E26 – ADHD Tax

Julie and Jel Discuss

Julie Legg and Jel Legg chat about ADHD Tax – the extra effort and time people with ADHD put into achieving a task when compared to neurotypicals. It’s the ‘price we pay’ due to ADHD traits that can take a toll on time, emotions, and finances.       

ADHD Tax is an ongoing cost for those with ADHD, impacting various aspects of life, but self-awareness and tailored strategies can reduce its impact. They discuss what ADHD tax can look like, how it creeps into the daily lives of ADHD adults in the simplest of ways, and the monumental outcomes too. While it may not seem much at the time, the snow-ball effect of missed time management, procrastination, impulsivity, and emotional outbursts all have ramifications.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • Understanding the ADHD Tax: The ADHD Tax refers to the extra time, effort, and financial cost ADHD individuals often incur due to traits like impulsivity, distractibility, and difficulty with organization​.

  • Time Tax: Everyday tasks often take significantly longer due to distractions. For example, a one-hour work task can take twice as long because of distractions like internet browsing. Simple tasks, like watering plants or running errands, also extend as other tasks capture attention along the way​.

  • Financial Tax: ADHD traits can impact finances, with reduced work hours due to distractions or impulsive spending on unnecessary items. This financial tax may lead to overspending and guilt, particularly in retail therapy situations​.

  • Emotional Tax: ADHD can lead to overthinking, difficulty leaving unhealthy situations, and impulsive emotional outbursts. These behaviors often result in emotional consequences, such as regret, guilt, and a toll on self-confidence​.

  • Cognitive Tax: Overthinking and replaying conversations or decisions can drain mental energy, leaving less room for creativity or productivity. Procrastination is also common, causing tasks to weigh heavily until they’re eventually completed​.

  • Strategies for Minimizing the ADHD Tax: While it’s impossible to eliminate this tax, identifying and reducing triggers—like excessive social media use or overthinking—can help. Recognizing personal “tax hotspots” and using tools like lists, boundaries, and accountability partners can ease the impact​.

  • Unavoidable Tax: The hosts emphasize that while ADHD-related costs can be minimized, they can’t be fully avoided. Accepting and managing these aspects can help individuals navigate the ADHD tax with greater resilience.

LINKS

Transcript:

JULIE: I’m Julie Legg, author of The Missing Piece and diagnosed with ADHD at 52.

JEL: And I’m Jel Legg, diagnosed at 55.

JULIE: Welcome to ADHDifference. In this episode we’re going to be talking about ADHD Tax. Now it’s a term used and it’s about the extra effort and time those people with ADHD put into achieving a task when compared to neurotypicals for example. And, it’s the price really of our choices and it can take a toll on our time, our emotions, and also our finances.

JEL: Yes. I think when we were chatting about this one, before this episode, it’s something we live with day in, day out, year in, year out, our whole lives. And we don’t really appreciate how much of a daily effect it has on everything. We just take it for granted. It’s how things are. And so as we started to write down some notes, and think about the various ways that it manifests itself in daily life, it’s quite a shock to realize how much tax we’re paying in terms of yeah, time and emotion, particularly time. So, the first thing that came to my mind is, so I’ve been a web developer for over 20 years now, so relatively early in the game when websites were a thing, I came into it. And, I reckon of those 20 years I’ve been paid for about 10 of them because I don’t think I ever do more than 4 hours paid work a day, even if I’m doing an 8-hour or 10-hour day. It’s what happens is the internet is just the most awesome thing. I mean I’ve helped build a lot of it. So, it’s just fantastic. The trouble is it’s full of so much interesting information. And every year over those 20 years it’s got better and better for providing niche information that is fascinating for an ADHD brain. And in particular, to be able to go back and see old toys, or old places that you grew up, images and videos of bands that you once saw on television that you haven’t you can’t go and buy those videos. You can’t get them. Once upon a time you could buy VHS videos from a shop of your favourite band. Well, you can’t anymore. But suddenly everything’s on the internet. So, if I sit and do an hour’s work, here’s the tax. This job will take an hour. It takes an hour of my focussed time and that’s what I charge for. During the process of doing that job something will happen on the computer that requires it to spend 10-15 seconds doing something. And, in those 10-15 seconds I’m not just going to sit there and look at the little bar go across. I think “That’s a great opportunity. I’m going and see if there’s a new news headline, or pop in to see if there’s a new post on my Facebook page showing me a picture of something I’m interested in.

JULIE: And that diverts your attention and which goes into another space. And by the time you flip back into work mode …

JEL: But I’m not there for 10 seconds. I’m there now for a minute or two and so now this 1-hour job I’m getting paid for has actually taken an hour and a half or two hours on the clock. But you can only charge an hour for it because you can’t charge for spending an hour surfing the internet. And so that’s where the tax gets paid on something as simple as that.

JULIE: And that’s not just time. That is finance because in an 8-hour day, you say you work for 4 hours. You’re in front of the computer for 8. It’s only 4 billable hours and so there is a financial tax to that because it’s not efficient financially.

JEL: Simply because I can’t spend that 10-15 seconds watching that bar go up. I see it as an opportunity to do something else. My brain needs to hit a … it can get a little dopamine hit just popping in to see if the news headlines has changed. “Oh, that’s interesting. Better have a look at that, yeah.” It can’t wait until lunchtime to ring fence that time for the … I can’t compartmentalize when I’m looking for that dopamine hit, when I need to get that thing.

JULIE: So, this ADHD tax can happen all the time and so as Jel was saying, it’s everyday things. It just kind of blends into our life now.  But when we look at it under a microscope, then we think “Oh gosh, actually it happens all the time.” And my example, a simple example, was I had promised to go and visit my parents and proudly I was going to make them homemade soup. So, I spent the day before preparing the soup. They live an hour and a half away so it was going to be a bit of a round trip. Have you know, have lunch and then head back, any which way. So, I was so good. I made sure that the car was full of petrol. I defrosted some rolls from the freezer the night before. The soup was great and in a Tupperware container in the fridge. I did some extra baking because I thought that would go down a treat. I woke up on time. I cleaned the bench, the kitchen bench before I left. Everything was brilliant. And, 25 minutes into this hour-and-a-half trip, I was ticking through my mind, have I got everything? Yep, I’ve got the baking. Yep, I’ve got the rolls, yep. And I forgot the soup. And at that point in time, that was lunch, right? And I thought oh no. I had to make a choice then. I either drive back home and add another hour onto my trip, which means that I’d be late for lunch or I just continue and we munch on rolls or I pick something up in the supermarket. And I thought either which way it was a fail in my mind, you know. I can’t turn up without lunch! That was the whole essence of it. And so I went home, and I picked it up, and so lunch was an hour later. And it just put more time on my day, but that’s is just an example. I try so hard not to trip up – with the alarm, and the petrol, and all of these things, but something as simple maybe in my excitement for getting out the door and getting everything right, I forgot the biggest thing. So that cost me time in that instance.

JEL: Yeah, definitely. I remember that. Yeah. I remember that day. And of course, as you wander back through the door it was … [“What are you doing here?”] Oh no, because you’d text and it was just a giggle. It was funny. We both looked at each other to say “Yep, done this plenty of times.” It’s normal. It’s what happens, no matter how organized. I think another way that listeners will understand this idea of time tax and this is all the time this happens. Right, so you go out into the garden and think “Right I’m popping out into the garden. There’s a couple of hanging plants I need to water.” So it’s a bit of a walk right, so it’s straightforward. I know where get the watering can. Well, find the watering can, wherever you’ve left it. Get the watering can, fill it full of water, walk to the plants. That’s got to be 4-5 minutes tops, job done. Then I can get on to something else. That could take half an hour, maybe an hour. As you’re walking through the garden “Oh, a couple of lemons have fallen off the tree. I better pick those up because I’m going to cut the lawns later. Cut the lawns? Better put the lawnmower on charge. The battery’s a bit flat. Right okay, I could be doing that. Ahh, the rubbish needs emptying, I’m sure.” And so it goes on. You cannot walk however far from A to B without finding something to do. And so you’re being efficient. You’re thinking “Oh boom, that needs doing. If I do that … oh that’s fallen over. Let’s pick that up. Oh, a bit of rubbish.” It’s you think you’re being efficient but (A) you forget the original task and you probably don’t do the thing you set out to do and (B) you had a reason that you were going to do that because you had those few minutes spare, you could pop that in before you go and do the other thing, you know, maybe get back to work on the computer, not doing any work. And so it becomes a tax. It can take half an hour to do a simple job. Yeah, so that’s a real-world thing. I mean I’ve spoken about what happens when you get distracted by all the dopamine hit of social media, and let’s make no mistake. It’s designed to provide endless dopamine hits to keep you there. It’s like a game. But even real life, going out into the garden or just into the garage, can cause all of those … they’re all dopamine hits. I’ve done this. I’ve done that. I’ve done that. Did you water the plant? Oh no, no, but I did everything else. Yeah, it obviously needed doing.

JULIE: Yeah well, you’re being efficient in a way because you did, you would have had to have emptied the rubbish bin at some point. And you had to put the lawnmower on charge at some point. Maybe it’s just non-linear thinking.

JEL: It is and you feel like you’re getting ahead of yourself. “So if I do all those things now I don’t have to do them later.” But you weren’t aware they needed doing before you went out, and now you’re not going back to work. So the taxes are now an hour, or half an hour behind with something else that was required.

JULIE: On the time tax, before moving on to other examples, for me it is writing emails, or writing a report, or something important to me. Putting my thoughts on paper takes time. And I’ll do a brain dump so to speak, and then reread it. “Oh, it’s not quite really what I wanted to say.” And something so short can take such a long time for me. I’m happy with the end result but the tax on time when I could be doing other things over something quite simple, I just … I’m very much aware that I can do that. So it does take me a long time. You know, you have one more on time is appointments for you.

JEL: Oh yes. I think we probably touched on appointments before from a different angle. I can’t remember what angle. [I think it was boredom.] Boredom. In waiting. Oh, waiting.  Yeah when appointments are late, oh nightmare. But so realistically if you have a dental appointment you could, you know what time to leave to get there. You know how it might take 20 minutes. Fine. Work back 20 minutes, 10 minutes before brush your teeth, maybe grab a quick shower. You can all do it, no problem. Very efficient, that can happen. No, no, no. Simply not going to work because, if you leave it to the last 10 minutes to brush your teeth and have a shower, something will go wrong. Or you’ll get distracted by something, or you won’t find the car keys, or you just … well you’ll forget the soup to go to the dentist. But so, what happens is as you get more experience through life, you start to compensate and you pay more tax. You do.  You actually voluntarily pay more time tax. So an hour before I’ll have a shower, brush my teeth. An hour before I’ll start to countdown and get ready. And even an hour before that I haven’t taken the rubbish out because I might get distracted, so it becomes a massive focus. Therefore, I always book dental and doctor appointments mid-morning. If I book them at 2pm in the afternoon, or 3pm in the afternoon, I’ll waste the entire morning leading up to it for fear of not making it on time. Because you can’t not be on time because it may have taken a few weeks to get that appointment, and then you’ve wasted every-all day. So you’ve got this tax you pay – this time before you’re heading towards it. What if the car doesn’t start? What if it’s low on petrol? What if I haven’t checked if I need to get some petrol to get there? And so on and so on. So it adds up over life, through life, it really does. Then it becomes a norm. You … if you don’t do it that way, you will get caught out. Something will trip you up.

JULIE: So we’ve talked about ADHD time tax and touched on ADHD financial tax, and that’s your billable hours, but other people also, just financially through their impulsivity and without thinking about the consequences, find retail therapy trick-some. It’s almost like a spending addiction when they’re in that mode and they’re getting the dopamine hit of finding things that they like and out comes the credit card. And at the time it feels glorious. By the time they get home, or weeks to follow, it’s they financially pay that tax with regards to, you know, overrun credit cards, buying things that they didn’t really need, and the guilt and shame in the process of all that as well. But I also wanted to touch on the emotional cost for some of our choices made in the moment or really rippling through from some of our ADHD traits that trip us up. And a couple are staying in a long-term relationship for longer than you should, or staying in a job, or in a career for longer than you should. And you sometimes get this niggling feeling that you shouldn’t be in that situation, that you should really back out or find a way to leave somehow because it’s not quite right. But sometimes out of routine, maybe fear, a lot of people will stay. They’ll stay in the job because that’s their fortnightly pay packet. They’ll stay on the job because there are no other options or stay in a relationship because maybe they’re overthinking, or possibly underthinking, if this person is actually right for them, or if this or the environment is a good space. So emotionally it can take its toll.

JEL: Yeah, I think another aspect of ADHD kicks in there for me is masking. So if you’re in a relationship and it doesn’t even … it can be the central primary romantic, I don’t like that word but a romantic relationship, or it could just be a group of friends, or a particular friend, you’ve got this masking that can be your enemy because that will cover up that … the masking causes you to pay an emotional tax when you long should have got out of that situation. You long should have said how you really feel and it’s really difficult because you know, breaking those things and moving on, potentially if you’re moving on to nothing, you’ve got to be very comfortable with that nothing space. And of course, the nothing void is a dangerous place for the ADHD brain because it has to then find things to fill it. So that relationship may represent maybe not the dopamine hit that, you know, a good relationship should have regular fun laughs, rewards, love, all of those dopamine things that happen on a daily basis. Once that’s gone and you’re not in that space anymore you do need to find it somewhere. So it is tricky. We can really get stuck in places for a long time I think yeah. And then conversely on the other side, with the emotional side, we can be over-emotional. We can let the mask slip and out it comes and blah blah blah blah blah, it just gets delivered and causes a huge explosion. It causes chaos and then there’s a price to pay for that because we haven’t delivered it in a considered way. So there’s an emotional price. We get … we don’t like being like that. We don’t like letting rip once a mask comes off. We cause carnage and damage and we feel it too. No one walks away and go “Yeah I feel better for that.” Even if you’ve won the argument. Even if you really put someone back in their place and told them what you think, it doesn’t leave you with a nice feeling. You … there’s still an emotional tax to pay for that.

JULIE: Yeah, absolutely. And with our overthinking as well, and our ability to look back and just mull over almost in this crazy loop about what we could have said, or how we could have said something, or picking a more suitable time. Some of our decisions and how it replays in our mind can take a toll too on self-confidence and you know just again some guilt aspects coming through about various things. But also too being in the … I’ll say the wrong job, but you know what I mean, it’s this yeah the wrong environment say, whether it’s a relationship or a job, that does take a toll on time too. It might take up some of your decades of your life, or a certain time of your youth that you could have spent more wisely, if there was such a thing. So yeah, it is interesting.

JEL: So I think sort of hanging off the side of emotional tax and sort of in the similar space is that what I guess, I’ll just make this up, I could call it cognitive tax. So, this has happened a lot in particular I think with your work environment when you were in an office and you get spoken to, or told something which is just not right and challenging, and so rather than just rationally hitting back and dealing with it there and then, and sort of putting it back in the box, you absorb what you go away and think. And we’ve spoken about this before, then you overthink. And then it goes round and round for days and weeks and it comes … we’ve spoken before about how you replay constantly in your mind. “I should have said this. I could have said that,” and by the time you come around to having an answer it could be a couple of weeks later, it’s irrelevant. So there’s a … that is emotional but it’s also then falls into this cognitive space because you separate yourself from the initial upset, and you move on, and you just keep thinking about it. Round and round and round and round. “I could do this. Imagine this scenario. I could have said this. That would have dealt with that person,” and that just takes huge amounts of time. All the time you’re thinking about that you’re not thinking about something creative, productive, or moving forward. Yeah you’re stuck in a loop. Yeah. [Yeah, yeah absolutely.] And so I imagine, and I don’t know whether you’ve done research to support this, procrastination may be part of ADHD. It sounds anti sort of, not so intuitively an ADHD thing because we’re yeah … [Oh no, procrastination is definitely a thing.] Okay because yeah, we are diving in, we’re boom, don’t think just do, go, boom, keep moving. But sometimes it just gets stuck in a loop and it goes round and around and around for days. “Should I buy that? Shouldn’t I buy that? It costs quite a bit of money. It would be about ….”, be oh, weeks later I’ve talked myself out of it. And then months later “I could get/buy that couldn’t I?” 

JULIE: Procrastination, just leaning back into that, yeah definitely. I mean procrastination hits everybody but particularly with ADHD it’s really just dreading, dreading the inevitable, something that needs to be done. Whether it’s a project, or a conversation, and just not being in that space to do it. It’s too hard and you feel you don’t have the tools and so your mind will give you every trick in the book just to delay it, and that will often happen.

JEL: There’s an example I can think of now. We both have ADHD, obviously why we’re doing this podcast, but we do have different relationships to it and some things Jules is better at than me and some things I’ve got the edge on. And we’ve worked out which ones are best to put into little boxes and who does what. So procrastination, I have, we have a van and the van needed some rust proofing. I was told this nearly a year ago. Ready for around now and it gets tested again for its safety certificate and it … I procrastinated for 6 months on finding and phoning up someone to get that work done, which probably didn’t do any favours – another six months of having rust spread. But Jules will make the call. I can’t make the call, I just can’t. I can do the research, work out who to go to, but I can’t make the call. I just can’t make that call. I can walk in once we’re there and talk to the person, explain it face-to-face no problem. So there’s a tax. There’s a cognitive tax. It mulls over my mind. I think about it. [And the call being the phone call.] The phone call and actually just to make the appointment. [It’s really strange isn’t it.] The second we’ve made, Jules has made the appointment because Jules can do that, yeah I’m fine. I can sort of kick in and deal with it. Yeah. But it’s a cognitive tax. So how many hours did I waste thinking about that? How many times did I say “We need to book the van in to get that rust proofing done. We should do that,” and it took six months before we got it done. And when it was done it was a straightforward process, uncomplicated, and all fine and the testing’s in the next couple of weeks. We find out if it worked or not. And even Jules had to book the testing in because I can’t do that. It’s something about that. I procrastinate and there’s a cognitive tax that builds up and up when I could just pick the phone up and call but I can’t. My ADHD struggles with that.

JULIE: That’s where I think you know, we are really fortunate in the team of our, you know, our relationship is that you wrote it down on a piece of paper. It was a task. We have lots of lists and that was one of the things and I saw it and I thought “That’s easy. That is a 20 second phone call. I’ll do it now rather than it sort of hogging up the list.” And so my impulsivity was “Oh I’ll make that phone call. Yep, done, sorted. It’s in the calendar now.”

JEL: And you made the call to book it in for its test yesterday and I remember walking in and “I’m just making …” I was shocked. I was like “Oh, wow, blimey.” [It was that easy, yes!] It was like ordering a big Christmas present or something, it was amazing. It’s like wow. It was like such a big thing for me. I couldn’t do that. Yeah. Maybe for those listening who are in a relationship where one of you has ADHD and one doesn’t, and that’s open and talked about, diagnosed and understood, maybe the little tip from what’s coming from this is to … if the person with ADHD can’t do certain things and the other person is not really considerate of that, stop and just listen and think. Because we are capable of amazing things, but there are some things some of us have blocks on. Now we’re getting away from this tax thing but it is a tax. There’s always a price to pay. Those of you who may be listening who are neurotypical would just think “Why don’t you just pick the phone up and make the call? What’s the big deal? You’ve got a job to do, do the job. Stick to what you’re doing. Life would be a lot easier.” Well, well that’s the thing. We can’t. There’s the time tax. There’s the cognitive tax where we overthink things, and there’s the emotional tax which we’ve touched on, which is a big one. Emotional tax is a big one but the others are almost easier I think to identify and see on a daily basis. But you could bring the emotional tax in and you could say “You overthink about an argument, it can go on for weeks, and you over replay it. You over get upset, or you’re over angry about an unjust situation you didn’t deal with. Let it go.” Everyone tells you “Let it go. You’ve moved on. It’s behind you. You can’t change it,” but we don’t always let it go.

JULIE: Yeah. So the ADHD tax is extra effort and time and you know, even simple things like following a recipe. Now I love growing food. I love cooking and eating, but seldom will actually follow a recipe, like seldom will I follow any instruction. And so the tax of going “I’ve got the grasp of what I need to do,” like putting together kit-set furniture or reading a map. “I’ve got the grasp of it. That’s great.” I just … my brain isn’t interested in all the in between bits. I’ll go from the start to the finish and I’ll make my way there. Well that doesn’t always pan out. And so often we’ll be, I’ll be driving going “I know where I’m going,” and I know where I’m going but I don’t know which roads to turn down to get there, if that makes sense. [We get that a lot. We end up in car parks in the middle of universities, don’t we.] Crazy, crazy. [There’s a time tax. Oh there’s a petrol tax for you too.] There is, but even back to the recipe side of things, sometimes I’ll make something and I’ll forget, because I didn’t follow the recipe, I think I know what it is and I’ll forget the baking powder so nothing rises. Or, I’ll be well underway of getting the recipe together and a really important ingredient is not available so I’ve wasted all the other bits. You know what I mean? It’s … that’s really frustrating and that’s disappointing too for me.

JEL: I think if I was to … if I were to give a tip to anyone listening how to save on the time tax, then spend a lot less time on any kind of social media because it will take all of your time. It will rob every last bit. You’ll be paying 101% tax if you spend too much time on it. Simple example is, before social media, before the internet, over 20-25 years ago there’s a magazine you’d get once a month called Sound On Sound. Love it. It’s the sort of de-facto studio, home recording, recording magazine. And so once a month you’d open it up and there would be a certain number of pages, and there would be pictures of other people’s recording studios. And you’d look at it and be really inspired and in awe, and that’s something I’m interested in, fine. Now I can … I’ve joined various studio user groups. So breakfast, lunch, dinner, whenever on the computer, all day long, if I go into Facebook I have an endless stream of other people’s recording studios and there are literally millions and each one’s beautiful. And I look at it and I think “Oh was that … what oh … have they got that synth, or have they got that piece of gear? That’s a nice. I like the angle,” that’s taking time. I don’t need to look at a million pictures of studios. When does it stop? When does it end? Well, it doesn’t. It just carries on. And that’s one user group, and I’ve gone and joined six or seven user groups of various aspects of things I’m interested in. So now it’s a constant feed. So I can’t go on it without wasting time. So time tax, if you need to save a bit of time and be less taxed, get off social media. [Yeah, just like any …] Not permanently but just spend less time on it.

JULIE: Yeah just like any trip hazard, I think part of it is really identifying what the problem is. What is frequently tripping you up?

JEL: Where you’re most taxed. Yeah get it’s like an account, an ADHD accountant. Where are you most being taxed?

JULIE: Yes exactly well and if it’s on social media, I mean work it down to what device is it? Is it your phone? Well and there are tricks to that to turn your phone off and put it in another room and you will, before you know it, be distracted and forget where you put the phone. That was probably another tax but you can. You can actually have little strategies and tools once you identify what the problem is. So we’ve been having some fun talking about situations that we’ve been in but ultimately you just need to define where it lies and do something about it. Now it is, it is what it is. I think this will, this ADHD tax, will always happen for us but there will be situations that we might be able to tweak, for example the phone.

JEL: Yes so not … there’s no magic bullet. You can’t stop being taxed. I mean isn’t that two things in life you can’t avoid, death and taxes? So three things if you’re ADHD; death, taxes and ADHD tax. You can’t avoid it. You can’t get rid of it. It’s not going away but it is accumulative and it builds up and up and up and so you can reduce it the same way as a good accountant can legally reduce the amount of tax you pay. If you don’t claim … it’s claiming. The analogy with money is with an accountant is you’re claiming back expenses. You’re claiming back and you’re minimizing what you have to pay. Well, you can take the same approach with ADHD tax except you know, you can do it yourself or maybe a good ADHD coach can get involved and help you, the same way as a good accountant can help you. And they … I would recommend someone who’s struggling themselves to look at doing that. And of course you have to ask yourself” I’m paying this tax. Is this tax impacting my life?” If you if it’s not impacting your life and you don’t care, that’s fine too, you know. I don’t think until really we sat to talk about this subject, I’d really realized just how much of a big issue it was. It’s a bit late for me now because I kind of left that career behind. If someone had told me a lot more about this 10-15 years ago I would have spent less time working in the office and more time not being in the office. I don’t think I would have got/earned any more money but I’d just not wasted the other hours in the office.

JULIE: And I think that’s the difference too because we were diagnosed in, about three years ago, we’re both in our 50s, so we’re talking about a lot of our time undiagnosed and some of the examples we’ve given is recent timing, and it has been since we’re diagnosed. So even being diagnosed doesn’t mean that you’ve got everything sussed now, and you’ve got strategies, and everything’s going to be fine. It still happens.

JEL: Yeah. We’re just more aware, far more aware and more honest with yourself. We weren’t being dishonest before we just weren’t aware. We’re more aware now and as a team, sometimes yeah we know how to pull each other back in line to say “We need to achieve this, so let’s stop messing around here and doing this,” but yeah it’s a real thing. And you can’t … don’t beat yourself up if you’re just not moving forward with things. You have to pay a tax as an ADHD-people I think pay more tax in the areas who talked about than non-ADHD folks. [Absolutely.] The job’s just to try to minimize it and be aware of it, but you can’t eliminate it. So don’t go around in circles and beat yourself up because you can’t eliminate it. It’s always going to be there.

JULIE: Yep, and every individual with ADHD will have different experiences of the tax. So it can be kind of minimal, simple, everyday ones and they can be monumental. And my heart goes out to the ones that have had big tax to pay. It can really, it can really change your life and repercussions of that can be felt for a long time. So we’re not trying to minimize the experience of an ADHD tax. Everyone will experience it differently and yeah.

JEL: Yeah that’s true. If I’m thinking of analogies, there are some taxes that can almost bankrupt you. You have failed marriage, a failed relationship with a sibling, or a child, or something, or a career, or job loss that you didn’t want to lose. So you …but if you’re using that analogy of the bankruptcy you can recover. You can come back again. You can start again. Yeah, yeah it’s not the end of the world completely. It’s just we not minimizing. There are some pretty big ones and we may have had one or two along the way. To dwell on them doesn’t do us a great deal of good. We just acknowledge them and move forward and the learning part from them is to avoid them again.

JULIE: Yeah, and that’s what I’m saying, we’re all grown adults and while there are aspects of ADHD that we can’t control, we must learn. We must learn and not keep repeating those same things all the time. If we can do some something, anything, even if it’s small to lessen the blow, we should absolutely take that on board.

JEL: And finally I think of course we always speak from perspective of being unmedicated. So for us it’s all a cognitive self-disciplined approach to how we deal with this. For those of you medicated it may actually, you’ve automatically reduced your tax, I hope. If your medication’s working and it’s … you got the balance right then you will be paying less tax. That’s the point. [During the hours of medication because I know it’s not a, you know …] But it will, overall there will be lesser of a cumulative tax problem that, not that you won’t be paying any even with medication, but so we will speak from that angle. So from that angle it might appear that yeah it’s a very expensive place to be with ADHD but that’s us, from where we come from, and our place.

JULIE: And we’re resilient and we get ourselves up in the morning and tackle the day, just like many of you will be too. So from us, thank you for listening and that was ADHD tax.

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