Marker, Marker, Marker in the Dark, Marker in the Dark,
Bow, Chicka, Wow, Wow, Wow, Wow, Wow, Wow, Wow,
Hi, Alison.
I'm at
Welcome to Episode 4.
three.
Oh,
Welcome to Episode 3, Season 3, of ADHD20, which is a podcast that finds
the correlation, the connection, the intersection of ADHD and.
TTRPGs.
right, that's right, that's what it does.
Why are we in each other's brains today?
Goodness!
It's fun.
I know, I know,
I
You're like a little
tadpole swimming around in here.
Sorry, you guys.
I'm obsessed with Baldur's Gate 3 right
now and I just realized that we're connected by the same illithid
and that illithid is ADHD.
Transformation to full nerd complete!
Starting out strong.
Holy crap.
That wasn't in the notes.
I have not even thought about that, but yes, for those of you who love
BG3, Uh, would, I would easily say that ADHD could be a tadpole in your brain.
That,
um,
And it's like, we have guides encouraging us to like, use it, right?
To like, lean into it instead of fight it,
which is like, the whole part of Act One of BG3 is your little
guide whispering in your dreams.
Use, use the connection.
Use the power it gives you.
He's pretty handsome too, the mysterious dream
warrior.
Oh, I have, I have a lady.
You get to, you get to, choose your own guide at the
beginning.
That's what
it was!
That's what it was!
Well, to be fair, I've started this game over about three times.
I was telling Alison that, um, I just, all of January was like, was treading water
so hard, I just, I came out of the gate strong, uh, last year, hit January, just
felt super disorganized, all, nothing worked, all the, all the, everything, all
the systems just crashing on top of each other, uh, and then, I, very proudly
and dutifully, uh, had a colonoscopy, uh, screening, colonoscopy, a screening,
uh, which happened last week, and at that time, uh, my coach from episode
one went off to have a baby, and my wife went off to dog sit, so I've just been
unhinged.
So,
You're, you're
uh,
You're treading
water in like, viscous gel instead of water now.
It's 87 times harder
to, to fight.
I get it.
it really is.
Another thing about BG3, to that very point.
Mm hmm.
to that point, I do love Okay, as a Dungeon Master, I have learned already a
shit ton of stuff about DMing from BG3.
One of
Interesting.
being the amount of difficult terrain that these
Yes.
Implement that, because it's really difficult, and it should be.
It,
in my DMing world, everything is just perfect, slick, easy movin jams.
But what?
And let me, yes and that.
I, it took me so long.
I am a brand new video gamer.
This is my first gaming system since my Atari.
Um, so I, I, I came in not knowing it and I literally had to watch YouTube videos
of like how, how do I hold the control?
Like, what do these buttons do?
Because I was so lost for the first, like, Several hours I was trying to play.
It took me so long to even figure out how to build a character just
because I didn't know what to hit, even though it's right there on the
screen, if you know how to read it.
That's the thing.
Like, the key is there if you know what to do with it, but I couldn't,
I needed a key for the keys.
Anywho, I digress.
is not
It's not easy.
it is not an easy game It is not an easy first game to jump into it is really not
That is the Alison way right there.
Like, why would I wade in when I can just make myself drown out the gate?
Yeah, mm hmm, yeah,
Um, but I noticed that, like, when we would go through these rough
terrains, I would, we would come out of them, and my character, I'm actually
playing Chimerical, who you guys have heard me talk about on this podcast.
She would come out damaged.
She'd come out like 20 hit points down and the rest of the party would, and
I'm like, what, they're all jumping.
That's why it's like, that is, that's ADHD right there too, is like, I'm
making things harder on myself.
I could just jump over the fire.
I could just like do a perception check and see.
See the vines that are going to entangle me, and instead I am just the
impulse gremlin like running through life and just taking the damage.
Oh man, we did, this is not on the outline, Matt.
We have something else totally to talk about today, but we're
gonna have to like circle back and
do like a full This is a this is your appetizer.
We're sprinkling a little taste of what's to come as we all get deeper and deeper
into this game that I'm loving so much.
And it's just, hours are being devoured by it and I don't care.
I don't give a hoot or a toot.
You feel me?
It's good.
It is good.
But what are we, uh, what are we talking about today?
Mm.
We're actually bringing you guys a little tale once again from our
home game, from our Curse of Strahd game, that we experienced in game
Yes.
really just yesterday.
All the days are running together because Matt and I just were talking about last
week what we could talk about for this episode, circling everything back, back
to you and Under Anesthesia last week, and it just, it zapped you, and we
wondered, like, is that Is that normal or is, does having a neurodivergent
brain react differently to, you know?
Right, and and I will I will I will immediately say we don't know the answer
to that But we're gonna talk about it.
Anyway, like we
Mm-Hmm?
We've done no research.
We don't know whether That's a thing, but I do know that generally the feeling
of being stunned of being incapacitated Has to go hand in hand with the fact
that With all of the other topics that we have broached, like RSD, and over
explanation, and hyper focus, and, or, you know, or lack of any of those things.
So, that's what we're going to talk about
catastropic.
trying to remember.
But, before we do that, of course.
It's time.
It's time to roll some beautiful.
You are, you're rolling.
What, what dice are you rolling with, Mattie?
Um.
I see.
I told you I'd make a dice gremlin of you yet
Oh god, you have no idea.
Now it's, it's out of control, actually.
Uh, I have, I have two sets.
I have my office set, and then I have my home set.
so that sounds incredibly in control to me.
just.
hehehehe, yeah, yeah,
That sounds so the opposite of impulsive or gremlin like.
Do better.
Do
more.
For Fur serious.
Ah,
and they're pretty okay.
And a one and two and a one, two… 68.
so close.
I know.
So close to being nice.
If you had a familiar in real life, what would be its primary form?
Oh,
I
know.
I've had a familiar, okay.
Is that, so that's a little tricky because, you know, I, I am a dog person.
I love dogs.
I don't dislike any animals.
But a familiar is such a specific.
It's a soul connection.
And Familiars, for those of you not familiar.
Uh, gross, Alison, it's a spell.
So when you are bonded with a familiar, it's a being that exists on the ethereal
plane that you can call into the material plane that you do have this bond with.
They have kind of a base what they are, but as part of the
spell, you can change its form.
So if we're going on a sea adventure, I could make my familiar an octopus.
And they can be of aid, they can take turns with you in combat.
Our friend Matt, not this one, the other one, has a familiar in our Barovia
game and does amazing things with that fiery little bird that he has.
It's really a cool mechanic for you to just kind of like have a
little buddy, but also kind of, uh, you can see and hear through
their eyes and ears, which is neat.
But when you, when you're seeing and hearing, you as a person lose access
to those senses, which I kind of love.
great.
Um,
Again, I love dogs.
I, I, I, will have a dog.
But I feel like, uh, a familiar really needs to be a pocketable creature,
or something that has its own.
constant, uh, you know, ability for motion without getting tired because, you
know, otherwise, Shih Tzus, Shih Tzus get
tired they,
I feel like I know what you're going to say, so
let's see if I'm right.
You want to, you want to guess?
I was going to guess rat.
You got it!
Uh, yes, I think a rat would be a perfect familiar.
Because they are smart.
are Personable?
know, I don't mean sewer rats.
I know that, I know that rats get a very bad, bad, uh, rep, but
can do amazing, amazing things.
They will live in your pocket.
They will, they will, like, they can learn tricks.
They can, wish I had a rat Yeah.
It's funny, you made one of my a were rat in one of our campaigns,
and like, Yeah, I cried.
Like, I was not
Matt was so horrified as to why I was having such an emotional reaction.
I only know, like, pizza rat and sewer rat,
Yeah.
I love, I love it, Matt, the rat cats meat man.
I mean, just keeps going on and on.
Yeah.
Perfect.
Familiar.
How about you, Alison?
Okay, so I know that everybody's going to guess I would pick cat,
and that was second place because I do, I love cats, I love my cats, um,
and I think cats make for excellent familiars for many, many reasons.
But I was, I was sharing that our illithids were connected once again,
that I, I would want something a little bit more pocket-sized
Yeah.
Um, you're not going to be able to guess what mine is.
Mine came to me while you were saying rat out of left field, but
the more I think about it, the more perfect it becomes to me.
If you want to guess.
Mole.
No.
Hamster.
Nope.
Sloth.
Oh, that's a good one, but not, that's, that's lost in our pocket, but they
could just like hang on your neck.
Anyways, we could spend an entire episode talking about the best familiars.
I would pick porcupine,
Holy moly.
Because, I mean, they're, they're smart little creatures
is what I know about them.
And I love, I feel like, I feel like we share, like they've got
these, you know, the spines, right?
The, the, the needles, whatever they're called.
I don't know a ton about porcupines.
But they only use those when they're threatened.
They can't, they do have the ability to like, lay them down and be gentle.
And I feel like that's me.
Like, I can get real prickly real quick.
But I can also like, choose
You can lay, lay down.
when I can want to lay down my defense mechanisms.
And they're just, they're cute little noses, just, you know,
And also, and I blame you for this, Matt, like, the, the, the burgeoning
hipster in me that can't choose, like, the easy, you know, the obvious
answer would be cat, like, I was like, I got to come up with something
cooler, but there has to be a reason.
So,
I love that.
we're keep behind in a rat.
Porcupines and rats?
All right.
bits.
Um, amazing.
We'll
We'll our porcupines and our rats to stun our enemies
I wonder how they could help you out of a stunned, because my dogs don't
really help me out of a stunned state.
They might help me relax.
in one, but,
All right, so let's talk about being stunned in game and IRL.
Yeah, so kind of setting the scene.
So, so in, in, we play D& D 5e, but I'm guessing in, in many TTRPGs,
there is a condition called stunned in which your character is incapacitated.
And when you are incapacitated, it means you get no action, you get no reaction,
and your movement is reduced to zero.
So you can't move, so you may be able to like, Talk or be like vaguely aware
of your surroundings, but you're so
entranced.
But it doesn't mean that you're like dead on the floor,
right?
You're not dead.
fall down.
You just Yeah.
can speak only falteringly.
Um,
So you
can't cast spells because spells usually have verbal
and somatic.
components.
Yep, you're easier to hit because you stand there like a big lump on a log.
Um, you fail anything that would involve strength or dexterity.
Any saves of type.
So, there's a lot of ways in game to be stunned.
There is the monk, which has the stunning strike, which is a very powerful
thing that a monk can specifically do.
Uh, you, yesterday, you threw out hypnotic pattern on the, the vampire,
on the vampires that attacked you.
Well, and this is the story now for I think two sessions running with us,
Matt, is that you have had these, you know, not necessarily big bads, but
you have had these, you've brought these characters in, these beefy,
you, you, you faced us against a death slod a couple of weeks ago that you
thought like you honestly, as a DM, you thought it was going to be a fight.
You thought that it was because those things are.
Ruff!
Like, they can, they can take some hits and they can lash out with some hits.
So, you kind of came into that game like, I got this, I'm putting my party against
the slod and we weren't expecting it.
We had just come out of this room and we had gotten this thing that
we've been looking for, for a really long time and we're feeling
good and then there's this, this.
You know, kind of thing standing in our way of our, of our hasty exit.
Um, and then yesterday's game, we came across a clearing and,
uh, a coven of what looked like just, you know, like old regular
people.
led by a, a, you know, a fanatical, leader, and, and
I loved how it started out.
The, the PCs kind of, you know, came upon this crossroads in, this kind of
opening in a, in a field, and there's a gallows, and there's a beautiful young
woman in a, Like I said, a charismatic leader that is speaking to a small flock
of people and saying, This is a witch!
We're hanging her as a witch!
And all of you are like, What?
Why?
This is a fantasy world.
Why would they punish her for being a witch?
Wouldn't they be into that?
And so the confusion was exactly what I wanted and you kind
of approached the gallows and
it turns out
And Matt, uh, the other one, again, had this fantastic idea.
He had an item that would maybe help us determine if somebody
actually was a witch or not.
So we were gonna do this really weird approach that I don't know if you're
watching this or listening and you don't know much about D&D and you wonder,
like, do you always have to fight?
No, you could talk to people.
You could try and, like, persuade or intimidate or deceive.
We don't do that.
We just walk in and start swinging, but you could, is what
I'm saying, if you wanted to.
I don't, I don't know if anybody knows that about, about D&D.
Um, so we thought maybe we would try a conversation, you know,
that had all the makings for, yeah,
try a little tenderness.
And then we did what we do, which is we started swinging.
he started swinging, and, and, that was okay with me too, because, it,
what, these, these characters were, these, This little, this little gaggle
of villagers were not just townies, they were also Vampire Spawn in, in
This little light of mine, I'm gonna
bite you in the neck.
hmm.
Um, and Vampire Spawn are, they are the weaker variety of Vampire, but they are
certainly I mean, they can get, they can mess up, and they started to beat
the crap out of, uh, Evan's character.
Um,
Tee hee hee.
and then, when it was revealed that all of them, not just the charismatic
leader, was a vamp, but all of these, these five, uh, her, burn the witch,
um, they were all, they were a pack.
What is the pack of vampires called?
Is this
not a coven Oh.
vampires, the fang of co vampires.
Yeah.
uh.
Yeah.
Anyway, tell them about the spell that you caught.
Cost casted.
You know, it's funny because Chimerical, I often feel weak
compared to the rest of my party.
I feel like, and we've talked about this on this podcast before, where
it's like, it's like everybody in the party is a specialist, right?
Like they are real good at the things that they are real good at.
And Chimerical is the generalist.
She's.
kind of good at a lot of things instead of being really good
at any one or two things.
Um, and so, you know, I'm like instantly like, what can I do against
a pack, a coven, a fang, a vampire's
about coven, by the
way.
Yep.
coven?
All right.
Thank you, Twilight series.
I'm sorry to have to admit
that.
was worth reading.
Well, and what's really funny is in Twilight, Vampire Spawn are actually
the straw, anyways, but I digress.
Um, so anyways, I was trying to like level the playing field, um, and like
give, give our party a fighting chance.
So as a bard, I have access to a spell called Hypnotic Pattern.
And what Hypnotic Pattern does is you, there, in D& D, there are, there are,
You can either like use your spell to attack one or a number of people, or you
can do what are called area of effect.
So anybody in an area, and the spirit, the spell will tell you how big or
small, uh, will have to do what's called a saving throw to see if they
can like recognize that magic is being cast on them and withstand the effects.
Well, I cast Hypnotic Pattern directly over this little pack of, I think it
was four of them, kind of standing down on the ground, um, and then I
Because anybody in that area has to do, I think it was an intelligence
saving throw, to see if mentally they could, you know, push the spell away,
and three of the four of them failed
it.
So what happened then is they were all stunned, incapacitated.
They couldn't do anything.
It's this just warbling mass of energy above them that, as the name
might suggest, hypnotizes them.
And so all they could do was just stare up at it.
They don't see anything.
They don't hear anything.
They can't take actions, reactions, and they can't move.
The only thing that can bring them out of it is if, um, I think
you can be like shaken out of it.
So if somebody in their party had like shaken them one at a time using their
action to do so, or if they took damage.
So I was like, let me do that.
That way we can kind of like pick them off one by one.
That way we are in control.
We have the high ground
on the battlefield.
And it worked.
Thankfully, like a charm.
Now, you know, this is where we get into like action economy because
like had I spent my entire turn to cast that spell and they had all
saved, nothing would have happened.
I would have wasted a turn to try and damage, um, or hinder in some way.
But what I realized as we were playing is by my casting this one spell, this
one six second decision that, that I and my character made completely
changed the course of what Matt had presumably spent a lot of time planning.
He was ready for this kind of four on five, you know, hot vampire fight action.
In more ways than one, because number one, yes, they could have all saved
the spell and therefore not have been stunned, or a, a dungeon master, I
could have known that when the leader.
You know, tried to snap them out of
Yep.
have actually worked, and I didn't know that, so.
Whatever, that's not the point.
The point is, I got shut down.
These, these, these creatures, who were going to provide entertainment,
damage, fear, towards the party.
You know, uh, you know, that's part of, that's the fun of the
game, is like, being challenged.
They were just out for the count,
and
And that is such a metaphor for what life with ADHD is like for us.
Yes, because, because, uh, As, as I know that we've, we've touched on
before, but, it's that full shutdown that feels so different, right?
It's that full, what do I do now?
How do I, what am I gonna, what is, you know, like, really, completely,
just out, incapacitated, cannot take actions, cannot react, cannot strength
save, cannot, you know, like, it
Yeah.
it is extreme, and we would love to know what other people think about this,
but For me, at least, um, it becomes something I just have to, I have to
deal with the feeling of being stunned.
I
Mm hmm.
Mm
I can't fight through it.
In fact, that, that often times makes it worse to
hmm.
I can't, yeah, I have to just experience it.
And, the, the, the, the difficult part is that we don't, always expect it.
We, some things I can call, some things I can guess, right?
But I did, you know, last week, I had this, uh, this, uh, it wasn't even
an operation, this procedure done.
And, but it did, it did involve the first anesthesia that I had been
through in 2030, 20 years or something.
I just forgot.
how intense it is.
Yeah.
Mm hmm.
Mm
my first thought about speaking today was, do people with ADHD, brains
or anyone that struggles with time blindness, because the whole point,
the whole concept of anesthesia is that you are out, you are done.
And
Mm
think you're just going and then suddenly you're awake and an hour has gone by.
And that is
hmm.
because
Yeah.
world where there is no time and for it to actually be gone.
Not, not just, Oh yeah, I was sleeping or I was
Mm hmm.
to be doing or I was doing something I was supposed to be doing and
I just wasn't aware of time.
This is
Yep.
lights out
little cookies.
You had like an emotional
reaction to that last week though, which was that I was not,
I was a little stunned by that.
Like, you know, we knew that you were going into the procedure.
It's not a fun procedure to have to prep for or go through.
You were put under anesthesia.
Like, so we knew those big pieces.
I do remember because you got it done on a Wednesday and we were all like.
Okay, because you were like, I'll be back up by Thursday.
No problem.
And we were like,
you know, having so I've never been put under anesthesia.
I've never had an operation.
I broke my wrist once as a four year old and got it put in a
cast.
And I've been given like laughing gas at the dentist.
You know, fill cavities and things like that, but like, otherwise I've never been
put under, so I don't know what that feels like and therefore cannot be as empathetic
in that moment as I'd like to be.
But you were fully planning on being fine on Thursday, which
we were all like, Matthew,
but you were, you were, but, and so, so we all expected you to be like, you
know, recovering like you do when you undergo any, anything in the medical
field, but you were like, upset about the like three hours of time that you lost
and and that was kind of my hypothesis too is that because you already have
a very fraught relationship with time as is it you know that like the time
being taken from you that you don't even get like at least with time blindness
we are aware at like oh crap i thought that was going to take an hour it took
four and a half where did the time
go but this was just like
Right.
Never existed to you.
It never, it never existed.
And the other part of it.
I thought that it was three hours.
It was actually only a half hour.
But even that was, It was worse, because I, it could have been
three hours, it could have been.
And, but yes, going, going back to what you were saying, uh, Lindsay
says that the first time she, she had anesthesia, she woke up crying because
it was just such a, just such a shock.
And I do want to stop real quick and I want to say, I want to say that, uh, I,
in, in saying these things and saying that I was emotionally upset or that it
was difficult to prep for this, I do want very much to be open and honest about,
uh, my feeling that everybody should get Uh, it is, it is a preventative measure.
I know way, way, way too many people
put it off and don't.
And there's a lot of things that I think, you know, that I'm with you.
I don't know, know, are, are 100 percent necessary.
I really do believe in this.
I want to urge everybody to go Get a colonoscopy, I think it's like, an
American right, it's a human right, mean, and the science is really good,
Yeah.
and I'm speaking from experience because, you know, I now, I
know people who had really awful experiences because they did not.
Let me get that out there.
This is not negative in that way, I will do it again, in ten
years, gladly, you know, Woohoo!
But!
I will remember, hopefully, because I'm much better at
taking notes than I used to be.
I'm going to remember the experience.
Yeah, I was, was just in an emotional shock, stunned state for almost two days.
Mm
it finally wore off.
I know that there's some residual elements to, you know, the
hmm.
Mm hmm.
and coming out of it, but there was no, you know, it's not operation.
Yep.
there is no pain, there is no discomfort, there is
Yeah.
prep really is the worst part of that, and even that's not horrible, really, truly.
But man, I did not, did not expect to be that just flabbergasted by the
loss of time, the emotional take.
And so yeah, I could not do anything on Thursday.
I was trying and trying and trying and trying.
So, you know, being, put under, into twilight sleep is not, is not the only
way that, that you can be stunned.
Yep.
there's, there's lots of different ways.
I know that you have been stunned yourself.
Um, let's talk about that.
What, what do we, what do we do?
What can we do when we feel the stunned
Right.
Well, and that was
kind of, and that
was exactly it, like, my hypothesis, and this is a hypothesis, as we have said
many times and will continue to say.
Say many, many more times, we are not medical professionals, so we don't know.
Yeah.
my hypothesis here is So, when you are being stunned in game, whether
it's from a magic effect or a spell, you typically do something, as I
mentioned before, called a saving throw.
In role playing games.
A lot of times when there's a saving throw, there's something called advantage
and there's something called disadvantage.
So advantage means you get to roll the dice twice and take the higher number.
Disadvantage is you get to roll the dice twice and take a lower number.
And I have to wonder if neurodivergent brains are rolling
most, if not all, of these dice.
saving throws to withstand these effects at disadvantage.
It is doubly hard for us to prevent it.
I don't, and again, I don't know this, then it might be neurotypical
in a neurotypical situation.
Now, not every time.
There are things everybody struggles with just by virtue of being human.
So not trying to corner the market for people with ADHD here.
Um, but I wonder if Neurotypical people, in some of these cases, when we talked
about being stunned, being frozen, being, it's an analysis paralysis
kind of a thing where it's like you literally cannot take a step forward.
If, if neurotypical people are rolling what is called just a straight roll, where
they just roll the dice once, you know, or they're even rolling at disadvantage
because they've practiced and have gotten really good at recognizing the warning
signs that something's gonna knock the wind out of them, and they know how
to dodge those effects more fully and completely than neurodivergent people
do.
Um.
And that's, that's the feeling that as we've been talking about
this, that I personally just cannot shake that how many things in,
in, in our lives totally stupefied
us because of our inability to, to save, to roll a high enough number
on whatever the dice of life are.
Well,
uh, I do, I did find an article, uh, on autism.
org,
Okay.
um, I, I tried to keep it neurodivergent, uh, instead of
specifically ADHD, just because I know that they're, they're so entwined.
And this is just one person's take, uh, Sim C.
Rankin, R N C R N A.
I think she, Sim, she is a registered nurse and, uh, has a child with ASD.
Um, and, and it, and, and definitely experiences.
uh, a sensitivity to anesthesia, an addition of, of behavioral problems,
uh, surrounding, I guess, the lead up and maybe even, maybe even post?
So it, it's, she seems to be saying that there's, like, even, uh,
even, like, something that can.
Not, hopefully not trigger, but just kind of, make, have a larger effect
on them chemically, And then she gets into some very specific, we'll,
we'll, I'll, I'll send this to you.
But, um, I did, I did let them know that I had a DHD, they knew what I was taking it.
It wasn't.
It wasn't just that, but, um, but yeah, she goes on to say, like, maybe, maybe
laughing gas would work instead, maybe ketamine, maybe Special K would do the
triiiiick, but I don't know, like, trying to, trying to say, the, is there something
about a drug that just knocks you out?
Well, but again, we're not talking about like the drug itself with
you.
It did, it worked as intended.
It's, it's, but you know, what has popped into my mind that
we've talked about a lot is our emotional reactions to non emotional
things.
Why, you know, when something upsets us at work or in life, like we get, You know,
I don't know if it's the RSD, if it's the catastrophizing, but it's like, we take
it personally when I can't solve this problem that speaks nothing to how I am as
a person, how giving or kind or loving I might be, I take it as a personal insult.
Like, I am the dumbest,
worst.
You know, and so it's interesting that the residual effect from the
drug, the medicine, I don't know what we're going to call the anesthesia,
is the same thing as taking these
hits, you know, in our, in our work and personal life.
It's the emotional reaction that we're talking about, I'll
Because it, it, you know, I'll give you a perfect example immediately.
In, in the span of this 30 minutes that we were talking, we started talking about the
in game experience of casting a hypnotic pattern, and We, in our, in our outline,
we actually took the, the official,
write that thing, an outline.
Yeah, the outline.
We actually took the spell and, and the, the condition, um, uh, from D& D
Beyond, from the official things, and sure enough, yes, I did not know that you
can snap people out of certain spells.
I just suddenly was like, wow, I'm a terrible Dungeon Master.
I just don't ever prepare.
I don't ever do a good job.
I don't ever know what I'm doing.
It is hard.
Like, it's so, it's a constant, ending, emotional reaction.
And it's like us trying to Every single time we open our
mouths to not go there, right?
so if you take something that is, sure.
I can absolutely see why that would be an emotional, emotional, it would
give you an emotional reaction.
It, I, I promise you it's 10 times worse for us.
It's just ten times more, right?
Now we're just pinging emotion back and forth because now I'm like, that's
not your fault, it's my fault for not reading that sentence in game.
I'm a terrible player.
Why would anybody want to play games with me?
I'm the worst.
When I gear, there was no part of me being like shady by not
I was reading that yesterday.
I know you know that, but like, that's the, that was the
gremlin that just hopped into my
head.
All ADHD friendship is, is just trading emotions back and
forth
and forth.
Back and
in really strange contexts.
Alright, so we're rolling disadvantage.
Something happens.
We can't, you know, maybe we have friends that are rolling, I don't know, if
they're rolling advantage, maybe they are.
Maybe they, but they're at least rolling, you know, they're
rolling you know, rolling dice.
We're getting out of this situation.
We are still stuck.
We're stuck.
still stuck.
can we do?
What do we do?
I have an answer, you're not going to like
it.
do have an answer.
Meditate.
Well, the answer to everything, like any.
Any emotional or physical malady that we experience as human beings can
be, if not solved, then lessened or unburdened with one thing, and it is time.
And, and, and like a lot, and that's, that's especially because now I'm
like weaving layers for you as someone who does suffer from time blindness.
So I'm telling you who is suffering emotionally that the only way out of
the suffering is to allocate the right amount of time to allow your mind
and body to experience that thing.
And I get the, the, the trap of that is expecting someone who has
an already fraught relationship with time to be able to do that.
Um, I remember, I don't know why this, like, memory just,
uh, just came to my mind.
When I was in probably late elementary or junior high, we, we had a DARE, Drug Abuse
Resistance Education, kiddies, officer.
Officer Laramie was our, and he, like, we had, like, we all, like,
had to relate, like, he was our D.
A.
R.
E.
officer, and, like, all the kids, like, we looked forward to our time with
Officer Laramie, and so he would come in and, you know, help keep kids off drugs,
you know, like, no, he was very, like, dad energy, just, like, Like middle aged
man, mustache, but he was char like he, and he was so kind and, you know, he's
teaching us about drugs, basically.
That was the best part about D.
A.
R.
E.
is that they're trying to keep you away from drugs while actively teaching
you, like, this is a pipe versus a
bong and
Yeah.
But I digress, but I will, I don't know why this has stayed with me locked in as
a core memory, but there was a basically like what to do with a drunk person.
And it was a unit on like smashing all of the wives tales about how you
can help someone sober up faster.
And he had this whole like, do not give them coffee because then you're just
going to have a hyper drunk person.
Do not put them in the shower because then you're just going
to have a wet drunk person.
Do not give them a greasy meal because then you're just going to have a
drunk person with an upset stomach.
Like going through all of these things that we were all taught, you know,
would kind of like sober you up faster.
And the whole point of this spiel was nothing sobers you up but time.
Okay.
When our hearts break, when we are going through intense emotions over
you know, uh, love lost, love scorned.
We all know this from experience, but when you're going through it,
you don't, the only thing that's going to heal that broken heart
of yours is time and distance.
Like you just got to get far enough away from it.
It's why there are phases and layers and levels of grief.
Like you just kind of got to keep going.
It's, it's something that universally, we as humans know, know, know.
If not fixes, at least improves things, give it time.
That's why that's an adage.
And yet it is something that we
don't do.
We don't put it to, we do not give it,
we, you, you expected to go under on Wednesday and come
back up completely normal on
Thursday.
Mm hmm.
And physically, I felt.
Fine, for the most part.
Physically, again,
Yeah.
you know, uh, so I just thought, well, I don't have COVID.
I'm not, I don't have the flu.
I'm not sick.
I don't have, like, the, the correct excuse.
I don't
Yeah.
excuse.
But what is that excuse?
That's, so, I mean, that's it.
it's,
like,
Well,
but it's,
that excuse?
I did,
right.
Like, that's not, so, you're right.
Like, To be able to have friends around you and to be able
to say, guys, I am so sorry.
I don't have a good reason.
cannot do today.
I just can't.
Exactly.
And that, like,
that's one of them.
by the way, friend being yourself, because that was, that was the person
that wasn't going to let me do that.
Exactly.
But, It was Matt that was like, I have so
Yes.
got to snap out of it.
What is wrong with me?
Well, and, and here, here's the what what, if you want that.
Well, what?
like you, me and Evan are all especially bad at this.
And I have a feeling we are not alone.
When we are starting to, like, feel the effects of something, we
think I could just push through.
Yeah.
999 times out of a thousand.
It would be better if you would just take the day and try again tomorrow.
Because ultimately what happens is when you try and just push through things,
you cause more damage and have to stay.
And I would rather have, I would rather lose you fully for a day and have you
at a hundred percent tomorrow or 75%.
Why do I have this expectation that anybody's ever at a hundred, right?
But instead what happens when we try and push through is that we
deplete our, and now we can get to the whole like short rest long rest
discussion again, like where you're not allowing yourself to fully heal.
So instead of like you're, you're, you know, a good day, let's say, let's say
a good day your ceiling is 85 percent because I just think 100 percent is way
too much to ever ask of anybody, okay?
So that's like, I've gotten my rest, I've restored all my spell slots, like I have
all of my provisions, I am ready to go.
I'm gonna be at about 85 percent
today.
But when you're pushing it, you're maybe at 60%, maybe at 25%, right?
And the longer you push, the longer you stay at this, and
it continuously goes down.
So like, I could have been at 85 if I had just rested today and gotten there,
but instead I'm going to come in and my ceiling today is only going to be 60.
And I'm going to keep pushing through today too.
So tomorrow my ceiling is only going to be 40.
And now we've gotten to the end of the week and we're at
these incredibly low level
levels.
Whereas if we just stayed down, if we had just respected time and
had said, fine, I, yes, I give in.
I'm just going to stay in my PJs.
I'm going to rest.
I'm going to zone out.
I'm not going to use any of the limited mental energy and physical
energy that I'm already dealing
with.
But we don't, and I do not say that to point fingers at you or Evan, especially.
I'm saying I am just as guilty, like,
but how do We Yeah,
um,
it's the boomer's fault.
There it is.
Boomer blame is back in season
three.
little bit, it's a little bit, but it's a little bit.
A little
Yeah, we need, we need, we need A safe word.
We need, we need the word that we can utter to each other that
says, no, Matt I'm serious.
Stay down, man.
Like we, we should have enforced that.
We should have said, you know what?
You're taking Wednesday and Thursday
off.
What you're going through is going to be hard on you physically
and emotionally and spiritually.
I don't think
it was that hard on you spiritually, was it?
Um, you know, and like we should have, we should have been able to
look you in the eye and say, kumquats.
And with the uttering of the safe word, kumquats, you would have known.
We're
not messing around.
I don't know.
No, I love that.
I think, I think you're a hundred percent correct.
I think you are totally correct.
And, and to your point, I am still, I'm, I'm still not at my 85, my allowed
hmm.
Mm
So, because I've just been trying to push.
hmm.
Mm
Keep on truckin Yeah, that's that has got that That mentality
has got to be squashed.
hmm.
And I think you gotta, like, like there are days where I get up and
I don't, I don't want to, right.
I wanna stay in bed.
I wanna keep my PJs on.
I wanna go play BG3.
One of the things that my very boomer father did, instill
in me was take a shower.
Get up and take a shower.
Because the shower could be the thing that, like cha, you know, you might get
outta the shower and be like, yeah, okay.
I do.
I do feel.
Well enough to proceed or you take that shower and you still can't.
And that's when you know, okay, I've tried.
I've literally tried.
I pulled myself out of bed.
I took the first step in readying for the day.
And I will say that as much as I hate to say that my dad
was right about anything ever.
Mom, if you're listening to this, don't tell dad about
this part of the conversation.
But he was right about that because I do know immediately after I take a
shower if I can continue with the day or actually do need to go get back in
bed.
Yeah.
And that, but that's, I mean, that's the equivalent of a safe word, right?
Like the shower is my safe word.
Is that like by, by virtue of doing that, I will then be
influenced into what I actually
need.
Take a shower,
everybody.
Take a shower, everybody.
Find that safe word is the, is the hope for a, you know, better experience.
Um, way to help.
I love this idea and I want to find my safe word.
It's not going to be shower because I don't shower every day.
I don't either.
But,
yes, but finding that safe word is so true.
And that, that getting out of stunned, I mean, sometimes, just
like the spell, some people can come in and say, snap out of it, right?
And in, you know, in a positive way, in a helpful way.
So.
I'm now giggling because I like that you come in and snap
and I come in and bitch slap.
And that says a lot about
the types of human beings we are.
Yeah, well, I like this.
I like this, Alison.
I will try to do better about just being, being aware and
being like, Hey, guess what?
And I, I'm stunned.
I have the stunned condition.
I'm incapacitated.
Don't try and push through.
Let your party come rescue
you.
Or your foes kill you.
Yeah, you don't want to die from ADHD.
You don't want, don't want
RSD to kill you.
This wasn't going to be the death saving throw episode, Matt.
That's later in the season.
Oh God.
With that, I'm going to, you know,
come up with my
safe word the rest of the day.
Yeah, let's come up with our save word.
Let's go have a good meeting.
This was a good, good, good episode three.
Thanks for, thanks for bringing us a great topic and your full
honesty about like what you were going through and experiencing.
You know people, yeah, it's, it's people say over and over that they.
Uh, even if we, even if we get embarrassed talking about these things ourselves, for
We do.
um, they're still glad that we're talking about them, so, go on out there.
It actually takes a long time, at least in Chicago.
Go on out there, if you're of age.
Don't worry about it before, but if you're of age, go ahead
and book that colonoscopy.
Treat
Treat yourself.
Yep.
You know.
And, uh, and if you have a reaction to the anesthesia the way I did, give me
a, give me a, me a, uh, give me a call.
Give me a note.
Give me a text.
I'll, I'll help you through it, because I've been there.
Yeah.
The Price is Right got "don't forget to spay or neuter is the platform of
ADHd20 "don't forget to schedule your
colonoscopy?
I think so.
I think we found it.
Yeah.
Take care of yourself.
Take care everybody.
Pew pew!