ADHD & Moving

by | Nov 5, 2023 | Podcast

Moving Tips + Tricks For People Considering A Relocation - Mariette Frey | Stacy Colgan | ADHD Moving

 

This episode is an interesting one because we’re talking about a hard topic—the correlation between ADHD and moving a lot. I’m talking with Stacy Colgan, LCSW and therapist with Watervliet Counseling. Stacy and I both have ADHD, and she specializes in ADHD counseling and therapy, which is one of the 4 components of treating ADHD. The act of relocating can be especially challenging for someone with ADHD. The process requires planning, organization, and follow-through – areas where individuals with ADHD might face challenges. Tune in to hear how you can manage your symptoms through a move.

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Listen to the Podcast here

 

ADHD & Moving

From Besties To Business: Stacy’s Social Work Awakening

I’m super excited for our guest. She happens to be my bestie. Her name is Stacy Colgan, and she is from Naperville, Illinois. Stacy and I have known each other way back, not as far as college. She went to Monmouth College and got her undergrad in business and theater. It’s probably why we connected so early on. It’s because I was always a theater acting nerd. She holds two master’s degrees. The first one is from Loyola in Chicago, and that’s for social work. The second master’s was from Benedictine College, which you taught at one point, I remember.

That was at Aurora University.

The Benedictine College master’s is in education and leadership. You became a clinical social worker back in 2005. A night out with me kicked off this journey of yours. We lived in Wrigleyville together. Stacy and I traveled all over the Midwest together because we were recruiters for the company that I work for now. Stacy and I traveled together for our corporate jobs. We went all over the Midwest to colleges.

We had so much fun. We spent hours and hours in the car together, so we got to know each other very well, but you left Corporate America around 2005. Part of it was when we went out, and a friend of mine was crying the whole night, which I’m not going to name any names. That’s what she did. Once she got a couple of drinks in her, she would get the weepies, and we knew we’d let her cry. That was my perspective. Your perspective was much different. Remind me, because I know you wanted to talk to her and build her up and stuff, and we were like, “She just doesn’t know.” Welcome to the show, Stacy.

Thank you for having me, Mariette. This is so fun. I love this. Mariette and I spent a lot of time together, and then when we weren’t working, we were living it up in Wrigleyville, which was fun. One night, we went out with some of your friends. Southern Illinois friends were everywhere, so I’m assuming maybe it was some Southern friends or maybe some high school friends. I can’t remember. I was sitting there, and you guys all had spread out. Everybody was everywhere. You had one weepy friend, and I was like, “What is wrong with her? What is going on?” None of you were giving her a second. If you know Mariette, that is not like her. She would zero in. She’s helping you.

I was done.

You were done. I sit down, and I start talking to her, and then maybe I realize after fifteen minutes or maybe half an hour or maybe two hours or maybe the whole night, why? You guys had spread out. At the end of the night, she comes to me and says, “Stacy, thank you so much. I shouldn’t be a social worker. You should.” I was like, “What’s a social worker? What is that?” I’d never heard of a social worker before. She’s like, “I’m going to be in hospitals.” She’s telling me about it.

Mariette and I were recruiters at a large tech company. It could not be more opposite. You probably get home at 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning. The next morning, I woke up. It’s Saturday, by the way. I’m 25 or 26. It’s early. I spring out of bed, and I’m like, “I’m going to be a social worker.” I knew it. I was going to be a social worker. I’ve never looked back.

Navigating Career Shifts: From Schools to Private Practice

You were working in schools for a while. You took the leap, you went out and did more curriculum, and then you broke out a couple of years ago and started your own practice. Tell me about that.

Eighteen years in education, fourteen years as a school social worker, and then six years in administration. I decided that I was going to continue to follow the yes. It’s like, “What’s working?” I kept doing that. Over COVID, I flippantly got asked to do some private practice. I was like, “I’ll try it. I’m bored.” You can see a theme here of I do things a little flippantly. They might not be the most thought-out decisions. This was another one.

I started a private practice. I worked for a practice that had multiple therapists. First, it was virtual because it was during COVID. I’d see a three-year-old and then I’d see a 93-year-old. I’d see a couple, and then I’d see a family. I’d see a woman in her 30s. I was not good at any of these subgroups. Building the relationship was okay, but when it came to what I can support and what I can help you with, it went from couples and families, not so much. Three-year-olds. Nope. Can’t do it. I had my niche out of that.

After a year, I decided like, “I’m going to do this on my own. I can make a little bit more money, and I’m going to try this out.” I switched from working to someone else. I worked for myself and niched down. This is when you and I got into this. It’s like, we’re doing something for us. We need to start. We went to Rise together.

It all kicked off because it was January of 2020. What was interesting about Rise, so this was a conference, and I had never heard of Rachel Hollis. Stacy, you had been following her for years at that point. She wrote the books Girl, Stop Apologizing and Girl, Wash Your Face. She had done all these things. I was like, “Okay.” When you asked me to go to this conference, I tried to go to some self-help or self-learning something every single year. I was like, “Sure.”

You’re like, “We’re going VIP.” I was like, “Let’s do this.” You’re like, “I want to meet Rachel and Dave. We get to do that at VIP.” I was like, “We haven’t been on vacation together in years. Let’s do this.” We stayed at some crappy random hotels. We had some epiphanies at this conference because most of these conferences that you go to, there are some big ones.

The best way to describe ADHD to those who don't have it, or maybe those who think they might, is this: imagine being in a room with 200 TVs on, all blaring at different volumes — that's what it feels like in your mind. Share on X

There’s a very tall dude who does one, Tony Robbins. They build you up. They tell you, “Get out there and be a savage after your dreams and all these things,” but they don’t tell you how to do it. She had this recipe for like, “You make an idea soup. Put all of your ideas in one bucket. Make a list of the people who are going to help you. Chart out the path.” We both were like, “That sounds easy enough. We can do that,” and then we did it.

That isn’t a miracle because we both did it. Not only that, but we both have ADHD. We have not even talked about that as the title of this episode. I’ve not been formally diagnosed. As my best friend and a social worker who has a niche in the ADHD world, I’m pretty confident that I have it, given that you’ve diagnosed me. That was the funniest conversation we had, probably.

We’re pretty funny when we’re together. That was one of the funnier conversations because I was like, “I don’t even know if I have ADHD.” You looked at me and you were like, “What?” I was like, “Do I have ADHD?” You’re like, “You’re the most ADHD of any ADHD I know.” I was like, “That makes a lot of sense. Let me dig into that.”

Demystifying ADHD: Beyond Hyperactivity To Inattentiveness

You recommended some books, and everything I read, I was like, “I have it bad.” It’s been helpful to understand that I have it. For those who have heard of it, I feel like the term gets thrown around a lot. There’s ADD and ADHD. Can we clarify what ADHD is? What is ADD? What is the difference? Let’s start there.

Mental health diagnoses are all named in this big DSM book that gets updated every few years. They take all the research that’s been done and look at what the diagnoses are and what all the qualifications are. Ironically, ADHD is the actual title for all ADHD, even if you’re not the H, which is hyperactive. Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is the actual diagnosis. It is not ADD anymore, but ADHD in the latest DSM.

There are three subtypes. First is the one most of us think of when we think of kids, which is hyperactive. Those fidgety kids who blurt out, who can’t sit in their seats. The little tornadoes. The second is a little bit more difficult to diagnose. What we’re seeing is a lot of diagnosing in adulthood with women who are inattentive. Inattentive is when you’re looking off into space and thinking of things like a dreamer, or more importantly, I’m in a conversation with you, but I’m thinking of four other things.

Tell me more. There’s a third one. I’m scared because I feel I’m checked for both the first one and the second one.

That brings us to the third one, which is a combined type. That’s both.

That’s probably what I am.

The best way to describe ADHD to those who don’t have it, or maybe if you think, “Do I?” is you’re in a room and there are 200 TVs on. They’re all up pretty loud, but at different levels. That’s what ADHD feels like in your mind. Once you start working with ADHD, with a therapist, possibly with some medications if that’s the way that you decide, by educating yourself and by some coaching, those are the four areas. You’re bringing down those TV sets so that you’re focusing on one. You have one channel, one thought. There is still humming and noise in the background, but your focus is unilateral. It’s not all of the things anymore.

Red Flags And 2 AM Furniture Moves: Recognizing ADHD Signs

That makes a ton of sense. I’m combined. At one point, I did some online assessment, but I know there are very formal things that you can do to get tested to see if you have it. What does that look like? Are there any pretty significant red flags that, if you know you do this a lot, you might have ADHD?

As Mariette and I were jumping on and saying hello, two of our favorite things, and we did both of them within 24 hours. One is moving furniture around. I moved all of my office furniture around instead of writing the report that I was supposed to write. Two, which I didn’t even mention, is that both of us went through our closets and reorganized them. That’s something that I did the other day.

Red flag, if you have gotten up at 2:00 in the morning and you are moving around furniture, big red flag. You might have ADHD. If you’re constantly assessing your closet, rearranging your closet, rearranging your things, or the closet is there and I’m not even looking at it, or I’m obsessed with it, that’s another. It has to be perfect, or I don’t even know what’s going on.

I do it sometimes because I feel like I’m out of control in every other area of my life. It’s the one thing I can control. Granted, I got my certified professional organizer status, but for as long as I can remember, that is the one thing that I can do to control how I feel in that moment and to gain back my focus. It is that I get a project. I’m good at Tetris. I can make things look and feel, and be usable in that space.

Red flag: If you find yourself rearranging furniture at 2 AM, you might have ADHD. Share on X

For me, it’s sometimes a distraction from what I should be doing that I don’t want to do because I don’t feel in control at that moment. That’s another big red flag, too. What are the tendencies of somebody who has ADHD? You’ve watched me for years, and I’m still in the midst of moving around. I should ask you that first. What is it like every time I say like, “I think I’m going to move here,” you’re like, “Geez.” What’s that like?

I think that we all have those. Yours has just developed from moving. Mine, I do the same with jobs. I’ve been in a ton of jobs over the last 25 years. For you, it’s moving. How many times in how many years?

It’s 18 times in the last 23 years. At this point, I’m probably going to move in the Spring. I’m looking at Chicago and Florida, or maybe both. I don’t know. We’ll see. Why not sell my house and get an apartment in Chicago and an apartment in Florida? I don’t know. We’ll see. I have no idea what I’m going to do, but I’m going through my own FRED framework, which you helped me vet out. I have to look at what the dream is and what the end game is. Right now, I’m doing it.

For me, the dream would be to do this full-time. I’m very far from that. I have a mortgage and all of the things that come with adulting, which can be hard. I look at the dream, and what I want to do is serve people. I want to help them move smarter. I want to bring these things to light. When I tell somebody I have a moving podcast and relocation, I’m sure they’re like, “I’m sure that’s incredibly boring.”

I interviewed somebody who does rental arbitrage, which I had never heard of. I’m in the moving industry. I interviewed my aunt, a psychic. We were talking about what to do if you move into a haunted house. I’m talking to you about moving with ADHD and what that looks like, and if there’s a correlation. To me, these are things that people need to hear about because we make these decisions, and then we regret them, or we don’t make the decisions, and that’s still a decision, and then we regret them too.

One of the terms that we have in the field is masking. You and I are good at masking. An example of that is you being a professional organizer. One area of executive functioning that people with ADHD struggle with is organization. That is something that you mask. It’s like I am going to hyperfocus, and I’m going to go all in on that. For me, it is time. I am always on time, no matter what, both my husband and I. My husband also has ADHD. Again, your friends who have ADHD are typically either not on time, or they have horrible time management, or both. It all goes along together. I work very hard.

I feel like I used to be good. I used to be on time, if not 10 or 15 minutes early, always. I now find that I’m always late because I think in my head, “This is only going to take me 3 minutes,” when it’s going to take me 20. I know inherently that it’s probably going to take me 20, but I’m like, “I can get it done. I can beat the clock.”

I used to compete with myself on how quickly I could get the dishwasher unloaded and loaded. I don’t have a good understanding of how much time it is going to take me to do something. It pushes everything back in the day that I’m supposed to do it, or I do it at inappropriate times. I prioritize things that shouldn’t be prioritized at that moment because it’s not necessary at that moment.

You’re saying all of the ADHD things. That’s called time blindness. I told my client right away the first time I met them, “I have ADHD. I am extremely time blind. I have clocks at both ends. If I’m looking back and forth to make sure I’m on time, it is not because you’re boring or anything else. It is because I need to stay on time, not because of you.”

You’re like, “The social cue has nothing to do with you. It’s me.”

It’s me, Taylor Swift. It’s me. That’s another way that we have to mask or realize. Here’s another thing. You said a great one, which is prioritizing. People with ADHD have a hard time prioritizing. I work with clients and myself.

Why?

That’s a good question, because we are so passionate and hyper-focused on the things that we’re passionate about. Most of us aren’t very passionate about writing the report I had to write the other day, so I moved around furniture. My office looks fabulous, though. Report not written.

I bet it does. Stacy practices out of Naperville, Illinois, right downtown. It’s an awesome little office area. To be clear, you can only practice in Illinois, both from a telehealth perspective and from an onsite perspective. This isn’t relevant to 49 or 50 states. Illinois, you’re good there.

One area of executive functioning that people with ADHD struggle with is organization. Share on X

I’m good for there. I’m happy to recommend therapists in different areas, as well as coaches. If what Mariette and I are saying, and you’re like, “Prioritizing, Time blindness,” these things are coming to a head, or you’re like, “Squirrel, squirrel.” Maybe it’s something to think about. There are multiple ways that research says are best to work on that. One of them is coaching. I highly recommend doing some coaching, as well as therapy, as well as educating yourself and those around you. I constantly tell my clients how it impacts them. My ADHD, my family knows. That’s a big piece of it.

Building Your Mental Wellness Team: Therapy, Coaching, and Self-Acceptance

You and I have talked about this in the past. I always say, and it’s even on my website and everything, you should have three people in your life that you like working with. One is a therapist. You’re like an archaeologist who digs up the bones and figures out what got you to this point. Let’s talk about your past. I know people traditionally think of therapists like, “We’re going to talk about my parents not parenting me right,” or we’re going to talk about people. It could be like, “Why am I the way I am?”. Let’s validate that.

Let’s say that’s okay. You moved around a lot as a kid. It’s a little bit traumatic because every single time, you had to start a new school, and you had to make new friends, and it’s hard to make friends. There’s the therapist, the archaeologist who digs up the bones and figures out how to get you where you’re going. I’m a certified professional life coach. A coach is going to say, “Let’s figure it out. Let’s build some blueprints.” We know where you came from. We know what your habits are and what you have to do to keep that up.

As a coach, I’m going to help you remove some of those roadblocks and say, “Let’s talk about your dreams. What has stopped you from getting there? What are some milestones we can put in place for you to phase out getting to this dream, and build those blueprints?” It’s almost like an architect. You have an archaeologist, you have an architect, and then there’s you.

If you don’t like yourself, and where you’re at, and what you’re doing, and how you’re doing it, that change has to start with you because you are the construction crew that takes those blueprints and has to build that house. I look at this as the trifecta of if you don’t like yourself and where you’re at, start with therapy. If you don’t know what your dreams are, we’re going to get you from where you are today to talking about that as a coach. From there, we’re going to set you free.

You can always come back to both of us. You can go to a therapist and say, “I moved, and I thought I was going to love it, and I didn’t love it. I should have listened to the coach who said, ‘Let’s do a city POC,’ and try it out before I buy it out,'” and things like that. Could moving be correlated with ADHD? Based on the tendencies that you know, the red flags, and things like that, I feel like it’s a tendency. I know we talked a little bit about masking and things like that, but could this be deeper with somebody who moves around a lot?

I think so. With ADHD, we often do things that are a little impulsive. It’s like going up to a bar and having a drunk girl tell you that you should be a social worker, and then you getting your master’s and doing it. There’s some impulsiveness. It could be like, “I’m going to move to New York City and figure it out,” or “I’m going to go here or go there.” I think that there is also a piece of that prioritization that’s like, “Am I prioritizing the important things here?”

Sometimes we hyper-focus, another big word in the ADHD world, on just one thing. It’s like, “I’m just focusing on wanting good weather. I want to go down, and I want to be somewhere South, because I’m so sick of this. I’m in the suburbs of Chicago, and dreary, gross, rainy weather, also snow.” I’m hyper-focused on this one thing.

I love your framework because I’m thinking of all of the things. I’m looking at the POC for each place that I’m going. I’m thinking, “I’ve done my values activity. I know that family comes first. I have no family in the South.” Is that coming together? Is that meaningful? The other thing I want to point out is that, oftentimes, most of our moves are more in our twenties. That’s where we’re doing a bunch of those moves. I was diagnosed when I was in graduate school the first time. That’s when I was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult, not as a child.

You, as well, when your best friend diagnoses you unofficially in your 40s. Thinking about the patterns and thinking about, “I need to change. I need to move. I need some inspiration. I need some hyper-focus. I need some passion,” I think that that often is, “That’s my ADHD.” I still need to bring in all the other things, the other values, the other things that are meaningful to me, so I can make a smart decision.

It’s been eye-opening. I put that in the workbook. By the time this is released, the new website will be out. I’m so excited. When you go to my website, at the bottom of every single page, you can fill out to put in for the Monday mailer. When you go and sign up for the Monday mailer, I send you a 14 or 15-page workbook that you can start filling out. You mentioned the values page, and it is important.

You’re figuring it out. I want to be close to a Pilates studio. I want to be able to walk to a coffee shop if I can, even if it’s a mile away. I want to be able to feel safe in my neighborhood. I want family to come visit, if not live close to me. There are all these things that I look at that, in my 20s and 30s, I was like, “I don’t care. I just want to explore. I went to San Diego once with a friend. I’m going to move there.”

Instead of thinking like, I lived in Ocean Beach, but if I were to look back, if not stayed, if I went a little bit further North, I would have probably had all of the things that I still now think are important and want to have, and could have been in the right place and set roots and stayed there. Not to say that I wouldn’t have moved all over because I love moving all over.

At the same time, that day-to-day, niching down, you can have that dream to move to San Diego, but where in San Diego? Talking about your priorities, what is the priority? It’s like getting up early, working out, walking along the beach, getting coffee, meditating, journaling, and doing all of those things. If you’re in a place where you have to drive to that, you’re less likely to do that. You’re not going to feel that balance and that harmony in your soul that you need to feel like you should thrive in that community, because you’ll be surviving to get to your next soulful experience.

If you don't like yourself, or where you're at, or what you're doing, that change has to start with you. You are the construction crew that has to build that house. Share on X

Embracing ADHD: Creativity, Hyper-Focus, And Self-Acceptance

One thing that I want to put out there is when we find out that we have ADHD or some of the same tendencies as people with ADHD, instead of trying to be like, “I want my ADHD to be as small as possible,” that there are some wonderful things about ADHD. The hyper-focus, the creativity. If it’s a passion of yours to move around and to hyper-focus for a little while and then go, that’s great. That’s amazing. It is an acceptance of, “How do I accept what this is and work with it?” I don’t know anyone who’s done that better than you have. You run with it.

I have evolved. I can’t say never. Always and never are bad things that I always say. I don’t think I’m going to buy another place for a very long time. It would serve me better to rent because buying a house is expensive. You’ve lived in your house for 14 or 15 years. For me, that sounds awful, but for you, you have a family, you have children. Setting those roots was important to you for as long as I’ve known you. For me, I’m like, “I’m going to explore everything.” Instead of spending that money every single time, I’m going to find a place that I can rent for a year or two, see if I like it, and then maybe buy in that area. It’s like doing a very long POC.

At the same time, I like the investment in a house, but there are a lot of things that come with buying a house. If I have to focus on one thing, it’s not going to be all of those things, like putting in patios and all that stuff. That was terrible. I’m lucky my grass looks good, and it’s only because the HOA cuts the yard. Otherwise, I would never do it. There are a lot of correlations between ADHD and moving a lot, spontaneity, and prioritization. What are some other red flags that you can think of that maybe, as far as moving goes, we should consider when we’re considering moving, or at least get coached?

Another one is that passion piece and that hyper-focus. How long is this something that you’re going to be passionate about? Is this something that’s more short-term, or is it something that you can see in the next few years? I think that when we hyper-focus, it’s usually on something smaller, like a hobby. Moving is not a hobby. Moving, you’re committed.

I was going to say, I’ve made moving my hobby. It is what I’ve done.

You have. You certainly have.

On top of all the other things, I picked up pickleball. By picking up, I bought the shoes. I took one lesson, and I’m like, “I’m going to do pickleball now,” but I haven’t signed up for my second class.

Did you buy the outfit?

I already had outfits. That’s why it fits into my hobby. All my SAVVI clothes work perfectly for pickleball. I’m going to lean in. It was fun. In hindsight, I played racquetball and tennis growing up. I played racquetball with my dad. I played tennis passively, I took lessons and stuff at the park district. It’s a combination of those two, which is fun, but with a wiffle ball. It was interesting, but I think it’s going to be fun, and it gets me out of the house and not doing a regular gym visit. I’ve got to do something. I’m getting older.

I love it. It’s so fun. To answer your question and to wrap it up, the passion for the work that you do or the day-to-day work for someone with ADHD is incredibly important. When we worked together in recruiting, it was great for a while, but after two and a half years, it died out. It wasn’t exciting anymore. I was like, “I’m done.” I think that’s why we do a lot of moving around, whether it’s careers or jobs or actual physical locations. Some people are in one city, one state, or one neighborhood, and they move on and on. Something is fulfilling about that.

It’s like that fresh start. It’s hard because everywhere you go, there you are. If you are ADHD and any of this resonates, and you haven’t taken the first step to even do an online assessment, that’s a great place to start. Set up an appointment with a therapist who has a focus on ADHD. If you go to PsychologyToday.com, you can find Stacy’s profile. You can also go in and search for specialties.

Seeking Support: Identifying Specific Concerns And Finding The Right Therapist

If you feel like you have something that specifically is bothering you, like grief or ADHD, or whatever your concern is, you can go in and search for therapists by that. I haven’t had a great experience searching through my insurance companies’ portals. I find that if I can go in and find a therapist that way, and then go in and see if my insurance covers it, that’s been successful. What are some other ways that they can find a therapist?

The best thing is to reach out to the people around you. Who do you like? Who has a practice that’s good? Lots of towns have different Facebook pages. Maybe it’s asking your mom’s group, or it’s asking people at pickleball, or it’s asking people whom you go have coffee with. That’s first and foremost, ask around. I would say that half of my referrals come from Psychology Today. The other half probably comes from my current clients referring their friends and their family members.

I think it’s important to note this tip that you gave me many years ago. I remember going into therapy initially back in maybe 2007 or 2008. I was experiencing depression for the first time. I tried to talk to a friend of mine who was a doctor. That’s a whole other episode about how she reacted. I asked you, “What do I do? How do I find a therapist?” You said, first of all, “Interview them. Find a couple, and then have a conversation with them and see if it’s a good match.”

If you have a specific concern—grief, ADHD, or anything else—you can search for a therapist who specializes in that area. Share on X

Just as I’m taking on some of these clients, there are some people whom I know I’m not a good match for. There are some people that I can identify with, and then would work well together. You had Holly for many years. I tried Holly, but she was far from me. I lived about an hour away. While I loved her, it was hard for me to get out there. I found somebody more local who was a good fit, but had I not interviewed, there were several therapists over the years that I worked with. I get depression bouts versus having it last for a long time.

I now have Kevin. Me moving out of North Carolina, so I can’t work with him anymore. I have even thought about that because I use him, and we meet once a month. When I was going through some tough times, we were meeting every other day, and he helped me get out of that, gave me very thought-provoking questions to think about, and then you and I would talk sometimes about what we talked about and getting validated, but had I not had the relationship with him.

I remember one therapist in particular whom I was bored with. They wouldn’t ask me any questions. They’d be like, “What else, what else?” I’d be like, “I don’t know, ask me a question. You’re supposed to be helping me and guiding me. I don’t know what else. If I knew what else, I wouldn’t be here asking you for help. What the hell?” I thought that was such a great tip.

I was a mental wellness chair for my company. When people would come to me and say, “This is what I’m dealing with,” I would say, “Find three therapists.” We used Modern Health. As a company, we would give away six one-hour sessions to everybody. Some people needed more, and then they could tap into our insurance. I would say, “Go in, look at their profiles, see if there’s something that you identify with, and then have one session with them. Talk to them. See if it was a good fit. If it is, great, keep going with that one. If it’s not, then find someone else. You know that as a therapist, that’s going to happen.

I always schedule a call first. Whenever anyone reaches out to me, even if I see a good friend of theirs, I set up a 15-to-20-minute call where I ask them, “What are you looking for? What type of insurance do you have? What have you got out of therapy before? What did you like? What did you not like?” I then give my spiel, which is funny because, from the recruiting days, we used to have a spiel. I have my own spiel about myself now. I lay out like I have ADHD. Here’s how it impacts my clients. Here’s how I’ve worked on it. Here are my strengths. Here are the things that I’m not that great at.

I’m forthright because I want you to know coming in what to expect, versus coming in and being like, “I don’t know. Ask me a question.” Luckily, I have the right platforms. Psychology Today and my website are pretty on-brand with who I am. I would say about 90% of the time, when I do those calls, those turn into actual clients. Ten percent of the time, they don’t, and I’ll give them, “I don’t think I’m a good fit, but this person is,” or “Why don’t you try this private practice,” or “Let me do some research and find somebody else.”

That’s incredibly important to have that relationship. I can call you, but if you’re not available, I know that I can get in touch with Kevin and, within a day, have a session. It validates that I’m not crazy. My concerns and whatever I’m going through are real. He gives me tools, whether they’re cognitive behavioral tools, and that toolbox to use through the week to get me through whatever I need to get through.

You bring up a good point, that we’re such good friends, but when we are talking, I’m not talking to you through the lens of a therapist. I’m talking through, we’ve been friends for 25 or 30 years, and I’m thinking through all of our history. It’s like Mama Bear comes out, I get mad about stuff. It is very different than talking to a therapist. Their job is to validate, hear you, listen, and mirror back. I put my hand up to my clients. I’m like, “This is what I’m hearing. Is this what you think you’re putting out in the world?”

There’s a lot of that behavioral therapy, but very different than going to a friend. It’s leveling up. The same with coaching. You and I can go to one another and be each other’s greatest fan, but I love that you have “We’re going to go through the framework. We’re going to go from A to Z. I’m going to help you get there.” That’s very different than you and me getting on the phone and talking for half an hour.

I need the framework, because I’m ADHD, to walk somebody through. Otherwise, I go off on tangents. There are a million tangents that I always go off on. For me, that’s helpful. I appreciate it. There have been times, too, where I’m like, “Stacy, as a therapist, how would you process this?” You’ve been very good about saying, “There are two different things that you can look at,” or “If I were hearing this, this is what I would think or say or ask a question,” or whatever that is. I’m so grateful to have you in my life in general. That was the best thing that’s ever come out of the company we worked at together. I also know you’re a tremendously amazing therapist. For those in Illinois who are looking for somebody, how can they find you?

I have a website. It’s WatervlietCounseling.com. You can also go to Psychology Today and look up Stacy Colgan.

That’s awesome. Thank you so much for coming on. I know the correlation between moving is there, especially some of the things you talked about, like being spontaneous and all that stuff. I’m so grateful. I’m sure we’re going to get a ton of feedback on this episode because I know a lot of our friends have it. Thank you so much for coming on the show. I look forward to seeing you.

You too. Thank you.

 

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