The ADHD failure cycle (Jared Robson’s story)

Growing up, Jared Robson got so sick of failing that he decided, “trying isn’t for me.” Jared got into trouble all the time and bounced around different high schools. He eventually graduated high school but admits that that might not have happened if his family weren’t so well-off.  

Now, Jared’s a stay-at-home dad and thriving as a college student taking courses online (He has a 4.0 GPA!). Jared and Laura talk about the “hyperactive little boy” stereotype. Listen as he describes his quest to find stillness and how he thinks of the ADHD failure cycle today.  

Want to share your “aha” moment? We love hearing from our listeners. Email us at ADHDAha@understood.org.

Related resources

• Understanding hyperactivity

• What is the school-to-prison pipeline? From Opportunity Gap

• ADHD in boys

Timestamps

(01:01) Jared’s school life growing up

(07:08) “Trying isn’t for me”

(10:54) Changing around high schools

(12:53) Trying out different colleges

(13:56) Managing expectations

(17:31) Jared’s “aha” moments

(20:14) Jared’s pandemic lifestyle change

(23:36) Jared’s mindset shift in the present day

Episode transcript

Jared: To meet a bunch of people that were equally as smart as me and capable as me, but equally as dysfunctional as me, and really realizing that there's a lot of us and we're all pretty solid folk and pretty interesting and interesting to know and fun to be around and that there's other people like you and you're not some weirdo alone who's struggling with this by themselves. That was a very freeing moment.

Laura: This is "ADHD Aha!," a podcast where people share the moment when it finally clicked that they have ADHD. My name is Laura Key. I head up our editorial team here at Understood.org, and as someone who's had my own ADHD "aha" moment, I'll be your host.

Well, I am here today with student and stay-at-home dad, Jared Robson. Jared, thank you for being here today.

Jared: Hey, thanks for having me, Laura. Good morning.

(01:01) Jared's school life growing up

Laura: Let's start with what school was like for you growing up. Is it fair to say that you struggled in school?

Jared: Yeah, I was that perennial ADHD kid where every single report card from every single teacher was "Has great potential, but..." And there was just a every I mean, big "but" in every single comment from essentially kindergarten on, I mean it was "He can't sit still. He's a class clown. He interrupts. Reads really well, does all this other stuff really great, but boy, howdy just can't follow directions to save his life." And, you know, just sort of went through there to various stages of stress as the expectations got larger and larger.

Laura: Tell me about the expectations. I think this is a running theme in your story.

Jared: The way I always heard sort of a learning disability explained to me that resonated the most with me is when your output does not meet your capabilities. And that was absolutely the way for me, is that I had all of these amazing capabilities and stuff, but for the life of me could not manifest any of them into any sort of realm of completed anything.

Laura: Do you remember how that felt?

Jared: Crushing. Just devastating, to always be disappointing, you know, yourself and you know, other people. I mean it, except for when it would come time to say, read. I mean, I'd read a book in a day and be able to do that, but if you wanted me to write an essay about it, you would never see it. At eight years old, we'd have a really interesting conversation about, I don't know, The Hobbit or whatever, but if you wanted me to actually produce some work about it, then, not happening.

Laura: So, it was teachers who pointed out your potential ADHD symptoms. Is that accurate?

Jared: Yes. And then, so, I'm 40, so I got all of this done. And I was one of those early cases. The district psychologist came in and we did, you know, whatever early testing there was. And this is third grade. This is 1994, maybe?

Laura: Ah, vintage ADHD.

Jared: Yeah, no no. The OG when there wasn't an H, it was just ADD. I mean, this is back in the day when you would just get a diagnosis and they said, "Well, there's these medications that are available" and some, you know, old guy would be like "Well, yeah, OK, here and, and just, you know, carry on." And I mean, I was almost certainly the first kid in my school that was taking stimulant medication from the nurse every day. And, you know, there's no literature, there was no coping mechanisms. It was just "Here, kid. Take these pills and figure it out."

Laura: Yeah, I want to acknowledge that so many of the interviews that I've been doing, I think just because of where we are in the world, especially post-pandemic and there's this surge of later stage ADHD diagnoses, especially for women happening...

Jared: Sure.

Laura: That a common theme that we touch on is that it's not just hyperactive little boys, right? And that's true. And it's so good that that's coming to the forefront, that it's not. But sometimes I have this feeling in my stomach. I'm like, but I don't want to downplay the struggles of the hyperactive little boys. And would you say that you were one of those hyperactive little boys?

Jared: It was, yes. But not in like the hamster wheel never stops, you know, running around, screaming, yelling, doing that stuff. So, I have incredible high verbal skills. And so, I was the hyperactive kid that was joking and singing and laughing and doing that stuff. I was not the sort of your I don't know, your Dennis the Menace sort of cliche of random mayhem and that kind of thing. It was just more of a, I was not able to find stillness sort of on any level.

Laura: That's really beautifully put. I was not able to find stillness.

Jared: Yeah. It still eludes me. Yoga makes... I can't do it. Meditation drives me crazy, you know, I mean I have to listen to music or podcasts basically, consistently, if I'm not interacting, just to keep the sub-part of my brain sort of occupied.

Laura: Yeah, I bring that up about the hyperactive little boy because we're using it as a catch all, right? For almost like the boys who got treated early and then the girls got left behind.

Jared: Sure.

Laura: Should I think it's important to show that, like, those boys and now men, right? That's not a monolith.

Jared: No.

Laura: There's a lot of nuance within that. And it's not like, yeah, you got your diagnosis and everything was...that's everything's all good now. Everything's fine, right?

Jared: No, there was no vocabulary. I mean, it was so early at the time that, and part of it was I think my parents and to some extent my teachers, the ones that carried it off, were looking for "This kid's really smart. Why is he such an idiot? Why is he such a bummer? I mean, because he's not a bad kid, you know, it's not malicious." I mean, it was clear, you know, how distressing it was. And, you know, six hours to do math homework and the tears and the fighting and the "I just can't do it." And then conflict.

And my parents get upset because, you know, they're getting calls from the teachers and, you know, I got poor impulse control. So, I'm always you know, my mom always said, right, "What happens when you get two boys together? You get half a boy." Well, that's me. Is that you'd put me with my friends and I incrementally get less able to regulate anything.

And so, just perpetually in trouble, perpetually talking to an office referrals and notes home, and missing homework. And I distinctly remember that my favorite day of the year was the day before school when I would pack up my binder, and I would get all of my pens together and I would put all the things in my giant five-ring, five-star notebook zipper thing that was like the absolute hit.

Laura: Trapper keeper?

Jared: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. No, this is the huge, it was the hottest. It was bad, this huge thing. "No. I promise you, Dad, you give me this $20 thing" —which at the time was just astronomical…

Laura: Yeah.

Jared: For an office supply — you know, this will help me. Like, it's got all these pockets and these dividers." And I remember it was the happiest day, the first day of going to school, and everything's in its place and I know where everything, you know, it's nice. And, you know, by the end of the week, there's papers at the bottom of my bag. I can't find anything. All the pens are gone. Everything's ripped out and all the stuff.

And just looking at it and just being like, “Oh God, I suck. Why? Why can't I do this? I was so happy about this." And I get home, my dad's like, "Why is it, you know, why is your thing covered in doodles? Like, we just spent $25," you know, and not being able to understand and nobody being able to understand.

And it's just like, "Just do the thing. It's so easy. Just do the thing." And not being able to really understand it. No, man, I can't do the thing. It's not, it's not I don't want to. I desperately want to because more than anything, I just want you all to stop beating up on me. If it was that easy, holy crap, I would do it just so that I wouldn't get in trouble all the time.

Laura: And part of trying to figure this out, you bounced around from school to school. Is that accurate?

(07:08) "Trying isn't for me"

Jared: Yes. So, I went to a private school at high school for a couple of reasons. It was behavioral issues, and I was, you know, getting in with, you know, bad kids and started to do stuff. And I mean, they sent me to a private school, which on some level was a lot better because I was definitely more academically challenged. And because it's a private school, they had a little more flexibility and how they could do stuff and the way they could, you know, approach me.

And, you know, we actually, I was so in the couple weeks since we've talked, I was thinking about conflicts and issues with educators. And I have this very distinct memory of having a, I guess, a proto IEP plan with my teachers and my father was advocating with like, "Look, you know, he has a hard time producing these essays. He could talk to you at a level college level about all of this stuff. But if you get him to write this two-page thing, he's going to want to jump out the window. So why don't we, you know, can we do like an oral exam with some other component? Can we find some way to say that he has the understanding?"

But and I remember that this teacher that I had conflicted with pretty aggressively, she said, "Yes, of course he can do, you know, we could do an oral exam, but because the writing component is integral to the learning process, the highest he can get is a C," which is what I was getting anyway. I remember that a lot of being like, "Here's your accommodations. You're accommodated, but you're still going to basically fail. We can't let you do it. Even though we said that we could let you do it." And that stuck with me for a really long time.

And I actually didn't actually seek accommodations after that because it was clear to me that at least at that point, it didn't matter. Nobody cared. And that was a very pivotal moment for deciding that nah, trying isn't for me. This is not the way to success.

Laura: Trying isn't for me.

Jared: No. You know, you get so sick of failing consistently that actually openly, earnestly opening yourself up to a new experience or trying a new experience, not within the 2 or 3 skill sets that you excel at, you're so conditioned to failure that you're like, "No, I'm not. It's not even worth my time to do this because it's just going to be a horrific experience." And it's like, you can't take that. So, I don't think I'll be participating. Thanks.

Laura: Did you connect these feelings to your ADHD at the time?

Jared: No, I mean, not specifically. It was just more of a horrific teenage like "I just suck in general." I mean, it's like this is just another layer of this is unpleasant and I don't like this about myself, and I wish that I wasn't this way. I didn't have the sort of ability to be like, "Oh well, this is an outcome based on, you know, my learning differences that my neurodivergent self isn't able to accurately reflect my correct self." Then there's a conflict, and I wasn't sophisticated enough to do that.

Laura: Or maybe you were. And maybe you were embroiled in a system that certainly wouldn't look at it that way.

Jared: Oh it's entirely possible. Who knows? It's, there was also I mean, it sucks in general to be 14 on top of not having any idea what's going on with your head.

Laura: Right. And then like the demand on your organizational, your executive function systems, when you hit that, you know, middle school, high school time is just, that must have been brutal.

Jared: Yeah. I mean, you know, and then it's, you're depressed and, you know, friendless and isolated. And so, you know, I mean, we could start self-medicating because if you're stoned, you're not depressed, which in turn makes you not really good at doing your homework, which in turn you know, you get more zeros, which in turn, you know, and it just, it's just like a snowball.

And high school was the worst of it because the expectations were much higher. You know, it's pro to college, right? So, you're preparing to go out into the real world and there's this real concern that like, my God, you can't handle this, man. What are you going to do?

(10:54) Changing around high schools

Laura: Where did that take you? Did you graduate high school?

Jared: Barely. I actually, so I had some disciplinary issues that necessitated me leaving early, my junior year of school. And I briefly went to live with my sister in Pennsylvania, and she enrolled me in the local, I mean real rural high school there, which I was, as a city boy, I was not prepared for rural Pennsylvania. And they were not prepared for me.

We did not, and, you know, I had this weird half-day work release thing. So, I got this rinky-dink job at Target, and so, I was there at eight, done at 11 and worked three days a week. And I didn't go to class. But like after the first four weeks, as my sister is at work and she wasn't around and I remember I was home for Christmas and we got the report card and it was basically two F's and a D. And I said, "Yeah, we're not we're not doing that."

And he found actually a very early LD high school in San Diego and we went out and visited and said, "You know, this is your basically your last shot. If this doesn't work out, I don't know what you're going to do." And went out and I mean, essentially, basically bought my diploma.

Laura: Yeah.

Jared: We paid tuition at the school and they gave me a bunch of puff classes and just sort of passed me. And that's how I got my diploma, essentially. I mean, you know, I mean, I turned in stuff, but if it wasn't for that, I don't think that I would have graduated high school.

Laura: Yeah. And there's an element of, and I'm not saying this to minimize what you went through, an element of privilege and not obviously, right? to be able to…

Jared: 1,000,000%. And I wonder sometimes how things would have been different if, you know, we would've been, you know, upper middle-class white suburbanites. We wouldn't be able to go to the doctors. You know, they just sort of beat up on me until I did something enough to get institutionalized. And I think about all of the people that are incarcerated or in the system on one set of the other, just for want of, you know, a better understanding of their undiagnosed learning disabilities, could have completely different lives. I mean, I love where I am now. But, you know, it was a lot of hard work and a lot of pain and tears to get to be the moderately functional human that I am today.

(12:53) Trying out different colleges

Laura: Did you go to college?

Jared: Six. I'm the…yeah, yeah.

Laura: I'm sorry. I don't mean to, like, I almost spit out my water when you said that.

Jared: Yeah, yeah. As you know, I am very good friends with your associate, Rae.

Laura: Rae Jacobson, host of the "Hyperfocus" podcast. The amazing Rae Jacobson.

Jared: She is one of the greatest people I've ever met. And she actually, her and I met at a learning disability college in Vermont, got to high school, had a little tumultuous couple of years, and tried 3 or 4 community colleges, got through a semester, dropped out or got flunked out or stopped going. And I got into a little bit of legal trouble and was basically in northern Canada working for a guy who did a wilderness therapeutic center for troubled teens and was sort of literally cooling my heels, sort of waiting for the dust to blow over, as it were. And it was "What do you do now? What's next?" And found this school and I said, "OK, let's give this a shot."

It was a very interesting school, and, you know, they had a really great, I think, early mindset and they really tried to do a lot of interesting stuff. And most people, it was their third or fourth attempt at university.

(13:56) Managing expectations

Laura: What I'm wondering is, at what point in your journey did your ADHD come back into focus for you? And dare I say, maybe you had an "aha" moment about your ADHD?

Jared: It wasn't necessarily an "aha" moment. It was an understanding of my strengths, my weaknesses, and what I can do to maximize the one and minimize the other. That was the most important thing to learn, which is, it's not the giving up, right? It's not the not attempting stuff because I know I'm not going to be good at it. It's the that's not going to work for me because of this. But let's do this instead because that I know I can do.

So, instead of setting yourself up for unrealistic and unattainable expectations, you can manage your expectations and manage the things that you do in such a way that you have a higher chance of success rather than just being like "Yeah, I can do it" and then just getting crushed in like a week and just quitting and just ghosting and just never showing up ever again.

And I think that was the most important thing, was doing that. And that it was also helped by being on my own. When you have to pay rent, you find out really quickly how to find coping mechanisms to achieve the thing that you want to achieve. Because otherwise, you know, you don't get to eat dinner.

Having to go out and work and be on my own and figure it out, trial by fire, I think was the thing that really helped more than anything. And I'm not saying that's a good thing, there's probably really scarring in a lot of ways, and could have done a lot easier, but being forced to do it is I think the thing that helped me the most.

Laura: And forced to do it because college didn't work out for you?

Jared: No. Yeah. No, no, no. It was not a good scenario. I mean, the problem is, is that, you know, I mean, it's rigid academia. There's a lot of "Just do it because this is the way that we do it." And I am oppositional sometimes to stuff that doesn't make sense. And if it doesn't make sense, I have a hard time just punching my card and do it, you know? I mean, it's the "Just turn your homework in, man. A C is better than zero."

And I never, you know, that was until very recently that I actually really internalized that and figured it out. And just forcing myself to produce rather than getting wrapped up in "Oh I've got to write a magnum opus. I have to break new ground on Catcher in the...you know, nobody's ever read To Kill a Mockingbird like this and had such pithy, you know, insight into man," just write about frickin Boo Radley and turn in the paper and get a B and shut up.

Laura: That's such a hard lesson for lots of people to learn, right? And I feel like some of that is an age thing. You can kind of like age out and like have a more levelheaded viewpoint of like, what, quote, success and happiness is for you, right?

Jared: Yes.

Laura: Like, I remember when when I finally stopped trying to be a rock and roll journalist who was going to, like, change the world, like I, like Almost Famous.

Jared: Yeah.

Laura: I was like, "I'm going to be like the guy in Almost Famous" life just felt better. It was like a pressure-release valve. And that's like, that was kind of a silly…there are other examples of things that I like, a million examples of things that I was going to do, and I was like, "I'm a failure if I don't achieve this." So, what you're saying is that came from being on your own and just having to, I guess, survive.

Jared: Yeah. Just to figure it out. And I mean, I didn't talk to my dad for about 5 or 6 years, and when there's no options, you sink or swim, baby. And I flailed for a little bit and figured it out. And, you know, I'm also, absolutely acknowledge, that meeting my now wife at 21 was absolutely a life changer. I mean, having a partner even then, I mean, we were idiots, that young and had no idea but having someone to support you and help you do the things that you are bad at is so amazingly helpful. She's up there in the way that my life makes sense. There's no way that I'm nearly as functional without my partner.

(17:31) Jared's "aha" moments

Laura: Jared, what would you say is your ADHD "aha" moment?

Jared: So, I've lived with it basically all of my cognitive life. But when I was dating my now wife, I found one of my earliest Woodcock-Johnson's.

Laura: Woodcock-Johnson being an assessment for ADHD.

Jared: Yeah, I don't even know if they do that anymore.

Laura: I don't know.

Jared: I don't know. And we brought it up, one of my early, my whole packet, right? With the analysis and everything and, you know, never being one to be afraid of, you know, my personal peccadilloes and issues, I basically had a date at my house having dinner and said "Oh you should read this." And we read my thing together. And it was very interesting experience to have someone else that I was close to, that wasn't my family, that wasn't a physician look at all of this information to be like, "Oh yeah, you know, I see all of this, you know, in you" and confirming again that I am incredibly capable.

But, you know, it's just a couple of things that you just don't do so well. And getting the sort of the confirmation that, you know, doesn't make you a bad person. You're not an idiot. You're not incompetent or incapable. You're not whatever. You're just a dude with a brain that, you know is mildly dysfunctional in some ways. And that's cool. It's an owning it, I think.

And also pivotal that was going to that school and they had a team building exercise and everyone just sort of lines up, they had everyone segregate themselves into their particular LD of choice and to meet a bunch of people that were equally as smart as me and capable as me, but equally as dysfunctional as me, and having a community and really realizing that there's a lot of us and we're all pretty solid folk and pretty interesting and interesting to know and fun to be around and that it's not some hearst, it's not some scarlet letter that you have to carry around with you.

In some ways, it's a real gift and that there's other people like you and you're not some weirdo alone who's struggling with this by themselves. And that was a very freeing moment. You know, several of those moments where it's like, just because you don't know the birthdays of any of your family members doesn't make you not a good brother or son or whatever. It just means that you can't remember dates to save your life. And that's OK. There's tons of other things that you're really good at, and not everyone is good at everything.

And so, those series of realizations were very important to me, where it allowed me to advocate for myself, to put myself in positions that maximize my chances for success and minimized my chances for horrific, catastrophic failure. Those several realization moments were pretty profound in my journey.

(20:14) Jared's pandemic lifestyle change

Laura: So, how did the pandemic treat you?

Jared: You know, I was in the service industry for a super long time, which I think is a perfect career. I mean, bartending, if you can avoid the pitfalls of the substance abuse that many of us tend to carry around, bartending is the perfect job for an ADHD guy because, you know, there's nothing monotonous, there's nothing repetitive. But you have to focus on sixty things at once or two minutes at a time, which is, muah!

Laura: Sounds great. Yeah. Constant success.

Jared: That is perfect for me.

Laura: I have to pour this drink. Oh I cash this person out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was a waitress for a while. I loved it.

Jared: But when you're in the service industry, plague really put the kibosh on that. And, you know, I mean, I'm getting to be 40 just two in the morning stuff is getting real rough. This is not a sustainable industry. And I was really realizing that, I mean, I'm super burnt out and I sort of made the decision to, you know, and since I'm already sitting at home and I'm getting paid, so, let's give school a shot. And I actually think that especially at the beginning of plague, where…

Laura: When you're saying plague…

Jared: Covid. Sorry, I apologize.

Laura: I think it's very funny, but I just want to make sure that our listeners know what you're referencing.

Jared: No, no. I'm sorry, it's, I got so tired of everyone saying Covid. Yeah, plague. It's just what it is. And it's our modern day bubonic plague. I mean, this is the thing. So, a lot of these schools in a desperate bid to continue academics and continue staying open, they started offering everything online. And there were a ton of classes that were online that absolutely should not have been online. And those were the classes that I would have failed if I had to go to class every day and take them.

And so, being able to knock out a lot of that Gen Ed stuff, because I'm an avid reader and I consume information. And so, the idea of being 35 and going to a one-on-one class really kind of makes me want to step into traffic and having to deal with like 19-year-olds.

Laura: Being there in person and yeah.

Jared: No thank you.

Laura: And getting distracted in class and yeah.

Jared: Yeah, I didn't want to do any of that. So, being able to do all of that in my own home with my own stuff was I think, incredibly instrumental in doing that. And, you know, my transcripts were so terrible that I basically had to start over.

Laura: Oh wow. Yeah.

Jared: Because, you know, apparently, they don't let you just transfer the A's. They make you transfer all of them. And so, you know, interspersed with the two, three A's are about six C's a couple of D's and a couple of F's, and I'd have to basically do the same thing to replace all those terrible grades. So, yeah, I started from scratch.

Laura: What are you studying?

Jared: History.

Laura: Any particular era of history?

Jared: So, I like the classics because, you know, it's epic. And so, I was literature major as well for the longest time. But I realized that there's no author alive who has written a story that's wackier than what happens in real life. And so, I really got into that. And the classics are amazing because there's enough distance where, you know, Genghis Khan killed 50 million people. Well, I didn't know any of them and I didn't know anybody who knew any of them. So, there's a removal from that where I'm able to, you know, study it.

And I think that 20th-century American history is really important because we're in a really bananas time, culturally speaking.

So, I think it's really important to understand and be able to communicate how we got here. But it's so frustrating and depressing and it's emotionally taxing and it riles me up that, you know, it's not necessarily clear that it's good for my mental health. So, you know, I'm still torn. But yeah, I'm a classics or a 20th-century American history guy.

(23:36) Jared's mindset shift in the present day

Laura: You know, Jared, we started this conversation in a place where we went back and we talked about growing up and the pain and that constant feeling of failure of your expectations are here, but like, what you're actually performing is down here and whatnot. I'm not getting that sense from you when we talk about the present tense.

Jared: No, no, no, no. Everything is awesome. I mean, I got a 4.0. If you would have told twelve-year-old Jared that he was potentially going to graduate college with a 4.0, he, there was, he would have been like, "Hey, who did you bribe?"

Laura: I was on someone else's show recently, and I was worried that people might take out of context something I said which was around, "Maybe it's time to lower our expectations."

Jared: Yes.

Laura: We as people with ADHD put these high expectations on ourselves. That just sets us up for failure. And then it paralyzes us in a way.

Jared: Yes.

Laura: So, like if you can loosen that, which it sounds like you did, it can be such a game changer and then you can be the success, whatever, however you define success that you can be.

Jared: Well, in the nature of, what's, I forget that concept where creating accommodations for disabilities for one creates actual positive ripples throughout the entire culture.

Laura: Universal design.

Jared: There we go. All right. So, the curb cutting for wheelchairs makes it actually easier for all sorts of mobility issues to do stuff, right? And so, it's very interesting that at least scholastically with the advent of, you know, all of these schools run all of their classes and you have a portal and you have a thing that you log into and all of your classes are listed in the times and the syllabus is there. You can't lose. It's impossible to lose homework.

I was explaining to one of my younger cohorts, how game-changing it was then with the cloud and your Google Docs, it is impossible to lose homework. I could not explain to them how revolutionary that was, you know, from a kid who perpetually lost everything to not ever be able to lose anything, is so fundamentally game-changing to academic pursuits that it's impossible to explain to people how that affects I think people in general, but let alone the ADHD community. If I was going back to a traditional pen and paper, you show up and you turn in your papers stapled at eight in the morning on a Tuesday, like I don't necessarily think I'd be as successful.

Laura: So, like, I know that we talk about like you're at home and that helps with being able to focus and you're in a different situation. But how much does this mindset shift play into your 4.0?

Jared: You know, I don't like overdramatize, but it's one of those thing where I have this weird sense of pride and I don't tell people my GPA very often, but it just kept happening. I just kept getting A's and I just kept going. And, you know, for the first time ever in my academics, I actually want to do well to maintain a GPA, which is never been a thing. Yeah, you're trying for actually academic, not just success, but excellence, it's really weird that the reward is its own reward.

I don't, I mean, I wouldn't go so far as to say that I'm doing this for teenage Jared, but I definitely do think and you know, I still call my dad all the time when I get an A on a paper. He's 75 years old and we laugh about how awful high school was and I got no problem about it. He tried the best he could with the limited information available to him, the limited skills that his parents gave him. I am an anomaly. This is, I come by it honestly. And so, maybe in some way, I am hearkening back and sort of trying to fix some of the trauma of my past by sharing this.

But, you know, I mean, I call my dad all the time and be like, "Hey, man, I got an A on this, you know, on this paper." Like I said, my papers that I write and he reads them and he says, "Oh great job," you know, which is just bizarre for a forty year old man to be sending his dad his homework.

Laura: I don't think it's bizarre at all. I think it's actually really heartwarming. You're not in that failure cycle. It just sounded so heavy when we were talking about growing up and the pressure and the failure. And it just feels lighter now. And I think that that's so important as people with ADHD, right? I think it is really healing.

Jared: Yeah.

Laura: Jared, thank you so much for being here with me today. I really enjoyed our conversation.

Jared: You're super welcome. What a hoot. Like most ADHD people, I love talking about myself.

Laura: As always, if you want to share your own "aha" moment, email us at ADHDaha@understood.org. I'd love to hear from you. Be sure to check out the show notes for this episode. We have more resources and links to anything we mentioned.

This show is brought to you by Understood.org. Understood is a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering people with learning and thinking differences like ADHD and dyslexia. If you want to help us continue this work, donate at Understood.org/give.

"ADHD Aha!" is produced and edited by Jessamine Molli. Say hi, Jessamine!

Jessamine: Hi everyone.

Laura: And Margie DeSantis.

Margie: Hey, hey.

Laura: Video was produced by Calvin Knie. Our theme music was written by Justin D. Wright, who also mixes the show. Ash Beecher is our supervising producer. Briana Berry is our production director. Neil Drumming is our editorial director. Creative and production leadership from Scott Cocchiere and Seth Melnick. And I'm your host, Laura Key. Thanks so much for listening.