ADHD Paralysis: 7 Simple Steps to Unthaw From ADHD “Freeze” #163
How many times a day do you get stuck spinning in circles because you have no idea what to do next?
You know you have a lot to do, but you’re not sure what to do next. So your anxiety goes up, making it harder to figure out.
Maybe you panic about how much you need to do (and nothing gets done during a panic attack.) Maybe you disassociate to escape the overwhelm (and nothing gets done when you freeze.) Then you beat yourself up for not getting anything done (and nothing gets done while you shame yourself.) It just gets worse and worse.
Getting stuck in ADHD paralysis is a very real part of everyday life for people with ADHD. It sucks.
But we don't have to stay there. Here are seven practical steps to get you out of the panic zone and move forward again.
This episode is a snippet from what Patricia shared at The Power of The Pause ADHD Moms Retreat in October 2022. Join the waitlist for the 2023 Retreat here and be the first to know the details: https://www.patriciasung.com/retreat-waitlist
Links mentioned in this episode:
Transcription tool: Otter.ai
Join the waitlist for the 2023 Retreat here and be the first to know the details: https://www.patriciasung.com/retreat-waitlist
No more surprises on what’s coming up in your life! Grab your free ADHD Strategy Guide: Patricia’s Secret to Overcoming Time Blindness
Time doesn’t have to stress you out! Grab Secrets for Overcoming Time Blindness, a free download on my website that will save you hours of panic & stress here: https://www.patriciasung.com/monthahead
Patricia Sung 00:00
Are you overwhelmed by motherhood and barely keeping your head above water? Are you confused and frustrated by how all the other moms make it look so easy. You can figure out how to manage the chaos in your mind, your home, or your family. I get your mama, parenting with ADHD is hard. Here is your permission slip to let go of the Pinterest worthy visions of organization and structure fit for everyone else. Let's do life like our brains do life creatively, lovingly and with all our might. When we embrace who we are and how our brains work, we can figure out how to live our lives successfully, and in turn, lead our families well, at the end of the day, we just want to be good moms. but spoiler alert, you are already a great mom. ADHD does not mean you're doomed to be a hot mess mama, you can rewrite your story from shame spiral to success story. And I'll be right here beside you to cheer you on. Welcome to motherhood in ADHD.
Patricia Sung 01:08
Hey there successful mama. It's your friend Patricia Sung. Before we jump into this week's episode, I want to share our review of the week. Today's review is from Mellon Cougar camp, and it's called feeling to Bigley. Thank you Patricia for reminding us that it's okay to feel our emotions Bigley. Growing up with untreated ADHD. My oversized emotions are so overwhelming and misunderstood. Rejection feels so awful like a little piece of your soul is being stomped on. Thank you so much for sharing how a mom with treated and better understood ADHD can teach her amazing ADHD kids that it's okay to feel emotions vaguely, too. Thank you so much. Use Bigley. That day I was like Bigley. This is not a word, but I can't come up with a better one. I'm just gonna run with it. You know what? I like it, I think I'm gonna stick with it. Alright, so appreciate when you write me a review or rate the podcast because truth be told, even though the podcast is doing quite well, I still doubt myself quite often. And when you all tell me that I'm doing a good job, it really means a lot. So thank you. If you have not reviewed the podcast, please head over to whatever app you're on and see if it's an option. I know it is for Apple podcasts and hit those stars. Hopefully it's five stars. And write me a little note because it really does make my day. This week, I want to share with you a little snippet of what I taught at the ADHD moms conference earlier this month at the power of the pause. Because not to toot my own horn. But it was a really great weekend, it was so good. Like, it was so good for me as a person to be able to like hug your necks and be like, these are real people that I talk to every day and they exist. And they're not just all virtually like on the internet, like real people feel like I'm affecting real people. It was so good for me, and like spurring on what I'm doing and like renewing, how much this matters to me and to you and the world and our families. And it was also so good for each of the eight moms that were there this weekend. like, Ah, don't don't cry again. You know, I do love big emotions. And it's okay to feel them bigly.
Patricia Sung 03:28
I just wish I had like really good words to tell you how wonderful it was in all of us to be able to like be in community and one of the moms as she was leaving gave me like the biggest hug and she was like, Patricia, this is the first time I've ever felt like I can just be myself. And I don't have to worry about people judging me. And I just got to be myself like waterworks, y'all. I can't even tell you how many times this weekend, what so many, to see you grow and spend time on yourself knowing like, this is how you sew into your family. And we talked about such deep things like everyone just walked in with such an open heart and was vulnerable and like we were all ourselves and just relaxed and took care of us.
Patricia Sung 04:24
We talked about our stress responses and how do we get out of ADHD paralysis, which is what we're going to talk about today and like talking about our stress response and understanding how our bodies are like doing their jobs, but sometimes we have to help like channel that energy in the right way. And how do we do small pauses and big pauses and slowing down and like leaning into how we work like not changing who we are but like directing that energy and like working with it instead of against it like it was such a good weekend. And I hope that you'll be there at the next one I'm doing this again next year, I don't have dates or anything. I like immediately wanting to plan another one, my husband's like, slow your roll down, like you have got to slip down. We will, but like not in two minutes, so and you know, it was good when the moms asked like, how do we have a retreat subscription? Like, I want to sign up right now. I'm gonna make this happen. We're doing it again next year. So I want you to come, go put yourself on the waitlist. That way, you'll know as soon as it's ready. Let me give you that website, you can go do it right now. That's patriciasung.com/retreat-dash waitlist.
Patricia Sung 05:36
Alright, now that you know how to come next time, let's talk about a little snippet of what we were talking about on Saturday. So we spent the first session understanding like how does our brain work? What's our stress response? Like? What is our body doing? Like? How do we understand what our body does? Like, I feel like this is one of the biggest disservices that like, we don't understand more thoroughly our body works. Ah, we all have a body and we don't understand them very well. When we understand what our body is doing, then we can work with it instead of against it, which we talk about all the time. We want to work with our ADHD not against it. Yes, we have to bumper patter weaknesses, but how do we lean into those strengths? How do we work with what we've got, when we get stressed out? Our body is doing its job in protecting us, when we know that this is how our body works. Great.
Patricia Sung 06:27
Now we can work with it instead of against it. So one of the topics that's been coming up a lot in our Wednesday q&a session, which if you are part of daily planning, or time management mastery, both of those courses have q&a Every Wednesday. So you can come and ask questions. Wherever you're stuck. Well, we've been talking about being stuck. There are lots of times during the day, when we get stuck or frozen. We don't know what to do next, kind of like analysis paralysis, but instead ADHD paralysis, where you're overwhelmed, you're not sure what to do and you get stuck, you just kind of like spin around in circles, you're like, I have a lot to do. So I need to do something. But I don't know what to do next. So I'm just sitting here, like stressing more about the fact that I have a lot to do, but I'm not doing anything. And I don't know what to do next. And you just run in this little like spiral of anxiety. And don't get anything done except stress yourself out more about the fact that you aren't getting anything done. When this happens. This means that our stress response is like kicked into high gear. And our brain, our lovely brain is doing his job. And it's protecting us. And it's like, Hey, we're very stressed out, there's some anxiety, we're not sure what to do. Let's shut down all the non vital systems and just focus on surviving here, which sounds lovely, thank you. Thank you, buddy.
Patricia Sung 07:46
Thank you brain for taking care of me. I appreciate being alive. However, one of the first things that shuts down is your logical part of your brain, your critical thinking, your creativity, your problem solving, like all this stuff you need to get out of that is now off. Great. Thanks, God. So what can we do to get out of that? So this Saturday, we talked about seven steps to get out of ADHD paralysis. When your stress response is in high gear, what do we do as like a foundational point like before the seven steps, just as like a side note, anything that you're doing to treat your ADHD and take care of yourself is going to lower your stress response.
Patricia Sung 08:29
So all those little things that feel like they're not making a difference, like going to bed earlier, taking your medicine, eating your veggies, all those like basic life skills that we roll our eyes out when people are like, how do you take care of your ADHD and you're like, just make good Jaysus those things really do matter. They lower the stress response on your body, when you're taking care of yourself. That's why I'm always saying put on your oxygen mask first. If you're not taking care of yourself, if your stress response is too high, you can't take care of other people, you will burn out you will crash and burn. So know that everything that you're doing to take care of yourself is making a difference here because it's lowering your stress level like as a whole, not just in that moment, right? So mostly to say like good job, yay for you taking care of yourself, it is making a difference even when it doesn't feel like it is okay. So when we're in this panic mode, and our logic brain turns off, what we can do is have a plan ahead of time on what to do because in that moment, our logic brain is not going to kick in. So we want to already have our plan set out. Here's our seven steps.
Patricia Sung 09:36
The first one is awareness. Recognizing that you're in ADHD paralysis is how you know that you can do something about it. If you don't realize that you're in that moment. That's the problem, then you can't do something about it. You can't solve a problem you don't know you have right. So how do we practice listening to our body like growing our trust? To me this is the second biggest problem that we have with ADHD the first being we don't understand erster Risk Response and how our body works.
Patricia Sung 10:01
The second one is that we don't trust ourselves. We don't know what our check engine light looks like sounds like feels like. So when we start to get stressed and go off the rails, we don't even realize it's happening because we've spent our whole lives telling ourselves that we don't trust ourselves. Because we're always getting this message of like, You're too dramatic, You're too sensitive, you talk too much, you're to this to that, whatever. And we start to ignore our gut instinct. So I think that this is one of the biggest issues we have with ADHD, one that we don't understand our stress response to that we don't trust ourselves. Even though we actually have fantastic intuitive skills as a whole. We don't trust ourselves. Inside note number three is that we don't talk about hormones enough, but I'm not even getting on my tablet today.
Patricia Sung 10:49
So step one is awareness. And realizing that you're in the stress response, knowing what to look for being able to slow down the spiral of panic, when it starts like this is step one, you have to know what the problem is, in order to do something about it. This is something that I work on with my one on one clients is like understanding, Hey, what is your stress response feel like? What does that overwhelm feel? Like? How do you recognize it? Because when you tune into your body, and you learn to trust yourself again, then you realize it earlier, that you're getting stressed. A lot of times we don't even realize we're stressed until we're like already exploding. And then it's like, what did I just do, but if we can recognize it earlier, we can start to curb that and do something about it before it ends up in like epic meltdown or Medusa mom coming out. Okay, that's step one. Got to know what's going on.
Patricia Sung 11:39
Step two is pausing to regulate what is going to bring your stress response down. A really easy one to do in that moment, maybe not easy. quick to grab could go to is breathing. So there's all kinds of breathing techniques, belly breaths, box, breathing, all that stuff, like those big deep breaths, tell your body like I am safe. I am okay, and help you regulate the other systems in your body. Things like grounding things like snuggling your pet walking outside, finding a comfy safe place to be how can you pause in that moment to help your body regulate and be like, Yes, I'm safe. I'm okay. And try to get your logic brain back on again, having a go to quick like, boom, boom, boom, like three things you can do when you're stressed, I can breathe, I can pet my dog, I can walk outside for a little bit. Knowing what your go twos are, when your logic brain shuts off, you develop that habit of okay, I'm really stressed, I'm realizing I'm getting into overwhelm. Here's the three things I can do is a skill that you can develop, because in the moment, your brains not going to kick into like, what's the logical thing to do here? So that's part of understanding beforehand, what's going to help you so that when you are stressed, you already have that go to and you're not trying to come up with that list of things in the moment.
Patricia Sung 13:04
Are you constantly scrambling to get things done? You never seem to have quite enough time to do it all. And it feels like you're drinking from a firehose, and then you get mad at yourself, because you should have been ready because you knew about that birthday party or that field trip or that vacation for a long time now, and yet somehow, you still aren't ready. As ADHD moms, we spend a lot of time living reactively you're playing Whack a Mole throughout the day dealing with one emergency or surprise after another. You feel like you don't even have time to catch your breath. This is a really stressful way to live every day. The hard part is it we live in the now not the not now. And all those things the birthday party, the vacation the field trip, they're all not now until suddenly they are now how do you move those things from not now to now before they are emergency Now by doing some proactive planning. Every month, I look ahead at what's coming up so that my brain recognizes that it's coming soon it brings the knot now into the now temporarily, I'm sharing this tried and true strategy with you. So head over to my website patriciasung.com/monthahead. It's all one word month ahead lowercase letters, and you can download it for free how in just 10-15 minutes, you can walk through what's coming up and help your brain move from reactive to proactive this 10 or 15 Min activity once a month saves future me hundreds of hours of stress and panic. And I want that for you too. So go to my website patriciasung.com/monthahead and grab your free ADHD friendly strategy which is my secret on how I overcome time blindness and lower your stress a whole bunch future you will thank you so much in a couple of weeks. So go grab it now. patriciasung.com/monthahead
Patricia Sung 15:00
Okay, number three, when you're super overwhelmed, and in ADHD paralysis, step three is to brain dump. You hear me talking about this a lot, just throw everything on the page, dump it all out, literally all the thoughts, get it out, write it on your phone, write on a piece of paper, get it out, if you're a verbal processor, you can speak into your phone into one of those like transcription things. I use otter, that will transcribe for you what you're saying. And then you can have it all there, like taped up for you get it out of your brain. And it can be everything. It's not like, Oh, I just need to write down my grocery list. I just need to write down what to do today. Like write everything. If it's like a jumble of like, I'm really stressed, I need to buy milk, I forgot to send that permission slip. What am I doing with my life, like, just get it all out of your brain, all the swirling around, get it out and either onto a piece of paper or digitally, whatever it is, but get it out of your head.
Patricia Sung 15:54
Step four is to prioritize. Our brains don't prioritize well on their own. We think that everything is urgent and important when we're in a panic, because we're stressed, and everything feels urgent and important. And it's not not everything is urgent and important. In both of my classes, I talked about the Eisenhower matrix, and I give a little ADHD spin on it, of like, I mean, you can Google this the Eisenhower matrix, go Google it. It helps you like figure out what's important and what is urgent. And if you are putting everything into the urgent and important box, then that is a red flag that you are too stressed out because you think everything is urgent and important. And it's not not everything is important and urgent. It's just not for when we are stressed, we feel like it is that's like a red flag of like good time to do something about this. If you don't know how to prioritize that is one of the things that I teach in my courses, how to figure out what's actually important and actually urgent, we go through that in daily planning. Go sign up.
Patricia Sung 16:54
Step number five, when you are overwhelmed, and an ADHD paralysis. Step five is take a baby step. Give yourself some grace, take a tiny amount of time, set a timer for five minutes, do just one step. You know Mel Robbins has that you know 54321 Go thing like whatever thing that will get you moving to just do one little step, just do a little bit to get yourself moving. Don't try to do the whole project. Just one thing, what's the one step you need? Once you get going, then your body will kick in? And you can decide like do I want to keep going with us? Like my five minute timer went off? Do I want to do more? Am I like, nope, thinks I'm done. Or sometimes your body will be like, Hey, I am going now. Okay, I can keep working on this project for a little bit longer, because I'm already moving along. But like, what's the baby step you can take to get moving.
Patricia Sung 17:44
Step six is planning out the steps when you have these big projects. They feel very overwhelming. And it's vague. And a lot of times we'll put on our to do list something large, like do my taxes. It's like do my taxes is not one job. That's like probably 15 or 20 steps. So when you look at do your taxes, it feels really overwhelming. Because like what does that look like? What do I need to do? Who do I need to ask for help? What do I need to call? What papers do I need? Like? There's so much that goes into that? So if you can go through and write down the steps, when does it need to be done? How does it need to be done? Ask a friend for help Google, what are the steps to doing your taxes like ask for help figure out what those pieces are. Because doing that one project, it's not one task on your to do list, it's probably 20 steps, writing out all the different pieces will help your brain wrapped around it. Because when something's really big and vague like that, we struggle because like I don't know what that end result looks like. But I'm also not sure what step one is. And I also don't want to happen, I don't know what happens in the middle like, I don't know any of it.
Patricia Sung 18:51
So going through and writing down all the steps. You can also make a plan of like, Okay, today, I'm just going to call my accountant and ask what I need to do, or today, I'm just going to find out what the deadline is, when is all this stuff to have to be done by so that way I can figure out a plan of like when I'm actually going to get these things done. Or maybe it's like, I'm just going to file an extension. So I give your author problem later. That's okay to like. Break it down into pieces and ask for help if you need it. Step seven is make it fun. This is like a catch 22 of like the chicken or the egg. Because when you are stressed your body is not going to have fun. It's not designed for play when you're stressed or when you're stressed your body's in fight or flight. Or maybe you've already hit fawn or freeze and your body's not trying to make things fun. It's not going to see the joy in things because it's like we're just trying to survive here Patricia, we're just trying to survive.
Patricia Sung 19:47
So not that we want to like trick ourselves but like if you are safe and you're in ADHD paralysis and you are actually safe, but your body's super stressed finding a way to make the He was fun to have it be playful is a way to help your body move up the stress ladder and be less stressed. So if you can put on music, if you can dance, if you can sing, actually, there's this whole thing with the vagus nerve. And like when you're singing, it just tells your body like you're safe because of the vibration or something, I really should have looked this up before I said it out loud. Just distress me on it, you can Google it.
Patricia Sung 20:25
When you sing, your body is getting the single signal that it's safe. So how can you make it fun? How can you make it a game? How can you put a little twist on it for it to be enjoyable? Can you know instead of if everyone's stressed at lunch, like can you go have a picnic in the back yard? Or at the park? Like how can you make it fun, enjoyable, so that you can raise yourself out of that stress response and not feel so drained, so stressed, so frozen. Now, if you have all these steps in your pocket, then when your brain shuts off, you can go to what you already know your brains on trying to come up with it.
Patricia Sung 21:01
So if you have a chance today, jot down how are you going to do these seven steps? How can you make things playful? How can you put what do you need in order to have less stress? What are your three go to things to pause and regulate your emotions and your energy level? At that moment, having those go to things already set will allow you to? Yes, I'm very stressed. And I hear you body I hear your brain. And also, I am safe right now I can make the next choice. Here's what I'm gonna do, because I already have it planned out. proactive planning is what gets us ahead because in a with ADHD, we were just in reactive mode all the time. We're constantly reacting to this thing or that thing. Oh, I didn't realize this was coming up. How can we take care of ourselves? How can we regulate our stress response so that we can get out of that ADHD paralysis when it happens? Because it happens often. And it's really hard.
Patricia Sung 21:59
So here is your assignment for today. Write down these seven steps, what works for you, what are you going to do so that when you're stressed, you have a go to plan. If you're like Patricia, I can't remember all those seven steps, don't worry. On my website for every single episode, you can go in and read the episode, there's a transcript there. So you can go skim back through and catch anything that you missed, you don't have to listen to it. Again, if you don't want to, you can go read it. And they're also on the website are all the links if we have a guest, that's where you can find links to their stuff. Anything that I mentioned, if I have a link for that it's in there, everything's on my website with the show notes. So head over there, you'll see it in the description on whatever you're listening to. You can see the description, it'll tell you here's the link to go to my website. And you can look through, get that plan ready. So that next time you're stuck in ADHD paralysis, which is a matter of when not if you have a go to plan ready so that you can lower your stress and bring your brain back online until it thinks brain I appreciate you taking care of me and we're okay, here's what we're gonna do to take care of ourselves and get moving again.
Patricia Sung 23:07
Alright, successful mama, you have an amazing week and I'll talk to you soon. For more resources, classes and community head over to my website motherhoodinadhd.com