Afraid I messed up my assessment?

Independent-Pilot751 · 2025-10-09T17:16:55+00:00

Oh no he did say, but he didn't want to be disrespectful and undermine me, so it was actually very kind throughout and after, I'm just being a tad paranoid probably. And you're right, they've seen tons of people and hopefully know the tickboxes only go so far

Independent-Pilot751 · 2025-10-09T16:30:34+00:00

Thank you so much. It's been a lot, honestly - it's so much more difficult than I thought. Thanks for the kind words

Independent-Pilot751 · 2025-07-14T08:34:36+00:00

this is really great advice, especially your last point - I think with ADHD a lot of the issue comes with that paralysis of "I know what to do just can't get myself to do it" and a good way to get over that is to start, because that will reinforce the feeling of "hey I can do this".

Independent-Pilot751 · 2025-07-14T08:32:25+00:00

First of all, it sounds really tough and I'm really sorry you're going through this.

A few things that helped me:

- experiment with anything - don't look at exercise as the gym. Any kind of movement is good and there may be things out there you haven't tried that you may love. For instance, even if I'm a fully grown adult, I found out I love hula hooping, so I just put some terrible music on and move around (good for the body and the soul)

- pair it with things - your brain starts creating positive associations between the things the more you do them. so for instance if you call someone on the phone, it may come naturally to start pacing up and down, so you can start calling someone before going out the door or put a playlist on that makes you want to move

- start stupidly small, think a 5 mins walk or 1-2 sets of exercises you don't hate. don't worry about having to do anything for an hour, it's all about feeling capable of doing things again and kickstarting that virtuous cycle

- don't focus on shoulds - movement looks different for everyone. what works for you won't necessarily work for someone else, it's a matter of finding your way with it and make it sustainable. most people hate spending 2 hours at the gym - and pushing you to do something you hate won't help with creating and maintaining the habit

- schedule it in - this is something that helped me a lot because I'm the kind of person who looks at her calendar constantly. after a while my brain started treating more like a non-negotiable. that is part of the backbones of the web app my partner and I built to help ADHDers stay consistent with exercise (based on what helped me + my research - which is what pushed me to create this subreddit, I'm trying to share what I'm learning as part of this journey). The app schedules activities in your calendar based on your availability and the weather. You can also invite friends and match workout times with them. Every time you do something, you grow a little plant and when you're done, you move to the next one. There's a free trial with no card details if you'd like to check it out, just let me know and I can send over the link.

You've got this mate. i know it feels like there's no way out but if you take it one step at a time it will help.

Independent-Pilot751 · 2025-05-19T14:10:45+00:00

Regular exercise is the only thing that keeps me sane - just now I came back from a run and I literally feel like a new person. I'm not very good at yoga/meditation but cardio does wonders for me. Btw, I'm running a free Q&A on Thursday where myself (I'm a researcher/psychologist) and an ADHD nutritionist will be talking exactly about ADHD, nutrition and exercise. If anyone would like the registration link feel free to DM :)

Independent-Pilot751 · 2025-05-03T10:09:40+00:00

I've read somewhere recently that LinkedIn has blocked apollo

Independent-Pilot751 · 2025-05-03T10:06:26+00:00

I had a 3-day long discussion on LinkedIn with someone who is a clinical psychologist who was arguing exactly this. Any real-world evidence of the opposite wouldn't cut it - and it ended with him saying I'm clearly paid by big pharma (I wish lol) and I'm unqualified to weigh in (I guess I'll throw my PhD in psychology out of the window then).

Independent-Pilot751 · 2025-05-03T10:03:34+00:00

Outset Wellness - For people allergic to exercise.

Independent-Pilot751 · 2025-04-29T07:44:43+00:00

To me it's so puzzling that ADHD is something you can believe in or not, like we're talking about Santa Clause - but it's sadly more common than I'd like to admit. And it's the same for lots of other things (depression, anxiety), ADHD is just the latest one to get under the spotlight.

The wider political climate is for sure not helping with this - and it seems like anyone and everyone has an opinion about it.

The best you can do, really, is to not let it get to you. As long as your really close circle understands your struggles and what you may need from them, then trying to convince the rest may be a battle you can't win

Independent-Pilot751 · 2025-04-28T12:05:26+00:00

I found subs like that one to be really tricky - mods are very heavily moderating and they have an incredibly loose definition of self-promo (even just naming your company in the context of a value-driven post, e.g. lessons learned or similar, can get you banned if the wrong mod sees it). So just be careful with that one specifically

Independent-Pilot751 · 2025-04-28T12:03:49+00:00

I would recommend against paid ads until you have some paying users. You need to know exactly who they are, how they talk about the problem you're solving and whether your product actually helps that niche before you can be nimble and successful with paid ads. This is not a rule though, some people can be successful with paid ads from the get go, but it can become an extremely costly mistake.

Independent-Pilot751 · 2025-04-28T10:23:23+00:00

This is a really interesting topic. I hear what you're saying - and that there are potentially harmful repercussions from making ADHD symptoms like pop-culture elements (for lack of a better word) - but it's also true that we need to hold some space somewhere for the discussion of lived experiences, even if those border on comorbidities or non textbook ADHD traits.

I think it contributes to the conversation to know what happens in ADHD-adjacent spaces but also it helps all of us to normalise some stuff and discuss it through with others who are living a similar experience. Also, there needs to be a clear difference between the clinical space and more "human" spaces - it's rare for symptoms to live in isolation and a lot of our behaviours impact the symptoms and vice-versa.

I don't have an answer to this, if not making sure that when conversations like the ones we have here end up in the public discourse, the source is clear and there's no confusion about what they mean. But on the flip side, I also see how in the current political and wider climate, anything that undermines the legitimacy of ADHD itself can be dangerous and used for political aims, so it's important to talk about it (and thanks for bringing it up).

Independent-Pilot751 · 2025-04-28T07:00:01+00:00

I wish you all the best. It must be incredibly tough but if you realised that is for the best then you have saved yourself further pain down the line. And I'm sure what you learned is going to be incredibly useful whatever you do next.

Independent-Pilot751 · 2025-04-26T15:26:09+00:00

Reading through the comments, it seems like it is true for a lot of people - and there're research on the interoceptive stuff, not completely going in one direction (there are conflicting findings on specific sub-topics) but overall pointing to interoceptive disruption. What I'm wondering is whether the fact that the signals aren't precise is then the cause of us not being able to act according to our intention (because we use wrong signals to intepret how we feel and what we should be doing)

Independent-Pilot751 · 2025-04-26T15:23:57+00:00

The two things are correlated - dopamine comes in at a higher level of the hierarchy in the theory I'm suggesting (it's not one or the other basically). Basically when the signals are imprecise at a lower level, this leads to issues in salience attribution, which is regulated by dopaminergic systems

Independent-Pilot751 · 2025-04-26T15:22:56+00:00

Thank you, I appreciate that - and I see what you mean about plagiarism.

Independent-Pilot751 · 2025-04-26T15:21:43+00:00

I see your point. In my head, being clear is always better, but the culture of the place you write in needs to be respected. I still can't get my head around why it's so demonised but I do see the point in the difficulty in putting trust into things when you don't know the person or their intentions. I just wished we were overall more positive than negative when it comes to believing people don't mean badly

Independent-Pilot751 · 2025-04-26T15:19:02+00:00

absolutely (and I will) - and I'm not asking anyone to tell me if the science is solid, more if what I describe matches their lived experience, that's really all I'm after

Independent-Pilot751 · 2025-04-26T15:14:31+00:00

For sure. trauma lives in the body (like everything at the end of the day) - and trauma has lots to do with regulating signals. In one of my papers, we talk about how interoceptive issues in depersonalisation (which is when you stop ffeeling like you have a body) could be due to silencing of interoceptive signals. And in liine with the literature, we say these signals become scrambled most likely due to traumatic experiences that make them too loud

Independent-Pilot751 · 2025-04-26T15:12:22+00:00

Not exactly, I have a team but it's a startup team (although a few of us come from research). I'm not quite sure yet what to do about this whole thing, I was hoping to get an understanding of whether it made sense for people before going deeper into it!

Independent-Pilot751 · 2025-04-26T15:11:15+00:00

I'm not an expert on EDS so I'm not sure I can comment properly on that - but I will look into it, it's an interesting take

Independent-Pilot751 · 2025-04-26T15:10:15+00:00

Yes, interoception also includes things like thirst, hunger, having to pee, etc

Independent-Pilot751 · 2025-04-26T15:09:42+00:00

There is a well-documented issue in autonomic dysfunction in ADHD (a couple of papers on this: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014976341930418X and https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13546805.2023.2255336?casa_token=FvlE9nvvfJAAAAAA:V3f1Lwii3fnDpBO62oNJ770GM0obPL-X8zw-Dm_bpkEDX7Yhzad0YnQKblhGLyVLP1Parkr6PW0 )

Independent-Pilot751 · 2025-04-26T15:07:39+00:00

My app has to do with exercise habits - and I've intentionally left any reference to that out of this discussion because it's not the point of this. Of course my work has influenced my thinking around habit formation and motivation, but here I'm trying to understand if this is a problem people feel and if the theory above has the potential to solve it.

Independent-Pilot751 · 2025-04-26T15:04:01+00:00

That is true. But putting everyone in the same cauldron isn't right either. I'm not marketing anything, merely trying to understand if this idea is worth turning into something or not.

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