Show Notes
“My truth.” “Follow your truth.” “I’m just speaking my truth.” We hear these phrases everywhere. But what exactly do we mean by truth—and what happens when we confuse our subjective experience with objective reality? In this episode, I’m breaking down why that distinction matters so much for our mental health and our relationships. Mental health isn’t the absence of pain. It’s our ability to live in reality without denial, deception, or distortion—and learn to thrive there. That means reality has to matter, even when it hurts, even when we don’t like what it tells us, and especially when it tells us we’re wrong. I’ll unpack the difference between objective truth and subjective truth, why both matter, and why confusing the two creates serious problems. Your feelings are real. Your experiences matter. Your interpretation deserves to be heard. But none of those things automatically become objective facts simply because you experience them deeply. We’ll also look at what this does inside relationships. So many conflicts become unnecessarily destructive because two people are arguing over whose subjective experience gets to become the reality. Instead of learning the other person, we demand agreement. Instead of saying, “This is how I experienced it,” we insist, “This is what happened.” There’s a better way. We can learn to speak precisely. We can distinguish what we know from what we feel, remember, interpret, or believe. We can honor someone else’s experience without surrendering reality. And when reality shows us that we’re wrong, we can simply say it: I was wrong. Because mental health requires a commitment to two things: face reality and embrace your humanity.
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ADHD isn't a good enough explanation... Paul Drayton was diagnosed with ADHD in 2021. Like many people, receiving the diagnosis brought relief. Experiences and behaviors that had confused him for years suddenly had a name.But does giving something a name explain it?In this conversation, I wanted to try something different. Instead of interpreting Paul through the diagnosis, I wanted to understand HIM.So we moved away from the label and into his life.We talked about the sensitive little boy who sometimes escaped the noise of his home. A family where emotions weren’t easily expressed. A teenager whose mind wouldn’t quiet down. Alcohol. Addiction. Creativity. Impulsivity. Relationships. And a deeply human desire to be heard and understood.And the further we moved away from the diagnosis, the more interesting the conversation became.We also examine what we actually know about ADHD, what we don't know, and the difference between identifying a collection of behaviors and establishing their cause.This isn't about replacing one reductive explanation with another.I simply refuse to reduce a human being to one in the first place.Paul is not "ADHD."He is a man with a history, relationships, wounds, strengths, choices, adaptations, longings, and a story still being written.And, like every one of us, he is infinitely more interesting than a diagnosis could ever account for.Paul Drayton is an actor and author of Ride — Or Die Trying.Click subscribe to follow the show!Follow me on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vanessathetherapist/Follow the show: https://www.instagram.com/theworkofbeinghuman/Paul's book: https://www.amazon.com/Ride-Die-Trying-Before-Laughter/dp/B0HDR233Q9/ref=tmm_aud_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&dib_tag=se&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.zbHEfHT7LWcK5skFtpnfetf2njpzYJGzMI6RJNu1CPpuD5HHsQjOh90A5MEFcA0xH3moj6EYSJ9y00dLLQ71rHc0ARZH9Qg04Yb57OK4wc8M8guK4rxDGn2jKNsggHDjlb9UXuyUB4xDRErXjDrauCiZ4SnmlsS45HtjoLyljj7cVOd7nU7tGGSGGzPb2zLu5-FPsc6xieqIVkY7LpgxRVYYS0qG-f4kSd5X3tCo9hs.ywH5bmWrV2VuQCVSm_epW66i1Kr9WKadQIPBtYjw5Dg&qid=1789350621&sr=1-1