OLP 001: Bob Saget and a Bunch of Worms

In episode one (one!): an introduction from us and what to expect from OLP, why we decided to release a podcast in These Unprecedented Times, what ADHD is (and what it very much is not), plus a curation of cryptic sentences, a rather formidable sudoku high score streak, and also, worms. Thanks for listening!

Credits:
Cover art by: Krizia Perito
Theme: There Is A Dark Place
Wholehearted Production Co.

Socials:
Twitter
Instagram
Ko-Fi

Mental Health Resources:
openpathcollective.org
thelovelandfoundation.org
opencounseling.com

Sources:
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/attention-deficit-hyperactivity-disorder-adhd/index.shtml

Podcast name: Or, Learn Parkour

Episode One: Bob Saget and a Bunch of Worms

Host: Jordan Rawlings & Lex Kathryn

0:00 [Music Intro]

0:25 Jordan: Hi I'm Jordan.

Lex: And I'm Lex.

Jordan: And this is Or, Learn Parkour.

Lex: A podcast about ADHD by people who have ADHD.

Jordan: We sure do!

Lex: We super do. Thank you so much for tuning in to our pilot episode.

Jordan: We're glad you're here.

Lex: So glad. I guess, you know, you're not here. That's the whole point of podcasts. And if you are here, like please leave. Given everything happening right now like why are you traveling?

Jordan: Stay away from us.

Lex: Get, get out of my house [Laughs]. So anyways, today we want to lay some groundwork for what you know, you can expect from us and from this podcast. You know, kind of like in college you had syllabus day. You gotta have some context, you gotta have some idea of what's going to happen.

Jordan: We're not going to make you spend multiple hundreds of dollars on textbooks. So don't worry about that.

Lex: Yeah no. We will definitely only require like one blood sacrifice per semester.

Jordan: And a text book that I wrote.

Lex: Which is only like one hundred dollars.

Jordan: Yeah.

Lex: So you will not be spending multiple hundreds of dollars.

Jordan: We're not actually going to going to use it for the class. But you do have to buy it anyways.

Lex: Also, the TA will just teach. We won't even be there.

Jordan: Yeah, but while we are here, we're going to just kind of go over what's expected this semester. What we're going to be getting into.

Lex: Yeah and so, to take us out of this really fun and cool metaphor where we're the worst professors you've ever had.

Jordan: [Laughs]

Lex: [Laughs] Yeah, let's talk about our podcast that I derailed that conversation for.

Jordan: It's almost like it's a podcast by two people who have ADHD or something.

Lex: Oh, and we both super do.

Jordan: Woo!

2:00 Lex: Okay, so we are hoping to divide each episode into two or three segments. Every other week, we will be looking at something information or educational. Hopefully with some goofs and bits mixed in there so that we're not all just like you know, we don't want this to feel like a lecture.

Jordan: We're not actually hopefully going to be the worst professors you've ever had.

Lex: Yeah, that's, that's the hope maybe. I don't know maybe we will. In which case, I don't know why you're still listening. That's a real bummer for you.

Jordan: It's cheaper than college.

Lex: That's true. Mmm.

Jordan: Anyways.

Lex: So yeah, [Laughs] so each week we're going to talk about something informational or educational. Some examples of topics that we've got coming up in the works are comorbidity, so when people get diagnosed with both ADHD and other disorders like depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder etc. ADHD and sleep patterns, because surprise! If you have ADHD you're probably not super great at sleeping on a regular schedule. And that's not your fault, it's just the brain worms. And then also, you know, we've got like some other fun ideas about like ADHD and D. Because sometimes when you have ADHD and you want to play Dungeons & Dragons with your friends, you can't stop rattling the dice on the table while the DM and this is definitely a self call-out here, it's bad. So we're going to talk about what that's like and how to try and get through a game of D&D and get through each session without making everyone else absolutely just have some feelings about you as a person. [Laughs].

Jordan: Yeah, so you have those you can look forward to.

Lex: Mmm hmm. And then another segment that we're hoping to do regularly is looking at hyper fixations and things that we've been hyper-focusing on. So interests, we use that term pretty loosely. And when we say hyper fixation, we mean in the medical sense, the things that our brain cannot stop focusing on. So keeping us from eating, sleeping, using the restroom, those sorts of things. But also in the more casual sense of this is the thing that I just am really interested in right now. 4:00 Lex: And I'm going to tell you about this podcast that I listened to like all 120 episodes of at once. And then didn't shut up about for like two weeks, and then you never heard me talk about it again. You know, that sort of thing.

Jordan: Yeah. The things that make your brain do the dopamine and the serotonin sometimes. And that's always really fun.

Lex: Yeah. So we wanted to kind of make a space to honor those sorts of things that keep us going. So just wanted to give y'all some context about who we are and where we're at in life. Our pronouns, we both use she/her or they/them. We are two young white feminine presenting people who live in the city of Chicago with our two cats Ned and Root Beer. They're wonderful, but they are very stinky.

Jordan: Mmm hmm.

Lex: And we are artists, we're creators, and we care very deeply about other people. And we both have ADHD. We've known each other for a couple of years now. We're not only roommates but we're best friends. I love this, this beautiful human sitting across the little table with me.

Jordan: Aw.

Lex: In this awful sweating humid room. And just to clarify, we know that this is a weird time for everybody. Just want to clarify like we are doing okay. Jordan is an essential worker, and I'm unemployed. But we do recognize that we are still coming from a place of immense privilege and that we are still doing okay enough to be able to record and produce a podcast. But, just to let you know like we're okay, we're making it.

Jordan: We are, and that really is part of why we wanted to do this right now. We both got diagnosed with ADHD in the last year. But before that we had been co-collaborators for a long time. We had a lot of projects in the works. They all like Lex said earlier, sort of revolve about love. And that matters so much to both of us. And while those things aren't necessarily moving right now, we have had an idea about talking about this in the works since we were both diagnosed and even though it is a strange time to be trying to make art, we thought that it was important now. Because we love all of you and want to share our experiences in hope that it helps you feel more seen, or helps you understand somebody who might be going through ADHD, figuring that out, what it looks like or, somebody else who might be an artist with another learning disability or another mental health issue. And we think that stories are important so we want to tell ours, and we also want to hear yours.
6:23 Lex: Yeah absolutely. We want this to be a conversation, a dialogue.

Jordan: Mmm hmm.

Lex: We want to hear your stories and we want to have people on this podcast with us to talk about their stories.

Jordan: Yes, please.

Lex: Yeah, and speaking as people who are coming from a very specific white perspective, we want to acknowledge that we are doing everything that we can within reason, being an essential worker, being unemployed, we're doing everything we can to stay involed and to work to be anti-racist. And it's worth nothing that these are things that both Jordan and I have cared about for a lot longer than just this pandemic, but it has brought so much to the forefront.

Jordan: Mmm hmm.

Lex: That we do want that to be explicitly clear. We both very much believe that Black Lives Matter.

Jordan: Mmm hmm.

Lex: Trans rights are human rights.

Jordan: Mmm hmm.

Lex: I know that these are not comfortable buzz words for some of you who may be listening, but for a lot of you who are listening, this is a matter of your life and your existence and you matter. I mean like Jordan and I have both said now, it's about the love and if you really want to love people well, and you want to say that you love people but you don't support those statements, you've got to really reassess that, and we don't want to make anyone uncomfortable, we don't want to alienate anyone, but if any of that makes you uncomfortable we do not care. You can sit in that discomfort. We would prefer if you weren't uncomfortable. We would prefer if you were just on board. But we're not going to apologize for that, and we're not going to apologize for how we've been active in our personal lives.

Jordan: Mmm hmm.

Lex: But we're not going to apologize for fighting for human rights. And we're not going to apologize for fighting for love and equity. Like that's not a thing that you should have to apologize for.

8:04 Lex: But yeah, we just wanted to make that super clear right up front. And we know that it's weird, we know that it's a strange time to be promoting our own podcast and we're trying to strike a very delicate balance between creating things that we love and connecting with people because we need to.

Jordan: Mmm hmm.

Lex: Because we are humans and we create things. And we need to be connected to one another.

Jordan: We all need to be connected to one another.

Lex: Yeah, we all need to connected. And that's, it's about the love.

Jordan: Mmm hmm.

Lex: But we just do want to acknowledge that this is a tricky balance and we are doing our best and if you have suggestions, or critiques or complaints, or even if you just want to say hi please reach out to us. If we want to share your story on this podcast, please reach out to us. This got a little, a little off the fun track and a little bit more into that like mushy gushy like feelings track. So hopefully, y'all don't mind. A little bit more detail on our backgrounds. Both attended University of Idaho.

Jordan: Mmm hmm.

Lex: Jordan got her BFA in theater. I got my masters in anthropology. And if you couldn't tell from either of those degrees, we-

Jordan: Are both really bad at math.

Lex: So bad at math.

Jordan: Oh boy.

Lex: And just primed to do something with a podcast probably. I don't know.

Jordan: [Laughs]

Lex: We both just, we both have lots of things to talk about. And we both like to talk about them.

Jordan: We sure do. And now we're here.

Lex: Yeah.

Jordan: Talking about them.

Lex: And I say that we're artists you know, we're actors, we're writers. And the horrible thing is that the best term for that is content creator.

Jordan: No!

Lex: I know but, it's, oh it's just so weird.

Jordan: Content creator sounds like a euphemism for something, or like one of those really really vague job descriptions where you're actually doing something evil.

Lex: It's like a pyramid scheme.

Jordan: Yeah.

Lex: That's totally the type of title you would have in like a cult or a pyramid scheme.

Jordan: Absolutely.

Lex: Or a pyramid scheme that's the front for a cult.

Jordan: Oh no, I believe it. Are there cults that are fronts for pyramid schemes though? Like you get in and then they're like, we'll promise you eternal salvation in this bottle of lotion for $49.99.

Lex: Isn't that just Mary Kay?

Jordan: Good point.[Laughs]

Lex: [Laughs] Oh no. Oh wow, we are so off track!

Jordan: Well, it's almost like it's a podcast about having ADHD. [Laughs]

Lex: Yeah, no that's fair. So we would technically be labeled content creators. I think, but neither of us like to say that. So we just list all of the other things that we do. Most of the time, just like yeah [Laughs].

Jordan: We make stuff.

Lex: We make things! Yeah, so all that to say, we are really looking forward to sharing our stories, sharing our experience and getting to hear from you, audience. So without further adieu though, we do want to give you some little tid bits of education in this podcast.

Jordan: But before we do that.

Lex: Oh.

Jordan: Would you like to share with the audience why we are called: Or, Learn Parkour, when- sorry to disappoint, we're not actually doing a lot of parkour. It's not good audio for one. And also, I can't do it.

Lex: I'm just trying to imagine what a Parkour podcast would be like. If you have a parkour podcast, I want to hear it.

11:04 Jordan: I do too. [Laughs]

Lex: Link it to us. Please!

Jordan: Please!

Lex: But, yeah no, our podcast title, "Or, Learn Parkour," is actually something that came out of Jordan's beautiful mouth. She [Laughs] she came up with it, and I loved it immediately and was like, "Perfect, we found the same for our podcast." And she was like, "No. No, we cannot name our podcast that. We can't, I refuse. It's a bad name. "

Jordan: It's bad.

Lex: And I was like, "What else are we going to name our podcast?" And once upon a time there was a Twitter account, and it's @Nablaya or Nableya? If you know or are this person please let them know, and/or letting you know, Nablaya/Nableya, that you are an icon to us. [Laughs]

Jordan: You are an inspiration.

Lex: Such an inspriation. But the tweet says, "ADHD culture truly and geniunely is being a jack of all trades/master of none. I really just be wanting to dedicate all my time and energy into, ONE, one is all capitals, thing but my brain just be like 'What if you also learned parkour?' I hate it here. "

Jordan: It just really spoke to us.

Lex: Oh, really really spoke to us. Like we have these things called "mirror quotes" where we will just put quotes on our mirror with a label maker. Do I make labels with the label maker? No. I make art hoe ass mirror quotes for our bathroom mirror to remind Jordan of how wonderful she is. And the most recent of the grouping does have, in fact, the quote "What if you also learned parkour?" So it really just felt appropriate.

Jordan: It is a very succinct way of explaining that ADHD mood.

Lex: Yeah, no. We are all over the place, but when do decide on something we will do it at no cost. Well, no, I mean like no matter the cost. There we go.

Jordan: There it is.

Lex: Huh! My brain moved faster than my mouth.

Jordan: Wow! Another ADHD mood!

Lex: Yeah! [Laughs]

Jordan: We're actually talking about ADHD on the ADHD podcast. 13:02 Lex: We're actually talking about ADHD on the ADHD podcast.

Jordan: We're incredible.

Lex: WOO!

Jordan: Should I talk more about ADHD on the ADHD podcast?

Lex: I think you should. It's working out really well.

Jordan: I will. It's delightful.

Lex: This is just feeling, you know, I'm feeling in it. I'm feeling in it to win it.

Jordan: I'm feeling jhujey.

Lex: Like.

Jordan: Alright, so we're going to do the education bit now.

Lex: Thank you! Teach me!

Jordan: I will. I'm about to do that right now. Our education bit today to keep laying the ground rules and let you know what you can expect from is what actually is ADHD?

Lex: What is it?

Jordan: It stands for "Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder."

Lex: Wait, there's a slash in it?

Jordan: There is.

Lex: So it's like AC/DC?

Jordan: Yes. AC/DC disorder.

Lex: I love TNT.

Jordan: Dynamite. So there have been a lot of different names for this sort of collection of specific brain worms. You might have heard the terms ADD before, you might have heard of other things in this umbrella, but now the way that it is diagnosed is with the phrase Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. There are three kinds of ADHD. The first one is Hyperactive Impulsive type. And I'm pulling this directly from the National Institute of Mental Health. I'm not a medical professional. I am just a person doing their best. But the people who write this are.

14:20 Jordan: So take this with some grain of salt but with hopefully the confidence that I'm not completely BSing.

Lex: A whole teaspoon.

Jordan: Like good kosher salt. The Hyperactive Impulsive type of ADHD is like this, hyperactivity means a person seems to move about constantly including in situations at which it is not appropriate, or excessively fidgets, taps or talks. Impulsivity is defined as a person who may make hasty actions that occur in the moment without first thinking about them and that may have a high potential for harm, or desire for immediate rewards, or inability to delay gratification. An impulsive person may be socially intrusive and excessively interrupt others, or make important decisions without considering the long-term consequences. The other type of ADHD is inattentive type. And that means a person often wanders off task, lacks persistence, has difficulty sustaining focus and is disorganized. And these problems are not due to defiance or lack of comprehension. 15:15 Jordan: If you, unlike me, can count, that was two types of ADHD. The third type, the super fun ADHD with pizazz and spice is combination type where you have hyperactivity, impulsivity and inattention. I have largely inattentive type ADHD.

Lex: Oh is this the part where I? Okay yeah. I-

Jordan: If you want to.

Lex: Yeah no, that's fair. I was just waiting for you to call me out. I have both. I have the combined type, which is just [Inaudible]

Jordan: You have the fries, and a burger, and a drink type.

Lex: Yeah, no and then probably some other stuff sprinkled in there as well. Like they just threw in some extra barbeque packets for me. Yeah, I have both.

Jordan: Yeah! The fun thing about the different types of ADHD is despite the fact that if you are only one type and not the other, there's not a ton of overlap, but there is some. Some things that all people with ADHD and often a lot of people with other mental disorders have executive dysfunction, which is a very fancy work for, "brain can't do the thing." It just means that you have a hard time starting tasks. Your brain just doesn't have the gas to go. It's not about not understanding. We're like putting things in order, understanding, prioritizing things.

Lex: Yeah like a really good example of executive dysfunction I think is when you wake up in the morning.

Jordan: Mmm hmm.

Lex: And you are just not able to get up to go to the bathroom. Like you may have to pee, and your brain is "Hey bro, we got to pee. Take me to the piss room." And then your body just says, "No."

Jordan: That's like, so many steps. You have to like roll over, take the covers off, get your feet on the ground, walk to the door, open the door, walk to another door, open that door. See, I'm already doing a bad job with the steps.

Lex: Yeah I mean, you are breaking it down like real intensely, but that's fair, because that's what it feels like.

Jordan: It is.

Lex: Does that sound insurmountable? Probably not if you are neurotypical. You're just like yeah, you just get out of bed. You just go do it.

Jordan: You go pee. 17:03 Lex: But if you have severe executive dysfunction you will have to just wait till you are almost about to pee your pants and then finally your brain will generally override that and be like, "Get to the piss room now."

Jordan: And then you do. Yeah so that's a little taste of executive dysfunction.

Lex: Ooh.

Jordan: One other thing about ADHD that all people experience is whatever symptoms you have they exist across more than one facet of your life, which means it's not just at school, it's not just at work, it's not just at home or in relationships, it's not something you get to leave at the office. It is all over the place. Next one on the list is rejection sensitivity, or rejection sensitive dysphoria or RSD, or my best friend- the shame corner. That's basically when you react very strongly to real or perceived rejection or criticism. That is a huge part of ADHD. It is a huge part of the reason [Laughs] I found out I had ADHD. And it ties into another super fun part of ADHD called emotional hyperarousal. And that's-

Lex: I'm sorry, what?

Jordan: Emotional hyperarousal.

Lex: Okay.

Jordan: I'm just going to say it now, we're talking about mental health, we are using the language of mental health. I'm going to say the word arousal a lot, and if you're going to be weird about it close this podcast now. Just go, just stop being horny and leave.

Lex: Yeah.

Jordan: Can we move on?

Lex: Yeah no, sorry. I'm [Laughs] You mostly slurred "emotional." And so I wasn't even [Laughs].

Jordan: You were dunking on me in a completely different court!

Lex: Yeah no, I was just like, can you repeated that? [Laughs] But yeah, no, if you are like trying to be aroused in the like mmm like with one of the squiggly lines like when you're-

Jordan: The squiggly line? I don't know what the word for that is.

Lex: [Yawns]

Jordan: Hey listeners, if you know what the word is for that is please let us know.

Lex: Yeah but like arousal with squiggly lines around it. If you're here for that, stop.

Jordan: Go home.

Lex: I don't know why you would be, but if you are.

Jordan: Shame. Shame on you!

Lex: Stop being horny. You sinners.

19:09 Jordan: Can I talk about emotions now?

Lex: Yeah, also please note the amount of times that I have already interrupted Jordan as she's talking, because...

Jordan: You have ADHD.

Lex: Yeah.

Jordan: And I just interrupted you. [Laughs]

Lex: Yeah, we're killing the game.

Jordan: Alright. So to get back on track, people with ADHD have passionate thoughts and emotions. You experience your highs really high, and your lows really low. The criticism is involved in that and it's a common symptom amongst a lot of people with ADHD like I know that I feel that really deeply. That's actually how I got my cat for free. Because I found out if you start crying so hard you can't breathe in the shelter because you're so sad that you can't take all of the cats home they will not charge you for the cat so they can get you out the door as fast as possible, because you are making everyone uncomfortable.

Lex: I will say that is a speculation of what happened that day. The weekend, like, we went on a Monday and that past weekend they had had a special where the cats were just free. Cause we got our dear sweet monsters from the Chicago Animal Care and Control Center. And she just continued the special. Like she said, the special was this weekend, I'm just going to see if I can get you the free price for the cats. So I will say it probably wasn't because of that. But, she definitely did feel wildly uncomfortable and did not know how to handle the two of us fawning over all of these cats.

Jordan: They just, they all deserve love. 20:33 Lex: Oh they absolutely do. But, the two cats that we ended up getting were going to be sent to the medical quarantine room that day.

Jordan: Yeah, so we had to take them.
Lex: Which meant that, [cross talk[ That meant that they would get euthanized.

Jordan: Yeah, so we had to take them.

Lex: We had to.

Jordan: We had to. And they're our babies now.

Lex: They're our bebes.

Jordan: They're our bebes.

Lex: Okay wow, sorry. Right, sorry so, [Laughs]

Jordan: Two more things, two more things on the list of everyone with every type of ADHD may have. One is time blindness, which is more or less just a hard time perceiving time. You might be good at like guessing what time it is, but that doesn't change the fact that you are bad at estimating how long tasks will take. This leads to a lot of ADHD people being chronically late. A lot of ADHD people overcommitting themselves and saying yes to too much, and filling their plate too much, because you just can't gauge how long it's going to take to get through all of those things. It's also very easy, especially when you're, and we'll get to this next, hyperfocusing to just completely loose track of time and go completely off the rails because we have a hard time perceiving that, which leads me to the last element of this very fun cocktail of Lexa mentioned earlier, which is hyperfocusing or hyperfixating. And that is the ability of the ADHD brain to focus, do the opposite of what we sort of have the reputation of doing and dig really far into something. That's because the ADHD nervous system is interest-based versus other people who might have importance of priority-based nervous systems. That's just kind of the gas in our cars that makes us go, to use that metaphor for all it's worth. And-

Lex: Maybe a different way to word that that helps me understand it is: we don't necessarily not think in terms of priority.

Jordan: Mmm hmm.

Lex: It's just that our brain prioritizes the fun stuff over everything else, if that makes sense like-

Jordan: Yeah.

Lex: Cause I've noticed like interest-based, I'm like cool, doesn't everyone like to do things? But, if-

Jordan: Yeah.

Lex: The priorites change. So. Yeah.

Jordan: Yeah, no that makes, that makes perfect sense I guess to put another step on that, it's related to the executive dysfunction. It's not a "I'm not interested in doing this" thing, it's a "unless I have that interest in it my brain literally will not build the steps, will not put the next pieces in order". It's not because you don't want to, it's because you literally can't.

Lex: Yeah.

Jordan: They're not, it's not connected.

23:05 Lex: Yeah, no we mentioned, we're going to do an episode of co-morbidity at a later date. But, OCD is another disorder that is often mixed up with ADHD.

Jordan: Mmm hmm.

Lex: Or people will have both because your brain. [Laughs]

Jordan: Yes. We don't actually know for sure what is in your actual brain that makes ADHD happen, which is wild because we know, we do know from the research that does exist that one in 20 children have ADHD. That's one in 20 children are diagnosed with ADHD. And there is a lot of things at play who gets diagnosed and who doesn't, because there's a perception that ADHD exists in school-aged white boys. And if you're a girl who presents as more inattentive, or if you are a person of color, it's often misdiagnosed as Oppositional Defiant Disorder. There's a lot of people who go undiagnosed. But, out of the one out of 20, 85 percent of those children are likely to carry ADHD into adulthood. So that's a lot of people.

24:07 Lex: Yeah, like an unsettling number of people.

Jordan: Mmm hmm.

Lex: And then, the, what was the other statistic? It's like, yeah, four percent of adults. And I'm like, those don't connect at all.

Jordan: Nope.

Lex: No. [Laughs] Those don't make sense together.

Jordan: I mean, we do know that there's a good chance that it's hereditary. So if someone in your family has it, you're more likely to have it. Vice versa, if you have it, someone in your family likely has it.

Lex: Yeah, like a big sign I do, all of our relatives [Laughs].

Jordan: [Laughs] Some people hypothesize that it might be related to environmental factors and interruptions at certain developmental stages. We don't entirely know what the actual brain chemistry explanation of it is, but we do know that lower levels of norepinephrine and dopamine are responsible for some of the ADHD symptoms. Some research also suggests that an inability to properly use blood sugar for energy in your brain might play a role, and your brain's shape just might be different. We don't really know.

Lex: Question: do we know what doesn't cause ADHD?

Jordan: So many things.

Lex: So, would you say that like demons in your blood causes ADHD?

Jordan: We can't really rule that out. But, guess is no.

Lex: Okay, but like what about vaccinations?

Jordan: One, vaccinations don't cause ADHD. We do know that. And two...

Lex: What?

Jordan: I can only speak from my personal experience but, like 90 percent of the time I would rather be alive with ADHD than dead from Polio.

Lex: Yeah, vaccinate your kids please. Maybe that'll get us our episode right, right out of the gate just vaccinate your kids! But like, vaccinate your kids.

Jordan: Please do.

Lex: Also if you think that vaccinations with A) cause Autism or ADHD, or for your child to end up on any sort of spectrum of divergent thought patterns, like I don't know how to help you. 'Cause A) it's been proven that that's not the case/

Jordan: Yeah.

Lex: And B) like Jordan: said, wouldn't you rather have a child who just has a gifted and different way of thinking than you than a dead child because they got Polio?

Jordan: Have you seen iron lungs? They're terrifying.

Lex: Ugh! Anyways, sorry. Soapbox a little bit, but as two people with ADHD we both do get quite sick of that narrative, because, you know, ADHD is on the same sort of spectrum as Autism, which we have another episode about that. [Laughs]

Jordan: Yeah, [Inaudible]

Lex: But, it's just the most like de-humanizing thing to know that there's a whole movement of people who would rather risk the death of their kids than-

Jordan: Their kids turning out like us.

26:42 Lex: Yeah.

Jordan: Yeah.

Lex: Horrible.

Jordan: It's not great. It's not a self-esteem booster and apparently, women with ADHD already have a problem with that.

Lex: Yeah.

Jordan: So, we don't need anymore.

Lex: We got those good self-esteem problems.

Jordan: We do. That's one thing that we do know about women who are diagnosed with ADHD, especially in adulthood, are more likely to have depressive and anxious symptoms, and are more likely to have an external locus of control, which just means you have a tendency to attribute success and difficulty to external factors, such as chance, which makes sense when you can't really control how your brain is working and everyone keeps telling you it should be different, and have lower self-esteem and more emotionally oriented coping strategies rather than task-oriented. And that's pretty much all we know. So if you resonated with any of the symptoms that I read earlier, or any of the things that I just read and you feel like me reading these things over, and are just like, get out of my house. How do you know this? Go see a therapist.

Lex: Yeah, on that note like just no matter who you are, please go see a therapist, like, please.

Jordan: Yeah.

Lex: Therapy is a wonderful wonderful thing.

Jordan: It is.

Lex: And by golly, if we don't all need a little bit of help along the way in this interesting life we lead.

Jordan: It sure is.

Lex: Oh.

Jordan: Yeah, yeah and again, I cannot say too many times, because this girl doesn't want to get sued, we are not medical professionals. We're not, but therapists are.

Lex: Therapists super are. They're trained. They are! They did the school to do this.

Jordan: They did the school. And then they did more school.

Lex: If you think you're well-adjusted, first of all: how?

Jordan: How? In this economy?

Lex: Yeah, literally in this economy? In this country? You're well-adjusted? Excuse me? [Inaudible] Hello? Yeah no, go to therapy. Because, you might have a problem if you think you're well-adjusted. [Laughs].

Jordan: That's a valid point.

Lex: And if you already know you're not well-adjusted like cannot recommend it enough. I know finding a good therapist can be kind of hard. And I know especially for, especially for black women and women in color in general like finding a good therapist who is actually going to listen to you and know what your life experience has been like, the importance of finding a good therapist is pretty important. And actually, we will link that in our episode description.

Jordan: Yes.

Lex: To like places like The Loveland Foundation that are working to-

Jordan: Yes.

Lex: Connect more therapists to the people who need them.

29:10 Jordan: Yes, we will put up some links as to finding a good therapist that is accessible to you, because it is worth acknowledging. It does come from a place of privileged people, like yeah, just go get a therapist. Not everyone has insurance. Not everyone has the ability to do that, but regardless of where you are in your life, your mental health is important so keep an eye out for those in our episode description on our website.

Lex: If nothing else, we will try to give you some trickle down therapy. [Laughs].

Jordan: Trickle down therapy. [Laughs] Cause that works so well with economics.

Lex: But like trickle down therapy is different.

Jordan: [Laughs] That's fair, hopefully so. That's all I had for "What is ADHD?" Of course if I missed anything that you listeners would like to know about let us know and we'll cover it in a future episode. But-

Lex: Maybe.

Jordan: Maybe.

Lex: We'll vet your ideas. If you ask us to talk about something that is not related to ADHD then, we probably won't talk about it.

Jordan: That's fair.

Lex: Unless it's super cool, in which case, probably will. So, I don't know. Stuff that you know, judgement call, judgement call.

Jordan: Judgement call.

Lex: Thank you so much for sharing all that info, Jordan.

Jordan: Happy to help.

Lex: Yeah. Thank you.

Jordan: You are so welcome.

Lex: Thank you

Jordan: You are so welcome.

Lex: Oh my gosh.

Jordan: Oh my God.

Lex: Thank you.

Jordan: Aw.

Lex: You're just like the best friend I've ever had!

Jordan: Raise your standards then.
[Laughs]

Lex: [Laughs] Oh no! Okay. We love each other so much.

Jordan: We do.

Lex: I realize that I said that statement meaning it in a sincere way, and then continued with a very insincere voice. So I'm just going to be real with everyone [Laughs] who's listening right now. Because this is our first episode.

Jordan: Mmm hmm.

Lex: We know that our audio quality isn't the top notch audio quality. Like we know that we are rambling. We are really just getting our feet wet at this point. And if you're sticking with us like, we really do just appreciate the crap out of you. But I do need to be really upfront with you, and let you all know that there is a thing in this Google Doc that Jordan and I share, and it just says ADHDad Joke. Jordan, would you like to explain what that is? Because, I sure didn't write it. I sure didn't add that to the Google Doc.

Jordan: What happens when you leave your ADHD meds in your Ford Fiesta?

Lex: I don't know. Why don't you tell our listeners what happens when you leave your ADHD medication in your Ford Fiesta?

Jordan: It turns into Ford Focus. [Laughs].
You know after all that education, I wanted to lighten the mood a little.

Lex: Yep, yep no, gotta, you know what would lighten the mood?

Jordan: What would lighten the mood?

Lex: Is if you told me about your current hyperfixation.

Jordan: I would love to tell you about my current hyperfixation.

Lex: That's the whole point. 'Cause you know.

Jordan: Yes. I'm go-

Lex: Yeah, yeah, but like explain it for the audience that if you really like something, and you're hyperfixated on it, you want to talk about it.

Jordan: I do what to talk about it. And what I want to talk about today is Harvard sentences.

Lex: Mmm hmm. [Laughs]

Jordan: [Laughs] Don't make that face at me. For those of you playing along at home, she's making a terrible very judgmental face at me, because I'm about to explain a really interesting element of voice to text over IP audio-testing.

Lex: Mmm hmm.

Jordan: So what Harvard sentences are, is they are a set of lists of sentences that have been developed to be phonetically balanced, which means that they, in the course of the one sentence, contain all of the sounds you can expect to hear in the English language in a pretty average distribution. So it's like one sentence that is a sample, basically, of English where you're going to get all the bits.

Lex: All the, all the mouth sounds.

Jordan: All the mouth sounds.

Lex: All the mouth sounds.

Jordan: Back it up. Back it up.

Lex: All the mouth sounds of an English speaker?

Jordan: [Laughs]

Lex: I'm so sorry. Welcome to our new segment: ASMR when you have ADHD. I'm so sorry, okay-

Jordan: Thank you.

Lex: Please do go on an explain to people what these sentences sound like, because I'm going to give y'all a heads up: they're weird.

Jordan: And that's why they're delightful.

Lex: Sure.

Jordan: No, it is, okay. Anybody who knows me in real life knows that I love radio. I love weird communications history, I love code-breaking history, and all of those sorts of odd things. And these are super interesting because they were developed at the Harvard Psycho-Acoustic Laboratory, which was run by S.S. Stevens during World War II to study how humans perceive and react to sound, which is something that's super interesting to me, because I have an auditory processing disorder. That was not why these were developed, they were developed for military communications and building radios and microphones and amplifiers and receivers and all of those other fun things that allow you to communicate. And they built these sentences to have a succinct test, to make sure that all of the different sounds that would need to be heard were coming through correctly. 34:17 Jordan: And this was during the 1940'�s, this was during World War II they were developed. But, we are still in use today. They are used by speech to text software engineers, they are used by speech scientists studying like cochlear implants and things like that. They are used by people who test phone lines. They are used by people who are testing radio connections, if you're into like ham radio, or anything like that.

Lex: They were used just by us today.

Jordan: They were used just by us today [Laughs] to test the sound on this microphone.

Lex: Yeah, this fancy fancy microphone. [Laughs] It's fancy. It's got a little floof on it.

Jordan: It does have a little floof on it. So hopefully you only get the good phonetically balanced mouth sounds and not the awful skin-crawling mouth sounds. But the thing about Harvard sentences that I find really fun is they're, they're very charming. They have very charming cadence to them, and they sound like round and whole because that's what they're developed to do, but they also like, I'll read a couple of them.

Lex: Mmm hmm.

Jordan: Because they're like little nuggets of like folk stories, old fashioned like Farmer's Almanac quaint sort of observations on life. But, also when you hear them and then you imagine them over like an old fashioned radio to like the little crackly-ness of it, it's very charming to me. It's a little bit mysterious and little bit like you could learn the secrets of the universe if your signal was a little bit clearer. Or like the sort of thing that you would hear and you would be like, oh like that's mystery and then I figure out what it means for the cold war or something. They're charming and mysterious and I�m going to read to you a few of my favorites.

35:56 Jordan: "A pot of tea helps to pass the evening.: It�s just quaint, it's just true. This one is a little bit of a personal callout but, "her purse was full of useless trash." [Laughs] I know, there's such a variety of them. [Laughs] This one just phonetically is delightful: "The slush lay deep along the street." It's like a poem. And "a wisp of cloud hung in the blue air." [Laughs] And then this one just made me giggle. And I don't like pickles, but apparently, "a salt pickle tastes fine with ham." Not great, not terrible, but fine.

Lex: Yeah, I think the thing that Jordan is leaving out is that a lot of these sentences sound like they're trying to directly summon Satan into-

Jordan: [Laughs]

Lex: Your radio system.

Jordan: I mean like, another one is, "Look in the corner to find the tan shirt." If that's not something you just like hear out of your shortwave radio, and you turn around and there's a tan shirt that you've never seen in your life there, I don't know what is.

Lex: Yeah, welcome to our new horror podcast, everybody.

Jordan: Yeah. "All sat frozen and watched the screen." Yeah, that's another horror podcast one.

Lex: These are just writing prompts for episodes of insert-horror-podcast0here. Because I don't want to get sued.

Jordan: Sure fair. I also don't want to get sued. Yeah they're just-

Lex: You got any other weird ones?

Jordan: This one feels topical. "Tin cans are absent from store shelves."

Lex: Aw.

Jordan: Yeah.

Lex: Oh that was like bummer topical.

Jordan: It was a little bummer topical.

Lex: I was like, oh topical to us recording our first episode of our ADHD pod-

Jordan: No.

Lex: No, you went topical in terms of a global pandemic that has caused a wide shortage of multiple different types of goods and services.

Jordan: I sure did.

Lex: Mmm hmm.

Jordan: Mmm hmm. [Laughs]

Lex: Okay, you got any others for me? 3

7:42 Jordan: Here's the thing is there's like 50 lists of them, so I'm not going to-

Lex: That's fair.

Jordan: -Read more of them. Although I may tweet some of them out later. And also, I was wrong just a minute earlier, there are 72 lists of 10 sentences each. And they are delighting me right now. [Inaudible]

Lex: Are they, are they, are they delightful?

Jordan: They are.

Lex: Do you?

Jordan: I delight in the Harvard sentences.

Lex: Can I ask another question?

Jordan: No.

Lex: Do you delight in them? Do you find them, would you say, delightful?

Jordan: They're alright.

Lex: Or charming?

Jordan: They're okay. They're fine.

Lex: [Laughs]

Jordan: Ooh, I should read, can I read a couple more?

Lex: Yeah.

Jordan: Okay.

Lex: Give me some good ones. Give me some to chew on.

Jordan: I'm going to say "Seven seals were stamped on great sheets."

Lex: Seven seals were stamped on great sheets?

Jordan: Yes. Phonetically fascinating. Also, really fun because guess which list it's off of?

Lex: What is it?

Jordan: [Laughs] List 69.

Lex: Nice.

Jordan: Cool, that's all I had.

Lex: Okay. Yeah, yeah, alright, yeah. I appreciate that. Thank you so much for sharing.

Jordan: Yeah, now do you want to take us all to the hyperfixaton station with you?

Lex: Sure, you know what? I wouldn't even so much call it like a hyperfixation station for me. It's just like a sort of a liminal space at an underground station where the train doesn't quite come.

Jordan: Okay.

Lex: Like you think you hear it. You think you see the light coming through the tunnel...

Jordan: Ooh.

Lex: It never get there. Apparently-

Jordan: Your train's always seven minutes away.

Lex: Always. Always! [Inaudible]

Jordan: What are you doing while you were waiting for the train for eternity?

Lex: Playing Sudoku.

Jordan: Yeah!

Lex: You know what I love is playing Sudoku? So I've been using this lovely app called Sudoku on my phone.

Jordan: Oh what's on there?

Lex: And golly gee, wouldn't you know it? It's an app with Sudoku on it.

Jordan: Well hot dang!

Lex: Yeah so let me just read off some statistics here. I got this app at the end of May.

Jordan: So that's a month ago. We are recording this full posterity July 1st 2020.

Lex: I have played 380 games and won 380 games on Easy. On the Medium mode-

Jordan: Oh.

Lex: I have played and won 380 games.

Jordan: Okay.

Lex: On the hard mode, I have played and won 380 games. And on expert I'm still working to get to 380. And I'm at 360. So let's see, 380 x 3, I have to get my calculator out because I can't do math, + 360, I have played 1500 games of Sudoku in a month. Yeah and to clarify real quick, if you don't know what Sudoku is, it is, according to Wikipedia, a logic-based combinatorial number placement puzzle. So basically, in classic Sudoku the objective is to fill a 9x9 grid with digits so that each column, each row, and each of the nine 3x3 sub-grids that compose the overall 9x9 grid, they all contain digits from one to nine. It's so fun, and so cathartic.

Jordan: It sounds very fun. Lots of numbers. 40:47 Lex: I love Sudoku.

Jordan: Alright.

Lex: Yeah, I'm just going to give you the quick rundown on Sudoku.

Jordan: Okay, yeah.

Lex: Because I looked this up to be like, oh I wonder what sort of rich juicy history Sudoku has. It must be some ancient number game from Japan. It's not. Did y'all know that? 'Cause I did not. [Laughs] The earliest known Sudoku puzzles were called "Number Place." And they were French! They were in French newspapers in the 1800's. And then, Japan, they started doing that stuff and they called it "Sudoku." And then that's like when it got spread worldwide, but that wasn't until like 2004. So like the U.S didn't start getting stuff in our newspapers till like, I think 2004 or 2006 or something.

Jordan: That's wild! I feel like I always imagines like an old dad sitting around...

Lex: With like an abacus?

Jordan: in his slacks after work being like, "After this Sudoku game, son."

Lex: Yeah, no, like it's, the 1800's.

Jordan: Like I feel like I would pull a-

Lex: And in America it was in the 2000's.

Jordan: I feel like I would pull a stack of like old cut out Sudoku games out of like my great-grandmother's jewelry box that she like cut out for my great-grandpa or something to do.

Lex: Mmm hmm. Mmm hmm.

Jordan: And that's just not what happened.

Lex: No, it's not! And listen, there are variants of Sudoku-

Jordan: Mmm hmm.

Lex: That I had no idea existed. So, we have grid size and region size, change shape, challenger puzzles. Theres mini-Sudoku. And then, okay, so this one, I don't know what this is because I am too lazy to look it up.

Jordan: [Laughs]

Lex: But, there is killer Sudoku.

Jordan: And we're a horror podcast.

Lex: Sudoku was the zodiac killer.

Jordan: [Laughs]

Lex: Elements of Sudoku and Kakuro, which is another game from Japan. Although this one isn't from Japan, it's from France. It's just so interesting to me, but also felt like my whole life was a lie for the past month. Anyway, so another one that we talked about actually [Laughs] a while ago was a thing that people will do with Sudoku is apparently impose additional constraints. It's not that someone will like tie you up, and you have to write in the letters with a pencil in your mouth. It's not that type of constraints. Basically here's, here's what the Wikipedia page says.

Jordan: Tell me.

Lex: Another common variant is to add limits on the placement of numbers beyond the usual row, column, and box requirements. Often the limit takes the form of an extra dimension. Now let that sink in, folks. We're going to just tear open our third eyes-

Jordan: And just hop right into some fresh and sexy trans-dimensional time Sudoku. [Laughs]

Lex: Yeah. To just figure out how to put the numbers in the squares without repeating any of the numbers in any of the rows, columns, or squares. They say the most common thing to require is to require like that the diagonal number lines also have to be unique and not repeat numbers. But, that doesn't rule out any other sort of umbrella.

Jordan: Any other dimensions.

Lex: Like dimension, so just wild. There's alphabetical Sudoku. Hyper-Sudoku where it just adds more. [Laughs].

Jordan: You say like is that, that would be relevant if that was just Sudoku for people with ADHD.

Lex: Yeah, leave me alone.

Jordan: [Laughs].

Lex: Yeah, so, it's, it's just, it's interesting. There's like global competitions. Like the world Sudoku championship. The first one was held in March of 2006.

Jordan: There's a lot of Sudoku lore.

Lex: Yeah, and I just oh no.

Jordan: What?

Lex: Okay, are you ready for this?

Jordan: Probably not.

Lex: I don't even know what, how to read that number actually. 'Cause it's what? Billion and then trillion and then what's 1,2,3 more higher than trillion?

Jordan: ...I got a theater degree.

Lex: Okay, so apparently, someone figured it out and the number is like three more commas past trillion. But, someone went back and accounted for symmetry so, like rotation, reflection, permutation and relabeling. When those are all taken into account I love how this is phrased, "Was shown to be just 5,472,730,538 solutions, sequences," whatever.

Jordan: Oh you know, [Inaudible]

Lex: So, like I love how it's like, it was just five billion. Excuse me? So, anyways, Sudoku's a fun thing. I play it way too much. But, it really helps me calm down and I need a lot of that good calming down stuff in my brain these days.

Jordan: Mmm hmm.

Lex: Because everything.

Jordan: Yeah.

Lex: These [clears throat] unprecedented times.

Jordan: [Laughs] Yeah.

Lex: Yeah.

Jordan: Thank you so much for sharing about Sudoku with us.

Lex: Anytime.

Jordan: I'll take you up on that. I'll come back for some more, some more fun facts. But for now, I think that that is a wrap on the pilot of Or, Learn Parkour.

Lex: Yeah, thank you all so much. If you're still listening to us right now like thank you really truly.

Jordan: Thank you.

Lex: Thank you

Jordan: We're glad to get to talk with you. We're glad to get to hang out in your ears.

Lex: Yeah, we talk a lot together. And it's nice that it's now recorded for posterity and we'll be public for consumption. It's not at all unnerving or strange. Anyways, you can find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and pretty much any other place where cool people listen to podcasts.

Jordan: A special thanks to Krizia Perito for our cover art design. You can find her at @PealHop on Instagram. Thats p-e-t-a-l-h-o-p. Her art is wonderful and so is she.

Lex: Thank you to Tom Rosenthal for our theme song "There is a Dark Place" off of his album Keep a Private Room Behind the Shop. Would definitely recommend. We will put a link to that in our episode description.

Jordan: 10 out of 10, great album. Also, you can follow us on the soc meeds. We are @Or-
Lex: Hold on. Hold on there.

Jordan: Holding.

Lex: Excuse me?

Jordan: You're excused.

Lex: No, excuse me?

Jordan: [Laughs]

Lex: Ma'am. Could you repeat that?

Jordan: @OrLearnParkour on Twitter?

Lex: No a little further back.

Jordan: Follow us on the soc meeds?

Lex: The soc meeds.

Jordan: The soc meeds. This is the third time I've said it now so yes.

Lex: The soc meeds?

Jordan: Yes. That is, in case you didn't pick up on the context clues, a shortening of "social media."

Lex: Is that what the kids say these days? Soc meeds?

Jordan: Yeah, didn't you know that? That's like super hip to the jive.

Lex: Great. Cool.

46:56 Lex: Yep, we are so on target here.

Jordan: We are. Very relevant and very hip.

Lex: Yeah, our branding is just great right now. It's excellante. Anyways okay [Inaudible] so on social media-

Jordan: Probably going to be a little better if people can follow us on the soc meeds.

Lex: Okay.

Jordan: Which, without further ado.

Lex: On social media.

Jordan: Are-

Lex: Social media!

Jordan: @OrLearnParkour on Twitter. We are @WeAreWPC Instagram. That will be updates from this podcast and our other creative projects. And you can also find more information at wearewpc.com

Lex: Yeah, actually. We would love to hear from you if you have a topic surrounding ADHD that you want to hear us talk about, if you want to come on the show and chat with us. If you just want to know why we are like this that's-

Jordan: That's what most of this podcast is about but-

Lex: But like, you know. If you want to, I will say, if you're just going to ask if we're okay.

Jordan: No.

Lex: I was going to say like, we're fine.

Jordan: Oh.

Lex: We got cats. We got food. We got like, we got a kiddie pool today to put our feet in.

Jordan: Oh yeah. I'm very excited about that.

Lex: Yeah, I'm thinking about going to get super soaker tomorrow.

Jordan: Ooh yes.

Lex: Yeah. So like, you know. We're making it. You don't need context for any of those things. We just live in the city and don't have access to water-

Jordan: Yeah.

Lex: -at this point. So follow us on social media. Reach out to us, let us know what you think about the episode.

Jordan: We're here and we would love to hear from you!

Lex: Mmm hmm. Mmm hmm. Yeah, we will have links to all of those accounts, the music and the art for our podcast. We will also have links to all of our sources that we've cited here. We will have a link to transcripts for the episode.

Jordan: Yes.

Lex: Yeah, no. We'll have like all that in the episode description and I believe we will end up putting time stamps in our episode description as well. So you will know when we are talking about which thing, and which segment.

Jordan: Yeah.

Lex: If for any reason we have to talk about content warnings we will also put those in the episode description in the future.

Jordan: Oh yeah. Obviously.

Lex: So.

Jordan: Yeah.

Lex: What else? What are we missing?

Jordan: I think that that's everything that's going to be in our episode description and you can find on our website. And lastly, if you dig what you heard, don't forget to subscribe to this feed and tune in the Monday after next.

Lex: Jordan, I have something on my heart. I've really been meaning to get it off my chest throughout this whole recording process here.

Jordan: Lay it on me. I'm spiritually receptive to you.

Lex: Okay, thank you. I feel so protected in that safe space that we've created here together. So we talked about brain worms a lot.

Jordan: Mmm hmm.

Lex: In this, just in this first episode, which is a fun little euphemism for having any sort of neurodivergence as we have seen on the social media. The soc meeds.

Jordan: Soc meeds.

Lex: If you will. So my question then, if you could pick a TV show to cast with only brain worms, but you could leave the one original cast member...

Jordan: Oh.

Lex: Which one would you do?

Jordan: Hmm.

Lex: Please. This is important.

Jordan: I think just 'cause I've been watching a lot of it, but I'm going to say, Queer Eye.

Lex: Yeah, but like with who?

Jordan: And I'm going to leave... I'm so sorry, I'm going to leave Tan.

Lex: [Laughs] Okay. Okay. Alright, that was pretty good. You want to hear mine?

Jordan: Tell me. Mmm hmm.

Lex: It's Full House. It's Full House. It's just Bob Saget and a bunch of worms. That's it. Alright, thank you so much for tuning in to Or, Learn Parkour. We will see you in two weeks.

Both: Bye!

50:06 [Music Outro] 50:40 [END OF TAPE]

Or, Learn Parkour: An ADHD Podcast

OLP 001: Bob Saget and a Bunch of Worms

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