When ADHD kicks us into stress mode, our focus narrows and we default to the same habitual response — the go-to move that's comfortable, automatic, and usually about 80% effective. But what happens the other 20% of the time, when that single move isn't serving us?
In this episode, Cam explores what it means to develop a "second choice" — not replacing our default response, but building a complementary option alongside it. Using the recurring metaphor of jumping ahead a few comic strip panels and wondering how we got there, he unpacks why it's so hard to trace our own decision-making in the moment, and why outside perspectives (well-meaning as they are) don't always capture what's really happening. Drawing on a story about his son's car-tuning process — sending data back and forth with a specialist to make small, precise adjustments — Cam reframes the work of integration as an iterative practice: noticing one specific habitual response, and asking, simply, "what's another way?"
He closes with an invitation to remember there's a more aware, more resourced version of yourself already available to you — and that recognizing you have a choice at all is the first step toward using it.
