. It's, he has one child, I have two, so. It's obviously going to be easier for them to keep the place clean, but I don't think it was terrible on the day that he came in, there was probably a lot of dishes from my husband's cooking, but. Nothing crazy, but I would have the whole family. I had my son doing skirting boards. Exactly, right? Shut up and be grateful. Exactly.
Jane:So did you say you had your son doing skirting boards?
Ange:Yeah, before people would come over, I'd have my son cleaning the skirting boards. I'd have my husband doing the fans. I'd be doing all the windows. It was a whole operation. And that's part of the reason that I didn't want to have people over too, was way too stressful and took way too much effort. But the thing I realized was that my values are connection, growth, and courage. And so it was really getting in the way of me being able to connect with people in the way that I wanted and really getting in the way of me being able to live out my values, which was why I took it to therapy in the first place. Wow. Okay.
Jane:Okay. So having to look yourself and your house look perfect, what, was that your main area or was there other areas
Ange:too? I would say mainly the house and family life. I wanted that to look perfect, even though you could make jokes about things being a mess, but you didn't want it to actually be a mess. My work, I loved my work. I don't know if I would have considered myself perfect. A perfectionist, but definitely a workaholic. So perhaps there was some perfectionism happening there too, that caused me to be at work longer than I needed to be. Yeah. Cause
Jane:for me, I find perfectionism, like it's hard for me to just leave things. And I'm just wondering if that's the same for you. It's like I have to have to respond to everybody. I have to respond to the emails. I have to have it done. And if there's a question on family or self care or food and then getting back to everybody, I would 100 percent get back to everybody. Even though those people in a year's time might not even be working in that company anymore. I would still feel the need to not miss anybody, and if other people could just get up and leave and not finish, I just couldn't understand how they could possibly even
Ange:walk out. Yeah, I think that's a really common struggle, especially with ADHD. I know that I often felt as though I put external people's needs before the needs of my family, because you have acceptance from your family, where you're trying to control other people's perceptions of you when you're dealing with people outside of the family or people through work or sort of anyone on the outside. And perfectionism ultimately is about controlling perceptions.
Jane:Yeah. Which is, as you said, is already, you already have that there with your husband and kids potentially. So. You're less likely to be, like, although I think there's also a lot of pressure on ADHD mums to be the perfect mum and to be the perfect wife and have the perfect amount of therapy and the perfect amount of extracurriculars, and there's a constant adjusting. For me, anyway, that's definitely a focus of mine, and then I never feel like I've done enough, been enough, the kids have enough, or then do they have too much? Should you then give them less? And then I'm in a whole spin around what is the perfect recipe for a
Ange:childhood. Yeah, absolutely. And you can go on and on and on with that. And I think what I see a lot of times with my ADHD is is like, when it comes to tasks, for instance, there's, I've got a few different thoughts going on here. But when it comes to tasks, we might put everything on a huge long to do list. And then even looking at that list is overwhelming, but we delude ourselves into thinking we can rest when we get through it all. But the nature of tasks is that most of them are cyclical, so they keep coming back and we never get to the end of that list. So a lot of times when I'm working with clients, it's about providing containers for those lists. Because we can't possibly. Get it all done. There's not enough time in the day to do this. If you're living, if you're living it, you know it well. And it feels as though we can never rest when we're in that cycle.
Jane:Yeah, and I think my psychologist really led me to that. I think it was the one after he diagnosed me. And I said to him, I really want to stop living from this list on my phone. And he goes, Oh, why don't you show me if it's okay? And I was like, yeah, yeah, let me show you. So I'm like, so like intense about my list. I showed him, I had 560 notes. All of them were pages long, then they were categorized, and then they were in today's, and then there was critical lists, non critical lists, and all these other lists. And he said to me, I have never seen a more complex system. And I said to him, I need to know how to stop living like this. And he's like, just stop adding to it. And my whole head exploded. I was like, what do you mean? That's my purpose is to add to my list. And not like, and he's like, let's just delete them. And I was like, no fucking way.
Ange:Yeah. Yeah. Because we become dependent on it. And I think a lot of us to have like our self worth is tied to our productivity. Maybe we've learned that I was as we grew up. And so then we don't feel. As though we can ever rest because productivity equals worth equals value. And so we just keep on that hamster wheel running, running, running. Go, go, go, go, go.
Jane:Yeah. And I wonder if perfectionism is actually an addiction. Because if you think about like alcohol and food, for example, it's like something to do to get away from yourself in my personal view, like I'm feeling stressed. I'm feeling like kids are doing this. I'm going to have a glass of wine. I'm going to eat some food. And it can be for some people a real problem for them. And sometimes I wonder with perfectionism, whether it's like productivity addiction, where for me, I'm like, is this perfectionism where I keep playing with things and I can't stop touching everything. even though it's done, that I want to make it better. Is it just because I'm not wanting to sit with myself? And I was wondering what your thoughts would be on that.
Ange:Well, I think Brene Brown said it when she said, we're all wired for connection. And so, when perfectionism shows up, usually, shame is underneath it. And shame being, as Brene defines it, that fear that we're not worthy. of love and belonging. And so then, when we do feel that fear, we tend to try to hide, or we pretend like everything's fine, or we try to control things, or numb things, or we perfect them. And so it's often shame that drives that perfectionism, and it's shame that often drives addiction. So in that way, they're, they're similar. They're symptoms of Shame.
Jane:Yeah. And then it's kind of like, I'm not enough, like if you're a child, I'm not enough to be me. I'm enough. If I do all of these things and I achieve all of these things, if I'm not doing that, I won't be loved. Is that the way you're going with that?
Ange:Yeah, I think so. And I mean, if you consider with ADHD, most of us as kids have grown up hearing negative feedback or corrective feedback about ourselves all our lives. And it's constantly reinforced by different authority figures in our lives. And usually those people who are in positions of authority when we're younger, it's their voices that become our inner voice in adulthood. And so then we develop these harsh inner critics that are like taskmasters, slave drivers. They keep us. It's working for our, our worth, hustling for our worth, as Brene puts it, love a bit of Brene.
Jane:Oh, me too. Me too. So why do you think it's so difficult to break the cycle? Because I thought being medicated now, I thought it would be easier and I'm still finding myself in that cycle, even though I think the drive has probably backed off a little bit. but yet I'm still actually doing the same things.
Ange:Well, I think when it comes to finding the antidote, like again, going back to Brene, worthiness is that belief that you're worthy of love and belonging. And so a lot of the work that has to happen in order To prevent us from defaulting to perfectionism, if that's been our default, is that we have to start developing self compassion and we have to start the work of unmasking and finding those people who love us regardless of our imperfections. And we need to start experimenting with doing things our way. It takes a lot of courage and a lot of vulnerability. And I think for many of us. We're so afraid, we're still scared because we've been told all our lives that we're too much or not enough. And that obviously has a huge impact. When we're wired for belonging, we desperately want belonging. We feel already like there's something wrong with us. And so it can be two biggest step. Sometimes it can feel like two biggest step, but ultimately that's where we find freedom is that self compassion and the self acceptance and unmasking, but it's not easy. No, and that
Jane:can be really hard. Like as a child, as you talk about the negative messaging. Because if you're getting, and we know the research shows that ADHD kids get a lot more negative messages than other kids. So if our kids are receiving that negative response more often at school, if they come home and we are, uh, maybe preoccupied with our task list or what we did and didn't get to do that day in what we deemed as important and we're not really connected with them or we're not on their side in whatever they are dealing with at that time, then I'm trying to imagine how that would then be for them. And that's what drives me to try and stop at times to break the cycle is because I'm like, well, how can I really be present in this situation? Someone ate my kids pretzels from his lunchbox and that's a really big upset for him. If I'm actually just thinking about returning the toaster to the good guys and when really no one's going to have toast in the morning, it's not a big deal, but I want to take it off my list. Where is the priorities? Because when you get more self aware, I think I've seen myself as the level of productivity has become less important, even though I still do it, but I can catch myself going, actually, I'm still doing this action, but this is actually not important.
Ange:Yeah. And I think that's what's really important about the self discovery that has to happen and usually happens in adulthood. Like, it's really important to know what you value and that helps to guide what you prioritize in your life. And so when you have those moments where you might be defaulting to perfectionism, you can catch yourself and return to your values and go, Actually, what is most important to me here? Mm.
Jane:Mm. Absolutely. So, when you said you're a recovering perfectionist, I'm very curious. What do you think the steps are in recovery if we think about Perfectionism Anonymous? If we were running that, what would, I mean, God, I'd love to attend one of those meetings. What would be some of the steps that, you know, you think would be important in that?
Ange:Well, I think self compassion is key because it precedes self acceptance. We need to be able to treat ourselves in the same way that we would treat a good friend, or our child, or someone who we value. Because, usually, if we visited our friends, and they were stressed out, and things, We're all over the place. Usually we're really compassionate towards them. We're not beating them over the head with a stick, telling them to clean it all up and what's wrong with you and everyone else can do this. Why can't you? But we're really harsh on ourselves. So self compassion is key and it's something that takes time and practice to cultivate. Then I think we really need to get into self-discovery. So we need to understand what we value, what are our strengths? What are we actually bringing to the table? Because most of us focus on our weaknesses at the expense of acknowledging our strengths. What do I actually prefer? What are my standards? Because oftentimes we find that we're, we're living. up to the expectations of the culture, or we're living up to the expectations of our family unit, or we're not living a life that's authentic to us. And so we need some like real time in self reflection and introspection to figure out. What we care about and how we can orient our lives around that. And then we need the courage to be able to do things differently. I mean, I remember working with a girl who she was supposed to work a four day week and have Wednesdays off. But what was happening for her was that she would spend all Wednesday cleaning and she wouldn't actually have any rest time, which was why she was working a four day week in the first place. And so when we got into it, what was actually the sticking point was the laundry and specifically the folding of the laundry. And she realized that she was waiting all day, like putting it off and putting it off because she hated the job so much. And then finally she would do it at the end of the day, but then the day's gone and she hadn't managed to actually relax because anytime that she was sitting down, she couldn't truly rest or relax because she had that pressure hanging over her of the laundry. And I asked the question in the coaching session, is it necessary? And it's a simple question. But for her, all these lightbulbs started going off, and she realized, actually, most of my clothes don't require ironing. They're not the kind of things that are going to crease too much, or look bad if they are creased. I don't have to do that at all. And one time actually, I was living at my mom's place and she divided all of my clothes up into these clear plastic tubs and just threw them in there and it made things so much easier. So maybe what I need to do is just get another chest of drawers and then I'm sorted. So now she just throws all the laundry in the drawers and calls it a day and she's got her Wednesdays back. And so it took though her giving herself permission to do things differently than might be expected. in order to do that for herself and in order to keep her life functional.
Jane:Yet it's sometimes that rigid thinking too, isn't it? Where it's like, it has to be this way. But when you actually have someone ask questions like what you're saying, they start to go, why does it have to be that way? I have no idea. And then they've probably been living with this thing with these Wednesdays in the laundries for so long, never questioning the why. I think that's such a great. analogy because then she had her Wednesdays off to rest because she wasn't consumed by this one job.
Ange:But that, sometimes it's
Jane:like that with ADHD because it's like you can't problem solve. You can, but sometimes when it's your own self and it's a small problem, but a large issue, it's like you can't see hill for the trees with it. I find that all the time. I'm like, how did I not think of that? Then it comes to you and you're like, yeah, that was really
Ange:stressing me out. Yeah. And it's such a simple fix a lot of the time. I think also one of the things I didn't say was that it's really important to connect with people who love you, no matter what they accept you, regardless of your imperfections, you've got to find your tribe and that takes some time. Oftentimes we. Don't, we haven't naturally formed those groups. Often times we, without meaning to, have gravitated towards other neurodivergent folk. But, some of us don't have that. But I think it's really important to find that. Because even in my own life, it was really finding a workplace that valued my contribution. Was willing to overlook some of my challenges or laugh them off with me. Which is another, another thing that I've done that's really worked, I think, in my favour. I laugh these things off and it's disarming for people. They are, I don't know, I guess more likely to laugh it off with you and find it endearing or funny as opposed to annoying if you're able to see the humor in it and own your mistakes. But getting back to finding your tribe, it can't be. understated how important that is because you can really only be vulnerable and be courageous enough to be your authentic self in an environment where you have safety and you're not going to be ridiculed, criticized for being yourself because it takes a huge amount of courage when you've spent your whole life masking to gradually start taking that mask off. Yeah
Jane:and I think with ADHD you can impulsively Share too, and you want to make sure that if you are going to be vulnerable, you're with the right people because you don't want to start getting vulnerable or attempting to laugh a few things off and you're actually not in a safe environment. Same as if you get diagnosed, I probably wouldn't start with people that you're not sure about or maybe siblings. If you've got a history of them not being supportive, I wouldn't call them first. Probably not a
Ange:great place to start. A hundred percent. And I think most of us naturally start to find our tribe online. We start to relate to other people when we first get diagnosed and we go down the rabbit hole and we realize in these Facebook groups or whatever that there's so many people out there like us. And then gradually, That gives us permission to be ourselves. And the more ourselves we are when we're out there in the world, the more likely it is that we're going to attract people like us and who will accept us.
Jane:Yeah, absolutely. So with your recovery in perfectionism, what do you think has been the largest tool, so you've obviously the community and also using humor, if there's anyone else listening, that's wanting to. Start on the road to recovery and they want to at least try and make some changes. What would be some good kind of ways to get started at
Ange:least? I mean, I think, so Kristen Neff's website, selfcompassion. org, so it's self compassion. org, has tons of self compassion practices, even the one that I mentioned earlier, how would you treat a friend? That's one of the exercises she has listed on her website and one that I've used a lot. For myself and with other people. As well as that, I think it's If you can do some values work to understand what it is, that's most important to you. And usually in my coaching sessions, at some point in time, we're going to do work around values and narrow it down to your top three so that it's really easy to recall them in the moment and filter your decisions through them more. When you feel like things are a little bit off in your life, you can call on your values and view your life through that lens and go, okay. Where am I misaligned here? What's going on and pull your life back into alignment with your values. Cause anytime we're operating outside of our values, it's going to be unsustainable. And then, yeah, I think, as I said before, finding your tribe, if you can try to find a support group in your local area, or try to connect some way with some other ADHD is in your life, that's always really helpful, or even just neuro divergent folk in general. Because we all have that shared experience of feeling like we're different somehow, like maybe there's something wrong with us. And so you can connect that way. But yeah, I mean, ultimately it comes down to self acceptance and part of that is the unmasking. And that just takes time, gradual shedding and gradual like steps of, of courage towards. Unmasking.
Jane:Yeah. And that's it. I mean, that might be a lifelong lesson for some of us, myself included, which I suppose then again, goes back to self compassion in that you can't decide that you are going to no longer behave this way when this is how you've always been, and this is the positive reinforcement that you've received. And then suddenly you're going to just. shift because you're now going to perfectly be on the path to recovery because that's also the pressure, right? Because now you're like, I know now I'm a perfectionist. I will perfectly recover quickly and seamlessly and then I will teach others and inspire and lead because that's the type of perfectionist brain that we have.
Ange:Yeah, and inevitably we'll end up failing and then we've got to use self compassion and the more we use that, it's like a muscle, the more we use self compassion The better we become at using self compassion and retraining that voice in our head to be in instinctively more self compassionate. Yeah, absolutely.
Jane:Have you heard of the latest research? They're saying that I think they're starting it in the US. I don't know if they're doing it here yet, that in the eating disorder clinics, they're starting to do ADHD testing when people arrive. Have you heard
Ange:that? Yeah, I have. I don't know a ton about it, but it makes a huge amount of sense. Absolutely,
Jane:because I was trying to figure out, I was like, wow, well if a lot of us are 35 plus when we get diagnosed, imagine turning up to an eating disorder clinic at 13, 14, whatever you are, and actually getting diagnosed then and there. And, I mean, what a life changing. And the same with juvenile detention and some of those particular places that are being set up or alcohol and drug rehab, if they start to test for ADHD there, because I do wonder if you have an ADHD brain and an eating disorder, and I know we're going off track slightly, to give those particular girls or women or men, whoever they are, these strategies, ADHD brain. And then there's a sense of failure. That doesn't go well with a perfectionist brain.
Ange:Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. I think a lot of those populations are massively underserved and unrecognized as having ADHD. So the more that we can do to make sure that people are assessed earlier in their lives and given the support that they need earlier, the less People are going to have to struggle with perfectionism later in life or addiction or workaholism or the controlling and the hiding and the pretending and the numbing and all the other things that we talked about earlier.
Jane:Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Now, Angie, I think we have hit the head nail on the head pretty quickly with that one. What I think would be really great is I'm going to put the show notes in for Kristen Neff because that sounds like a really good resource. Perfectionism. Thank you so much for your time. Is there anything extra that you want to share before we go? Any final. Passing notes to any ADHD recovering
Ange:perfectionists. Look, I think ultimately the antidote to perfectionism is self compassion. And so I would direct people to have a look at Kristen Neff's website. Again, that is Kristen, K R I S T I N dash Neff, N E F F dot org. And she has so many great resources on there. She's got a couple of books, a workbook even. And. I think that's such a great place to start and from there you can work towards self acceptance, unmasking all the other good things, but self compassion is where it all starts ultimately.
Jane:Okay, well I will be going on a website straight after this which is going to be a ride for me. Thank you, you've taught me a lot. I really, really appreciate your time and I think there'll be a lot of perfectionist listening that will. Hopefully at least know where to start because I think with perfectionism sometimes we can't get started until it's perfect. What's the perfect path forward? So many questions. So I think it's great to have a path forward and to at least get started rather than sitting where I am and go, I know I'm a perfectionist. I can't stop doing it. That there it's, at some point it becomes an excuse and you know, you really need to challenge yourself. So I really appreciate your time. If anyone would like to work with Angie further. I'm going to put her website in the show notes and give her a follow on Instagram. Instagram. But thank you so much for your time, Angie. It's been
Ange:great. Absolute pleasure. It's always fun.