When Everything Feels Wrong (But You Can’t Explain Why)

Have you ever had a moment where everything feels wrong—but you can’t actually explain why?

Nothing specific is broken.
Nothing obvious is on fire.
But you feel overwhelmed, stuck, or quietly panicked—and when you try to name the problem, your mind just goes blank.

If you have ADHD, this experience is common.
And if you’re single on top of that, it can feel even worse—because there’s no second brain around to help you sort things out.

In this episode, Christine Dunning introduces Access, the first phase of The ASSAP Framework. Access is not about action, motivation, or fixing your life. It’s about learning how to enter a problem safely so you can understand what’s actually going on—before overwhelm takes over.

What This Episode Is (and Is Not)

This is not:

• a reset
• a productivity system
• a “try harder” plan
• a self-optimization project

This is:

• orientation
• perspective
• learning how to notice problems earlier
• reducing shame by understanding what’s structural—not personal

Life has problems. That part is not optional.
Access is about identifying them faster, with less panic, and more clarity.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why confusion does not mean something is wrong with you
• How ADHD overwhelm collapses perspective and creates paralysis
• Why symptoms (procrastination, messiness, brain fog) aren’t the cause
• How being single removes the “second brain” most systems assume exists
• What Access really means—and why it comes before action
• How to start noticing problems without trying to solve them

The Three Access Questions

You’ll be introduced to three simple orientation questions—not to answer yet, but to notice:

• What keeps breaking?
• What feels heavier than it should?
• What do you keep rebuilding from scratch?

No fixing. No productivity. Just access.

What’s Next

In the next episode, we’ll move into Security—how to make this kind of thinking feel safe enough that you don’t shut down, burn out, or abandon it entirely.

Because pushing harder isn’t the answer.
Learning how to approach problems differently is.

Don’t forget to rate and review!

www.TwoCatsCoaching.com

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

Have you ever had a moment where everything feels wrong? But you can't actually explain why? I mean, like, nothing specific is broken, nothing obvious is on fire. But something's happened and now you feel totally overwhelmed, stuck, maybe even a little panicked. And when you try to name the problem, your mind just blanks. If you have ADHD, this is a familiar place. And if you're single on top of that, it can feel worse because there's not a second brain around to help you sort it out. Hi, I'm Christine Dunning. I'm a Master Certified Life Coach, the owner of Two Cats Coaching, and the host of this, a solo person's guide to ADHD. Welcome to episode 28 where everything feels wrong, but you can't explain why. Before we go any further, let me be very clear about what this episode is not. This is not about New Year's resolutions. It's not a reset. It's not going to be a how to be more productive faster. It's not about fixing your life, optimizing yourself, or finally getting everything right. Because here's the deal life has problems. That part is not optional. Some of these problems are harder because we have ADHD. And some are harder because we're single and don't have as much help. And of course, some things hit both of those. I'm not here to eliminate problems from your life. What I'd like to try to start today, and this is the first of four episodes, just so you know. I'm going to show you how to identify them faster and start maneuvering issues into lanes where you can actually work with them instead of them working against you. That sounds less flashy than a reset. Good. It's also supposed to be more useful. And before we go any further, a quick housekeeping note. If you're a regular listener, I have a few, um, you might be thinking, wait, didn't I already already hear an episode 28? Yeah, yes, yes, you did. Um, uh, this is um the beginning of a program that I'm working on. And right after I recorded and uploaded episode 28, I had a big breakthrough and kind of changed my mind on some things. And honestly, it almost entirely affected the first episode. And so it wasn't aligned anymore. So I've pulled it. Welcome to having ADHD. The information wasn't bad. It it just is not aligned anymore with my my program. And that's actually kind of the point of today's episode. So I'd like to start with a quick personal story. Uh, for those of you who don't know my background, uh, my previous career was music education, elementary music to be specific, which means on an average day, I had at least 150 students come through my classroom. I usually had between 450 and 550 on my um on my books. I tell you this because that many little kids, I got a lot of colds. A lot of colds. Um, and for me personally, when I get a cold, my thinking stops. It's just gone. You know this, it's called brain fog. It's a pretty common symptom of ADHD. Now understand, most of that time I had no clue I had ADHD. I didn't discover that until after I retired. For me personally, a lot of my ADHD symptoms, they're pretty manageable, or I have learned to manage them over the years. But getting sick, not so much. Which means I wouldn't remember what I needed to do to treat a cold so that I could get better. When I start getting those symptoms, truly, I have no idea what to do. And as a single person, I didn't have anybody to sort of automatically step in and say, hey, sounds like you're coming down with the crud, you should take something. When that brain fog sets in, it's too late for me to try to remedy the situation. Quick side note. I know I'm two cats coaching, I only have one cat anymore, unfortunately, and she's being noisy today. So if you hear her meowing, now you know. Anyway, here's the core idea I want to anchor in today. Confusion doesn't mean that something's wrong with you. Let me say that again. Confusion is not the disease, it's a symptom. And it simply means that you haven't accessed what the problem is yet. When people with ADHD start to feel overwhelmed, our perspective collapses. Our brains are taking in too much information too fast without enough structure to sort it. Or in the case of my cold, the symptoms of the cold overwhelm my system and I can't function. Everything feels equally urgent, equally heavily, equally impossible, and you know, equally, I don't know. Sometimes this is called ADHD paralysis. Not because you're lazy, but it's a sign that your nervous system is overloaded. And part of our task today is noticing what your brain flags before that information disappears. Here's what often happens next. You assume the confusion means that you're failing, you're behind. You should already know what to do. How many colds have I had in my life, and I can't remember what to do? That's just an example, of course. And so you try to pick the right goal immediately because, you know, that's what feels good. Oh, I'll go to the doctor. But that almost always backfires. Because early thoughts, early goal goals for people with ADHD, it's not always the right one, right? It's just our brain guessing. It's sort of like um playing pin the tail on the donkey, trying to stab that tail where it's supposed to be, and you have no idea. And this is where my new program comes in. So this program is it has five phases, and I'm gonna talk about those over four podcast episodes, by the way. The first one we're talking about today is access. The following ones I'm just gonna run through quick are security, structure, anchoring, and pace. So let's talk about access. Access is actually not an action, it's not a motivation, it's not deciding what to fix. It's important to do these things in order. So stick with me. This is not a quick fix thing. Access is having the ability to get inside a problem safely. That'll be part two. And starting to understand what's actually going on. Here's a great way to think of it it's about getting curious. Think of this as an iterative diagnosis. You know, this is for high frequency things. And this is not about solving it, not even naming it. You're just gonna get closer. Try to look at things from an outsider point of view. And again, as single people, we don't have an outsider generally in our play in our homes. We don't have a partner or a husband or a wife or whatever to sort of say to us, hey, I'm noticing this about you. So we need to take that role ourselves and notice those things about ourselves. Now, one of the biggest mistakes we often make in this time period is confusing symptoms with causes. Symptoms are things like procrastination, messiness, avoidance, emotional overload, starting and stopping, and brain fog. Those are just a few, trust me. Those are real things, but they're not the cause of the issue. The cause lives underneath cognitive load, nervous system access or stress, executive function limits, decision fatigue. It might be something completely different, unrelated to the ADHD, you know, like in this case, the example I'm giving you, you might just, you know, have a cold. Trying to fix symptoms without access to the cause is exhausting. That's why so many systems don't stick. Think of it this way, and I'll give a recent example. If you feel like you have a cold, but you have a brain aneurysm, that's a terrible example, but you get what I mean. Giving yourself a decongestant isn't going to make you feel better. You need to get to the hospital. Vice versa. If you think you have a brain aneurysm, but you just have a cold, going to a hospital is kind of a waste of time and money and your doctor's time and money, when really all you need to do is go get some decongestant and some cough medicine. And then again, if you're single, that's another layer of complication. Most of society is really built around partnered or group living. That's the way people lived for years. People, the concept of just living alone is in a lot of ways fairly new. And usually then you would have a second person or more helping notice patterns, catching slips, re reflecting reality back to you. And if you live alone, you don't have that. So problems can grow quietly under the surface, and by the time you notice them, they start to feel enormous. Now, that's not a character flaw, it's a structural issue. Which brings us back to access. Today is not about fixing anything. Today is about learning how to notice. It's about listening to the little voice in your head, and again, being curious. Which I have to do a little plug here, reminds me so much of one of my favorite moments in Ted Lasso, the being curious part. If you know, you know. Go watch that clip, it's actually quite good. I do want to say that your brain often gives you clues. Our brains will often give us a quick thought about something. For example, my brain might say something like, oh, you know, you're this is probably the beginning of a cold. You're starting not to feel great. But that information can come and go so quickly that we don't always retain that information. My brain doesn't grab it before it's like, oh, and then I have to line the kids up to leave. So a lot of what we're going to talk about here is how to catch those things before they vanish from your brain. And here are three access questions that we're going to start with today. And again, a reminder, today we're not solving any problems today. This is all about noticing. So if you're wondering where this is applicable, ask these questions. First, what keeps breaking in my life? What pattern keeps showing up even after you've tried to fix it? Maybe you've tried to fix it different ways, and yet you still run the same pattern. It's just like that definition of insanity. You know, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. That's this. And again, not something that went wrong once, but what reliably comes apart over time often. Second, what feels heavier than it should? What takes more energy than seems reasonable, even when it's simple? You know, what's like, oh, I have to do this again? This shouldn't be that hard. You know, what what things drain us completely or or create that tight sinking feeling? And third, what do you end up rebuilding every time from scratch? What do you keep reinventing because the last version never held? Where are you starting over again instead of continuing? And you again, there's no answers here yet. This is not a productivity exercise. This is orientation. So here's your takeaway for today. If everything feels wrong, but you can't explain why, that doesn't mean you're failing. It means you're at that access point. And for today, all I want you to do is to start taking notice of them. And I'm gonna tell you something here. Little ones. Big ones are great. Oh, I keep losing my money on the stock market. Wow, that's a lot. Little things. Oh, I forgot to brush my teeth again. Little things. This works really this works especially well with little things that build into bigger things. We'll talk more about that in the future too. So again, take notice of these little things, write them down if you need to so you don't forget. You know, notes app on your phone. That's one of my favorite places. Um, post-it notes are great for things like this. Next time, we'll talk about security and how to make this work feel safe enough that you can grab those things before you shut down or burn out, because that's such a big part of our issue here. Because pushing harder isn't the answer. Learning how to approach problems differently is, and this is where we start. Oh, and you want to know how I fixed my brain fog rhinovirus issue? I'm gonna tell you that later. Thanks again for coming. My name is Christine Dunning, and I am um the host of A Solo Person's Guide to ADHD. If this episode is helpful, um please check out my website. Please rate and review. I really could use that every time you hit a like button or a you know, give me some stars or whatever. It makes this available to more people. That's how the internet works. So I really could use that. Um, this appears both on any podcast station and on YouTube. So if you like it, look at both. I really appreciate it. Thanks so much for coming.