Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast

Ever leave a conversation and realize, somewhere on the way to the car, exactly what you should have said? There’s a French term for that feeling, and ADHD brains know it intimately.
This week, we explore why saying the hard thing in real time is so difficult with ADHD, from the blurt-or-freeze problem to the research on variable reaction time and emotional dysregulation that makes it make sense. We get into how pace gets used against slower processors in an argument, and how to claim the room you need without walking out.
Then the practical side: naming your state, five “slow sentences” to keep in your back pocket, the Gottman rule for taking a real break, and a trimmed-down version of DBT’s DEAR MAN that you can actually remember when it counts.
Links & Notes
Support the Show on Patreon
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Kofler et al. 2013, reaction time variability meta-analysis
Anker, Ogrim & Heir 2022 summary
Shaw et al. 2014, emotion dysregulation in ADHD
Ben-Dor Cohen et al. 2023, J. Attention Disorders
Gottman: flooding and breaks
Gottman: repair attempts
Lieberman et al. 2007, affect labeling and ScienceDaily write-up
DEAR MAN overview
Wordorigins: l’esprit de l’escalier

(00:00) - Welcome to Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast

(02:08) - Saying the Hard Thing

(21:51) - Asserting Your Slow-Downs

(30:43) - DEAR MAN...

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I once printed my computer’s contacts onto paper sized to fit my Franklin Quest binder. I loved that binder enough to make a computer work for it. Keeping the system current was practically a hobby, which was convenient because it required quite a lot of my participation.
Decades later, I still enjoy arranging software. I have less enthusiasm for remembering to check every place I’ve put something important. The personal AI agents I’ve been using can carry an assignment between conversations, with ongoing checks where I’ve set them up. That has started to change my working day. I can teach them what matters, correct a misunderstanding, and find that the next round of help reflects what I’ve explained. So far, the useful work has substantially outweighed the mistakes. I’m getting things finished that I’d been putting off.
This public edition is a taste of Placeholder, our member-supported show about the tools we use while we wait for something better. Join us on Patreon for the full episode and to help keep The ADHD Podcast going. I’d be glad to have you there.

(00:00) - Welcome to Placeholder

(00:20) - The Fancy Binder

(03:14) - The Things We're Handing Over

(04:56) - Introducing Muse

(09:19) - Become a Supporter at Patreon.com/theadhdpodcast

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We’ve talked plenty about asking for help. This week, James Ochoa and his son Jules join us to take on the other half: what happens when someone actually helps you, and why that can feel so much harder.
Jules has spent the past year rebuilding James’s practice from the inside, which means James has been on the receiving end of a lot of help he didn’t ask for. In this conversation, we explore why unrequested help can feel like an accusation, where the imposter voice comes from, and how to tell the difference between gratitude and the debt ledger so many of us carry. Jules shares what he’s learned about how to help someone with ADHD without triggering the walls, and James is remarkably open about how much of this still gets him, 30 years into the work.
Plus, Jules calls his dad out live on air, and it goes about how you’d expect.
Links & Notes
11Q Your ADHD, the free yearly reflection tool from James and The Life Empowerment Center
The Complex, the audio drama Jules wrote and produced with James
Support the Show on Patreon
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(00:00) - Welcome to Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast

(00:54) - Become a Patron!

(02:50) - Receiving Help with James and Jules Ochoa

(07:07) - What Happens to the ADHD Brain on Receiving Help?

(13:26) - "If I ask for help... it means I can't do it."

(28:34) - The Ledger

(41:18) - How do you open up to help?

(49:47) - Learn More

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Most of us have a stack of self-help books we fully intend to get to. Our friend Misty Stinnett, co-host of Go Help Yourself, has read hundreds of them for her show, and she joins us to talk about reading when your attention has its own plans. Misty is quick to say she isn’t an ADHD expert, but she has years of practice getting through a book she’ll have to explain on a microphone a week later, and plenty of what she’s learned carries over for the rest of us.
Her favorite permission slip is that the book works for you. You aren’t on the clock for it. If one idea sticks and changes how you see something, the book did its job, even at 500 pages. Knowing what’s at stake for you before you open a book helps. So does putting it down without guilt when it stops connecting. There’s room for the slow road too: visiting a hard book a paragraph at a time on the days that’s all your brain will give.
The members version includes the pre-show, with a face-blindness mystery thriller recommendation and the origin story of “bless the baby.” The after-show is packed with listener questions: whether to reread, how to remember what you heard in the car, why a single paragraph can wear you out, and the old guilt some of us carry about reading for fun. It ends with a book recommendation that brings us full circle. Join us patreon.com/theadhdpodcast and see what you’re missing!
Plus get the companion guide, Let the Book Work for You, with reflection questions and reframes for the thoughts that keep a book stuck on the nightstand. Grab the guide right here.
Links & Notes
Go Help Yourself
The Visit with Kourosh Dini, MD
Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman
Reading Without Eye Movements (Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 2025)
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(00:00) - Welcome to Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast

(02:26) - Introducing Misty Stinnett

(07:20) - Learning to Read Self-Help

(10:00) - Chunking

(14:22) - The Visit

(25:56) - Audiobooks

(33:34) - How do you know the book is GREAT

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Last season, Dr. Kathleen Nadeau described a lot of ADHD struggle as a planting problem, and we've been thinking about it a bunch. This episode is about environment, and how much of what gets blamed on ADHD comes down to where you are and who you're with. We break it into what we're calling the three gardens: the right job, the right room and the right people.
A lot of the classic willpower research is shakier than its reputation. The marshmallow test turned out to say more about kids' home lives than anyone expected. The idea that sugar refuels your self-control ran into trouble when people who only rinsed with sugar water did just as well as people who drank it. If you've been telling yourself you need to try harder, we’ve got you.
There's a coffee shop where a book got written, and a college move-in where getting a few pictures on the wall was what finally eased the overwhelm. If you're wondering whether your job still fits, there's a useful question in here: is this still working for me? Asking it that way leaves room for the job to have changed, so you don't have to start from the assumption that you failed.
The members version includes the pre-show, where we catch up on our kids' new college apartments and John Green's new novel. The after-show has the story of how Pete's mom's rose garden ended up in the Smithsonian, plus headphone advice for anyone stuck in an open-plan office. It also has a live demo of FocusFlight, an app that turns a work session into a pretend flight.
Links & Notes
Support the Show on Patreon
Dig into the podcast Shownotes Database

(00:00) - Welcome to Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast

(01:13) - Support the Show on Patreon!

(02:55) - Environment as Strategy

(21:15) - The Three Gardens

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★