Dr K teaches Mizkif Advanced Tactics for ADHD

do you want to see my presentation hell yeah baby you don't it's terrible this is like something that someone with adhd made i'm telling you yeah do you see me now yes how are you bro i am great bro what's going on bro um i am getting over side effects from a cova vaccine which is not fun wait wait wait wait wait you already got the covet vaccine yeah how'd you get it so fast i'm a physician i'm group 1a but you don't even if you're don't you just sit at home you're not a like the don't aren't positions just doing stuff online through like skype absolutely so why would it why would it be important for me to be immune from covet if i'm not seeing patients great question correct right so what happens if i get sick this if i end up in the icu for a month what happens then you need to see a doctor and then it's just an ongoing problem more importantly what happens to all of my patients who are more suicidal because kovit is making life worse who takes care of them if i'm sick destiny i don't know yeah that's the problem man so i i thought about it for a little while and i was talking to my friends about it because i was like i'm not actually front line i don't physically see patients and then i realize like i literally cannot afford to get sick yeah i get that my you know people are especially college students is who i see at the worst end where like people are way worse like college students are really struggling um i don't know exactly what it is but we'll see well they're probably depressed that their college careers are already like let's say if you're a senior or freshman or something in the middle even it's your college career has essentially like people think of college like the best years of your life and then when you go to college and all of a sudden for the past year maybe even two years you're just wasting away and you're ruining your whole college experience yeah i think that's certainly a part of it um i think people find it incredibly isolating because a lot of college like you know you get a lot of support from your people and not being able to see people and stuff like that i think has been tough i don't know if you've ever tried to you know take do class entirely through zoom and without interacting with professors and things like that but that's rough man just zoom all day every day yeah i've done online classes but i didn't do zoom that sounds absolutely brutal i feel like at first it sounds fantastic and then after like the first couple weeks have you ever seen the squidward thing where squidward's really happy and then he gets really upset because he's a squidward is a spongebob character or what ah crap yeah we're completely off yeah it's a spongebob character pretty much he's like in the ballpark yeah you're right you're right there's no ballparks in spongebob though but he uh pretty much sponge or squidward he's like really happy that he has this like life and then he just gets really depressed after like two weeks because he's like this sucks hmm is that something you identify with no not at all i'm actually i actually i have big news i so after i talked to you last which was about over a year ago um around a year ago i was on sri's 20 milligram lexapro and now i'm not on it anymore i'm completely off of it i went from 20 to 10 to five and now i'm at none how do you understand that that i'm off of it yeah how did that happen good for you um well i said to my you know actually maya said it to me she's like why are you on this if you're not depressed and i'm like yeah i guess you're right and i i really wasn't depressed anymore um but i felt like i had a cotton ball in my head for like the past 12 months yeah fuzzy no i'm like my grandma died i was like all right whatever my you know people died i'm like whatever like it it's i didn't really get to experience the emotional waves because there just felt like there was a cotton ball stuck in my head for the past 12 months and it's still there it's not going to go away for at least a few more months right i i don't know are you suggesting the cotton ball was due to the the medication yeah i mean 20 milligrams was a lot it was true i felt it but i don't know how long does lexical last in your system uh usually i think about an average of like eight weeks so if we think about the therapeutic effect of ssris they take about eight weeks to fully get active in your brain and so i think about that as sort of the minimum amount of time that they sort of stay with you and and i mean i've had some people who you know will take months to kind of get better other people will will get better in like a couple of weeks actually so it just depends on the person hmm did you i i assume you since you talked about doing a taper i assumed that your prescriber was aware that you were coming off of the medication yeah yeah i i told him he i mean he was really i mean i like went in there and he's just like you're depressed and i'm like huh and he just gave me ssris and then i'm like i want to get off of this he's like just cut them in half i'm like okay um very i don't know if he has takes ssris but he was very unemotional with it he was just like get in get out just next um that's okay i mean it worked i i it solved my problems for about a year and then uh so that was good and i i did get off of this two days ago and i still feel it for sure but i just hope to have some emotional pull with stuff compared to what i did but yeah it also makes me lack creativity as much as i used to i hate that yeah that sounds like the medication cost you a lot yeah it cost me a lot but it helped me a lot because i was in a really i mean i don't know if you remember but i was i went to a ward i with the depersonalization issues and it kind of just like put a cotton ball on my head it was just like stop and i'm like all right so it did help it it almost numbed the pain it was like a it like put a band-aid on it but uh it didn't really heal it but now i feel a lot better how do you think so it sounds like you got healed uh yeah i i i feel like i've gotten healed i feel a lot better i feel like i've went from this uh i mean i still have a lot of problems for sure i mean i'm a streamer for one but i i do have a lot of problems but i think um i i do i'm not depressed anymore that's for sure i i don't think i'm depressed i don't think i i don't have any anxiety i i i really bad anxiety where i would just wake up in the middle it was really at night i don't i don't know if it's a common thing if it but people having anxiety only at night in their sleep or before they go to bed that's all i never had anxiety during the day it was i didn't care about that i only had it before i went to bed or dirt while i was sleeping i would have anxiety what um miss if what would you wake up worrying about in the middle of the night that's the thing really nothing i i didn't really worry or care about any my stomach would just start feeling like it's it's doing 360s and i i felt pain in my stomach and i'm like i don't know what this anxiety is from yeah it was really bad it's not very physiologic anxiety as opposed to a cognitive anxiety like it was in your body as opposed to your mind is there is there a big difference i guess there's a big difference what is it what does it mean like isn't i feel it more than yeah so i think you know it's funny because anxiety is getting worse like in the world so more people are getting diagnosed with anxiety more people are getting treated with anxiety the number of people diagnosed as climbing over time and so if we think about it like you were about to say something no i was gonna wonder why you think that yeah it's an interesting question right so like do illnesses just sort of like especially mental health issues do they just sort of randomly get worse like what's going on um oddly enough i think part of the reason that it's happening in this country is because we think about anxiety as a psychiatric problem right like we're like if you have anxiety like go see a therapist whereas the funny thing is that when we sort of remove the body from the equation then we run into people like yourself where you go talk to a therapist and they're gonna ask you about your thoughts and your feelings but you know clinical social workers psychologists they're not going to be like they don't know anything about the body and when i hear a story like this it reminds me that you know anxiety has two roots it can be rooted in your body or it can be rooted in your mind and the two connect with each other but i think part of the reason that in a sense people are getting more anxious is because we're leaving out half of our solutions because half of the solutions for anxiety actually rely reside in the body not the mind [Music] i see that that makes sense so you have a physiologic anxiety so i think you know talking about your emotions and talking about your feelings and doing therapy will probably help because that is going to affect your body it's going to lower your stress levels it's going to lower your cortisol things like that that will affect your stomach sure but if you've got you know primarily a physical problem then sometimes what you need is primarily a physical solution it's either like working out working out is a part of it but that's a very untargeted solution right so if you had like issues in your stomach i'd say that's what you should start with so you know are you constipated uh i used to be when i was a kid i used to take uh suppositories yeah so how are your bowel movements now squeaky clean i think how many how many do you have one every day um i'd say about let me know if i ask you any questions that you're uncomfortable answering there's nothing you could say that i care about uh let me ask you next question floaters or sinkers does your poop float or does it sink um good question i usually try to just like flush and get the hell out of there but i would say probably most of the time it's it's it's a log okay okay i remember last time he told me to get this pill that uh can help me with my uh began with the sea i think it was to try to help that certainly sounds like medical advice i doubt i would do that oh okay i don't remember what it was i said i don't know what did i tell you i don't or maybe have something like you put in your drink or something um i forgot i thought it began with the letter c did i tell you to take fenugreek seeds oh that's a yeah yeah so this is where um you know biscuits so in ayurveda they think that most of the problems in our mind actually start in our bowels and there's growing evidence of this actually as bizarre as that sounds there are even trials where they'll do stool transplants so what they'll do is they'll take like stool from one organism that doesn't have anxiety and they'll give that so they'll transplant that stool into another organism and then the the recipient of the transplant will like feel better do you think that's because the stool is like it's like what they're eating yeah absolutely so so here's so here's what happens so like our bowels have bacteria right and the bacteria are going to be selected for based on what i put into my stomach so one bacteria is going to be really good at digesting twinkies and the other bacteria is going to be really good at digesting broccoli and what happens is when we eat a bunch of twinkies we're select we're feeding the twinkie bacteria so that grows in our gut and then when we eat a bunch of broccoli that grows the bacteria the broccoli bacteria and what we found is that actually we have a very symbiotic relationship with bacteria and they produce lots of compounds that sort of like you know go into our bloodstream and stuff like that some kinds of bacteria also cause more inflammation and there are even some trials for example that are exploring the use of anti-inflammatory agents like ibuprofen or advil for depression wow yeah so it's like all interconnected and basically what people have found is that people who have low anxiety for example have two kinds of bacteria in their gut and people who have high anxiety have a different two kinds of bacteria so there's like pro-anxiety bacteria and there's anti-anxiety bacteria and if you think about how do you switch from pro-anxiety bacteria to anti-anxiety bacteria one could be a stool transplant but the other way you can do it is by altering your diet and this is what the folks in the ayurvedic folks basically figured out is that there are some kinds of foods that you can eat that'll lower your anxiety level is one of them broccoli let me think about that i'm sure it won't hurt i'd say the key thing about broccoli would be to eat it cooked if you want to lower your anxiety based on ayurvedic theory that's interesting yeah i could definitely see that because a lot of times when i had anxiety was i felt it in my gut but i don't know if that's related at all but i actually have a question for you so yeah shoot i still have a problem and i don't know how to solve it and it's every day i deal with this i've been dealing with my entire life um i don't know what to do with my adhd uh when it comes to you know like a kaleidoscope i feel like that's how i view life at all times and i'm not really there it feels like i'm just watching it's like it's like life is a movie and i'm like watching it i don't know how to describe it but i never feel like i'm actually like mentally there enjoying moments because there's a lot of times where i should be really happy or a lot of times where um [Music] it it's like my body's there i'm like and i could talk it's not like i'm like you know in like the avatar state or something where i can't talk i could talk and i could do everything but i just mentally i feel like i'm in another world where are you uh thinking honestly what i don't know um about random things he'll be just a lot of random things and i'm not really sure exactly what usually those things are but we have a question where are you from are you from california i'm from texas dude wait you're in texas yeah wait what oh because the the quality of the camera's horrible and i thought it's because i was in texas i don't know where it is i don't i don't know seems fine to me but are you in dallas no i'm in houston or near houston ah but yeah i see my example of my adhd it's therapist i don't even know what that would be yeah but let me ask you something so let's let's you said this has been going on your entire life so you're saying that your body and parts of your mind will participate in regular life but that your attention is somewhere else yes 100 um you've like you've turned on auto run and your character is just that that's that's actually exactly how it feels it feels like i am not there but i i get everything done like i'll stop and sometimes i'll be saying to myself like how the hell am i doing this like i'll be like in a run in speed running in mario and i'll be like under by two minutes and i'll be like how am i even i'm not even paying attention like what the hell is going on and or i do feel like i'm almost doing life on auto and i don't and it's like that my whole life it's not just because now i i can just turn on the stream and people are there it's my whole life i feel like it's been auto my whole life i feel like i've been um [Music] i've never really gotten to enjoy the moment and it just has that kaleidoscope feeling where it just feels like a billion things are going on and i don't i never know how to just focus and enjoy like i want to be able to just sit there look outside and just feel like i'm actually there enjoying the sun and i've never ever been able to do that even when i i like um i have like a really nice sunset at my house it just i see it all the time and i never really get to enjoy it because there's always stuff going on my head or then all of a sudden even if i'm not thinking of anything crazy some song will start playing like in the back of my head just music songs um anything it's very odd and i i don't know what to do so what i'm hearing you say is that you're not able to be present and that you've never been able to be present yeah i've never really been able to be present at all and i think that also not being present really affects the ability for me to uh my ability not to present makes me have a lack of of memory with a lot of these things because yeah i'm there and i'm talking to you but my brain's in six different places like right now i'm listening while i'm talking to you there's like three songs going to back my head a tick tock that maya showed me maya making me food and i'm thinking about the fact that there's a guy coming with my furniture in about 30 minutes it's like i'm not i'm here but i want to be present like and i feel like i'm not fully present have you ever been present in your entire life really i've have had terrible adhd and a lot of times uh when i'm not present it's usually me trying to think of the next thing to say that will make someone laugh um it's it's usually yeah it's usually me trying to be what can i say or do you ever taken a road trip and you really really really needed to pee yes and then when you actually pee where's your mind in that moment where you start kissing are you still doing like five or six things in your head i don't think so i don't i don't remember fully but i'm gonna assume no so where is your attention then fully on the piss but that's because it matters right well hold on a second why it happens we'll figure out later first question is does it happen um yes it does happen where you're fully central focused on one thing and i i guess that i was gonna say that happens when you're working out but even then i remember lifting like stuff and um while i'm benching i'll be like you know thinking of stupid stuff i'm like why am i thinking of this i should just focus on the weights uh but yeah it does happen with the piss i think it's it's more so i guess that's a very why that happens i'm assuming just because it's the most important thing for humans at the time because we're it's like our bowels moving i don't know yeah it's it's interesting right so let like we'll we'll figure out how to get you there miss kiff um but the first thing is to recognize that you actually can be present at times so um but you know i'm what i'm hearing you say is that it's practically very hard it's so hard and yeah it's really hard to be present seems like that's cost you a lot oh yeah it's i mean i you know all you can have all the success in the world but when you don't get to enjoy it it's rough and i mean um it's not even then it's it's uh i it goes to the thing with the memory problem i mean i don't remember a single thing from my childhood not a single my friends would be like oh remember this remember we did this my brother will say stuff my sister will say stuff people say stuff i don't remember any of it my parents will talk about times when we went to the water park i don't remember we went to a water park my parents would talk about this you know um my grandma recently died i don't remember anything from her house i remember her house i remember you know one or two things but i don't remember as much as i wish i did i don't remember a lot of the things and partially i i wish i took more pictures when i was younger uh but i didn't because i had acne but i partially think that it's because i just i'm not i wasn't there in the present moment thinking about it i was thinking about other things or my future or problems i don't know being in the present's very hard for me it just is yeah and i'm also kind of noticing that it really has cost you a lot it's almost like your brain is like you know a colander that's just like leaking memories and then you're sort of not left with anything yeah it doesn't feel and i i mean yeah i mean and partially it you know there's pros and cons to everything in life and one of the pros of that is i forget everything so fast so if something bad happens to me i forget it in 20 minutes and i'm like whatever you know next thing so it's it's easier in that way where i forget everything but at the same time you don't really have a lot of memories or like like i played world of warcraft for 10 years and i don't remember a single thing let me ask you something if you is there some something that happened to you that you really that some part of your mind thought it was really important to forget like a childhood experience it's interesting you kind of said that you forget everything easily which is an upside so i'm kind of curious how has that helped you uh oh how it's helped me to forget things uh i don't know like i mean like i guess an example i could think of right now is because of chat or like twitch chat like let's say someone makes me really mad uh a lot of times like i'll hear my friends say that like oh you know twitch was chat was terrible today blah blah blah and yeah sometimes my chat could get bad too everyone scan and when it happens for my chat for for me i i forget about it in 20 minutes i don't remember like oh that happened like so let me ask you something in a different way mskiff if you didn't forget everything in 20 minutes what would your mind be like what would have what would you have held on to memories yeah so good memories any particular bad ones hmm wait i realize it's kind of weird because i'm asking you to remember that which you have forgot yeah and you're in a reasonable situation i remember a lot of bad memories with my family not a lot of good ones though i don't remember a lot of the good times i just remember a lot of like oh this person died i remember what happened when this person died or this guy died i don't really remember when we had fun i just remember when he died or like my my dog died like a couple months ago and i'm like i don't remember and i remember all the bad times like i had to go catch him because he was in the highway running around or uh jumping on my neighbors and them threatening to sue us but i don't remember the times where you just hang out i don't remember any of it all i remember is him being horrible so how do you understand that that it seems like you actually hold on to a lot of the bad very little of the good yeah i don't know maybe it's because i i i don't know why i do that but yeah i do that i i think of a lot of the bad but not the good maybe it's because i'm uh i don't know this might miss maybe a stretch but i'm very future like i i care a lot about my future i've always been like that like since a young age i've always been caring about you know what my future's gonna be like when i'm like 30 or 40 or 50. that's what i've cared about a lot is my future not necessarily my present like all uh whether i like i was at a young age and i was investing in stocks i was saving money to invest in stocks uh and that kind of stuff so help me understand you cared so much about the future why did you care so why do you care so much uh my parents made me tell me about that their their accountants i mean their their typical nine to five go to work hate your job hate your life mundane uh wake up at six in the morning give your kids your food go to work at eight o'clock get home by six o'clock sit down watch you know cnn and go to bed by nine i mean it's a very mundane boring life and that's partially i became a streamer because i saw that life and i'm like god i don't want to be you because uh you know i i know that they had a lot of things that they really cared about and a lot of things that they really wanted to become and they they never did any of it because they were just stuck in their nine to five jobs they never tried anything in life sounds like yeah you weren't going to be destined to be like that well i actually was for a while i was going to go to this place called vanguard and because i took a lot of adderall and i was like i took a lot of adderall i almost became like a different person from taking it i took it for six years and i said to myself like you know what i'll i'll i'll do this route of life it's not bad a job the nine to five is not a bad life but where's your mind right now i'm playing with this thing where's your mind though or is it how i'm on telling the story i'm trying to like think of the story in my head it's like it's like trying to like reach in my head and grab a story out of a out of a container i don't know i i'm trying to think of it it's hard yep yep so let's pause because i think there's something important here okay so i i would say that oddly enough this is the most focused you've been since we've started talking yeah it's because i started playing with this i'm when i'm when i usually am playing with something i'm i'm focused more good how do you understand that uh because oddly enough when i was a couple months ago is all we did was play pokemon cards and i've kept this deck because if i'm ever feeling really adhd i play with this deck and i just do this and i think it almost like makes me focus more because there's something distracting me i don't know i feel like a kid with booboo keys but it i mean it does work no no my friend you have just on your own discovered what's that this one of the sanskrit words for meditation oh you've essentially discovered the essence of meditation all on your own without anyone teaching you it's re it's really a beautiful discovery and i think your answer is going to be right there because you've learned how to focus right so your mind is what it is we can get upset about whatever but what happens when you start shuffling your pokemon cards i it [Music] i don't i don't i don't know how to describe it i don't know why it works but it just does like when i play with things it just makes me focus more that i don't and i don't get why so the sanskrit the the yogi's had a word for things like pokemon cards and that strap that word is alambana alambana means support so what they realize is that they're like supports for meditative practice and focusing the mind essentially i don't know exactly how they figured this out but it must have been some guy with adhd like yourself who made an interesting observation which is that when we have something that sort of demands our attention and we are kind of fiddling with it somehow that actually focuses it's like this is the way i want you to think about your mind miss gif you've got a certain amount of ram the problem is that you've got too much ram for your own good and then what happens is like you want to be at 130 capacity all the time and so like you've got these five or six different processes that are going and what you really need to focus is something to take the excess mental energy off yeah and if you can offload some of that excess mental energy then you'll actually be able to focus um and that's you know it's interesting when i when i'm doing speed running so i don't know if you watch but i do a lot of mario now when i i speed run i actually feel more focused to my chat than i do when i'm sitting full cam talking to them yep because it's almost like that fidget thing that i'm playing with is in a game yeah so that's the alumna so as long as you have one thing so this is the way that i want you to kind of think about it like you run too fast for your own good so what we need to do is not and this is the real problem with people with adhd is that they think that they're like stupid or something your problem is not that your mind is too weak your problem is that your mind is too strong so in order to slow you down what we need to do is like stick some weights on your back we're gonna give you a backpack full of bricks and this is also the kind of thing where like one of my teachers once taught me this which is that i was failing when i was doing like one thing so in college i started getting just straight f's like f-bombing less than 1.0 gpa i think my first semester of college and so then my i was doing a bunch of [ __ ] and then my dad was like you know cut out all the extracurriculars don't run for student government just focus on your classes and then i focus on my classes and my gpa got worse and then he's like okay like let's take half a regular course load so like i'm not doing any extracurriculars not doing anything else i'm just going to take like i'm going to be a half time slow you completely froze to me uh oh gg yeah where'd i lose you there we go oh and your camera looks so much better do you remember where we were in the story yes you were saying how when you were a kid you're um when you were a kid you're uh your dad told you to when you're in college to not do all the extra correct all the extracurricular yep extracurriculars yeah and then you you stopped taking your extracurricular activities and then you did worse yep and then then the next semester i took like half a regular course load and i still did worse and so one of my one of my teachers i went to india then and decided to become a monk and all that good stuff and one of my teachers was telling me that like taking half a normal course load is a terrible idea that in order for my mind to be at peak efficiency i need to be juggling multiple balls and so i think you're someone who's the same way msgif where like if your mind is actually juggling multiple things you're going to actually perform even better and you just need what can i do with that what how can i be more present you know like that like that that's my real problem because i i like i wish you know like when you're eating food at like a sushi restaurant or something and it's like so good i don't i don't feel that as much as like i feel like everyone else does because i'm like sitting i'm like i'm not enjoying this as much as you are like it's it's just food to me like and that's why i'll eat literally almost anything is because i just to me it's just food when like people like enjoy the tastes and i feel like they're just there in the moment and they're able to enjoy that taste and for me i can't do that i've never been able to really enjoy it and i that's what i really wish i could fix is the feeling of not being in the moment okay so i think we can at least start you on the road to that today so two things that i would recommend one is um and i'm happy to send you one if you don't have one or can't find one you have a set of prayer beats no okay so a couple things we can do one is that i would recommend a practice which is that you carry some prayer beads around and whenever you want to that is going to be the thing that you distract yourself with it's going to be an alumna okay so like what i want you to do is like use a set of prayer beads and if you want to i'll give you like a mantra like a mantra or something like that too which is like something that you're going to repeat to yourself as you use the prayer beads it's going to be the same thing as the pokemon cards or the belt or whatever else does that make sense so a prayer beads it's not to pray it's to no it's not just to hold to hold and to use so i want you to repeat something to yourself this is if you want to okay so what i'm saying is that instead of using random alumnis to use one alumni and to use it over and over and over and over and over and over and over again um that makes sense like a fidget thing there's like a lot of fidget adhd toys on on yep exactly just like a fidget thing now there is a particular tradition which would argue that if you chant a particular month or you use the set of prayer beads that it is superior to other kinds of fidget things i'll try it okay so that's one option and so what i want you to do is just use that as the excess ram buffer so any amount of excess energy that you have you can go ahead and use that you can carry carry it around with you you can keep it on your wrist the next time you eat sushi i want you to pull it off your wrist and then do that with one hand while you eat the sushi with the other i'm gonna look like i'm like like i'm like doing an exorcism off of my sushi but i'll do it try it and see what happens right so let me ask you this if you were doing poke if you were shuffling your pokemon cards at the table while you know your girlfriend fed you sushi do you think it would taste better honestly probably yeah as weird as it sounds i mean that's why when fidget spinners came out and people were like oh haha like this is a funny thing i was like this is sick because it actually did help i remember i had it in the hospital i'm like this is cool because it actually worked for me yeah um so that's it made me feel more in the moment i i didn't i didn't i wasn't aware that you were in the hospital by the way but um and then oh yeah it was [Music] it was it was when i i was in the hospital for uh i i have our condition you have what a heart condition okay yeah it's called viral myocarditis it's uh because i took all my adderall for six years and then uh my heart got really weak and when my heart got really weak i started taking adderall or well that made no sense um i took out of all my heart got really weak i apparently they say i drank pool water or something and it was contaminated gave myself a virus in my heart and it's there forever and then one day while i was uh with my friends the heart virus came out more and i got really really sick uh it's hard to hear that man no yeah it's fine i mean i had a fidget spinner so it's okay you said i thought you said something about depersonalization oh insane i i've always had depersonalization issues but i i think a lot of people with adhd do it's just like um i never feel like i'm really there it goes back to that i just never feel like i'm it i i literally feel like every day my life it's just like a wise man named john cerca says that you know my life is like a movie but for me my life feels like a movie where i feel like i'm not really there and i i think it's also been personified over the past couple years because i was once a twitch viewer right it's all i did i just sat there i watched twitch eight hours a day nine hours a day i didn't type but i just watched twitch and over the past few years obviously the growth has just been going up up up up right and um i i think i used to say to myself when i was in my and and back in when a couple years ago i would be like man if how does justin bieber feel like life is real you know like how does he not feel like that his life is like fake or that it's some kind of like [ __ ] because this dude's you know got millions of dollars everyone knows his name why him you know same with these streamers why them and then it makes me think like uh i i always had to see personalization issues but i think it's got even worse now because it's like why me with this massive growth of twitch and i don't get any of it and it makes me feel like almost like i like why like does that make sense yeah it makes a lot of sense yeah so this is kind of going to be weird but um you know we can talk a little bit more about the depersonalization in a second the second thing that i'm going to ask you to do is to go one level meta so if you can't enjoy the sushi can you at least be present with your scattered mind that's hard too what do you mean by that i like as we're talking right now it's it's just i don't know like it's almost like there's layers of different things that i'm think down here like let's say up here is present time right and like there's just layers of stuff that my brain is just constantly thinking about it's not just like one thing right now i'm thinking of camp laszlo and mitch jones okay i don't know why okay biscuit perfect so let me ask you something how are you aware that there are layers um because i i guess like over like thinking of it about it over i mean i've had it for so long i've just thought about it it's just you know the idea of some things are much more apparent in my mind right now like i was like this is like layer one when like layer four is like camp laszlo or mitch jones yeah so so you say you've thought about it sort of right so let's be clear on on what that means and i'm going to put something forward because i could be wrong here but what i would say is that what you've thought about is making sense of your experience but there still remains the fact that you are the the raw data of different layers of consciousness are there so there's still a part of you that like is observing the surface thoughts the deeper thoughts and like the subsurface thoughts yeah it feels like yeah it's like i'm here like looking down my layers i don't know it's so it's so complicated yep but i i do feel like i'm like looking at my layers so then so let me ask you something what is the you who is doing the looking in that moment like my i guess i feel like this is an sat question i don't know it's it's it's what just what do you think it is just start talking you're more right than you realize um when you say is right it's like i i guess it's it's it feels like it's probably me right like my body and then my brain is like the layers yep right so i would describe it yeah so let's just so that's a beautiful way to put it so i'm gonna rephrase a little bit so what you're saying is that there's something i'm gonna call your brain your mind okay because you can't really see your brain what you can see is your mind which is like your thoughts and then i'm i'm i'm so we're just going to say that there's something outside of your mind that is observing the actions of your mind and whereas most human beings are sort of just aware of one layer of their mind right like so even if we think about something like subconscious processing like i'm gonna go to sleep one night i'm gonna worry about a problem and then when i wake up i have no conscious recollection of it but my unconscious is kind of working on it and then eventually i'll come to an answer does that make sense sorry okay so like most human beings are not aware of their subconscious processes whereas you are oh god that makes sense right so like let's think about someone who's like getting cold feet before a wedding and they wake up the morning of and they're like you know what i can't go through with it even though on the surface they've been like planning their wedding for the last 60 days subsurface there's been some like churning of thoughts and feelings that they've been completely unaware of which is why how they got to wedding day in the first place but then they wake up on the day of the wedding they're like [ __ ] it i can't do this this person isn't right for me does that make sense yeah but i and i'm able to see those layers yeah that doesn't make sense and so the interesting thing there is that like if we think about someone who's absorbed in sushi they're just absorbed at the surface layer of mind whereas your problem is that your attention is fractured by like all of these other layers of mind that you're observing so what can i do it's a good question so the first thing is can you sit with the part of you and be present with the part of you that notices the fracturing so you're saying that you're you're my your life is like a movie movie right and you're watching can you be present in the and you're looking at someone watching like you're you're watching a movie of someone eating sushi and you're like man like that person on the screen is really enjoying the sushi but i can't taste it sitting in the theater that's what your life is like right yeah and so then the question is can you sit with the person who's in the theater fully like fully be able to like back up and see everything yeah or just sit with the observer it's so hard i've tried i've tried everything i i've i have tried everything when it comes to this stuff i don't know sure i guess i feel like i have no i believe you i think you've i think you've come a very long way on your own and without any help yeah and i i think it's gotten worse it's only going to get worse for to and trying to not trying to be like in the theater rather than it's it's it's honestly going to get harder for me or it's gotten harder because like i mean i don't think technology really helps i mean like there's like seven different monitors and like six cat cams or whatever like there's a billion different things that just draw your attention as well so it's even harder to feel like you're present or harder to really understand your emotions um what i've noticed the best way to do it is i is and to really understand what i'm thinking about is to almost i close my eyes a lot to understand it so that way i'm not looking at anything and the only thing i could possibly focus on is my brain or my mind okay let me just think about this for a second if you have to close your eyes i get it no so uh actually um misc if i'm like you and i need my i need the random sensory input from my eyes to offload my access ram so it actually helps me to have eyes open and like look at all kinds of random things sometimes my patients think i'm not paying attention because my mind has to just like look around at random [ __ ] um that's interesting yeah for me it's the more random should i look at the more i start thinking of random stuff and the worse it gets if i close my eyes and i'm able to like i mean there's there's nothing i can look at right when my eyes are closed um so it's a lot easier for me to think in my mind or try to understand or be more present but i don't want to be blind um yeah so it sounds like it's very hard for you to sit with just sitting in the theater yeah can you start everywhere can you be present in the theater i'm not talking about being present with the sushi i'm talking about being present with the thing that notices that you're not present with the sushi i don't think i've ever been present anywhere okay okay so you also sound kind of hopeless to me yeah kind of hey i don't know i just did i i i feel like i've tried this for so long and i actually was excited as a kid to grow up because i was excited that hopefully adhd would get less and like not as bad but it just stayed the same and um i feel like i've tried so much are you still taking stimulant medication if you don't mind oh no no i stopped that years ago uh like three years ago i can't uh because my heart condition i wasn't able to take adderall yeah so how do you think what do you think has happened to your attention since you stopped the medication uh it's gotten worse but what's crazy is even when i was on the medication it's not like i was like wow like this is what real life feels like i almost like was still on the outer scope of myself and i'm like inside a robot suit and the robot was able to do everything but i was stuck inside the robot suit just watching myself do all the work um i didn't feel really even present while on adderall i just felt like i was able to work this is gonna be hard but just stay with me okay so here's the problem so you're inside the robot suit and what you're trying to do is grasp the full experience of the robot yes right so what i'm telling you to do is instead of even trying to grasp the full experience of the robot grasp the full experience of the dude inside the robot suit so you want me to instead of trying to yeah so instead of trying to instead focus yeah just focus on the inside not on the outside yep so like i know this is gonna sound weird but instead of saying oh man i wish i could really enjoy this sushi right now say to yourself oh look i'm someone who can't enjoy the sushi right now that sucks that's what it sounds like i completely agree it does suck but this that this kit this is going to be hard but follow me okay because you're not enjoying the sushi anyway so you're not a problem the problem here is that you've got two things working against you one is that you can't enjoy the sushi and the second is that you beat yourself up for not being able to enjoy the sushi yeah i all the time i even while everyone else is enjoying the sushi i'm so it adds another like think of the layers it adds another layer what i'm saying myself like i'm already thinking of jimmy neutron you know mitch jones dancing add another layer the other layer is wow now everyone is enjoying the sushi and having fun and i'm sitting here in my own head and i can't think of anything okay so let me ask you a wild question which of the layers do you think interferes with your enjoyment of the sushi the most uh the one that's at the top which is one i mean they all do to a sense but definitely the one where i'm not i'm thinking to myself about all the other layers and i'm like damn that top layer i'm like i can't enjoy this [ __ ] um yeah so just think about that for a second what i'm telling you to do is accept that you can't enjoy the sushi because the problem is that when you beat yourself up for not enjoying the sushi it creates tension and a rift in your mind tension and rift in internal warring in the mind is the very opposite of mindfulness it's the very opposite of presence when you're warring with your mind you're not present at all so the issue is how how do you get rid of that top layer how do you get rid of beating yourself up for not like it's kind of like a self-defeating prophecy because you're not enjoying the sushi so you beat yourself up and by beating yourself up you're not unable to enjoy the sushi because that's the top layer of mind yeah i feel that's crazy i almost want to draw this out because i feel like hmm i wish i had like a piece of paper go get your paper in a pen just like last time bro go i'm going [Music] now we're getting somewhere [Music] [Music] okay all right so i got this because i feel like chat or that and people in general are not to understand we're talking about pretty much how it feels is let's say this is me right obviously my legs are a little bit shorter but this is how my mind feels it's like there's layers and this and let's say everyone is up here enjoying sushi having fun i feel like most people maybe have like one or two layers of issues or things that they're thinking about when for me or someone with adhd it's like we have you know five different layers of problems like down here is just a you know a random song over this one is just like camp laszlo for some reason i don't know why but i'm just randomly thinking about it and these are all constantly switching around with my thoughts all the time and it's just constant but then but the more the layers go up the more that it's prominent in my mind at the time this number one is usually why can't i'm terrible at writing i be present and that's caused because of all these other layers that are making me not present so what you're saying is instead of caring about why can't i be present focus on these these layers nope that's not what i'm saying what i'm saying is be present with layer number one so be present here yeah just sit with yourself and acknowledge oh miss gif is someone that cannot enjoy sushi alas i am cursed so be it look at everyone else enjoying that sushi and here i am being unable to enjoy it because of the activity of my mind i want you to be the person in the audience who is watching the movie where the dude is not enjoying the sushi because the problems huh the movie sucks i don't want to do that there's your problem so it sounds to me like you've tried everything under the sun except this yeah so here's what you need to do to move past it mischief you need to grieve and i think that you don't know how to grieve and the reason that you don't know how to grieve is because your mind from a very very young age taught you how to forget and that's why you don't remember so when something bad happens to you your mind is a survival mechanism has learned how to forget yeah and so what you need to do is learn how to sit with your inability to sit with something and so you can still be present see like i think this is really good it's hard don't get me wrong this is like this is like the silver bullet okay and there are going to be easier ways that we can get you to this remember i told you about the mala first but if you can learn how to sit with your inability to sit with something what you're still doing is learning how to sit with something to be present with your scattered mind yeah i i will uh so you're saying i have always been trying to figure out how to stop these layers when i should realize by now that's not gonna happen and what i should focus on instead of you know that is just focus on the fact that i can't this is this is what yeah so i know it sounds weird but this is what you're trying to do so like my kids the other day i i told them that they were in the bath and i told them hey i want to show you something really cool but the water in the bathtub has to be still and so they're playing in the bathtub and i'm like the water in the bathtub has to be still before we put this boat in the bathtub and so what they try to do is push the waves down and what happens when they do that they wait push the waves yeah down yep they create more waves absolutely wow that was a very beautiful way of saying it so here you are with the top layer of your mind trying to push all of the waves of the other or the other part of the mind down push it down baby you guys [ __ ] stop with camp laszlo i'm trying to enjoy sushi here [ __ ] camp laszlo and that creates tension in the mind that creates a war in the mind and then you wonder why you can't enjoy sushi yeah so a calm mind can enjoy things and the problem is that at the top the biggest thing is why can't i be present and what i'm telling you if you want that to go away accept it it'll melt yeah maybe you're right because i i feel like my whole life is just it literally this is what it feels like all the time and what's odd is whatever i have and this is what i think some people might understand like let's say if i have a toy that i'm playing with in my head that this whole thing goes from like five layers to just kind of almost one or two which is toy and then thoughts and then maybe maybe another layer which is just like camping like okay okay so misskip this is important when you play with the toy you're not fighting anything yeah that's what reduces the number of layers you're removing tension from the mind you're offloading energy instead of two parts warring with each other one of the armies goes off and spins a fidget spinner and when it goes off and spins a fidget the tension in the mind reduces you remove the excess energy and your mind is left in a calmer state it's almost like when your kids instead of fighting the waves they're just playing with the boat the waves calm down absolutely absolutely so i need more toys so the mala is one toy that you can train to use so that other so a couple of principles here sure you need more toys but there is a there's a hypothesis that you can actually level up with one toy and that the more you level up with that toy the stronger it becomes at like reducing different layers of your mind yeah i agree i i think uh a good adhd toy would be nice and yeah i i think that that makes a lot of sense is if i'm able instead of trying to fight the waves just go with them or and and the waves will melt because if you're trying to fight waves you can't fight the wave like i and you're right whenever i'm in this moment of like my friends enjoying sushi i'm always mainly thinking about like [ __ ] i'm not enjoying this at all i am not enjoying the sushi they're enjoying it that's why it tastes so much better to them than me and that these problems still happen but this one is so prominent if i just you know be in my mind instead yeah it can make a big difference let me ask you what hap the harder you try to enjoy the sushi what happens i the less i enjoy it because i'm overthinking absolutely so if the harder you try to fight it the less your enjoyment happens what i'm telling you to do is [ __ ] embrace it baby sit with yourself being unable to enjoy it it's the going to the opposite end of the spectrum because the more that you add energy to your mind the greater the conflict is going to be you're just pumping energy into this existing pattern of conflict in your mind i won't fight it i won't fight it anymore i will play that episode of camp laszlo that's been in my head it's gonna be tough because your entire life you have learned your mind has become habituated to fighting it yeah it's so bad it's all i think about so it's i'll think about it even while i'm streaming i'm like why am i not like everyone's like watch a video and and everyone's like oh but this happened this video and this i'm like but miss gif bro do you get it so you say that i do this all the time my mind does it all the time exactly why do you think you can't be present ever the two go hand in hand yeah what are you fighting in your mind when you take a piss when your bladder is full nothing there's your presence so from now on instead of trying to fight this just relax and i'll relax and i'll i'll i'll understand i will be instead of fighting it i will go with it which is the exact opposite yeah that's why i've never been able to enjoy it so instead of fighting why can't i embrace it because it's never going to change i'm 25 years old and i obviously have never it's never been able to change embrace the fact that i can't be present and just not be present be the guy in the movie theater that's sitting there be the guy that's watching everybody else it is what it is and that is the most present that i'll be able to feel is because that is who i am right yes beautiful but toys would be good yeah so i want you to draw an eyeball at the top right of your board yeah it doesn't have to be so far up but sure okay so this is the other thing i want you to notice is that this eyeball is looking at your mind right so layers one through five and layers one through three there is an observing capacity the eyeball is the dude in the theater do you understand that yeah so what i want you to do is sit with the eyeball sit with the dude in the theater and then miss gif i'm gonna let you in on a huge secret bro you are watching the one movie where you can actually taste a little bit of the sushi that sounds nice right now be you know be careful because you can fall into the same trap with relaxing you said i'm just gonna relax because then when you try to relax what are you gonna do to yourself what's your mind trained to do freak out yes it's going to say oh my god miss give i should be relaxing why can't i relax god damn it relax so then what you sit with is oh look this guy on the screen is freaking the [ __ ] out because he can't chill this [ __ ] dude sucks for him yeah oh you're right so i gotta focus this eye which is me and then hopefully more the toys i do think the toys really do help something to fidget with really just make a massive difference yep yep yep and i think that's really good i think that actually helped me a lot one thing i've also noticed that helps a lot with my depersonalization or not feeling like i'm really there in the moment is touch like i will i will literally sometimes like i i so i was with my brother and you know what you're actually 100 right i was at my brother's house in jersey and um i was trying to force myself to enjoy the moment because i'm so adhd that i was like [ __ ] i am not enjoying this moment as much as i should i should be relaxing with my brother that i haven't seen in so long and just hang out with them and i couldn't do that because the whole time i'm thinking to myself [ __ ] i need to relax which resulted in the me messing with the waves and not enjoying it um and what i've noticed what helped me a little bit is when i touched the railing at his house it's gonna sound so weird i started touching his railing that sounded really weird and um when i when i held on the railing it the touch of something actually made me he's not my step bro don't worry the the touch of the railing made me come back a little bit to reality um and i also think that it was not just the touch maybe feel more in the present but it was also kind of counting as a toy because it was like yeah it almost comes goes that toy factor which made me feel more present yeah so so this is exactly because the touch is an alumni what happens is when you touch and you focus on the touch the excess energy of your mind goes into your sense of touch instead of fueling your conflict yeah and the moment you stop fueling your internal conflict you start to feel better so just embrace it right so and yeah i think the thing with the relaxing is true because i think a lot of people in general and me too as well i'll be sitting there being like ugh time to relax but like i'll almost be like oh my god i only have two hours to relax i have to start then you start freaking out you're like [ __ ] i gotta relax yep yep if i don't go to sleep now i'm going to be tired in the morning oh [ __ ] i better go to the start freaking out yeah if i if i sleep now i'll still get four hours of sleep oh [ __ ] now i'm not even gonna get four hours of sleep yep it's tension fuels the conflict of the mind a relaxed mind and a relaxed mind happens through acceptance so don't get me wrong miss gif what i'm telling you to do in a sit with the eye is very hard yeah this is why it's actually fascinating to hear you say this because there are literally books on meditation which describe all these techniques that you have discovered closing of the eyes reducing your because you've done both where you reduce your sensory input and you focus your sensory input on one thing and i would venture that when you touch the railing you see less and then if you touch the yeah it's cool like like misc if i don't think you're cursed i think you're gifted it's just the problem is that you just don't know it yet i know i'm gifted for sure i mean i i know there's a gift with adhd adhd is a blessing and a curse it's a double-edged sword i mean you you're definitely a more creative person your mind is definitely all over the place and you get more creative and you're more sporadic and um and then all that jazz but there's a curse to it too where it's your your own worst enemy and you're constantly having to deal with these problems yeah so i think that that's it's a good way of looking at it because i think at the end of the day there's no such thing as a gift and there's no such thing as a curse you just are what you are it's it is what it is right and if we kind of extend that thinking you know you are what you are and if you can't enjoy the sushi you can't enjoy the sushi sucks for you yeah so be it i'm never having sushi again why not can't enjoy it well i can't i can't enjoy it because like you said it is true it's not like it's not like i'm like tasting the sushi and i'm like there's nothing there's no taste but it's like not as much just like how much everyone else experiences it they feel like they're fully there i feel like i'm like 10 there 15 when everyone else is like oh wow this is so good i'm like missing the point mischief you've got to have sushi and not enjoy it if you never have sushi again you're not accepting it yeah you're right never having sushi again is sitting firmly within layer one of your mind you see that yeah you've got to order it and not enjoy it do you want to see my presentation hell yeah baby you don't it's terrible this is like something that someone with adhd made i'm telling you it looks really really good yeah this is adhd intrusive but this actually really helped me out a lot i i do feel um i i feel like it's gonna be hard for some people to understand this but it makes perfect sense to me it's like i am the eye and these are all my layers of thoughts i have some random song playing in my head i have camp laszlo's theme song playing i have mitch jones dancing you know all these layers of things that feel like a kaleidoscope is constantly in my head and i'm never gonna be able to change that ever um and toys do help for sure but the number one problem with the number one layer is me questioning why this is happening why can't i be present and what dr k is saying is uh you know to in order to to understand yeah you can't be present you're never going to be fighting it's only going to make it worse you might as well ride the wave that you have you're you're not going to ever be that fully present person it's just not going to happen you have adhd it is what it is go with it rather than fight it because if you fight it it's only gonna make it worse not only you're gonna have a layer of why can't i be present you're gonna be having a like you know trying to fight these waves which is impossible to do just like last time this gif beautiful summary i literally could not have said that better myself and the problem is you know it's not a problem but i already forgot what i said but you know what i think it's okay so this is this is my favorite part of interviews with you miss gif is like we've been at this now for an hour and a half yep yeah where was your attention there honestly ever since i started grabbing this and ever since i started doing this it's been much more here yep well played sir yeah you can get there so the first thing that i want you to appreciate miska for the last thing i suppose so i think it's like it's a great summary i don't think we should you know keep talking because i think you did it is that attention can fluctuate right yeah so you're talking about being yep and so like we don't know if you can ever be fully present but we know you can get more present and that's enough we're not going to attach ourselves to being fully present because that's going to create an expectation it's going to create tension in the mind it's going to create disappointment yeah it's making me go backwards rather than even exactly remotely forwards but we can have hope because today you've demonstrated to us that you've figured out some ways for your mind to be more present and we absolutely start with the toy because that's the first step and this this last thing that i this i think i'm telling you that's the last step it's the most difficult step yeah but it's the one that once you learn how to do that you're [ __ ] set bro i agree now last thing i don't think we should talk about it today but i would encourage you to think a little bit about one more thing which is that we can if we ever do you know we talk again in a year um this whole thing about you forgetting everything and whether there really is something to you forgetting you know did you need to learn how to forget i don't know i don't i don't think so i think the problem with me forgetting a lot is just when i was a kid all i thought about was what's the next joke so i was never really present um okay it's not even that i forgot it was never even in my mind because i never really was enjoying the present because of a lot of these layers and you can add another layer which is trying to make a joke um and because of that i never really got to enjoy moments i was more so focusing on what do people think of me you know what's the next thing i could say do these guys like hanging out with me do these guys think i'm fun what can i do to make them more involved or like me more rather than thinking to myself of wow this is fun to hang out with and this is fun to do it was more so me thinking about trying to make sure that everyone was enjoying my presence yeah yeah i thought of that before yeah i i think we've talked a little bit about it run a bell but cool man any last questions for me or any other thoughts no you're doing a great job bro so are you we love what you do oh my god someone is gifting just [ __ ] loads of subs yeah i got a twitch prime about 12 minutes ago so we're on the same boat what nothing i think you have adhd no dude like someone just gifted like 200 subs to oh really yeah it's this anonymous and anonymous gifters man and then everyone is talking about dodged and then someone says someone donated 100 subs and then people were like dodged dodge dodged and then this guy all right i assume the same person i don't know if it's the same person and then they'd gifted another 100. jesus christ yeah i got a 12 month sub about two minutes ago yeah so we're both we're all doing really well and we should be proud of ourselves i'm proud of you bro looks like your furniture's here chompy i don't know where he is no that's not my furniture that's my girlfriend kind of similar oh tell her i said hello my he says hi she says hello yeah i i learned a lot i'm gonna get uh the toys um and i'm going to try i i know what to do i'm not gonna try to fight it because i i totally agree with you and it's by far the worst layers when i try to fight it it is the worst layer um when i try to fight this problem i had it it almost shadows all the other thoughts and just me thinking why can't i enjoy the moment so i'm going to stop doing that and i'm just going to enjoy them and and try it and embrace the fact that i can't and i'm going to you know get a toy and just it's a beginning and hopefully from there maybe i start meditating uh do yoga i do i do think working out definitely has helped me a lot i need to start doing that for sure and um that sounds like a great idea but yeah i think those things probably will help out but it's a start you can't because like what you said you can't go to 100 it's not gonna happen you have to take time and slowly get results so yeah and if you if you don't have a set of prayer beads and you decide that you want to go down that road let me know and i'll i'll send you a pair okay okay if i can't find something good that i like as a toy i'll just ask for the ball is in your court bro okay so you you let me know okay well thanks a lot man this was as always phenomenal phenomenal thank you dr k i appreciate it you helped me a lot i think you're gifted at explaining actually which makes this fun for me you're gifted at listening and you're gifted and explaining so it's it's cool like it's it's terrible i i don't know i think i think if you go back and you watch the vod i think that your diagram is going to make a lot more sense than i think you've been taught that you know people can't understand your mind but i think it's actually a very eloquent way of describing your mind so thank you for doing that oh thanks take care man all right bye doctor k adios dude dude that guy's next level man i'm serious

Channel: HealthyGamerGG

Views: 220,021

Rating: 4.9757042 out of 5

Keywords: mental health, drk, dr kanojia, healthygamergg, healthy gamer gg, twitch, psychiatrist, mizkif, mizkif adhd, mizkif daily, best of twitch

Id: T6p_tY5xjTA

Length: 78min 40sec (4720 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 04 2021