270 | ADHD and Money: How ADHD Impacts Your Finances with Dr. Stephanie Sarkis, PhD

Hilary Hendershott: Well, Hello, Money Lover! I am glad to have the opportunity to bring this topic to you today, because it’s a highly requested one.

Hilary Hendershott: Today, we’re talking about how ADHD impacts your finances.

Hilary Hendershott: To be totally honest, normally when I have a guest on the podcast, I’m at least a little bit familiar with the topic we’re going to discuss. But today is a little different. Not only have I not had much experience dealing with ADHD, but I knew next to nothing about it before preparing for this interview.

Hilary Hendershott: I am a little ashamed to admit that growing up, I thought ADHD was a bit of a made up diagnosis, and I thought my friend’s parents were getting them that diagnosis so that they didn’t have to complete their homework. So I am truly sorry to everyone I unfairly judged when I was young and ignorant, but now that I know better, I will do better. And after speaking with today’s guest, I can really understand how much ADHD can impact your life, especially your finances.

Hilary Hendershott: Whether you’re an adult who recently received a diagnosis or you know someone who has ADHD or, like me before this conversation, you knew very little about it, this podcast episode is a must listen because I was joined by Dr. Stephanie Sarkis, who is an expert when it comes to understanding neurodivergence and money.

Hilary Hendershott: Stephanie Sarkis is a psychotherapist who specializes in ADHD, anxiety, and works with victims of narcissistic abuse, which we also talked about. She’s the author of eight books and three workbooks about ADHD and money, healing from toxic relationships, and the impact of emotional abuse on your finances.

Hilary Hendershott: Dr. Sarkis is a National Certified Counselor, Licensed Mental Health Counselor, American Mental Health Counselors Association Diplomat, and a Florida Supreme Court Certified Family and Circuit Mediator.

Hilary Hendershott: She has been in private practice for over 20 years, she’s an online contributor to Psychology Today, and hosts the Talking Brains podcast. In other words, if we were going to talk about ADHD and money, we’re in good hands with her. So buckle up, and let’s dive in.

Hilary Hendershott: Welcome to Love, your Money®, Dr. Stephanie Sarkis.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: Hi, how are you?

Hilary Hendershott: I am doing really well, I’m really excited about this conversation.

Hilary Hendershott: I honestly– normally, when I have a guest on, I know something about the topic that we’re going to talk about, and this has been a complete eye opener for me. Your topic was suggested to me by my producers–my writers–and I started a conversation with some clients and friends, and even fellow financial advisors and–hashtag mind blown–about all the things that people with–I’m going to say, ADD and ADHD, before I ask you to define them–but can suffer from, as it regards impulsivity, being able to save, how they spend money, how they reflect on all of that, right? So this is going to be meaty.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: It’s something that encompasses all areas of life. But financial, especially, is something that a lot of people struggle with.

Hilary Hendershott: So let’s start with definitions if you don’t mind. I was going to ask you to define ADHD, and when we were talking before I hit record, you said ADD. Would you please tell me about both of them?

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: So my earlier books have ADD in them, because at the time, that was the term that most of the general population used. But now it’s switched to ADHD. So we’ve used the term ADHD flippantly for a long time.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: So Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and ADD are the same thing. So my newer books have ADHD in them. So, ADHD, there’s three different subtypes. There’s the inattentive, the hyperactive/impulsive, and the combined. Inattentive, you have to have at least 6 out of 9 symptoms, and those include difficulty paying attention to details, being forgetful, losing items often. The hyperactive/impulsive subtype is blurting out answers before the question’s finished, having a really difficult time being in traffic or waiting in lines. If you’re an adult, you know, it’s a little bit different when you’re a kid, but also inattentiveness could be that you are having an inner sense of restlessness.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: You may not be running around the room during a staff meeting, but you just feel like you need to get out of your chair. You’re itching to move. And the combined type is when you meet criteria for both inattentive and hyperactive/impulsive. It’s highly genetic. So there’s a pretty good chance that if you have it, there’s somebody in your family that also has it. And also, symptoms have to be present before the age of 12. So that’s our diagnostic criteria; the DSM.

Hilary Hendershott: Okay. And what would some of the symptoms of those be around the topic of money?

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: So around money, you have issues with looking into the future, looking to see like, Hey, at some point I’m going to need to retire and live off my money–I need to accrue that. Also, being organized enough to know where your financial documents are. Also that even is access to passwords, Making sure that your loved ones know what your financial documents are and where they’re stored; having access to those.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: Also, when we talk about ADHD, the frontal lobes of the brain; the executive functions are impaired. And executive functions include organizing, forethought, planning–all the stuff that you kind of need to have a successful financial picture. So you also tend to have impulsive spending. Because again, you’re not really thinking into the future of, Hey, I may need that money for something else.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: People that will go online and go on to Amazon and just keep putting stuff in their cart because you get a dopamine boost from that.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: And when you have ADHD, you tend to be low in dopamine and serotonin, so if you’re not getting treatment for ADHD, you’re drawn towards behaviors that boost those brain chemicals even if you don’t realize that that’s what’s happening.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: So you have a lot of impulse spending, not returning stuff on time. So you lose that money, because that takes planning. If you have a product that didn’t work out well, and you need to return it to Amazon, and you usually go to your Whole Foods to return it. You need to get in the car, bring the thing, bring the QR code, and it’s a lot of multi steps, and people with ADHD tend not to do well with multi steps. So they wind up going past the return deadline and losing that money.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: Now with automatic withdrawal and deposit, that’s getting a little easier for people with ADHD. But you still have some places that still deposit real checks. They give you a real check for something, and people with ADHD are prone to losing those.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: Also, money burns a hole in your pocket. Like I mentioned, you tend to have impulse spending, and that can lead to clutter, too, because sometimes there’s things that we don’t really need, but we want, instead.

Hilary Hendershott: It’s probably a little patronizing to say you know your stuff, but clearly you know your stuff because you just said a lot of things, and I want to talk about a handful of them. So in terms of executive function, the executive function symptoms versus the ADHD symptoms, how would you break those apart?

Hilary Hendershott: Is it really just the planning and steps? One of the things you mentioned, and maybe this is a separate question, but one of the things you mentioned was, you know, being able to locate your financial documents and have your loved ones know where those are. So, for example, I can never find anything in my Gmail. I have 97,000 emails in there, and my team can find an email in 7 seconds. I can’t find anything.

Hilary Hendershott: But I don’t think that’s what you’re talking about. They literally can’t find it.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: Well, let me back up and just say that everyone has some symptoms of ADHD at some time. Everybody loses their keys once in a while. Everybody misplaces that financial document or can’t find their password at some point. This is where the intensity of it, the frequency of it, and the duration of the symptoms is on the end of the continuum. So this is impacting your quality of life. And it’s not just financial. It impacts how you are academically, at work, socially, within your community.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: So it’s an issue with all aspects of life.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: But we all have symptoms of ADHD from time to time, just like we all have symptoms of anxiety. We all have symptoms of depression. But we’re talking about the end of the spectrum with ADHD, where you have a diagnosable disorder. Executive functions are part of ADHD. There is a lot of scientific evidence showing that executive functions are impaired.

Hilary Hendershott: Okay? So you did say symptoms have to show up by the age of 12. And so if someone is looking at adult onset of these symptoms. As a professional, what would you say to that?

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: I usually ask about family history if a person has access to that. Anybody in the family that was diagnosed, or, more likely, you suspect has ADHD. Also, I ask about any documents you have from when you’re a child. Sometimes people even show me their report cards. They upload those to the portal, and I can see the report cards say, doesn’t work to potential; talks a lot to their neighbors; doesn’t complete homework.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: There are some telltale signs. And so sometimes people with ADHD; adults, it’s hard to remember your childhood. Because think about your birthday party when you were 10, I mean, how many people can actually recall that, right? And that was a big event back then. So I look at, what did you experience? What was your GPA in high school? And what do you think it could have been?

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: Usually there’s quite a discrepancy. So someone will tell me, “Well, I had a 3.0, but I think I really could have had a 4.0 if I was able to work to my potential.” There’s a big gap there. Also, difficulties with maintaining friendships. Difficulties with just doing day-to-day activities; doing chores. You know there were reasonable chores, and it still was hard doing multi-steps. So there usually is some evidence in childhood. And when you had other siblings with ADHD, maybe their symptoms are more severe, or you have parents with ADHD.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: It may have kind of fallen through the cracks. And usually what happens, especially if people are bright–higher than average IQ–it’s not until they go to college and they are left to their own devices; to make their own schedule; nobody’s tracking whether they’re going to class or not–that’s when people start hitting a wall and sometimes come to me for help.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: Or they’re in the professional world and they’re having a hard time getting goals met. And this has been something they’ve been able to compensate up to a point.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: So, because in high school you have seven classes, you know exactly where you’re supposed to be, they let your parents know if you don’t show up, you know exactly what’s expected from you. The structure is given to you. But out in the adult world, you have to make your own structure. And that’s where a lot of people have challenges.

Hilary Hendershott: Okay, this is all coming clear to me. One of the things you mentioned was about low serotonin and dopamine levels. Is that correct? And so this sort of leads me to a treatment question which I’m coming at a little early in the conversation, because I know serotonin and dopamine are sort of hard to repair or re-attain. What are some of the treatments?

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: Actually, there’s a pretty well researched treatment that has been around for several decades now. A stimulant medication is by far the most effective treatment. I think you bring up treatment at just the right time, because this is something that we really need to look at.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: So stimulant medication helps increase dopamine and serotonin and other neurotransmitters; other brain chemicals. Because again, we’re low in that. And so the medication helps bring that up to almost a level of people without ADHD.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: Which also means–there have been several studies showing that if you have people that come to see you, and you say, “You know what, I’ll give you $10 now, or I’ll give you $20 if you can wait a couple hours”, people that are on medication were more likely to wait and get the $20. People not on medication will take the $10 and go.

Hilary Hendershott: Really.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: Yeah, you’re more likely to have pauses in financial decisions. You’re more likely to not have impulse spending because you’re now thinking ahead, and those executive functions are kicking in, and you’re able to say, “You know what? I have to pay my rent this month. Maybe I shouldn’t be buying that $500 thing because I still have stuff to pay.”

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: I’m able to actually do a budget. I’m able to use an app like You Need a Budget to, to put in–and I’m not affiliated with them at all–but it’s the one budgeting app that seems to work for people with ADHD above all.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: I’m able to put my finances in, and I’m able to see what’s where. And I was able to cancel this subscription because I don’t use it anymore. Now, I’m saving myself, you know, 15 bucks a month. And it really helps people think through their financial decisions.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: Now, medication, you know, there are side effects. You can have a dry mouth, rapid heartbeat sometimes. If you take it too late in the day, it can maybe keep you up a little bit later.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: But, overall, it’s really helped quality of life. And, people with ADHD are six times more likely to have addictions than people without ADHD. Alcohol, drugs, other addictions. And when you take stimulant medication, that addiction rate drops back down to that of a control group or group without ADHD. And that leads into finances. Because if you’re spending a lot of money on cigarettes, alcohol, vaping, that adds up.

Hilary Hendershott: Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: And so there are a lot of hidden costs…

Hilary Hendershott: Addictions are distracting from other goals, too.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: Yeah, I mean, we’re focusing on the financial–addictions are terrible, anyway. But the fact that, you know, if you’re just looking at how much money– You’re better able to quit smoking if you’re on stimulant medication, because now you’re getting the chemical, the brain chemicals that you need.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: But for people that can’t take it, there’s also non-stimulants, and there’s other medications. But stimulants, by far, are the most effective treatment. That, in combination with therapy, also, that’s been found to be quite helpful.

Hilary Hendershott: And that’s like Ritalin, is that–

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: Ritalin, Concerta is a– methylphenidate is Concerta, Adderall, Adderall XR, Mydayis. There’s a whole bunch of different ones. So there’s a variety of stimulant medications available. The first one that the general public thinks of is Ritalin, which is methylphenidate, is the generic name, but there are all sorts of different formulations and medicines. And again, many of them have been researched for decades.

Hilary Hendershott: And so, one of the things that came up the most; the thing–when I asked this question to people I had no idea would have so many questions–was the idea of impulsivity. And I know that we’ve talked about impulsivity interweaving with executive function.

Hilary Hendershott: So, if taking stimulant medications, does the impulsivity decline? And are there other ways to rewire impulsive behavior?

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: So when we look at ADHD, it’s not so much an attention deficit. It’s a motivation regulation issue. So it’s difficult to tear yourself away from something you’re really interested in. So you hyper focus. And then you have lack of focus. And what medication does is it makes it so that you are able to attend at a level that is beneficial, and not too little, and not too much.

Hilary Hendershott: Okay.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: So the impulsivity–If off medication, our floodgates don’t come down as much. So maybe we’ll say something and go, “Oh, I shouldn’t have said that.” Or you go out and spend money, and then later, you have buyer’s remorse. So what medication does, when it’s working the way it should, is it decreases impulsivity by inhibiting behavior.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: So that’s that floodgate that comes down, that goes, “You know what? Maybe I can wait 24 hours before I make this big ticket purchase.”

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: “Maybe I’ll hold that thought until we come around to that part of the conversation.” So that’s what the medication does; it helps you have inhibition, and it helps you regulate your motivation.

Hilary Hendershott: I mean one of the people–this person is actually a fellow financial advisor–I may not get this exactly word-for-word correct, but I think he said, “I’ll fill the Amazon cart, and then I don’t allow myself to press buy. I make my wife press buy.” So that’s a way he’s tried to rewire that, right?

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: He’s worked out accommodations for himself. Yeah.

Hilary Hendershott: Yeah.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: And I think people would be surprised at the number of financial people that have ADHD, because a lot of accounting is patterns, not so much mathematics.

Hilary Hendershott: Right.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: So I think there are a lot of people with ADHD who do really well in financial jobs.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: So you have issues with that self-regulation. You have issues with the impulsivity. But yeah, it’s having a process that helps you; that assists you. But when you are working so hard at accommodations and trying to compensate for ADHD, it can make you really tired.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: And that’s where the medication comes in is that, we try so hard at doing without medication and medication just makes it possible that we’re able to do that without needing to pull all these extra resources. We still need assistance with things, because it’s not a cure-all. But it really helps regulate the time and energy spent so that you’re able to do things on your own.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: You can get help sometimes. And that’s a good thing to get help. But you aren’t as exhausted at the end of the day.

Hilary Hendershott: This makes a lot of sense. So it sounds like our ADHD patients or clients or investors may suffer from impulsive spending, so overspending a budget; difficulty focusing on 5/10/20 years in the future, so decreased likelihood to save; potentially an unwillingness or lack of desire to focus on what it takes to be a good investor… I mean, I don’t know you haven’t commented specifically on investing. I mean.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: There’s a lot of intricacies. Yeah, there’s a lot of intricacies in investing that are multi-step.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: So for example–so, there are people with ADHD that don’t have issues with money. And the reason, maybe why that is, is that, like my grandfather taught me about investing, starting when I was like 5.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: He would show me the, you know, back when the investments had, like, you know, not decimals, but like fractions right? And he’d talk about owning part of the business, I’d say, well, do I own a door? Do I own a, you know, do I own a bathroom? What do I own? And he was trying, you know, and a 5 year old, you don’t really get it. But if you have somebody in your life that you know–and he was not ADHD–so if you have someone in your life that will invest the time to teach you about those things, then it doesn’t seem as overwhelming

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: That, I think, is an anomaly, though. I don’t think many people have that in their background. Especially if you have an ADHD family, and they may have financial issues where you’re just trying to make it from paycheck to paycheck, you don’t really learn those things. So as an adult, when someone says to you, “Have you used you filled up your Roth, or you filled up your 401(k) for the year, or whatever, people sometimes internally freeze.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: Because they’re not sure what those terms mean. Quite a few people with ADHD also have a learning disability in mathematics. So instead of looking as patterns, they see I’m going to need to add numbers, and it scares people. They go back to that trauma of being in math class and not being able to do the work. So it’s something that I think that when you can access a resource that breaks investments down into easy-to-understand language; when you find a financial professional that is patient, and you let them know, “Hey, I’m new to this. I need things broken down.” And the way I say things to people that I don’t understand is, “Explain it to me like I’m 5.”

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: And people need someone that is kind and patient and you say to them, “Hey, you know what? I may ask the same question a couple times, so just bear with me.” Or you just say, “You know what, sometimes you may say I need to do something, and I may inadvertently forget to do that.” I think if you’re transparent upfront with people, I think that really helps, because that kind of establishes, I’m not doing this personally to you. This is how my brain works.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: Because I think that’s important, too, to note that it’s not that the person with ADHD doesn’t want to do something–they can’t. Their brain can’t do it.

Hilary Hendershott: Yeah.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: So I think again, that’s something that when you meet with a financial professional, it’s really important to be transparent and let them know how your brain kind of works. I don’t think you need to necessarily use the word ADHD, if you don’t want to. But you can say, “I have some disorganization issues; I have issues with sometimes following multi-step directions. If you give me one direction at a time that would be great.” And that can really establish a good, healthy relationship between a person with ADHD and a financial professional.

Hilary Hendershott: Well, I was going to ask you about if you see different financial habits amongst young patients of ADHD versus older. But it sounds to me like maybe the real linchpin is how they attain the knowledge, or if they can find someone who’s willing to be slow, methodical, repetitive, as they learn what it actually is to invest. Because it’s hard to learn. It’s conceptual.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: Right.

Hilary Hendershott: Most people don’t understand it. Just so.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: Right. Right. I think that’s a really important thing, that people with ADHD can be awfully hard on themselves, because they’ve been told many times throughout their lives that, “Why can’t you do this? Why can’t you do that? You should be able to do this.”

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: So when they start talking about investments, or somebody approaches them about it, they think well, I’m behind other people. But I think you made a really good point that everyone kind of starts out not knowing. And they learn at their own rate. And that’s okay. That’s okay. I think the important thing is that people are going out there and learning about it. And I think because of social media, people are learning much more, like the different things you offer on social media, people start learning, they start getting interested in it.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: And I think, also for people with ADHD, gamifying it in some way, meaning like turning it into more of a fun activity is good. And I don’t mean like doing high risk stuff, because people with ADHD are prone to that. But if you look at it as, oh, let me follow how this company is doing, or this mutual fund’s doing. And let’s look at this cool graph of what’s happening and what’s going to be predicted with this. And I think that it can be actually kind of fun for people.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: And it also is the reality of, hey, so where do you want to be in a year? 5 years? Where do you want to be when you’re 65? And you look at, okay, here’s how much money you need to have if you want to spend this much a month. And let’s talk about where to get you there. And I think again, a good financial professional that is kind and willing to explain, it makes life much easier, and it makes it less scary for people with ADHD.

Hilary Hendershott: And, by the way, I often say to people, explain it to me like I’m in second grade. I say those words.

Hilary Hendershott: I mean, I don’t feel embarrassed when I say it. I just think, why are you over complicating this and saying it so fast?

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: Right. Again, you know, everybody needs some extra grace when they don’t understand something, and someone explains it to them. It’s not just people with ADHD. But a lot of people with ADHD think it’s them.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: But everyone gets lost sometimes with stuff. It just tends to happen more often to people with ADHD.

Hilary Hendershott: And then you mentioned the word gamification, and I know you and I are both on record saying we dislike budgets. I find them to be very constraining; limiting. And, by the way, a whole lot of extra unnecessary work. And so I’ve proposed this idea of automating finances, using a multi-account system with cash flows that sort of leave money where you need it, whether that’s short term or long term, you know, buy a car, buy a house, spend today at the grocery store. That type of stuff should come from a different account.

Hilary Hendershott: I realize, of course, I didn’t explain that to you thoroughly. But high level, is that the kind of system you would recommend to someone with ADHD, or do you recommend a different cash flow management system?

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: What I’ve found has been helpful, not only myself, but my patients–and again, I have no affiliation with them whatsoever–I probably should look into that, but it’s You Need a Budget.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: And the idea– it has been gamified. So you put in money into the different categories every month. So you get to go through, and it’s very automated. You just hit a button saying, do I want to put the same as last month? Do I want to put my average in for that category? And it has really cool graphs. So the idea is, it talks about the age of your money. How much money do you have, and it’ll last you how many days?

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: And the goal is you want to keep upping that day amount, if that makes sense.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: And they also have another graph, your assets versus your debts, and people with ADHD are very visual usually, and to see a graph where they start increasing their assets and decreasing their debts makes a big difference to people. Because now we actually see what we’re talking about. It’s not as abstract.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: And you also have this age of money thing, which wow! I just added two days on how long my money is going to last. I mean, people with ADHD need those little…

Hilary Hendershott: That is fun.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: Yeah, it is. They need those little boosts, because that’s what keeps us going. If you reward us, you know, a month down the line, it’s not going to be as effective. But if you do it a little bit at a time, it’s extremely effective. We respond really well to positive reinforcement, and we don’t do well with consequences.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: One of the executive functions is learning from consequences. So we may be making the same mistake and not realize what we did to make that mistake. And so we make the mistake again. We get upset with ourselves, and then we continue to not know what we did correctly. But if you point out something we did great, we’re going to keep doing that great thing. And that’s a really simple thing, but also very, very effective and helpful.

Hilary Hendershott: I like the idea of gamification. I have definitely run my money that way, and it takes something. It’s a mindset shift. It’s like, nope, this is gonna be fun, not a burden. Fun, not a burden, right?

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: Right. Money does not have an intrinsic value, it just helps you get what you need, right? So it’s not good or bad.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: And that’s why I also talk to people in therapy about, what’s their relationship with money? What was it like growing up? Was money seen as something that was not good, or was it seen as something that we don’t have enough and we’re suffering right now because of it? What’s your connection to money?

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: I think that’s something really important to talk about, because we all have emotions attached to money, when money by itself has no emotions to it. So yeah, if you can change your mindset, which I think is a great way to look at it. You have to do a paradigm shift. You have to change how you think about money, and maybe change, or let go of some of those ideas that you’ve had from childhood about money, and give this new way a shot. And I found that if people are willing to take that step, which is a courageous step, they tend to do pretty well.

Hilary Hendershott: People rave about YNAB–You Need a Budget; the acronym is YNAB–and we’ll link to them in the show notes. Let’s talk about couples and ADHD. So you’ve said that couples who have ADHD, or even one person has ADHD, they’re more likely to fight about money, and they’re more likely to potentially put themselves in a place to suffer what we would call financial abuse. Say more about that.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: So people with ADHD, when they get into a relationship, one person might be a spender, one might be a saver, vice versa. They both might be spenders; they both might be savers. And again, you’re coming into the relationship with those things you learned about money when you were a kid.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: So we come from two different backgrounds. We’re trying to make that work. So I find that couples counseling can be really helpful when people hit a wall, and they’re not agreeing on things. Sometimes having separate accounts helps. Also, there is a therapeutic model where you have a financial professional and the therapist in the room and the financial professional talks about the money piece. And then the mental health person talks about the relationship piece, which has been found to be quite effective in studies.

Hilary Hendershott: Really.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: Yeah, it’s kind of a new thing. So also, when we talk about financial abuse, sometimes what people run into with ADHD is, they’re told by their partner, well, I’m just going to take over the finances, because, you know, you have this history of being impulsive, and the person with ADHD may be like, phew, I’d rather not do that stuff anyway.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: But sometimes it can turn into that person withholding money, not letting them know where the documents are, not letting them know what accounts are open, even to the point where they’re committing fraud and taking out credit cards in the partner’s name.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: So there are issues that happen when someone is wanting control of the money. And when we also look at just ADHD in general, people with ADHD are more prone to be victims of narcissists and sociopaths. So when you have ADHD, and again, you’ve been told throughout your life that you’re less than, when someone is love bombing you and telling you how great you are and how wonderful you are, and how ADHD is a strength…

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: That’s what people want to hear, right? Like who doesn’t like being told that they’re magical and wonderful. Right? But what this toxic person does is, once you’re in the relationship, and you start setting some boundaries, going, “Hey, the way you said that to me? I’m not good with that.” Then, you see who this person really is. And that’s someone that’s controlling; manipulative. And it can be really hard to break free from those relationships, because they tell you, “Well, you know, if you leave, you have no money, because, you know, I’m in charge of everything now.”

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: And again, that’s not every relationship. But when it does happen, it can be devastating. Because now you have someone that has no access to any resources because their money’s been locked down by their partner. Or the partner has them earn, quote unquote, an allowance.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: So the partner may be buying stuff for themselves, but they’re not spending anything on their kids or their partner. Not allowing their partner to work is another one. So they’ll weaponize ADHD and say, “Well, you know, you have issues with impulsivity, so maybe you shouldn’t be working.” But what’s happening is if that person gives up their job, they’re also giving up their ability to be independent and to be able to leave, so…

Hilary Hendershott: Right, their agency.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: Right, right.

Hilary Hendershott: Other things I’ve seen are someone preventing their partner from paying child support. And unilaterally choosing to make risky investments that their ADHD partner doesn’t agree with. So those are just examples of what could be a form of financial abuse, because you should have a say. Do you have any tips for talking to your partner about money? Setting up conversations that don’t turn out to be fights?

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: So I would say, let’s look at it from a generally healthy perspective. Because if it’s a toxic relationship, that’s where I recommend that the person that’s the victim of the relationship goes to therapy to figure out how to extract themselves. So let’s talk about more generally healthy relationships.

Hilary Hendershott: Okay.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: I find having a weekly check-in is really helpful. So, you spend a half hour, you bring up a topic. So let’s say, let’s switch cell phone plans. So you have one person speaks for 10 minutes, and they give their opinion about it. The next person speaks for 10 minutes, and then you spend 10 minutes figuring out a solution. The rules are that you only bring up stuff related to the topic. You can’t bring up past stuff, no matter how relevant you think it is–whatever they did like five years ago doesn’t matter.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: You also don’t raise your voice, and if you need to take a break, you say, “I need to take a break. I’ll be back in 10 minutes.” You say how long you’re going to be gone.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: And then you kinda go for a walk, and then bring yourself back down to what I call baseline. You bring yourself back down to it; just a regular calm way of living.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: What I find is that when you start out with doing small things like–maybe changing a cell phone plan isn’t small–but when you start on little topics, and then you start going into larger and larger topics, things start resolving themselves.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: And resolving and coming up with a solution doesn’t just mean you go one way or the other. It could be, you know what? We agree to table this. We agree to talk about this next week and collect more data on it.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: And again, just having that weekly meeting has been so helpful to people, that when you are intentionally talking about money, it tends to go much better than when someone just says, out of the blue, “Hey, I don’t like how much money you spend on the credit card.” So it’s a much easier way to talk about something that a lot of people have difficulty talking about, ADHD or not.

Hilary Hendershott: Yeah. Well, one opportunity I think we have as we round out this conversation is to maybe give people a picture of what a healthy, financial, intimate relationship looks like. You have the therapeutic knowledge, probably the as-lived knowledge. I have the as-lived knowledge of being a complete financial disaster 20 years ago, and now have a very constructive, supportive, healthy partnership around money.

Hilary Hendershott: And so we’ve talked about the weekly money dates, and the thing that you described sounded like we needed to work out– like almost avoiding a fight. But every money date doesn’t look like that right?

Hilary Hendershott: There are things that you stay in communication about, such as who’s paying the life insurance premium this year? Should we give money to your mom? She needs a couple hundred bucks. What are the characteristics and features in your experience of a healthy financial partnership?

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: I think one in which people can have separate accounts that they don’t need to talk about, and then choosing or not to have a joint account, but there is money that they can spend on what they want.

Hilary Hendershott: And they don’t have to explain it.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: And they don’t have to explain it.

Hilary Hendershott: Right.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: Because if you curb somebody and say, “Everything you’re doing, I’m watching”, people will find a way to channel that into other high risk stuff.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: So it’s really important, I think, that people have their own money. I think it’s important that people, when they have kids, they start talking about money from an early age. Maybe even playing Junior Monopoly and showing you how you exchange money for services and goods.

Hilary Hendershott: Yeah.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: I think talking about money as just something that gets you things you need with kids. I think being on the same page as parents about money and allowance, and are kids going to earn money for chores or not? How is that money going to be used–like if they get birthday money, are we going to open up a savings account, or what are we doing with it? So parenting, I think, being on the same page, that’s a tough one. But if you can do that, then…

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: Yeah, everything else is good. So also, just talking about big ticket items. You know, “Hey, so our TV, I’d like a little bit of a bigger TV. Let’s do some research. Do we agree on this? What are the top three things you’re looking for in a TV? Where are the top three things I’m looking for in a TV?” Houses. “What are the top 10 things that you want in a house; that you definitely need? And let’s see how much our lists match.”

Hilary Hendershott: Mmhmm.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: “Let’s make sure we find something that meets both our needs. Maybe it’s not exactly what we want, but it’s enough that we’re both happy with what we’ve decided.” So there’s a lot of listening; a lot of compromise.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: And the idea of, you can either be married or right.

Hilary Hendershott: Very little make wrong, correct. Right.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: And just being forgiving to each other that being married is a tricky thing, and it’s hard work. It should be effort, but it shouldn’t be strenuous work to the point where you’re exhausted.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: And again, a lot of couples therapists can help people talk about things that are really hard to talk about, and money is one of those things.

Hilary Hendershott: Right. It really is, and I’ve found that coming from a foundation of trust is important. But of course, if your partner doesn’t trust you, and won’t grant you that, you can’t force them, so.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: And it might not be you, it might be your partner.

Hilary Hendershott: Right, right. Exactly. It might not be you, Money Lover. Did you hear that?

Hilary Hendershott: Well, Stephanie, this has been a really rich conversation. Thank you so much. I’m sort of eyes wide open about this topic. I just appreciate you coming on the podcast. Oh, let’s talk about your book.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: Oh, okay, so I have a book, ADD and Your Money. I also have a book about toxic relationships and also about gaslighting. So you can get those on Amazon; on my website; anywhere that you get books.

Hilary Hendershott: Okay, so you can go to the show notes for today’s episode and we’ll link to it. Or you can go to Amazon and search for Stephanie Sarkis, and they are on her website at StephanieSarkis.com.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: Right, right. And I also have the Talking Brains Podcast and we have talked about money on some of the episodes.

Hilary Hendershott: Talking Brains, there you go. All right, Stephanie, if your money were writing you a love note, what would it be thanking you or complimenting you for?

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: So I put a little twist on this, that if my money was writing a thank you note to someone else, it would be to my grandparents and parents for teaching me about money.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: So I’m gonna do a little spin on it. That my parents took the time to sit down and show me how to write checks. When I was 6, I wrote a check to the toy store because I thought, hey, if I wrote a check for, like, you know, $5, I would get those toys, right? So I wrote out a perfectly written check at 5 or 6 that they’ve saved for me.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: So obviously I was watching them do money stuff. Like, they would do the money stuff out in the open. Now the rule was, you never knew what their salaries were. We never talked about that, how much money they made, but I could see them paying bills, doing their taxes. Like I said, my grandfather was a purchasing agent for a huge university, so he was a numbers person.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: He would sit me down and talk about investing, or my grandparents were able to get investments for each of the grandkids, and teach them how to monitor them. Now again, I think that’s a rare thing, and I was very blessed to have that.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: But I think that’s where I’m at today is because I was taught that money is not good or bad, it just kind of is. And this is how we keep it organized. This is how we manage it. And so I’m thankful every day that I was taught that. It makes a huge difference. And again, I just want to say, if that’s not people’s experience, that’s normal.

Hilary Hendershott: Right.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: The way I was raised was not the typical. But I really am thankful to them that my grandfather made investing fun.

Hilary Hendershott: That’s sweet.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: Also talking about what’s low risk/high risk and mitigating risk. And you know that kind of thing. I think that’s important, too, especially if you have ADHD.

Hilary Hendershott: Well, a little love note is going out from this show to your parents and grandfather as of today; a little financial parenting advice for you there, Money Lover. Thank you so much. We just appreciate all of your knowledge. This has been an amazing conversation.

Dr. Stephanie Sarkis: Well, thank you so much.