411 BITESIZE | ADHD Freeze: Why You Know What To Do But Can't Do It

This episode is sponsored by Takaiatry. You know it's frustrating when you finally decide that you're ready to get help with your mental health, and then actually finding that help becomes another overwhelming project. The phone calls, the insurance questions, the waiting lists. It's a lot, especially when you're already struggling. That's why I want to tell you about Takaiatry. Takaiatry is a 100% online psychiatry practice offering evaluations, diagnoses, and ongoing medication management for conditions like ADHD, anxiety, depression, and more. Unlike therapy only platforms, you're seeing a medical provider who can diagnose and prescribe medication when appropriate. Takaiatry accepts major insurers, and appointments can be available in days, not months plus. You continue with the same psychiatrist, so you're not starting over every visit. Head to Takaiatry.com/I have ADHD to complete the short assessment and get matched with an in-network psychiatrist in just a few minutes. That's t-a-l-k-i-a-t-r-y.com/I have ADHD to get matched in minutes. Takaiatry.com/I have ADHD. This episode is sponsored by Quince. Can we talk about how overwhelming holiday shopping can be when you have ADHD? I put a lot of pressure on myself to find the perfect gift. Something thoughtful, something meaningful, something that shows the person how much I care. And suddenly, something that's supposed to be joyful becomes another thing that I'm overthinking. And this is why I appreciate Quince. They make beautiful, high-quality essentials that people can actually enjoy every day. Think Cozy, Mongolia, and Kashmir sweaters starting at $50. Kashmir scarves and gloves, beautiful 14-karat gold jewelry, and even hotel-quality bedding. And truly, I do love Quince. I use Quince. I have a white Quince purse that I use every single day, and when I went out to dinner with my friend Sheila the other night, she showed up with a black Quince purse. And I was like, "Girl, did you get that from Quince? We were twins. It was so fun." And because Quince works directly with ethical factories, everything is priced 50 to 80 percent less than similar brands. I love giving something that feels special without making the whole process complicated. Give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app, exclusive offers, or go to Quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns, now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks you where you heard about them, let them know that it was here on the I Have ADHD podcast. It's a great way to support the show. Hey, what's up? This is Kristen Carter and you are listening to a Bite Size episode of the I Have ADHD podcast. I am medicated, caffeinated, regulated, and ready to roll. This little episode is one of my favorite clips from the podcast. It's perfect if you're not in the mood for a full hour long listen. Because let's be real, some of us ADHDers just don't have the patience for all of that. But if you are a diehard listener, think of this as your mid-week pick me up. It's Thursday y'all, Friday is right around the corner. If you love this clip, check out the show notes for a link to the full episode. And remember my friend, drink your water, take your meds, grab a snack, now let's get rolling. All right, we're going to talk about the type of ADHD that looks like overwhelmed and under functioning. And this doesn't really get talked about a whole lot because a lot of times we're talking about the version of ADHD that is loud and hyperactive and chaotic. And like, I have so much energy. I can't sit still. I'm just like, I'm going, going, going. Like, hyperactive and not all ADHD looks the same. This type of ADHD is more quiet. It's more heavy. It's paralyzing. We're talking about the version of ADHD that looks like overwhelmed. And it's interesting because I think it's really important for all of us to know that ADHD doesn't show up the same way for everyone. It's going to show up differently depending on your personality, your nervous system, the severity of ADHD, the type of ADHD that you have, whether it's hyperactive, inattentive or combined presentation, it's going to depend on your childhood, your trauma history, your environment, the stage of life that you're in, all of that. Okay, so all of those factors kind of go into how ADHD is going to show up for you. Sometimes it shows up as like the over functioning, high output, high energy, hyperverbal, over committing, like, go, go, go. But sometimes it shows up as shut down, right? And if you're listening, you're like, oh, okay, yes, that's me. I don't feel hyper. I feel stuck. This episode is for you. Or maybe, maybe you love someone, you're married to someone that you're just like, why can't you get moving? Why are you just stuck? It's like you're in concrete. Like, what's going on? So we're going to slow this down. We're going to name it in the context of ADHD. Overwhelmed is not just having a lot to do. Like, oh, I've just got so much to do. I'm so overwhelmed. Overwhelmed. When we're talking about ADHD is a state of total cognitive, emotional, and sensory flooding. It's just like you're totally flooded. Your brain gets so full that it can't prioritize anything. It's like all the browser tabs are open at one time. Every notification is firing. Someone just hit play on five podcasts at one time. You're just like totally flooded. And instead of your brain being able to just sort through all of that, like, that would be just a dream. Wouldn't it? Like, oh, I'll just sort through all of that. I'll make sense of it. I'll prioritize instead of that, your brain shuts down. Okay. So you might notice like your thoughts stop making sense. You can't find clarity. Even the easy tasks feel impossible. Your your body gets heavy or slow or frozen. This this can often look like I need a nap. I need a nap, right? Like, I can't even function. I don't even know what to do. I can barely move. I'm going to go take a nap. Okay. Your system is flooded. And that when that happens, ADHD brains go into what we would call freeze. Now, freeze is a trauma response. And maybe it's a trauma response for you or maybe it's just kind of how your ADHD is showing up. But freeze is one of the nervous systems. If we're talking in terms of a trauma response, it's one of the nervous systems survival responses alongside of fight and flight and fawn, right? Fight says I can overpower this. I'm going to fight against it. Flight says I can escape this. I'm just I'm going to get out of here. And freeze says neither flight nor fight are possible. So I'm just going to shut down. I'm like a deer and headlights, right? Freeze looks like numbness, inaction, dissociation, avoidance, feeling stuck, even though you want to move forward. For many of us, you know, I can't stop talking about it. For many of us who grew up overwhelmed, criticized emotionally unsafe, unsupported, just in really difficult family situations, freeze can be adaptive in those times, right? It could keep you safe. It can help you survive. It can reduce conflict. It can minimize exposure. It can make it so that you don't stick out to anybody. And so maybe your body learned if I stop moving, if I stop needing, if I stop reacting, if I stop messing up, I'm going to be okay, all right? And if that is the case for you at the time, like childhood and adolescence, that was smart. That was protective. Your body was doing what it needed to do, but the problem is with so many of our coping skills, what worked for us in our childhood and adolescence now is preventing us from thriving in our adulthood. Let me repeat it. What worked for us in our childhood and adolescence, so in this case, like the becoming small, the becoming quiet and silent and frozen and inactive, what worked for us then is stopping us from thriving now, okay? And as an ADHDer, our brains are extremely vulnerable to becoming overloaded because we are so aware of everything that we are inputting. So we are hyper aware of all of the input, a visual input, audio, like what we're hearing, what we're seeing, everything, what we're feeling, we can become overloaded and overstimulated so, so, so quickly. Now, I grew up in a family where overwhelm was 100% tolerated. It was part of my family culture that we would get overwhelmed, and it was actually validated in my family, which I do appreciate to a certain extent. We talked about it, we named it, but the thing is, we didn't have a pathway out of it. So I could say to a parent, I can't do it, I'm too overwhelmed, and it was met with kindness and compassion, and I appreciate that. It was kind of used as a get out of jail free card, and my family like was overwhelmed. And you know, I come from a family, this podcast is brought to you by my coaching program focused. I love that you listen to this podcast truly, but I need to tell you something important. Listening to the podcast is not enough to change your life. You can learn everything there is to know about ADHD. You can have all of the insight, you can save every episode, take notes, not along, and think, yeah, this is me. But insight is not the same thing as change. Real progress. happens when you take what you're learning and practice it in your actual life with support, accountability, coaching, and people who understand what it's like to have an ADHD brain. That's what we do inside focused. Focused is where you stop just consuming information about ADHD and start getting coached on your life, your relationships, your work, your emotions, your follow-through, and your goals. This podcast can help you to understand yourself, but focused is where you learn how to trust yourself, support yourself, and actually start doing things differently. If you're ready to move from "I know" to "I'm changing," "Come join us," go to I have ADHD.com/focused to learn more. That's I have ADHD.com/focused. I would love to coach you. This episode is sponsored by A.G.1. You know what happens this time of year? Everything starts piling up. The holidays are coming. Schedules are packed and suddenly taking care of yourself feels like one more freaking thing on the already impossible to do list. This is why I love keeping things simple and A.G.1 is a part of my morning routine-ish. Routine-ish. I guess not a great routine, but I do use A.G.1 every single morning. A.G.1 next-gen combined 75-plus ingredients, including vitamins, minerals, pre-end, probiotics, and superfoods all in one scoop. And it's backed by four separate gold standard clinical trials with improvements in key nutrient levels within three months of consistent use. They've also introduced A.G.1 Pro, which adds creatine and other ingredients designed to support performance and recovery for me. It's about making nutrition easier, especially when life gets busy with an ADHD brain. I use A.G.1 every single day, and you should too. For a limited time, visit drinkag1.com/iHavADHD and save 25% on your first A.G.1 subscription, including A.G.1 next-gen or Pro. Go to drinkag1.com/iHavADHD. You've already heard me talk about it. I'm trying to think of really nice ways to put it. I come from a family of eight each years who are also highly traumatized and very dysregulated. And so, overwhelm was absolutely a part of our family culture. And we used it to kind of explain why we couldn't engage, why things stayed unfinished, why we avoided real life demands. And I do appreciate that it was validated. I do. I'm genuinely grateful for that, but the thing is, validation without tools can quietly turn into becoming paralyzed in stock. And that's exactly what happened for me, right? Because I never learned how to move through overwhelm. I just lived inside of it. And so there were times when I was really, really inactive, really, really stuck. And I do kind of tend to go there once in a while. Like, this last month has been really busy coming out of the holidays. The holidays were amazing. And then I moved right into a launch, book editing, and several solo podcast recordings. And it was just like, oh my gosh, my brain was so flooded. And I really struggled with kind of walking through that muck. What I wanted to do was shut down. I really, really did. And so let's talk about how overwhelm can turn into under functioning. It's such a classic HD pattern because, like, let me illustrate it for you, you start a project, right? And it's like, something you care about it. Maybe it's at home or maybe it's at work or maybe it's like something you're volunteering for. You start a project, you care about the project, you want it to go well. And then it just gets complicated. And you become flooded. And all of the sudden, there's all of these moving parts. There's so much that you need to do. And your brain just kind of fills up and gets really, really noisy. And your nervous system kind of taps out. It was like, okay, we're done here. And now it's really hard to proceed, right? We just are like, I don't really know how to move forward. So I'm just going to stop. And then the project gets abandoned again, right? There's just like another unfinished thing. Another project that you've left undone. And then you're just like, oh my gosh, like I keep doing this. I'm so unreliable. It's like another hit to yourself, trust. It's just so difficult. And this can be something simple, like cleaning out the garage, not that the garage is simple, but like, you know, it's not a life or death task. But it can also be a project that like really matters at work. And you're like, my job kind of depends on me moving forward with this. I kind of felt that way in January with like all of the things that I was doing where it was just like, my job depends on my ability to move forward with this. Like, I'm trying to edit a book. Like my job depends on whether or not I can move forward with this. I'm trying to record podcasts. My job depends on whether or not I can proceed. Like, we were doing a big launch for the rejection sensitivity course. Like my job depends on whether or not I can complete tasks to get this done. And what my body was craving and what I was like being pulled to was this like, shut down, this avoidance, this like, let's just cancel everything and go hide in a cave. So it can absolutely apply to your work. It can also just apply to like every day life, the dishes pile up, the clutter gets really crazy and loud, the visual noise at home becomes so unbearable. And instead of just like, you know, little by little tackling the projects, that would be the ideal, right? Like, oh, I'm just going to like, I'm just going to do, I'm just going to tackle this a little bit. But at a time, and I'm not going to let it paralyze me, I'm not going to let it shut me down. But instead of that, so often all of that clutter and visual noise and all of the like demands around the house, it does lead to us becoming totally flooded, totally overwhelmed, totally paralyzed. It can also apply to situations like parenting and remember having three little boys, I like, if you don't have boys, if you never raised boys, I want to let you know that it's kind of like trying to domesticate baby goats, like, it's just like, it's their wild little animals and you're having to keep them in your house and you're trying to get them to be like human, but it is really like trying to domesticate a baby goat. And if you're a boy, mom or dad, you know, and if you're not, that's fine too. Or maybe you had like a, like a sweet little feral baby girl, and you can be like, yeah, I relate to that. But like the requests and the questions and the noise and the trying to keep people alive who seem very intent on self-destructing like, my two year old is standing on the table and like jumping off the dining room table, like, why, why do I have to work so hard to just keep you from self-destructing? It can be so overloading to our system, right? And so when we don't have a pathway of like regulating that and dealing with that, or we can really shut down, like we just begin to melt down or hide in the bathroom, which is what I used to do. Like I would just like hide in the bathroom and then they would like knock on the door and they would stick their little fingers under the bathroom. Mom, what are you doing? I was like, I just need a minute of peace, right? Yes, I've done that. I have done that and listen, don't judge me, don't judge me. So the overwhelm of our lives, and especially if this is something that you struggle with, like, with your ADHD, it can really lead us to under-functioning and it's not because you don't care. It's because your nervous system can't handle the load of all that is coming in, all of the input, it's just so much, okay? I've heard this called, when we do go into that shutdown, experts refer to it as functional freeze, I love that term because we're functioning on like a basic, basic, basic level, but we're really not able to move forward. And any moment that we get, we are, like, doom scrolling, napping, like, checking out of real life. I just want you to know that like this is a stress response, it's a nervous system response. Because your body trying to deal with all of that overwhelm, all of that input, okay? And like, the problem isn't that, that tendency is there. The problem is that we don't have a pathway out of it, right? The problem isn't that you are in freeze, the problem is that no one taught you how to thaw out of that freeze, like, thanks for listening to this Bite Size episode of the I Have ADHD podcast. If you enjoyed this clip, you'll find a link to the full episode in the show notes. And don't forget to visit I have ADHD.com for tons of adult ADHD support. All right, my friends, I had a great time with you today and I cannot wait to talk to you again next week. Bye bye. The mighty dollar. Once upon a time, it had a whole menu named after it. Now, no more. But one dollar a day let you add progressive renter's insurance to your auto insurance. Definitely. definitely something your younger self would roll their eyes at. But your current, adulting self appreciates. Learn more at Progressive.com. Progressive casualty insurance company affiliates and other insures. Average premium costs based on progressive home data from 2025. Product and prices may vary by state.