In today's episode, we take the niche theme of this season one step further, diving into the incredibly specific topic of how people with adhd experience and relate to fear in climbing. Even though fear is an important element behind the enjoyment many people with adhd find in climbing, their hyperfocus can become a double-edged sword, leading some climbers with adhd to fixate on thoughts of fear and spiral into all the things that might go wrong.

*after publishing this episode, I interviewed two PhD clinical psychologists, Sarah Wu and Carolyn Aibel (see Bonus ep 02), and I learned fixating on fear can’t really be attributed to hyperfocus. While they made sure to say they weren’t trying to diagnose anyone, they both suggested perhaps that was a case where someone had an anxiety disorder as well as ADHD. Hyperfocus, I learned, is what psychologists call positively valenced, meaning it motivates people to accomplish things and inspires them to finish projects rather than fixating attention on something like fear.