CBT for ADHD? OMG
Transcript:
gonna listen to a story about a girl
named Julie she went to a therapist
because she really knew she needed help
with problems with which she had been
blessed and it kind of helped her out
but it kind of was a mess therapy CBT
my secret dream is to be a singer and
there's a real reason it's a secret
in this video we're talking about
therapy for ADHD I'm going to be telling
you all about my experience with CBT
therapy did it help did it make it worse
why did I do it would I recommend it and
of course what does the science say
let's skip the intro because I'm feeling
feisty and let's get right into it so
how did I wind up in a therapist's chair
in Williamsburg Brooklyn one fateful
day in 2015. well let me tell you
I have ADHD combined type and it's
something I used to struggle with
constantly beginning in childhood but I
had no idea I had it
my main struggles with ADHD
were always always procrastination and
my second biggest struggle was emotional
regulation so procrastination I just
couldn't do the thing
this started from the first time I got
homework when I was you know around
eight years old I knew I had to do
homework I knew I had to sit down and do
it I just couldn't do it I would
literally do everything else except my
homework until I was really tired and it
was the last minute and then I would do
it and go to bed later than I should have
and wake up tired and do it all again
for decades
I also struggled with as I got older
things like smoking a lot sometimes a
pack or more a day
um I never drank it that much but when I
drank I drank I had internet addiction I
used to eat crappy food to excess and I
just couldn't stop couldn't have one
cookie I had to have a box of cookies
um all sorts of things and so
these are some of the reasons that I
wound up going into therapy before I got
into CBT therapy for ABA ABCD haha
before I went to CBT therapy for ADHD I
had been misdiagnosed with many many
many things I have been misdiagnosed
with major depression I have been
misdiagnosed with anxiety I have been
misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder and
due to the food in my school cafeteria
being so bad when I was a kid I have
also been misdiagnosed with anorexia the
food was bad I just didn't want to eat
it and my mom's a great cook so I just
didn't eat when I was a kid and waited
till I went home and that got me sent to
the school psychiatrist or psychologist
or what
so
um in order to deal with my struggles
with ADHD I tried pills
I tried planners I tried yelling at
myself I tried being yelled at my by my
parents I even tried going to a
procrastination coach
um and the thing that really was the
main problem for me was my
procrastination and procrastination led
to me having other problems in my life
for example problems with sleep because
if you don't get your stuff done you
can't go to sleep addictions as
mentioned before to deal with
feeling crappy about myself for not
getting stuff done
damaged relationships for example if
somebody canceled plans on me I would
become absolutely Furious because in
order for me to be able to show up to a
social event it required so much work
and suffering and pushing for me to
finally get my stupid work done so how
dare you cancel plans on me do you know
how hard it was for me to get organized
enough to be able to come here and see
you and that damaged a couple of
actually really close friendships um and
I miss you guys and sorry I was so
crabby
and um in general my procrastination
um affected my self-esteem greatly
because I'm smart you know schools
shouldn't have been a struggle work
shouldn't have been a struggle
getting dressed
or you know doing my hair shouldn't have
been a struggle but it was and that
tends to make you feel pretty bad about
yourself am I right so going back to
around uh 2015 a few of my friends had
already mentioned to me that they
thought I had ADHD but I didn't really
listen to them I'm fine
I can focus fine I didn't really
understand how the whole thing worked uh
because I thought oh I don't have a
problem focusing and I never had this
sensation of like oh I can't focus no I
had the sensation of like oh let's do
this which isn't the thing I should be
doing right now but that's okay or oh
let's do this that's also another thing
I should be doing right now but that's
okay
and maybe I should do that thing nah
I'll do this so I never felt unfocused
I've always felt focused just sometimes
on the wrong thing in fact most times on
the wrong thing so
um another friend in 2015 mentioned that
she had it and you know we happened to
be uh in the car so we had a quite a bit
of time talking uh to talk about this so
as we were in the car she's telling me
this that and the other
this still didn't sink in that I might
have it
but it was a little bit fresher in my
mind because I've been hearing uh her
story and then believe it or not
I was walking down the street in
Brooklyn New York and I found a box of
books on the sidewalk in my neighborhood
uh we had this kind of thing where
anytime we had something we didn't want
anymore we would nicely put it in a box
and leave it out there so we'd do that
with clothes you know fold the clothes
put it in a box and leave it there on a
day that it wasn't raining or snowing
and people would take it so I found this
box oh box
of books Let's see and one of the books
was a book about ADHD I don't remember
what book it was but I think it was the
book driven to distraction
and I said what's this I don't know it's
free let's take it whatever took that
book and a couple other books
and I happened to start reading the book
about ADHD and as I was reading it I
said oh shh
oh boy
so uh I did what I thought was the next
step and I signed up to talk to a
therapist
and here's where the story gets
extremely ADHD I made the appointment I
filled out my little forms this that and
the other somehow in the course of
filling out the forms I failed to
mention that the reason I wanted to talk
to the therapist was because I suspected
I had ADHD and then I got to the session
and the therapist was such an
interesting
um interesting woman I think she was you
know maybe a couple years younger than
me and she seemed so vivacious and
interesting and she had all these cool
books on her shelf in her
um in her you know little office and uh
I forgot to tell her that I thought I
had ADHD
just stop them
wow like saying it now it's like how did
she forget I forgot totally forgot
because I was like oh cool new thing
let's do this therapy thing what do you
do how do you do it what's the work what
are those books so I proceeded to do
six months of CBT and not tell about
therapist that I thought I had ADHD
and um it's hilarious to me now to say
it but like thinking back like oh my God
why
if I had only told her in the beginning
you know think of all the time I would
have saved but never mind so the
therapist was pretty cool actually
she was quite a tough kind of uh
therapist let's say um in that like for
example I remember in one of our first
sessions I said something like oh well
you know my parents did this and she
just kind of looked at me and she said
your parents did the best they could
with what they had
and and you know kind of did an eyebrow
thing I wish I could do I can't do it
but she kind of did like an eyebrow
thing that implied and that's it and
that's all get over it like she didn't
say that because like what therapist
would be like yo get over it
but it was fantastically implied that
um this was not about uh blaming not
blaming but this was not going to be
that kind of therapy this was going to
be a different you know so not like you
necessarily see in the movies where
there's the person on the couch and
they're saying you know that
my mother did this my father you know
that they're recounting their whole life
story which is useful I know in in some
situations but that's not what we were
doing here this was CBT
and she explained to me what it was and
and how it worked and and how you know
it's about
um you know kind of fixing these
behavioral issues and then it's a short
course of therapy it's only really meant
to be about six months long I thought oh
that's that's interesting because in
other
um times that I had gone to therapy they
had never mentioned endpoint and so I
thought oh that's cool you're not trying
to like you know be my therapist for
like another 10 20 years
um you have like an end goal in mind so
I thought that was cool so she was tough
and um I remember very very specifically
at the in one of the earlier sessions
she gave me a little homework assignment
um
because somehow or other she had noticed
that I had a lot of negative thoughts
and kind of negative self-talk more than
anything the way I was talking to myself
was
not really nice like I wouldn't talk to
another person the way I used to talk to
myself like and if somebody you know
talked to me the way I talked to myself
on the street I'd probably want to smack
them because
um so she gave me some homework to write
down all the negative thoughts okay fine
I'll try it oh my gosh over that week I
don't remember how many pages but I want
to say it was like five pages of me just
being like
everything everything everything and it
wasn't just like oh you know I'm I'm
having trouble it was like I'm lazy I
can't do anything I never get started on
time I can't finish art like it was
really harsh it really really harsh and
mean and as the list began to get longer
and longer and longer and longer and
longer I thought oh my God this is
ridiculous
no wonder I feel like crap look at the
way I'm talking to myself
I wouldn't talk like this to my worst
enemy so
that was something that I found really
really helpful in this particular course
of therapy um and another thing I
remember was that she gave me a handout
of something that's called cognitive
distortions and these are basically like
kind of let's say glitches in our
thoughts that aren't very good for us
let me give you a couple examples one is
like black or white thinking and it's a
common one
um that a lot of us have so black white
thinking would be like let's say you go
to a party and you
um you tell somebody a joke and it's not
really funny
instead of just thinking okay well that
was a dumb joke you kind of go like oh
my God I am the least funny person I'm
the most awkward person why do I even
come to parties like what am I even
doing like you know you go like
All or Nothing
is one another cognitive distortion can
be mind reading so you know let's say
that you you go to the office and and
somebody usually says like oh hi good to
see you and that day they just go hi
and then your brain starts going what
did I do oh my god did somebody say
something about me you don't know
maybe they're sick maybe they're tired
their phone just buzzed in their pocket
right when you walked past them you
can't read their mind you know so that's
another cognitive distortion so I found
that those were really really cool
um to look at and to learn about and to
identify myself because oh my gosh I had
a lot
um so fast forward you know we're coming
to the end of our six months working
together and I suddenly go oh
by the way
um
I forgot to tell you I think I have ADHD
and that's kind of why I came here in
the first place and she just kind of
looked at me and she goes oh no I don't
think you have ADHD because you make
really good eye contact
well
um I didn't tell her this but what I was
thinking was like yo I'm forcing myself
to do that because what I really want to
do is look at all of your cool books and
look at your nails and wow where did you
get your shoes and I wonder what hair
products you use and who painted this
like I wanted to look at like all the
things but I can't do that that looks a
little wacky right and also I've been
taught that it's rude
when someone's talking to you not to
look at them
I'm forcing myself to look at you lady
but I didn't say that to her I just said
oh
uh well I I really do think I have it
because I read this book in blah blah
so she said you know she she luckily
didn't try to like talk me out of it
more she said okay here's a
questionnaire
take this home work on it and then we'll
talk about it I took it home it was
supposed to be like a five minute thing
Max I spent three hours on it why
because I spent like you know three four
minutes filling out the questionnaire
and then I spent like two or three hours
putting pictures of puppies on it
who does that I don't know
I don't know why I was like this
questionnaire needs puppies
and it took me like hours and did I have
a ton of work to do that I should have
been doing instead of putting puppies on
my questionnaire yes of course I did
so I believe the questionnaire was 13 or
14 questions and I said yes to
everything but one so winner
uh super winner right
um so I brought it into her and then
um she wound up referring me to a
psychiatrist she was a psychologist and
she referred me to a psychiatrist that's
a story for another day because that
involves um
some pills and this that and the other
um so that's my little story with CBT so
let's see did CBT help my ADHD well
definitively I'm gonna say no
um because I forgot to tell her that I
had ADHD so do I think it could have
helped me had I remembered to mention it
at the beginning probably so if I'd come
in and said hey I think I have ADHD can
it would work on this it probably would
have helped me more with my ADHD
now that said
it's uh
something that really really helped me
quite a lot like really helped me quite
a lot
um
because I remember that crazy list I
talked about with all the negative
things I was saying to myself
I no longer say those things to myself
and um if I do flip up and you know
catch myself being harsh with myself I
catch it so I don't know for example
let's say that I'm um let's say that I
I'm running late
somewhere I might start catching myself
going you're always late nerd
and I go it it that's enough
I'm running a little bit late
what do I need to do get my bag go get
out the door whatever that's it I don't
need to I don't need to tell myself that
I have a horrible character and that's
unnecessary thank you for the idea but I
don't need to do that thank you
just need to go where you need to go so
and this so what this was 2015 when I
did this therapy and look I'm still
feeling the positive effects from it so
wow did it help my ADHD not necessarily
but it really really helped that
negative self-talk and that's priceless
so
what does the science say about ADHD and
CBT
uh okay so there's a a doctor online
he's a psychiatrist um and his name is
Dr K and I love him and you should look
him up on YouTube but not on a day when
you have a lot of things to do because
you if you're anything like me will
definitely binge his videos but anyway
Dr K says in one of his videos that
therapy and medication have the same
effect size for ADHD meaning that if you
compare medication to therapy uh both
have the same effect for ADHD
so that's cool score one for for therapy
um he also mentions that ADHD therapy is
a little bit more about learning
strategies for ADHD
um and that's it can really help so
there's a lot of scientific evidence to
suggest that CBT really can help reduce
ADHD symptoms and I'll link to some of
the research in the description below if
you're interested it has been studied a
little bit more for things like anxiety
and depression and CBT does appear to
have really really good results with uh
depression and anxiety so if you have
ADHD and depression and anxiety
CBT looking like it might be a good
choice for you if you have anxiety or
depression like symptoms
which is also common
um it might
help you out with that too because it's
uh you know gonna be a lot of that same
kind of brain stuff going on the
negative self-talk and things like that
so so it's it's uh it's promising
um so let's see what else do I want to
tell you would I recommend CBT for ADHD
yes I'd say it's worth a shot
it's definitely worth a shot although
there's something I would recommend
trying first I'll tell you about that in
a minute so in my case uh like I said
while CBT didn't help me with my main
ADHD issues I'm talking procrastination
um and it didn't really help me with my
emotional regulation it just really
helped me so much with getting rid of
that negative self-talk and the results
have continued to this day
um so yeah so in that case it helped me
a lot um now the thing that has worked
for me more than anything and the thing
I have vowed to never shut up about
until the day I die much to the Chagrin
of everyone who spends more than a few
minutes with me is nutritional therapy
in other words fixing your brain with
food
if you've been hanging out with me uh
here online for a while you already knew
that but if you're a newbie to my
channel and everything I like to talk
about
um
you know it's it really works uh
nutrition and mental health really
really have a strong strong strong links
Link Link Link length Link Link
a strong link haha nutrition and mental
health have a very strong link
I talk about it a lot on this channel
although sometimes I trip over my words
so if you haven't already make sure to
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about it as I have tons of information
here that you can use to reclaim your
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life that you're proud of it's the life
that you deserve
bye for now
