How to climb out of mental rabbit holes | Hyperfocus

Sometimes, our brains will spiral and it seems like there’s nothing we can do about it.

This can happen to anyone. Maybe you have an awkward social interaction and can’t stop thinking about it — then your mind jumps to worse and worse scenarios, far from what actually happened.

And for those of us with ADHD, it can be extra difficult to exit that spiral. A situation like this happened for Rae Jacobson recently.

Thankfully, she had an interview on the books with Dr. Jodi Gold, a psychiatrist who has ADHD herself. Jodi also specializes in psychotherapy of anxiety and mood disorders — perfect.

On this episode of Hyperfocus, Rae and Jodi have an impromptu therapy session featuring discussion of automatic thoughts, mood dysregulation, and rejection sensitivity. And, yes, “ADHD rabbit holes.”

Related resources:

The influence of ADHD on social skills
Anxiety, imposter syndrome, and ADHD (Mallory’s story)
What is perseveration?

Timestamps
00:00 Intro
02:15 Rae’s situation
06:56 What do we really mean by “rabbit hole?”
13:00 On automatic thoughts
17:53 Masking and people-pleasing

For a transcript and more reasources, visit the Hyperfocus page on Understood.

[lisaschwegel]

I have an amplifier in my brain. My goal is to turn it down. I'm learning to love and care for my inner child, so I try not to talk negative to myself. I've started cheering myself on and forgive myself when I mess up.

[ladywinterru]

Loved the movie voice! You described my last night's dream, basically😅