How Divorce And ADHD Diagnosis Become A Catalyst For Growth

You can learn more about Kathleen Killen and her podcast “Sisters In Sobriety” here.

TRANSCRIPT

The Power Of Choice

From a very young age Kathleen Killen believed in the power to choose. Even though her mom and dad didn’t always see it that way.

My parents used to have this flippant phrase they would use and they would say, ‘well, I had no choice.’ And I used to get really annoyed. 

Young Kathleen couldn’t wrap her head around it and would argue obstinately. Later in life this concept of choice came up again and again.

You could even be in like dire, dire circumstances. And your choice might be, ‘I can choose my thoughts around this situation,’ like even if you're in dire, dire circumstances. Like if you have two choices and both are scary, you will have to make a choice that sometimes is scary. Or you will have to walk into fear. And sometimes fear means, sure, like don't run towards the angry bear. Yeah, OK. There's healthy fear. And then there's, is there fear that is keeping you from growing? Is there a fear that's keeping you in your comfort zone and is not pushing you?

My number one value is courage, and courage is moving forward in the face of fear. If I didn't do things because I was scared, I wouldn't have done half the things in my life. Some good, some not so good, but I've learned from all of them.

This is a story about how Kathleen faced her fears. This is 2 Lives. I’m Laurel Morales.

Overwhelmed

When Kathleen Killen was in the second grade her parents switched her from public school to private.

And whenever I'd ask them why they did that, they said, ‘well, it just wasn't right for you. You just weren't thriving there.’ … There was a lot of, ‘Kathleen can't focus,’ or ‘if she just could try a little harder.’ And I tried hard, but in such a big classroom, in that kind of environment, it just wasn't meant for my brain. 

She says her mind felt full, so she had a difficult time focusing.

I just felt constantly overwhelmed. I just constantly felt stressed out.  It became worse and worse as I got further up in school. And obviously it took more and more effort and masking to, you know, to be successful. I didn't know something was different about me. I, well, I did. I did know something was different about me. I just didn't know what it was. And I definitely didn't know people had to work. I thought everyone worked as hard as I worked, but no, they don't.

In the seventh grade Kathleen’s mom and dad came to school for parent-teacher night.

The teachers were concerned they thought it was my parents putting pressure on me. And because I was so stressed out, I was just constantly stressed out. And so they assumed that, well, must be Kathleen's parents putting this pressure on her, when actually it was the pressure I put on myself. But in order for me to succeed, I had to work so, so hard. And so that became pressure and that became overwhelm.

Self Medicating

As a teenager Kathleen was sent to a boarding school, where they had a structured routine. 

I didn't veer off from that routine, and that saved me. 

After college at the University of Toronto, where she studied theater, she found a career in marketing. It was around this time in her 20s that she started to experiment with drugs.

 I smoked weed. I smoked hash. I did a lot of ecstasy. 

But she noticed the drugs affected her differently than her friends.

I remember the first time I ever used cocaine. It was at a friend's house, and we were going to a Christmas party, actually. And he was a frequent user of cocaine. I just remember being pretty hyper before the party. I also used to mix alcohol with cocaine, which is not a great combination. But I remember he did it. And he was just like, party, party. And I did it. And I just was able to have like, deep conversations with people at the party. My brain was just able to focus on people for the first time ever.

It was weird because when my friends did it they were all like ‘whoo-hoo party!’ And I was just like, ‘wow my mind just feels blank like it just feels normal.’ 

It was the early 2000s. Kathleen worked in financial public relations, an intense job with long hours.

I was able to stay up longer…but I was also able to focus. And so I did notice that because I wasn't necessarily using cocaine for entertainment purposes. I was often using it if I had to work. It did make me want to do more of it. And I also think I was around, my friends at the time did it. It was really normalized among my group of friends. I was friends with a lot of lawyers, investment bankers, management consultants. They all worked insane hours.

She was also drinking eight cups of coffee a day.

I was constantly looking for something to stimulate my brain to help me focus, to help me work those longer hours. And it was, it was really normalized. I mean, a number of my friends at the time would get up, do a couple of lines of cocaine, and go to work. It was that kind of environment at that time.

It wasn’t until her early 30s that she decided to take a break from the drugs.

I wanted to become a yoga teacher and in order to do that…that required me to go away for one month. And it was yoga for eight hours a day, meditation for two hours a day, no caffeine, all clean food, no sugar, certainly no drugs. So I remember, and this was in Mexico, and so I remember going out, I had like a 6 a.m. flight and I went out the night before and did boatloads of cocaine, was like completely high. And, because I was like, ‘well I'm just gonna stay up all night and then go do my yoga teacher training,’ which sounds in, like just sounds ridiculous now that I say it…So what happened was I inadvertently went to rehab and …it wasn't meant to be a rehab. It wasn't marketed as a rehab, but it was my rehab because I went and that was it. It was cold turkey. …The first week I was crawling out of my skin. And so by the end of my month, I was a brand new person. 

She decided she liked the way she felt without the drugs and alcohol coursing through her system.

I was like, I am never going back to how I am. I was, I am never using cocaine again. I am not using drugs. I cut down my drinking substantially. It was quite a shock for my friends when I got back and they were all like, let's go party. And I was like, no thanks, I'm good.

‘From Chai Tea To Tai Chi’

In 2010 Kathleen was working in London when she met the man who would become her husband. She was scanning a dating site when she came across his unique profile.

I really loved his profile but his profile picture was horrible. It was taken like a selfie in a bathroom. It was like a yellow hue around it. It was just atrocious. And I can't actually believe I responded to him, but. When I met him in person, eventually, I was like, wow. The first thing I said to him was like, you do not look anything like your picture, because he is… an incredibly handsome man. So his picture did not do him justice, but I really liked his profile.

LAUREL:  What did you like about his profile?

KATHLEEN: His profile title was ‘From Chai Tea to Tai Chi.’ And I was like, oh, this is very interesting to me. He was like into meditation and yoga. And he seemed and he was very different than all of my friends who were like very much in the corporate world and living that sort of life.

They bought a house and got engaged within six months. Two years later they married.

I had a really busy job at the time, but we were very connected, I would say, and we had a lot of fun together. My husband was a recovering alcoholic, so we did not drink. For the most part, I didn't drink ever. And there wasn't any alcohol in our house, so it was a much quieter lifestyle than I had previously. And I welcomed it. 

In 2014 they had a baby girl. At the time Kathleen had her own PR business and was the main breadwinner. So she took a few weeks off, then went back to work.

I definitely helped raise her, but he was the primary caregiver. 

Trouble In Paradise

Five years later they went on vacation to Hawaii. Kathleen said at first it felt like they’d landed in paradise. 

I mean it could not have been more picturesque and beautiful and like there were like random wild white horses on the sides of mountains and like rainbows everywhere and you just couldn't imagine a more beautiful place and in this beautiful place my ex-husband said that this is not the life he wanted, and this being his life with me and our daughter. 

That’s when things began to unravel and Kathleen’s world was turned upside down.

And I remember so clearly lying in bed that night, and he was angry. He was angry at me… This isn't the life I wanted. And he was blaming me. And he wanted to, you know, be quote unquote free. So he saw a bunch of people living on the beaches in Hawaii. And he was like, I could have been like that. I could have had this free life … So I sort of laid in bed that night and I. I knew we were in trouble. And at the time I said, you know, can we go to couples therapy? And he was not really open to it.

When Kathleen got home from the trip she felt an urgent need to prepare herself for what might happen next. She created an email account with her maiden name and called a lawyer.

What if he asks for a divorce? What if he leaves? I didn't know what to do. How do I protect my child? I had no idea. So I wanted some answers…I'm a big planner. And I like to have things in place. And the thing is, you definitely can't control what happens in your life. For the most part, all you can control is how you react to things. So I. I definitely wanted to feel a little bit more stable. I felt really, really unstable in the relationship.

A year and a half later they separated.

I asked for the separation. He was like, yeah, sure. It wasn't even a thought. It wasn't like, ‘let's think about this. Let's work on this.’ It was like, ‘yeah, no problem.’ Like he had been waiting. He wasn't going to pull the plug. I was absolutely devastated. I was in a puddle on the kitchen floor in my tears. I just had a really, really difficult time. I was deep in grief. And a few weeks after our separation, I found out he had a girlfriend but strangely, like it didn't bother me that much. It wasn't that. I think it was, you know, the idea that our marriage didn't work, that my daughter wouldn't have an intact, quote unquote ‘intact family’ that just devastated me. I had really planned what our future might look like and then that was just not going to happen anymore. 

I definitely loved my husband. I definitely wanted our marriage to work. I didn't know how to do that. So I began going to therapy. My husband began going to therapy. He was not super open to couples therapy. We just became more and more disconnected. I really didn't know how deeply unhappy he was. But he was amazing at keeping his emotions inside. When people say, ‘oh, marriage is so much work,’ no one really says, ‘well, what is that work?’ 

Overnight Single Parent

So Kathleen tried to accept reality and went out and bought the book “Consciously Uncoupling” and decided if they couldn’t be an amazing family together, they could be amazing co-parents. They’d agreed that he’d have their daughter 50% of the time.

At first, we were both on the same page that we wanted to make sure that our daughter was taken care of. 

But it was Spring of 2020 and when the pandemic hit, her now ex-husband fell off the wagon.

He did not drink once during our marriage. H He was physically sober. He wasn't emotionally sober. Now I know the difference. He started drinking again and he started drinking extremely heavily. 

Some of his choices were not safe and so I sought full custody of my daughter. My ex-husband did not like being quote unquote, he would say ‘controlled’ in any way. So he was required to have supervised visits, for example, with my daughter. He couldn't see her alone. That just did not sit well with him. And so instead of becoming sober and, you know, working to regain custody in a safe way, he just made a different choice. And his choice was to completely leave the situation. And so he just kind of disappeared in a way from my daughter's life. And then two or three weeks after that, when I knew it was the last time he would be in contact with her, I just knew in my gut that was the last time the first lockdown happened here in Ontario. And so I became a single mom overnight. 

I was terrified and overwhelmed. And I honestly remember, like, I just didn't think I could do it. …Before my husband and I separated, I wanted to do like a girls weekend with my daughter. And I remember being nervous taking my then, you know, I guess she was four away for the weekend, because I would be the primary parent on the weekend, and I wouldn't have his help. So I remember being nervous about that. So I went from that to overnight being a full-time single mom. 

At the time Kathleen was marketing for a hospital foundation and was able to work remotely.

My daughter was grieving her father. So to her, she feels like her dad died. And yeah, so she was, I don't think she could have gone to school. I don't think she could have hung out with her friends. And so the pandemic created this cocoon for us that all we needed to do was be with each other…And it was incredibly challenging, incredibly challenging. It brought me to my knees. like it did, but at the same time, it was such a blessing because I don't know if my daughter or myself could have had the same type of healing if it hadn't happened when it did.

Finding Her Calling

Kathleen needed to commiserate with others like her so like many people during the pandemic she turned to social media for some form of connection.

I started posting a little bit on social media about my divorce. 

One day when Kathleen had reached a turning point in her grief over her marriage she sat down with an urge to put it out into the universe, thinking someone might need to hear it.

KATHLEEN READING POST: Even though my marriage ended and I should have been angry, I wasn't. I kept saying this to my friends and we were guarded with suspicion. They asked, how was I not angry? I don't know. I'm just not. I tried to seem more human. Yeah, I was angry for a day or so when I found out about XYZ, but then I moved through it. That was a half truth. I was angry for a day, but I didn't move through it. I just became numb. Numb from the pain and the hurt, numb from the end of the dream of our life together, numb from crying, numb from lack of sleep, numb from the inside out. I knew this was a problem. How could I heal if I couldn't feel? I wasn't sure what the answer was.

Then one day, just like that, the flood came without warning, without regard for where I was or what I was doing. Thankfully, I was driving down a country road. I felt the anger in every cell of my body. I felt like my physical body would explode into a million pieces, and I would evaporate into thin air. I pulled over on the side of the road and gripped the steering wheel and silent screamed over and over again. 

Then it occurred to me, why should I be silent? I’ve been silent for so long. Silent about the loss of love in my marriage. Silent about the fact that I hadn't been truly happy for a long time. Silent, silent, silent. I would be silent no more. And so I really screamed. It was a scream of someone birthing something so powerful, so primal, there was no way to contain it. I screamed and I didn't know if I could stop, but eventually with a hoarse voice and tears streaming down my face, it stopped. I could only hear the wind blowing and the grass and the sound of summer birds chirping all around me. My screams didn't silence them. Life continued as it was before. It was at that moment that the anger truly left me. I knew it was gone and all that was left was sadness. 

Soon after she posted, people reached out to her to talk about their divorces. They could definitely relate.  

Before I knew it all these people were contacting me from all over the world, asking about my story and how did you get through it? 

That’s when she thought maybe she could help people with their problems. 

The idea of being a coach or counselor had lurked in the back of her mind for years, but she had always brushed it aside. That is until a friend, who was a coach, encouraged her to take a course.

I did the first module and I thought well now I'm a single mom. I can't do this. Like how am I gonna do this? And the thing is, coaching, you can only go so far with clients. And I wanted to be able to go deeper with my clients. And I really did want to specialize in couples. So I had this bright idea one day that I, and I had actually wanted to be a therapist a long time ago, but I couldn't get past certain statistics courses in university. I kept failing them…But then that seed of an idea was there. And I thought, what if there is a way? Like, what if, what would that look like? And so I ended up applying for my master's. I got in and I quit my full-time job. So scary. As a single mom, so scary. 

She didn’t know if she could go to school, work part-time, and parent a child.

I have to say it was scary for sure, because I didn't 100% know if I could do my master's … The scariness was lessened by the support, the incredible support I had from my employer.

She thought back to the fear that drove her parents to feel stuck and say ‘I have no choice.’ She got curious about that fear and chose to lean into it.

I was really scared, like really scared. And so I made a list of, OK, what are all the things that I'm scared of about this? Finances, I was scared about that. Whether I was smart enough to do it, I was scared about that. Could I manage it all? I was scared about that. And then when I started to question, ‘OK, do I have evidence to support these fears?’ 

In the end it was her daughter who drove her to keep going.

I want her to see how strong her mother is. And it's really, really important for me that she sees how independent a woman can be and why it's so important that women are independent. I can't tell you the number of women I talk to in my practice and outside of my practice who are in awful relationships and awful marriages, and they can't leave because they, they feel they can't leave because they are financially dependent. And it was so important for me to show my daughter that you can do this on your own.

The Diagnosis

In her early 40s she was working with a coaching client. This was a person who Kathleen said she’d always felt had a kindred personality. And the client told her he had just been diagnosed with ADHD. 

And I was like, what? What do you mean? …And my client was like, yeah. And I thought, that's strange. All those traits that my client has, I have. So I started to do some digging. And I read some incredible books. And I was like, oh my gosh, I have ADHD. 

So Kathleen started to wonder whether she had ADHD so she met with a psychologist and other specialists and they did a bunch of screening and sure enough Kathleen was diagnosed with ADHD.

LAUREL: And what did you do with that information?

KATHLEEN: Well, in the moment, I cried because I had a huge sense of relief. And then I also went through a period of grief of, oh, my gosh, what could I have done with my life if I had known? If I had known earlier on and maybe I could have passed that undergrad psychology course, maybe I could have followed through on those jobs that I would jump around in…And I had to work to come to a place of acceptance. And then I did and was like, OK, well, I'm in my early 40s. I hopefully, fingers crossed, have some time left on this planet. And now I'm going to do the things that I really want to do.

She found certain things helped her stay focused like consistent exercise and a mindfulness routine and eventually tried medication. So she took a multi pronged approach. And all these new tools helped her complete her master’s degree in psychology. And in June Kathleen graduated and is now a registered psychotherapist.

Taking It To The Next Level

LAUREL: And when you think about that day, I mean, and all that you've accomplished, what goes through your mind? What goes through your mind?

KATHLEEN: You know, I think the relief, I guess, is what comes to mind. Because I remember when I had my last sort of, I guess, my last clinical evaluation that I needed to have when I was doing my masters. We have to do a practicum. And it was the last one. And I got off from this evaluation with my professor, we were on Zoom, and then I spoke to my supervisor and I just broke down in tears. And I think because I had been pushing so hard for a number of years, and then there was this relief, like I did the impossible, I did what I thought probably was not possible and I did it. And so I think there's a huge relief, but then there's also a huge sense of pride that I was able to accomplish what I did.

Today Kathleen is the co-host of a podcast called Sisters In Sobriety, and is counseling couples. Of course she wishes she knew then what she knows now and had the chance to fix her marriage. But has found healing in helping others. Kathleen says no matter the couple and how broken they seem, she always tries to bring loving kindness into her sessions.

Even when that may not exist at that moment between the couple. So I would say I'm doing that on a daily basis. And let me tell you, sometimes I'm scared by the couples that come and see me, because I'll have a moment of fear, like that is a tough issue.or they could be on the brink of divorce, and it feels like so much is riding on therapy. But I just come as myself, and I come with a calm nervous system, and I come from a place of love. 

This is 2 Lives. I’m Laurel Morales.