Today I’m here to remind you that you’re not alone, that we are all going through this together, that you need to go easier on yourself, and that we WILL get through this pandemic & related crap -Enjoy!

As always, we are here for you and we love the responses and the notes that we get from you; so please continue to do that! Tell us who you want to hear on the podcast, anything at all; we’d love to know.  Leave us a review on any of the places you get your podcasts, and if you ever need our help I'm www.petershankman.com and you can reach out anytime via peter@shankman.com or @petershankman on all of the socials. You can also find us at @FasterNormal on all of the socials. It really helps when you drop us a review on iTunes and of course, subscribe to the podcast if you haven’t already! As you know, the more reviews we get, the more people we can reach. Help us to show the world that ADHD is a gift, not a curse! 

TRAANSCRIPT

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Hey guys, Peter, Shankman the host of Faster Than Normal.

I want to talk to you guys just sort of heart to heart about what we've been going through for the past couple of years and what it's meant. Not only to the neurodivergent like ourselves, but to everyone, you know, because this is Faster Than Normal, really focusing on sort of us and what we're dealing with. Y’know.. I, and this isn't scripted. I'm literally making this up as I, as I talk. Um, these are just thoughts coming from my head so I apologize if they seem a little rambling, uh, or at least more, more, more rambly than my normal self. But you know, when the world shut down in, in, I guess, March of 2020, no one really knew how long it was gonna go.

People like us, you know, we're, we're used to adapting. Uh, the thing about ADHD is, and, and neurodiversity is that we're used to adapting, but we adapt with the concept that as we adapt things, at some point I can go back to some sort of normal that we can do. You know, and over the past now three calendar years, right, almost, almost two full years since this started, the concept of adaptation has pretty much been how we've had to live our lives, which is fine, except there's been no normalcy in that, going back to it. Right. In other words, okay. I'm not gonna be able to travel for awhile because the coronavirus, but that should end soon and I'll be back on a plane and so we look forward to that, right. Or, you know, oh, I'm not able to, to go to I'm better. I'm better at learning in school. I'm terrible at learning and homeschooling, but you know, it won't be that long remote schooling should be over by whenever. And it’s not ..and I guess I just wanted to talk for a few minutes about, uh, or talk to people like myself who are dealing with everything we're dealing with with COVID and this sort of new environment and this crazy world. And on top of which we're dealing with the fact that we're still neurodiverse and what works for other people or other people's ability to adapt, isn't like our ability to adapt and sometimes. We can't and sometimes we have to stop and look and say, oh my God, where are we? And how did we get here? And I need some hope to know that it's going to get better.

I can tell you that these two years have been really tough for me. Um, and for everyone, but you know, for me, and I can't really tell that to many people. Right. Because, you know, you say, oh yeah, it's usually like, oh, you know, what are you complaining about? You have an apartment and you're still, you're still making money and you have. Well, just because I'm not destitute or I'm not as in as bad shape as others. And I'm very thankful I'm not, but that doesn't make what I'm doing through any less than what other people are going through or, or it doesn't invalidate what we're going through. And I think that's the first thing we need to talk about is the fact that, that your problems, what you're going through are entirely different than what other people are going through. And they're both valid problems. And if you're sad and if you're upset about those problems, those are valid reactions just because you might not be homeless on the street or have lost your whole family to COVID doesn't mean that what you're going through isn’t valid and doesn't meant that it doesn’t need to be addressed and you need to take ownership of the fact that you're sad or that you're upset or that you're dealing with whatever it is you're dealing with.

For me, what COVID has brought into my world. Is the inability to travel for me, travel was where everything happened. Travel was where I did all my writing, travel is where I got my books, written travel is where I, I came up with new ideas and implemented them travel was my safe space. Being on an airplane, allowed me to do 24 hours of work in a three hour flight, and that went away and I didn't have that ability. I haven't had the ability. Last year, I traveled 39,000 miles on an airplane. The year prior to that, I took, I traveled 24 the year prior to that in 2019, I traveled 274,000 miles. So. To have that taken away almost immediately was a very hard wake up call and we kept assuming it would come back and it didn't, and again, we're still assuming it will. Right. And it has to, but we don't know when, and it gets very scary, not knowing when an after a while our ability to say, oh, everything's going to be okay. Starts to fade. And we don't necessarily have that ability anymore. We don't have that ability to say, oh, everything's going to be fine. Don't worry just a little while longer because we have no idea how long little while is going to be.

I bring that up because I want you to understand that it is okay to not be at your best during this time. I'm not, I am the furthest, but I'm not gonna say the furthest from my best, but I am certainly not anywhere near what my best currently is. And I know that I know where I am right now is not where my best is. And, and, and that doesn't mean I've given up. It doesn't mean that I'm not sure I can come back from it. It just means that right now, things suck, I am pretty sure that I am skating very, very close to some form of depression. I've talked to my therapist about this. Uh, I have no doubt that I, and many of us are skating very close if not full in to some sort of depressive episode right now, because there is no telling when this is going to end. I guess that's what I want to bring up more than anything else is that it's okay. It sucks, but it's okay to feel this way and understanding that it's okay to feel this way is the first step, I guess, towards being able to process it. And being able to recover from it. 

I look outside right now, I'm in my apartment. I gave up my office about a year ago, cause I wasn't going there anymore. I look outside and they see the streets are still emptier than they were two years ago. And then I look across, I looked the other way into Midtown Manhattan and, and, and the buildings were just empty. Right. I walked down the street and the stores are closed they are shut. New York city. I would say it's a ghost town, but it's a very scary place right now. It is not the difference between two years ago now is palpable and they talk, oh, you know, the apartments are coming back and the. You know, if you're working from home all day and don't leave your apartment in New York city, you pay your, you pay your rent or you pay a mortgage for what's outside of your department. And if you can't go enjoy any of that, what's the point. For the first time in my life, I started thinking about maybe moving out of the city. Um, obviously can't do it anytime soon. I have a daughter who's I split who splits her time between her mom and myself and, and, you know, can't just leave. Um, but I've been thinking about it. You know, maybe open space is what we need. Maybe, maybe some place with more sunshine or warmer weather. I mean, it's, it rained all night. It snowed all night and then turned to rain, now it's just a slushy gross gray day outside. And that that's certainly not helping things, but, you know, look, I know things are gonna get better. There's no question that things are, but it does suck right now. And, and I just want my listeners who I'm still so thankful with me, to know that that it's going to get better. I don't know when. I still have a hint of optimism that things are going to improve. I do. Um, I'm, I'm vaccinated, I'm boosted my daughter's vaccinated. You know, I hope that things are going to improve, but we don't know when, and we don't know when things gonna get back to any semblance of normal and what normal is. And I just, you know, I it's like I've been in situations like when I've been depressed, whatever before, and I'm like, you know what, screw it I'm booking a trip and I'm going to Asia. And the next day I'll just book a flight and go to Asia. You know what? I can't go to Asia now because it’s closed. Right. Or, you know, I couldn't even, because I have to take a PCR test and let's take 48 hours, whatever the case. I mean, it's, it's, there's always, it just seems like there's always something preventing us from being able to make it okay and, and that sucks and, and it sucks for everyone and it's not just you and it's not just me. 

And you look at Instagram, you look all these people sort of living their best lives, that there. And guess what they're offering. Right there. No one's living their best life. I don't care what they say. Right. There's an image I saw of a LinkedIn, this dock somewhere warm and tropical that dock. And it's a video of someone running to the dock and living carefree and just beautiful photo. And then another video zooms out there that this woman is running and there were 400 people online behind her to do the same thing.

 It's all bullshit. It's all bullshit. So I guess I pointed this sort of little mini Faster Than Normal episode. To let you guys know that it's okay to not be okay and we're going to get through it. I don't know when or how, but I do know that we're going to, and the best thing we can rely on right now is other people, as our friends, is people like us Neuro-diverse like us, people who we trust, who go through this with us. And so if any of you are dealing with that, I encourage you to reach out to me. I'm always happy to answer an email. You know, a tweet or whatever. Um, but yeah, it sucks right now and, and all we can hope is that day by day, it gets better.

So I just want you to know that I'm still here and I'll still keep doing this for as long as I can, and I hope it's gonna improve. And you guys are in my hearts. I'm thinking about you all. And yeah, I know it's a, an a non-normal Faster Than Normal episode, but I thought it was important to say that that. It does suck. And we all know that and it feels like sometimes it feels like our passion for all this is just non-existent. And even sometimes even just getting out of bed in the morning is the hardest fight we're going to have all day. And, but we do it and we're going to keep doing it and we'll, we'll make it somehow. You know, it's okay. If getting out of bed is literally the only thing you did that something, right. I there've been days where, okay. I got to work out today and I don't, and I feel like shit for not doing it, but you know what? I got out of bed and they made the bed and I got dressed into the shower and whatever and sometimes that's enough.

Go easy on yourself because. This is, I hate this term, but this is unprecedented and there are no books, there are no rules to teach us how to deal with the amount of bullshit that we have had to deal with over the past two years, there are no rules,

so go easy on yourselves. And, uh, I'm here if you need me. And we'll figure out a way to get the other side of this. I love you guys. Thank you for listening. And like I said, I know it's not a normal FTN episode, but we'll be back next week with a normal one. 

Next week. We actually have miss America on the, on the podcast so that's going to be an amazing interview. So I'll talk to you guys soon. Thanks for listening.

As always, we are here for you and we love the responses and the notes that we get from you; so please continue to do that! Tell us who you want to hear on the podcast, anything at all; we’d love to know.  Leave us a review on any of the places you get your podcasts, and if you ever need our help I'm www.petershankman.com and you can reach out anytime via peter@shankman.com or @petershankman on all of the socials. You can also find us at @FasterNormal on all of the socials. It really helps when you drop us a review on iTunes and of course, subscribe to the podcast if you haven’t already! As you know, the more reviews we get, the more people we can reach. Help us to show the world that ADHD is a gift, not a curse! 

Faster Than Normal Podcast info & credits