Diagnosed With ADHD During the Pandemic With Scott Watson [Video]

By Understood

Sometimes ADHD only make sense in retrospect — like when you find out who the killer is in a murder mystery. During the pandemic, actor Scott Watson’s trouble with focus hit a tipping point and made him wonder if he had ADHD. Once he got diagnosed — and after stumbling across a handy acronym — suddenly he could spot how ADHD had impacted him his whole life. Host Laura Key talks with Scott about his executive function skills, ADHD medication, and the pros and cons of hyperfocus.

To find a transcript for this episode and more resources, visit the episode page at Understood. https://www.understood.org/podcast/ad…

We love hearing from our listeners. Email us at ADHDAha@understood.org.

Understood is a nonprofit and social impact organization dedicated to shaping a world where the 1 in 5 people who learn and think differently can thrive. Learn more about “ADHD Aha!” and all our podcasts at u.org/podcasts.

Copyright © 2021 Understood for All, Inc. All rights reserved. Understood is not affiliated with any pharmaceutical company.

Transcript provided by YouTube (unedited)

0:00
i had my aha moment
0:03
in 2020 when i was sitting at home
0:05
trying to
0:07
work remotely
0:09
and i just couldn’t do it it was
0:10
something that wasn’t hard something
0:13
i’ve done before should not be a
0:15
challenge but
0:16
the idea of doing the task was just so
0:19
monumentally daunting that i would just
0:21
sit in front of my computer and avoid it
0:22
for hours and
0:24
it was like why can’t i focus no matter
0:26
how much coffee i drink or
0:29
how many jumping jacks i do so yeah i
0:31
think the pandemic was really the moment
0:33
where i was like i need to do something
0:40
from the understood podcast network this
0:42
is adhd aha a podcast where people share
0:45
the moment when it finally clicked that
0:47
they or someone they know has adhd my
0:50
name is laura key i’m the editorial
0:52
director here at understood and as
0:54
someone who’s had my own adhd aha moment
0:57
i’ll be your host
0:58
[Music]
1:02
i’m here today with scott watson scott
1:05
is an actor who lives in brooklyn new
1:07
york and he has adhd welcome scott hey
1:11
how’s it going great i’m so happy that
1:13
you’re here with me today let’s jump
1:14
right in tell me about your aha moment
1:17
when did you realize that you had adhd
1:20
and how did you realize it
1:22
like a flashbulb moment
1:24
it’s hard because it’s kind of like a
1:25
movie where you find out who the killer
1:27
is at the end and then you go back
1:29
through the whole movie and you’re like
1:30
ah of course it was that guy look at all
1:32
the look at all the clues and that’s our
1:35
lives when we find out we have adhd oh
1:37
yeah that makes total sense but yeah i
1:40
think the pandemic really was a big
1:43
key in
1:44
for me i was recently formally diagnosed
1:47
this year and i had been working from
1:50
home
1:51
and i just
1:52
could not
1:55
focus on getting the work done that
1:57
needed to be done
1:59
and that just
2:01
started to bring up a lot of things my
2:03
entire life where i was struggling to do
2:06
things like this that i’ve done a
2:08
million times that are not challenging
2:10
but i just have no interest or ability
2:13
to do them and i started doing some
2:15
research and then i came across this
2:17
acronym
2:18
on the internet that was
2:20
incredibly helpful to me and was
2:22
eye-opening which was icnu which is
2:25
interest challenge novelty and urgency
2:28
and if a task does not fall into this
2:31
category for people with adhd those are
2:33
the tasks that our brain struggles with
2:36
the absolute most to complete it was
2:38
just such a light bulb moment of that
2:40
acronym because it was like that is a
2:42
thousand percent
2:44
defines every test that i struggle with
2:45
in my life
2:46
a lot of things
2:48
started to break through with that
2:50
realization
2:52
i really relate to that especially what
2:54
you say about looking back it’s like you
2:56
struggled for so long and then finally
2:58
it clicks and you look back and you’re
3:00
like oh i get it now
3:02
i think you said that you’re from
3:03
michigan is that right i am yeah i’m
3:05
from ohio so from the same area
3:08
i know we’re supposed to be enemies
3:10
[Laughter]
3:11
but when you look back at growing up as
3:13
a kid in michigan can you pinpoint times
3:16
when you were struggling and you’re like
3:18
oh yeah that was the adhd that whole
3:20
time all the time tell me about them
3:22
adhd
3:24
can kick in at any time but just being a
3:27
kid it’s a lot easier to kind of ignore
3:30
because kids are kids they’re impulsive
3:32
they’re creative they’re full of energy
3:34
things like that but i just remember
3:37
around third or fourth grade
3:40
stuff that was so easy for me
3:42
stopped being easy
3:44
and i went from
3:46
breezing through a’s
3:48
and my grades to suddenly
3:51
just not
3:52
doing my homework coming home being like
3:54
okay i need to do this i need to do this
3:56
math homework setting it aside
3:58
and then before i knew it it was 10 p.m
4:01
and the homework was not done that
4:03
inability to
4:04
focus on getting that done
4:07
just continued to snowball through
4:09
middle school and high school
4:11
and i think like a lot of people with
4:12
adhd i’m no menta member but i’m not
4:15
dumb but it was just
4:17
so frustrating to know that i had the
4:19
capability to get this stuff done but i
4:22
just wasn’t
4:23
and that leads to all sorts of
4:25
self-loathing depression
4:28
all sorts of things but yeah with the
4:30
diagnosis just looking back especially
4:32
in college too even though i got a
4:33
theater degree so i was on my feet
4:35
pretending to be a bird so that was a
4:37
lot easier for my adhd brain but just
4:39
like the gen ed subjects it was the same
4:41
thing i just couldn’t write a paper
4:44
about
4:45
cultural anthropology it just didn’t
4:47
happen
4:48
just not interesting enough for you yeah
4:50
i just didn’t check the boxes and
4:52
that was the other thing occasionally
4:54
there would be assignments in school
4:57
like in fourth grade
4:59
i drew every single united states
5:01
president because i realized that i
5:03
didn’t know the names of all the
5:04
presidents so i did an incredible amount
5:07
of research into who they were i drew a
5:09
portrait of every single one of them
5:11
this was not for an assignment this was
5:13
just me
5:14
going down something that caught my
5:16
hyper focus and i spent weeks and weeks
5:19
and weeks on that while my homework just
5:20
built up slowly beside me and my parents
5:23
were like this is great
5:25
so happy you’re so excited about this
5:27
but you know your math homework is not
5:30
done
5:32
yeah and i’m not surprised to hear you
5:34
say that around third and fourth grade
5:36
was a really telling moment for you
5:38
that’s around the time in school when
5:39
assignments start to get trickier you
5:41
have more to manage and that’s where
5:43
that executive functioning difficulty
5:45
comes in that you’re referencing
5:49
[Music]
5:57
a lot of people get confused about
6:00
hyper focus they think okay you have
6:02
adhd so how are you able to hyper focus
6:05
on things that are so interesting to you
6:07
but you can’t focus on other things and
6:09
what a lot of people don’t understand is
6:11
that adhd can make it hard for you to
6:14
shift your attention to something it can
6:16
also make it really hard for you to
6:17
shift your attention away from something
6:19
and that’s where the hyper focus comes
6:21
in
6:22
do you use hyper focus to your advantage
6:24
right now in your life or is it a
6:25
detriment ever talk to me about that
6:28
yeah it seemed to be
6:29
back in the day
6:31
it was many years before i realized that
6:32
that’s what happened i’ve always liked
6:35
to write that was always something that
6:37
i was passionate about
6:39
and
6:40
that hyper focus would click in when i
6:43
was writing sometimes
6:45
and i knew after a while that i had to
6:48
sit at my computer and chain myself to
6:52
my chair
6:53
and just kind of wait for that to happen
6:57
and sometimes it didn’t and it was so
6:59
frustrating it was like being superman
7:02
and only shooting lasers out of your
7:03
eyes every fifth time you just never
7:06
know when it was gonna click in but when
7:07
i saw that acronym interest challenge
7:09
novelty and urgency all of a sudden a
7:11
lot of things started to make more sense
7:13
it was like okay what helps me write a
7:16
deadline and
7:18
what do i like to write about things
7:20
that i don’t necessarily know about so
7:22
then there’s the interest drawing in
7:24
doing all this research
7:26
challenge trying to do something i’ve
7:28
never done before and novelty of just
7:30
writing something new and that’s what i
7:32
always really loved i loved the first
7:34
draft getting it all out there the
7:36
second and third draft no not really
7:39
so
7:40
there’s like 36 stories that are
7:42
unfinished on my
7:44
google drive what you say about needing
7:46
to basically chain yourself to a chair
7:48
in order to get something done it really
7:51
reminds me of something that i heard
7:52
from one of our experts his name is tom
7:54
brown and i heard him say something like
7:56
this before i got diagnosed and it
7:58
really stuck with me and i’m
8:00
paraphrasing here but he said something
8:02
along the lines of you know in order for
8:04
someone with adhd
8:06
to really focus on something that they
8:08
don’t care about that much that they’re
8:09
not interested in
8:11
it’s almost like you have to have a gun
8:12
to their head which i know is a very
8:14
dark way of putting it but it feels so
8:17
true and it reminds me oh this is so
8:20
real right this is legit this difficulty
8:23
absolutely urgency with chores with all
8:26
these things it would just reach a
8:28
certain point where i would look around
8:30
at my car or my room or
8:34
the shattered remains of my life and i
8:36
would just be like enough and then i
8:38
would clean for hours hours and hours
8:41
and hours so it was like build up build
8:43
up build up build up build up until it
8:45
was urgent and then the hyper focus
8:48
would click in and then i would clean
8:50
obsessively and then you know rather
8:53
than just like maintaining that cleaning
8:56
schedule i would go back to the okay
8:58
i’ll just throw my stuff on the ground
9:00
until
9:01
another month had passed and things had
9:03
built up
9:04
it’s so frustrating because you’re like
9:06
why am i like this i know what i need to
9:09
do so that this doesn’t happen
9:11
but i just don’t
9:13
do it it’s the way your brain is wired
9:16
let’s talk a little bit about boredom
9:18
isn’t a symptom of adhd but it can be
9:20
the result of adhd and that need for
9:24
stimulation
9:26
did you
9:27
experience a lot of boredom growing up
9:30
did you ever get in trouble for seeming
9:32
bored or daydreamy yeah especially as i
9:35
started to get older through middle
9:37
school and high school i would just
9:38
cover
9:39
my notebook in doodles and sketches and
9:43
things like that i remember sitting in
9:46
geometry class in my sophomore year of
9:48
high school and every day it would be
9:50
the choice of i can try to listen and be
9:55
here in class
9:56
and just like
9:58
excruciating torture of that or i can
10:01
just escape into my head and draw
10:04
pictures of like homer simpson riding a
10:06
rocket you know
10:07
based on what you’re telling me it
10:09
sounds like hyperactivity wasn’t
10:11
the symptom that you struggled with or
10:13
at least not the most is that accurate
10:15
that’s pretty accurate
10:17
that’s hard to look at from
10:19
my own personal perspective i was
10:21
definitely a very active kid like my
10:24
brother and i would go outside and he
10:26
would come back sparkling clean and i
10:28
would come back just like pig pen from
10:30
peanuts just like covered head to toe
10:33
and dirt somehow sounds fun yeah it’s
10:36
fun
10:36
and i love to run when i was a kid so
10:39
there was definitely like an excess of
10:41
energy that i was siphoning off but
10:44
i do have fidgets with my legs and
10:47
things like that where i’ll be sitting
10:48
in one place and my leg will start going
10:51
up and down or shaking and things like
10:52
that it’s all totally unconscious but
10:55
as i’ve gotten older and i think this is
10:57
relatively common the whole
10:59
hyperactivity thing has kind of
11:01
faded away
11:03
a bit right of the symptoms of adhd it’s
11:05
one of the ones that can subside maybe
11:08
more than others do
11:10
yeah and i would say that one if it was
11:12
ever there subsided pretty quickly which
11:15
added to the confusion because that’s
11:16
the one that the adhd diagnosis seems to
11:19
be first and foremost for a lot of
11:20
people or an easy indicator when you’re
11:22
young that this person might have adhd
11:26
is that they’re just like bouncing off
11:27
the walls
11:28
exactly while you may have had some
11:30
excess energy and we’re a bit fidgety it
11:32
sounds like that wasn’t your primary
11:34
symptom hyperactivity we typically
11:35
associate boys with adhd as being
11:37
hyperactive so it’s interesting to me
11:39
that that’s not the thing that really
11:40
came to the forefront for you
11:42
and also makes me wonder if the fact
11:44
that hyperactivity wasn’t your big
11:45
symptom do you feel like that’s
11:47
potentially why you flew under the radar
11:50
for many years
11:51
yeah absolutely and also you know i was
11:54
growing up in the 90s in a very small
11:57
small
11:58
town
11:59
so the kind of things
12:01
where
12:02
students can maybe get a little bit more
12:05
of an individual focus or they’re
12:08
surrounded by other like neuro-atypical
12:10
students so they can be like well this
12:13
person clearly kind of is a part of this
12:16
group that we’ve seen before
12:18
i think the fact that i was able to
12:20
maintain a certain level of grades that
12:23
i wasn’t crashing until certain parts of
12:26
high school did allow me to fly under
12:27
the radar does your family know now that
12:30
you have adhd no i haven’t talked to my
12:32
parents much about it honestly not that
12:34
they would be opposed to that diagnosis
12:37
but i think a lot of times with parents
12:39
there can be a certain amount of
12:41
guilt that
12:43
something could have been troubling
12:45
their child as they were growing up and
12:47
they missed it or
12:50
didn’t know
12:51
and that’s not necessarily fair because
12:53
we know so much more about adhd now than
12:55
we did even 10 years ago
12:58
i really feel everything you’re saying i
13:00
grew up in the midwest and a relatively
13:02
small town and you’re right i mean we
13:04
have to be fair there’s a lot more
13:06
information about it now
13:07
and i feel you sometimes i don’t want to
13:09
talk about it with my family because i
13:11
don’t want them to feel bad about
13:12
anything that like they did anything
13:14
wrong but i do wonder sometimes you know
13:16
maybe it would be helpful if i were more
13:18
open about it with my family because
13:20
sometimes i notice them struggling with
13:22
some of these symptoms too and i don’t
13:23
think they’re as aware of it as i am
13:26
being diagnosed as an adult you
13:29
have
13:30
built up strategies on your own without
13:32
even realizing it to cope with adhd if
13:35
you’re not specifically getting therapy
13:37
for it or using medication and for some
13:40
people it’s a completely debilitating
13:42
thing and they cannot function and for
13:44
other people it’s more
13:46
insidious or
13:48
confusing but you know you work up
13:50
strategies to get stuff done and it can
13:54
be kind of hard for example if you see
13:56
symptoms of that in your parents and
13:58
they’re in their 70s
14:00
to be like you know would a diagnosis at
14:02
that point be helpful because you’ve
14:04
lived your whole life with this and
14:07
being diagnosed at 35 i would say it is
14:10
helpful like
14:11
how useful to have an answer for a lot
14:14
of questions
14:15
that you didn’t even know that you
14:17
necessarily had what treatments or
14:20
treatment or strategies do you use to
14:23
manage your adhd the thing that i was
14:26
most hesitant to do was to take
14:28
medication and
14:29
i think that’s why i put off getting a
14:32
formal diagnosis for so long was because
14:35
the idea of
14:37
taking medication to be
14:40
normal was not a great thought for me
14:43
because
14:44
i thought well if i take medication
14:46
every day to get to baseline where does
14:48
that leave me
14:50
but that was a bad way to look at that
14:52
right that was just my own neuroses so
14:55
eventually i was like well what do i
14:57
have to lose
14:58
i should try medication to see if it
15:00
helped and i did try a couple different
15:03
things and then eventually i got onto
15:05
a stimulant medication a relatively
15:08
lower dosage that was extended release
15:10
it was just a game changer and it’s hard
15:13
to describe the difference between your
15:15
brain before and your brain after but i
15:18
think it can kind of be described as
15:19
like somebody who puts on those
15:21
colorblind glasses for the first time
15:23
and they don’t even know
15:25
what they’re not seeing and then all of
15:27
a sudden they’re like
15:28
red
15:29
like holy crap
15:31
that’s red and that’s green and that was
15:34
me going through my
15:35
email inbox
15:38
just being like i can organize this i
15:41
didn’t even read this email we’re
15:42
putting labels on stuff
15:45
this is great or just like looking at
15:47
the dishes and being like i’m gonna do
15:49
those right now or arriving early for an
15:52
appointment that was great what’s that
15:55
about i don’t know
15:56
it’s like i’m not an hour early or an
15:58
hour late to this good on you i know
16:00
that there’s this myth it’s really
16:02
pernicious that’s out there like using
16:04
medication as a crutch i think it takes
16:06
a lot of bravery to use medication as a
16:08
tool absolutely and it is so unfair to
16:12
say that medication is a crutch
16:14
i challenge anybody who wears glasses
16:17
who wears braces
16:19
who drives a car because by the way we
16:21
can’t go 80 miles an hour with our legs
16:24
there are things that we do every day in
16:25
our life that make our lives a little
16:28
simpler
16:31
[Music]
16:42
scott are you ever impulsive
16:44
yes extremely are you comfortable giving
16:46
me some examples of that oh sure
16:50
i will give you all the examples what
16:52
are like the two halves that it kind of
16:54
falls
16:55
on there’s impulsivity and then there’s
16:57
hyperactivity impulsivity and
16:59
hyperactivity often go hand in hand yeah
17:01
but impulse control is an executive
17:03
function right which i lack
17:06
yeah i mean i was always like especially
17:10
during college and high school i was bad
17:12
with money
17:13
i was mad with money my first paycheck
17:16
from my fast food subway job i was like
17:19
i’m getting a playstation 2 i’m getting
17:21
a game it was like
17:23
any money that was in my account was
17:25
there to be spent
17:27
on
17:27
the first thing that kind of caught my
17:29
fancy i would start collecting things
17:33
like i would get all into that like i
17:35
started just collecting
17:36
old nintendo games during college out of
17:39
nowhere and then pretty soon i had 300
17:41
and then i lost all interest in it oh
17:44
man that sounds really fun though it was
17:46
very fun until the thrill went away and
17:49
then i just had 300 nintendo games you
17:51
could probably get a lot of money for
17:52
those these days yeah absolutely do you
17:54
have bubble bobble or bubble boggle or
17:56
whatever i would buy that from you yes
17:58
bubble bobble i love that game that game
17:59
is amazing
18:01
you’re an actor i know from what i’ve
18:04
read about you you do a lot of physical
18:06
acting is that right you use your body a
18:07
lot in your acting yeah i got training
18:09
in theater focus in shakespeare and
18:13
what i love to do is always like the
18:14
zany
18:15
crazy clown or play like 36 different
18:18
roles like this one has a lamp this one
18:20
has an eye patch or some comedy delarte
18:23
clowning stuff the physical part of it
18:25
was always really so helpful because
18:27
when i would reach for that energy that
18:29
i needed for the performance
18:31
it was there
18:32
and being an actor kind of checks off
18:34
that acronym again especially the
18:36
urgency and the novelty if you’re in a
18:39
play or if you’re in a commercial tv
18:41
show film every day is different and
18:43
it’s always urgent because if you forget
18:45
your lines or
18:48
or screw up a take yeah there’s pressure
18:50
there’s pressure whether there’s like a
18:52
broadway house of 1500 people looking at
18:54
you or if there’s 35 guys in cargo
18:56
shorts
18:57
just like
18:58
get the take so we can go to lunch kind
18:59
of thing scott tell me what you love
19:01
most about your adhd brain i love
19:05
how
19:06
creative it can make me and i love
19:11
that feeling when i get
19:13
excited about something and i’m in the
19:16
zone it’s kind of like an out of body
19:19
experience where i’m so focused
19:22
this especially happens when i’m writing
19:24
because i write plays and screenplays
19:26
and stuff but
19:27
when i’m just like writing dialogue and
19:29
two characters are talking to each other
19:31
it’s like i’m there just watching them
19:33
talk and
19:35
that ability to
19:37
really zone in and kind of lose myself
19:40
in the details
19:42
it’s just an incredible experience
19:45
well thank you so much for being here
19:46
with me today scott i am so grateful for
19:48
your candor for your insights and i just
19:51
really relate to you on so many levels
19:53
thank you so much for being a champion
19:55
for people with adhd this is such a
19:57
great experience thanks for giving me
19:58
the opportunity to talk about it and
20:01
this is wonderful
20:04
[Music]
20:09
you’ve been listening to adhd aha from
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the understood podcast network you can
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listen and subscribe to adhd aha on
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apple spotify or anywhere you get your
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podcasts and if you like what you heard
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today tell someone about the show we
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rely on listeners like you to reach and
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support more people
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and if you want to share your own aha
20:28
moment email us at adhd aha at
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understood.org
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i’d love to hear from you you can go to
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u.org
20:37
adhd aha to find details on each episode
20:40
and related resources that’s the letter
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u as an understood dot o r g slash adhd
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aha understood as a non-profit and
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social impact organization
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we have no affiliation with
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pharmaceutical companies
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learn more at understood.org
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mission
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adhd aha is produced by jessamine mali
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say hi jessamine hi everyone justin d
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wright created our music seth melnick
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and brianna berry are our production
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directors scott kosher is our creative
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director
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and i’m your host laura key editorial
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director at understood thanks so much
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for listening
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[Music]
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you

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This post was previously published on YouTube.

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The post Diagnosed With ADHD During the Pandemic With Scott Watson [Video] appeared first on The Good Men Project.