Podcast · Health

Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast

by TruStory FM · English · Health

Nikki Kinzer and Pete Wright offer support, life management strategies, and time and technology tips, dedicated to anyone looking to take control while living with ADHD.

New episodes: Weekly
Typical length: 36 min
Latest: 8 Oct 2026
Language: English

Latest episode

8 Oct 2026 · 46 min

Plant Yourself in the Right Garden: Environment as Strategy

Last season, Dr. Kathleen Nadeau described a lot of ADHD struggle as a planting problem, and we've been thinking about it a bunch. This episode is about environment, and how much of what gets blamed on ADHD comes down to where you are and who you're with. We break it into what we're calling the three gardens: the right job, the right room and the right people. A lot of the classic willpower research is shakier than its reputation. The marshmallow test turned out to say more about kids' home lives than anyone expected. The idea that sugar refuels your self-control ran into trouble when people…

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Earlier episodes 29 most recent

S33 · E7 · 1 Oct 2026 · 39 min
The Unreliable Narrator: Self-Observation for ADHD
You'd swear you sent that email. You can picture yourself writing it. And then you find it, unsent, still marked unread. This week, Pete and Nikki borrow the literary idea of the unreliable narrator to explore why ADHD makes us shaky witnesses to our own lives. They look at how working memory, time blindness, and mood bend the story we tell ourselves, and at research showing how far self-assessment can drift from the record. Then they turn to practical ways to get a clearer picture: asking the people around you what they see (RSD and all), capturing moments while they're fresh, and letting…
S33 · E6 · 24 Sep 2026 · 25 min
The “Fine” Mask
You say it a dozen times a day. Somebody asks how you're doing, and before you've had a chance to check, you've already said you're … fine . In this conversation, we pick up a thread from our earlier episode with Dr. Sharon Saline on masking and follow it somewhere much smaller. Not the protective mask you choose in a hard moment, but the everyday one that's been on so long you've lost the off switch. We talk about what the gap between the performance and the truth actually costs you in energy and loneliness, why nobody offers help to someone who looks fine, and what happens when you say it…
S33 · E5 · 17 Sep 2026 · 41 min
Approach Motivation, Round Two with Ari Tuckman, PsyD
Are you doing the thing because of what you'll get, or because of what you're afraid of? Both get the task done. Only one of them is sustainable. This week, Dr. Ari Tuckman returns to talk about approach and avoidance, and why so many of us have only ever learned to start the second engine. We get into why avoidance works just well enough to become a habit, why "not as bad" is a ceiling rather than a goal, and what actually changes in a life that runs more on what you're moving toward. Along the way: the difference between shame and embarrassment and why it matters more than it sounds, what…
S33 · E4 · 10 Sep 2026 · 42 min
Misattunement: The Through-Line of ADHD Relationships with Dr. Dodge Rea
Last time Dr. Dodge Rea was here, we set up a conversation in two parts and only got through one of them. This week we finish it, and the half we left hanging turns out to be the trickier one. What happens when the person you're most out of sync with is yourself ? Attunement asks you to stay in touch with another person while staying intact with yourself, both at once. Most of us are better at one than the other. For a lot of us with ADHD, the outward half arrives early and never leaves. We got good at reading other people young, and never got the same practice on ourselves. So we say yes to…
S33 · E3 · 3 Sep 2026 · 34 min
What Recovery Actually Looks Like (Beyond Sleep)
Rest, relaxation, recuperation. Three words we reach for when we're empty, and all three have collapsed into the same meaning: stop doing something. The older meanings point somewhere far more interesting, toward getting strength back rather than simply halting some energetic drain. This week, Pete walks Nikki through research from occupational psychology that helps explain a frustrating experience most ADHDers likely know well: taking the time off and still coming back exhausted. There are four distinct kinds of recovery, they don't substitute for each other, and picking the wrong one is…
S33 · E2 · 27 Aug 2026 · 32 min
The “But I Have To…” Trap
You look at the list. You look at the calendar. You already know there isn't enough day for what's on there, and somehow the first thing out of your mouth is still "but I have to." In this conversation, Nikki and Pete follow last week's capacity conversation down to the reflex underneath it. Where does the have-to feeling come from, what is it trying to protect, and what changes when you stop treating every task as though it weighs the same? They get into the five D's from Casey Dixon, why Pete has fallen hard for the one called disappoint, and the difference between deferring something and…
S33 · E1 · 20 Aug 2026 · 26 min
The Gap Trap!
There's the version of you that exists right now, and the version you're pretty sure you should have become by this point. In this conversation, we get into the space between them, what Nikki calls the gap trap, and why that space fills up with shame so fast for ADHD brains. We talk about freeze as a nervous system response rather than a character problem, and about what it costs a fully grown adult to say "I don't know how to do this." Then Nikki offers the smallest possible way back in, along with three questions worth keeping close for the next time you're stuck. Nikki's new download,…
S32 · E29 · 13 Aug 2026 · 35 min
A Revisit: Breaking Down an ADHD Challenge
We're on summer break, so this week is a Revisit: a favorite conversation pulled back out of the archive. In this one, Pete and Nikki put on their detective hats to break down an ADHD challenge. The idea is simple. "I can't focus" or "I can't follow through" is too big and vague to solve, so the episode is about investigating what's actually getting in your way and finding the specific roadblock underneath. There's a memorable South Park metaphor involved, plus a practical, low-pressure approach to trying one strategy at a time and keeping track of what works. An encouraging, useful listen,…
S32 · E28 · 6 Aug 2026 · 36 min
A Revisit: Change Your Vocabulary, Change Your Mindset
We're on summer break, so this week is a Revisit: a favorite conversation pulled back out of the archive. In this one, Pete and Nikki dig into the words we use and how much they shape the way we see ourselves. Working from Alicia Dunams' book I Get To, Nikki walks through a few simple language shifts that hit differently when you have ADHD, from "I have to" versus "I get to" to catching the negative "what ifs." They also get into the power of the pause and staying curious instead of judgmental. It's an encouraging, practical listen, whether it's your first time or a return trip. Links &…
S32 · E27 · 30 Jul 2026 · 26 min
A Revisit: Celebrating What We Do
We're on summer break, so this week is a Revisit: a favorite conversation pulled back out of the archive. The idea takes after Dr. Kurosh Dini's concept of the visit, showing up to something with curiosity rather than judgment. In this one, Pete and Nikki talk about celebrating what you get done, and why so many people with ADHD give themselves almost no credit for it. They flip the usual deficit thinking on its head, dig into some very practical self-compassion, and share a simple exercise you can start tonight. It's an encouraging listen, whether it's your first time or a return trip.…
S32 · E26 · 23 Jul 2026 · 47 min
A Revisit: Attacking the Gremlins with Jane Massengill
We're on summer break, so this week is a Revisit: a favorite conversation pulled back out of the archive. The idea takes after Dr. Kurosh Dini's concept of the visit, showing up to something with curiosity rather than judgment. In this one, we talk with coach Jane Massengill about the negative self-talk that so many people with ADHD carry, why it can run louder for us, and a simple practice she calls word watching for catching it in the moment. It's a warm, useful conversation about learning to be kinder to yourself. Whether it's your first listen or a return trip, it's worth your time.…
S32 · E25 · 9 Jul 2026 · 28 min
How to Notice Progress Without Measuring It
At the end of the day, when your brain starts tallying everything you didn't finish, where's the credit for everything you did? In the Season 32 finale, we close out the season on the quiet skill that gets buried under all that mental accounting — noticing your progress instead of measuring it. The unfinished stuff is loud: the laundry pile, the twenty-item list, the messages still waiting. The progress is silent, and a lifetime of report cards and performance reviews has trained us to see only what's left. We get into why that happens — with a detour through a 1927 psychology experiment…
S32 · E24 · 2 Jul 2026 · 27 min
You’re Not Broken. You’re Contextual.
You can lose six hours to the thing that lights you up, then completely stall on a task that takes three minutes. Same brain, different room. In this conversation, Pete and Nikki get into why ADHD shows up hard in one setting and nearly disappears in another, why "broken" is the wrong word for any of it, and what changes when you stop asking how to fix yourself and start paying attention to the rooms where you do your best work. It's the capper on a season-long conversation about living with ADHD instead of fighting it, and a grounded look at the context, fuel, and environment that make hard…
S32 · E23 · 25 Jun 2026 · 49 min
Self-Trust Is a Nervous System Skill with Dr. Tamara Rosier
You can have the perfect planner, the right system, and the best intentions, and still not follow through. It isn't a caring problem. After enough broken promises to yourself, some quiet part of you simply stops believing the plan. That's where this conversation with Dr. Tamara Rosier begins, and it reframes self-trust as something closer to a nervous system skill than a mindset you can think your way into. Dr. Tamara Rosier has written the books and built the center and stood on the stages, and she still wakes some mornings and reminds herself, deliberately, that she is a trustworthy…
S32 · E22 · 18 Jun 2026 · 31 min
Rewriting the Rules You Inherited About Worth
There's a rule most of us signed before we could read it. It decides whether we're worth anything, and it tends to set the same terms for everyone who carries an ADHD brain: you're valuable if you perform, if you keep every plate spinning, if you never let anyone down. Live under that contract long enough and it stops feeling like a belief and starts feeling like a fact — written, as the metaphor goes this week, in permanent ink. Where did the rule come from? Often from the earliest lessons — the pulled-out-of-class, extra-time, here-are-your-accommodations lessons that were meant to level…
S32 · E21 · 11 Jun 2026 · 25 min
What It Means to Be “Good Enough” With ADHD
"Good enough" is a phrase that can land like permission or like an accusation — and for ADHD brains that have spent a lifetime being told we're not trying hard enough, both feelings often arrive at once. This week, we're untangling that knot. Why does a phrase meant to release us so often feel like settling? Why does the ADHD brain hear "good enough" and translate it into "not enough"? And what would it actually take to reclaim the phrase as our own? This is really all about intention — the difference between walking away from something because you've been defeated by it, and walking away…
S32 · E20 · 4 Jun 2026 · 32 min
Permission Slips You Keep Waiting For
There's a kind of waiting most ADHDers know well — waiting for someone, somewhere, to say it's okay. Okay to rest. Okay to stop masking. Okay to take the accommodation. Okay to want what you want without justifying it. In this conversation, we get into the permission slips we keep waiting for, often from authority figures who may not even exist anymore. We talk about why ADHDers wait — the research-backed link between years of childhood correction and adult reliance on external validation — and what that has to do with decision paralysis, rejection sensitivity, masking, and the exhaustion of…
S32 · E19 · 28 May 2026 · 26 min
Why Advice Stops Working When You’re Tired
We've all been there: someone offers a perfectly reasonable suggestion, and instead of taking it in, you bristle. You're tired. You're cranky. The last thing you want is advice. This week, Pete and Nikki tackle what happens when ADHD meets fatigue — and why the strategies that usually work suddenly don't. This isn't laziness. It isn't a character flaw. It's what happens when executive functions are already running on a deficit and you pile fatigue on top. Pete brings the research, including a study showing 62% of adults with ADHD meet the criteria for chronic fatigue syndrome — a reminder…
S32 · E18 · 21 May 2026 · 38 min
Why “I’ll Deal With It Later” Is an Energy Leak with Ari Tuckman
We've all said it. "I'll deal with it later." And somehow, later never comes. The thing just sits there — not in your calendar, but in your head. It pings you in the shower. It shows up right before you fall asleep. That's an energy leak. This week, Ari Tuckman returns for his sixth appearance to unpack what's actually happening when we tell ourselves "later." What is the ADHD brain doing in that moment? Are we making a real decision, or just kicking the can? And how do we tell the difference? We dig into: The two flavors of procrastination — not feeling the future vs. avoiding the…
S32 · E17 · 14 May 2026 · 26 min
The Schedule That Bends Without Breaking
You've heard it before, probably said it yourself: time blocking doesn't work for me . Every block that slips becomes one more piece of evidence that you've failed the system — or that the system has failed you. So this week, Nikki and Pete try something different. They change the word. Nikki walks through three terms that get thrown around in planning circles — intentional planning, time blocking, and the one she's been reaching for more and more lately: flexible scheduling. Pete pushes back (gently, mostly) on why we need a new word for something that was never supposed to be rigid in the…
S32 · E16 · 7 May 2026 · 36 min
What to Look For in a Planning Tool
There's a moment every ADHDer knows: you open the task manager, see the sea of red, and close it again. This week, Nikki and Pete sit with that moment — and with what it's actually telling you. The instinct is to blame the tool. Something's wrong with the app, the planner, the notebook. Time for something new. But what if the tool is doing exactly what it's supposed to do, and the thing you're really avoiding is something else entirely? Nikki walks through the two non-negotiables of any planning toolkit, why hybrid systems quietly fall apart in the in-between stages, and the one thing she…
S32 · E15 · 30 Apr 2026 · 38 min
When Productivity Advice Ignores Capacity with Brooke Schnittman
Most productivity advice was built for brains that start on demand, stay consistent, and prioritize logically. That's not us. This week, Brooke Schnittman returns for her third visit to the show to dig into one of the most frustrating disconnects in ADHD life: the gap between what we think we can do in a day and what our actual capacity will allow. Pete and Nikki walk through the familiar trap — fifteen red-line tasks, two hours of actual focus time, and the stubborn belief that somehow we'll get it all done anyway. Brooke names it for what it is: magical thinking backed by people-pleasing,…
S32 · E14 · 23 Apr 2026 · 33 min
Why Your Plans Fall Apart
This week kicks off a three-part series on planning, and it starts where every planning conversation should: with honesty about why plans fall apart in the first place. Pete opens with his own cascading construction disaster at home, where raccoon damage set off a chain reaction of disruptions that has bled directly into his work life. Nikki’s diagnosis is both simple and profound: when you make a plan, you’re trying to predict the future with the information you have right now. When that future doesn’t cooperate, the real problem isn’t the plan failing. It’s that we treat plan failure like…
S32 · E13 · 16 Apr 2026 · 45 min
Later Life Diagnosis: The Relief, The Regret, & The Reality with Linda Roggli
Here’s a story a lot of women know. You’ve been getting by — maybe not perfectly, but you’ve been getting by. And then something shifts. Suddenly the coping strategies that used to work don’t. The brain fog is different. The irritability is new. And nobody around you — including your doctor — seems to have a particularly good answer for why. For women with ADHD, the answer is often estrogen. And for too long, that connection has been wildly undertreated. Linda Roggli has been living this story and researching it and coaching women through it for twenty years. She’s the founder of the ADDiva…
S32 · E12 · 9 Apr 2026 · 44 min
What Changes About Executive Function After 40 with Dr. Brandy Callahan
Here's something nobody tells you about aging with ADHD: the part that feels like decline might not be decline at all. It might be retirement. Or perimenopause. Or just the fact that the external structure that quietly managed your symptoms for thirty years finally disappeared — and nobody warned you it was doing that much work. The question isn't whether your brain is changing. It is. The question is whether you understand why, and what the research actually says about where it leads. Dr. Brandy Callahan is a clinical neuropsychologist, Canada Research Chair in Adult Clinical…
S32 · E11 · 2 Apr 2026 · 47 min
Grieving the Version of Yourself That Could “Push Through” with Dr. Kathleen Nadeau
What happens to your sense of self when the coping strategies you've relied on your whole life start to give out? For a lot of us, "pushing through" wasn't just a strategy, it was the story we told ourselves about why we kept making it. And when that story stops being true, what we're left with can look a lot like grief. Dr. Kathleen Nadeau has spent decades sitting with people in that moment. She's interviewed 150 older adults with ADHD about what the losses actually feel like — the unmet retirement fantasies, the disorientation of late diagnosis, the particular sting of watching younger…
S32 · E10 · 26 Mar 2026 · 56 min
ADHD, Memory, and the Stories We Tell Ourselves with Daniella Karidi, Ph.D.
"You forgot because you didn't care enough." Most people with ADHD have been told that — or have told themselves that — more times than they can count. Dr. Daniella Karidi returns to challenge it. She's a PhD researcher from Northwestern who has spent her career studying memory in ADHD, and her opening argument is one of those ideas that reframes everything that comes after: forgetfulness isn't a failure. It's the default of the system. This episode also kicks off a new series on ADHD and aging — what happens when the structure we've built around our ADHD starts to change, how to tell normal…
S32 · E9 · 19 Mar 2026 · 44 min
"Friendship Skills for Neurodivergent Adults" with Caroline Maguire
If you've ever given everything to a friendship and been left wondering what went wrong, Caroline Maguire has a gentle but clarifying answer: you probably gave too much, too soon, to someone who hadn't yet earned it. That's not a character flaw — it's the ADHD brain doing what it does when it finally finds someone who sees it. The dopamine hit of new connection can tip straight into hyperfocus, and suddenly you're all-in on a relationship that hasn't had time to prove itself. Caroline calls it the impulsive friendship cycle, and she has spent years helping neurodivergent adults find their…
S32 · E8 · 12 Mar 2026 · 42 min
When Masking Becomes a Relationship Strategy with Dr. Sharon Saline
If you've ever spent an entire day performing a version of yourself that felt nothing like the real you — holding it together at work, seeming calm when you're not, passing as organized — you already know something about masking. But knowing it and understanding it are two different things. Dr. Sharon Saline returns to help Pete and Nikki unpack what masking actually is: hiding traits, suppressing impulses, and overcompensating to appear more polished than you feel. It's a coping mechanism that can be useful, but for adults with ADHD, chronic masking carries real costs — increased anxiety,…

About Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast

Nikki Kinzer and Pete Wright offer support, life management strategies, and time and technology tips, dedicated to anyone looking to take control while living with ADHD.

Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast is a English health podcast from TruStory FM. Melo plays each episode straight from the publisher's own feed — no ads added, no account needed — and remembers where you stopped, in this browser only.

Publisher: TruStory FM
Language: English
Category: Health
New episodes: Weekly
Typical length: 36 min
Latest episode: 8 Oct 2026
Feed: RSS — paste into any podcast app
Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id368426151
Rights: TruStory FM

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