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Adult ADHD from the board-certified PMHNP behind the YouTube channel Focus Path and the book The Process. Clinical perspective on medication, frameworks, and the conversations the internet hasn't been having.
This is Actually ADHD.
My name is Jonathan Murphy,
psychiatric nurse practitioner.
Thanks for joining me.
This podcast is sponsored by
the Focus Path YouTube channel.
You can check that out over on
YouTube at Focus Path Systems
There's been a little bit of a break
since my last couple of podcasts.
I talked about the Lindsay Clancy
case through the perspective of
someone who's lived in that town,
grew up in Duxbury, as well as I'm a
nurse practitioner, so I understand
many different facets to this thing.
But as pertains to my teaching on the
internet about ADHD a big part of what
I've become passionate about, providing
mental health advice on YouTube, as I
call it infotainment, media literacy is
the biggest problem, and that's what I
wanna talk about here today, is , a little
bit of the Lindsay Clancy case, a little
bit of Karen Read, but really wrapped
up in the package of media literacy.
Because people with ADHD, when they
start their medication, the first thing
we need to organize is our thoughts
and our mind, and executive function
not only comes from how we direct our
energy and our movement and the things
we engage in, but also understanding
the way our mind works and the way
information works Every time we go into
the world and walk around, we're picking
up information from various sources.
You know, we see the world around us, we
pick up information from the environment,
tells us, " Oh, you know what?
I think summer's kinda almost over.
I can feel the fall creeping in."
It's information.
We, of course, hear information
from the ones around us, the loved
ones, and we might get the mail.
There's information in the mail, and
you can see where I'm going with this.
So when we go into the screen, a mobile
device or on the computer, we're inundated
with a plethora of information, and
understanding that every time any in-
idea or any bit of information goes into
our head, doesn't matter what we think,
because it bypasses logical thought.
And we truly do live in an age
of insanity, and that has to do
with the fact that we're inundated
with a plethora of information.
But there's an insidious quality to
the information that we're getting.
We're not getting a newspaper,
uh, like the way we used to.
The primary way is not
through the print media.
It's not through the television,
which is a one-way signal.
It's a two-way signal.
You have social media.
So the major difference to consider
here is there's a level of engagement.
Um, whether or not you engage with it,
you're consuming not only the content,
but a social activity and narrative
around it, and what that does is it forms
our perspective, it affects our mood,
and it really gives us this sense that
what we're dealing with in our livesâ¦
Which my life's very simple.
You know, got my wife,
my kids, you know, work.
Here I am talking to you, and
I like it nice and simple.
But all of a sudden, you start going
down the true crime rabbit hole
one, two in the morning, things
don't seem so simple anymore.
So before we even talk about any matters,
you know, of the case, which I'm not gonna
get into because- By the time this podcast
is over, hopefully it just gives you the
information that you need to filter all
this so the information is not necessary.
Chances are you already know
all, everything you need to know.
We just need to filter it
through the right philosophy, the
right way of thinking about it.
And it's psychology is when I
talk about psychology is the
social science about how we think.
But to understand that, we have to
understand how humans be humans, and we
are creatures of habit, of course, but
most of all, we're social creatures.
We're tribal, and we live
in the era of the mob.
The mob is everywhere And we
have to just presume, and it is
reasonable to presume, no one else
is gonna understand each other.
We have to understand that most
people are going to be susceptible
to the influence of mobs.
And that's okay
We wanna understand the energy that
we're transferring and understanding
what the consequences are
The last time I talked about,
um, in the late 1800s in New
York City, a newspaperâ¦
Forget the exact newspaper.
It's probably a Wikipedia search away.
But they were the first to start
reporting crime statistics.
The crime statistics had not changed.
They'd just never been sold
for public consumption, but
sensationalism and fear sells.
So think about this trial.
It's a horrible situation where a mother
symbol, this white young woman, as
the, Ruddington, the lawyer, defense
lawyer calls her, she's really 35, 36
You don't know her, you never met her.
I'm even from the same town.
I don't know her.
I know enough to know that
this is, from all accounts, a
But it's an organic, I believe an organic
thing, uh, meaning it started in the
small way that these matters start.
And I'm drawing conclusions on
this based on the Karen Read trial.
So let me just back up and I'll
give you a little bit of my personal
story surrounding media and,
and specifically cr- true crime.
So as I was mentioning, just to dovetail
the part about the newspapers, the
statistics in crime do not change.
What changes is the media,
technology changes, right?
And the information that we receive.
Certainly things change, right?
But the phenomenon of people
killing each other and horrible
things happening is unchanged.
And at any given point in time, at
any point in the day, these media
Like the social media that we pick
up, the phone, we're inundated
with information, messaging from
corporations and tech companies and
a billion other places all at once.
And even though it feels like a lot,
it could never be everything and it
could never be anything all at once.
Can't be everything all at once.
So what I like to tell my patients
is, because fear is what keeps people
stuck in the loop, they're very
unethically designed devices and
the-- it's a public health measure.
There hasn't been adequate education.
So there's a couple issues here, one
with the lack of public disclosure
and awareness about the actual
effects of these m- devices, as well
as an ethical sort of design, right?
Is it ethical to design technology
that knowingly rage baits, right?
Rage bait, clickbait,
thirst trap, you know?
It's all emotional manipulation and that's
how marketing and advertising works.
So we have to understand
as humans our limitations.
The moment we start and go, "Ah,
you know, I see all through that."
We need to know and be aware
and consider, how do I feel?
How do I feel when I talk about this?
How do I feel when I think about this?
How do I feel when I engage with it?
But we couldn't be possibly receiving
all of the random acts of kindness
that just occurred right now.
There's enough good things happening
in the world for there to be a
constant 24-hour stream of good
news and we don't have that, do we?
Silly kind of idea.
So once we skip-- sit back and stop
being so naive, we realize, yes, the
world is the same world we live in
So when we consider what we're
taking in, news, let's say, did
you hear about the new true crime?
Any crime story Bad things happen
every day But we have our day ahead
of us, and with executive function and
ADHD, we can get easily distracted.
So just like we put food in our
body, we put information in our mind,
and we just wanna make sure that we
understand, is there a point to this?
So from the outset, if we're consuming
it, maybe we just want to, maybe it's
just exciting, maybe it's just engaging.
And I would say that's the case
for me when it came to Karen Reed I
hadn't seen a good TV show in a while.
I stopped watching movies, and I was
just watching random YouTube videos.
And one day I clicked on the
closing argument of Alan Jackson.
It's an hour.
Oh, this looks interesting.
What's this?
Oh, you know, I heard this was going on.
I'm from the area.
Click on it and expected
not to watch much.
Watched the whole hour,
completely riveting.
What an orator.
And right away, this Alan Jackson,
a celebrity lawyer now, really
got me interested in the case.
And I learned about all
the facts of the case.
And I was able to learn about the legal
system or courtroom drama, if you will,
through this true crime situation.
And it had all the play-by-play
riveting twists and turns of any
wonderful serialized TV show.
It's the most exciting thing
I saw since Breaking Bad.
But at the end of the day,
I don't know these people.
I don't live there.
It's a very heated issue, and people
are becoming, um, politically moved and
act-- uh, sort of political activism.
So now we have a mob.
Nonetheless, I enjoyed the
whole arc of the trial.
And going from that, when it was
over, it's like, "Ah, you know, I
don't have anything to watch anymore."
And you have these law tubers
or l- or legal content creators
that create content around this.
There's a lot of money to be made
because all this money's being
made through the internet now.
So it's like what we had in
the 1800s but on steroids.
Not only do you have the, the, you
know, it's not just big newspapers
anymore that, with the printing press.
It's every human that wants
to be a true crime creator.
And here's the problem with violent
stuff, messed up stuff In the DSM text
revision, the fifth edition, the new text
revision, an episode of trauma consists of
being exposed to firsthand the threat of
death or violence, or even witnessing it.
So that's why the first responders to
the Lindsay Clancy case are traumatized.
But it even includes media, even
includes just audio, so the 911
call, just listening to it, as
long as it's part of your job.
So if you're a true crime creator,
it's part of your job and you're
listening to this stuff, you can
be traumatized, and you likely are.
So we have to endure trauma day to day, of
course, it does not have no effect on us.
It does have an effect on us.
But individually, we have to
assess what that effect is.
But with this Lindsay Clancy trial, it
was a bummer right from the beginning.
It wasn't as enjoyable asâ¦
Unfortunately, it is sad to say that
the Karen Read case was more enjoyable
because a police officer was killed.
It's very sad.
Um, rest in peace, Jon O'Keefe.
When you're comparing it to a mother
killing her three children, it's
something right from the get-go
I made sure not to listen to or
expose myself to and listen to that
testimony, ' cause you know it's bad.
But
Now we have this division where
at the end of, I believe, last
or maybe it was the first Lindsay
Clancy pod I did, I said the mob.
I explained the mob.
When we're in a mob, when we've
joined this echo chamber, when
we've joined this groupthink, right?
So it's a group, and this group of
people have a shared perspective,
even if it's on the internet.
We are now susceptible to groupthink
because that's-- this is social media.
We can engage the media.
The medium between us and
socialization is the technology.
So there's a medium between us and
socialization, but we're social creatures.
So this is why intelligent people can
lose rationality within a mob, and this
is most prevalent in just modern left
versus right And this is group think.
All of us are susceptible to group think.
Whenever we're in a group, it
doesn't matter what we think as
much, because there's a collective
that keeps us all together.
This is why one-on-one, just me and
you right now, is the purest form of
communication in terms of accessing
truth and accessing validation
and the rhetoric, the dialogue.
And once you get to a larger
group, there are different rules.
People in groups do horrible things,
they do scary things, mobs and crowds.
Now you're picking up all this
information from the internet.
If we're going into a comment
section, there's just no way
we can know what's going on.
And if we go to the media, no matter what
form of media, whether it's your favorite
law tuber or it's CBS News, we have to
understand what the actual facts are.
So getting to that primary source,
in the case of the trial, you just
watch it, and that's what's made
this case, for me, easy to follow,
because you gotta look at the footage.
You put it in times two, put the
captions on, ' cause it helps you
understand and see the courtroom stuff,
start to know how that courtroom works
if you don't understand that stuff.
But this case has taken psychiatry
and mental health, and now it's
just become this huge thing,
all an outrage, the outrage mob.
And there's an outrage mob on both
sides because it became so big.
Since last time I was talking about
this, I said, the closer we get to the
verdict, because the evidence from my
point of view is clear, the more the mob
becomes more unhinged, and we saw this.
They, you know-- to the point where
it's become picked up by the mainstream
media, and you have a left versus
right politi-politicizing of it.
. It became a national or international
story, which is no doubt the irony here.
The biggest thing, there
was never anything like this
in Duxbury my entire life.
People see Lindsay Clancy.
Let's talk about Lindsay
Clancy for a minute.
One of the most important things
with storytelling, because
information, communication from
the very beginning, w- where humans
live and, and understand stories.
This is how we make sense of the world.
This is like religion, the
cave paintings on the wall.
So when we have stories, we have
to think about something called
a character or an archetype.
A character can be any set of attributes.
I can make any character I want.
I can makeâ¦
Just think about your stereotypical
leftist or your stereotypical
right-leaner, right, the right-winger.
You know, there's, there, there's
an extreme, there's a, there's a
stereotype you have in your head,
and the stereotype can be completely
invented, right, through the media.
But because that stereotype
exists, it frames reality
because it shapes perspective.
So the white woman that loves her
children with the perfect Facebook
page already evokes emotion in people.
And because we are in a world now, a
lot of the narratives are, you know,
appeal to emotion, appeal to goodness.
We care about mental health, you
know, we care about other people.
We gotta help one another which
is a different from the, the
reality of civil responsibility.
What is the legal truth and
what is the cultural narrative?
' Cause the legal truth is what we
will be held accountable for, but
the narrative is part of the mob.
So we wanna make sure we understand
the individual consequences for
anything and everything we're doing.
And the mob and groups are gonna
influence and sway you to misunderstand
the world that we actually live in.
So we're looking at this case, and I'm
amazed by how the narrative is the mental
health care system failed this woman,
um, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
And all we have are the facts of the
case, the public record, and then we have
the, the testimony of people that work in
mental health, and we have the statistics.
So the statistics say this is not unusual.
This phenomenon is not
statistically abnormal.
This happens.
There's lots of examples of this.
But when the media gets involved,
it becomes something bigger.
And when we get into the details,
when we start to go, " Oh, but
look at this and look at that,"
and, " How could anyone do this?"
You start to mentally go in
and imagine these atrocities.
And now, um, it's horrible to
think about, and it's, and it's,
um, traumatizing in many cases.
So is it useful for us
to know about all this?
At the end of the day, I can
have my opinion, I happen
to understand psychiatry.
So, but there's one thing that was
interesting with going from Karen Read
to this was these group of law tubers,
they're all making bank off Karen Read.
And then Karen Read dies down.
It took a while.
And they pivoted to the Lindsay Clancy
case, and I was interested to see
what would occur because I wanted to
learn about the case in a similar way.
And I was really let down by the fact
that all of these law tubers, because
they're making money and it's a tribe,
they all de facto default to the the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts is corrupt.
I think that was, um interesting because
I went into it with an open mind, and I
saw a completely different set of events
when you're considering the circumstances
of the trial, different district, and
the way the courtroom was conducted.
Completely different.
Completely different.
And the interesting thing with Karen
Read, because you have corruption
in the government confirmed, and
you have mainstream media from
the very beginning sort of Yeah
portraying Karen Read as guilty and
the people online were considered
conspiracy theorists was the term.
Conspiracy theorists.
So the grassroots Karen Read
movement, Free Karen Read movement
was discredited from the beginning
and eventually gained legitimacy
through the fact that this was true.
She, and then we know
now she's not guilty.
She had to go through two trials, so
there's a lot of corruption and there's
a lot of uproar in Massachusetts.
And then you have Lindsay Clancy
And because the narrative is all
of these other associated things,
they bring all of that bias right
into the Lindsay Clancy case.
But the way the media followed the
Lindsey Clancy case is much different.
And I could say that in the case of
Lindsey Clancy, this was something
that caused a lot of uproar and shock
in the local community and on its own,
because I understand the South Shore,
it's just these suburbs, millions
of people sandwiched together in
suburbs, all living sort of a similar
keeping up with the Joneses life.
To millions of people, she
was the goal, the three kids,
the good job, the Facebook.
So to hear about this
was a shock and a horror.
However, from the
beginning, it was neutral.
I saw neutrality in the reporting of
this that I did not see with Karen Read.
So which led me to believe,
oh, this doesn't seem to be
a government corruption case.
This seems to be straightforward.
And it wasn't until, let's say, the law
tubers and the internet And certainly
the, the defense very much used the
internet to garner support, as I suppose
is the norm now And this is when you get
into the idea of astroturfing or bots.
So we don't even know.
You know, once there's money involved
and criminal responsibility and
you don't know if the comments
that you're reading are bots.
And the idea of astroturfing.
Astroturfing is when there's a
coordinated, effort to create a
grassroots movement, and it appears
to be genuinely grassroots, but it's
actually funded and executed with a goal.
So let's say, you know, paid bots
go into various rooms just saying,
"She's innocent, she's innocent,"
and then it just gets people going.
It's a contagion, a social contagion.
So these are things that can and do happen
But then the story gets so big.
Mainstream media didn't take it on
right away, but with outrage and the
way clicks work and personal data and
money and media, these stories becomeâ¦
it can take on a life of their own.
Once you get the mainstream media,
the political media, it becomes this
humongous, all-encompassing noise
And it becomes men versus women,
becomes left versus right, and
it just becomes out of control.
But the bottom line is, at the end
of the day, bad things happen, and
when we put bad information in,
when it comes to ADHD, it can be a
pretty big distraction So how's that
for some ADHD storytelling for you?
Well, that's gonna do it for today.
I'm looking forward to checking in
more regularly on Actually ADHD.
Gonna try to keep up with weekly episodes
that are a bit longer as I shoot for
rambles lasting 20 to 30 minutes.
You can check out @ FocusPathSystems,
the YouTube channel.
Things are growing over there.
Once again, my name is Jonathan
Murphy, psychiatric nurse practitioner.
Talk to you later