Joshua Davidson Therapy

25/03/2026

A diagram that helps a certain group of ADHDer understand that they truly do have the ADHD trait comes from Dani Donovan.

-- You can find this and more at https://adhddd.com/
-- This isn't an advert, just giving credit where it is due.

25/03/2026

The parent voice - it isn't about volume, it isn't about cruel. It is more resonance, firmness, and attitude. I sometimes use it on my friends (at times), at random children (when needed) or on new members to social groups (again, when needed) - highly effective.

Language is also important. For example, if you put the parent voice on but say "would it be okay if you...", then you sent a mixed message. If there isn't supposed to be a choice, don't give a choice. Instead "you will do [this] now", or "stop".

12/03/2026

12/03/2026

Let me explain Squirrels and Frogs.

ADHDers try to focus when...

LOOK!!!!

A squirrel!!!

Squirrelling is where either the conversation takes a sudden left turn

OR

you just lose focus.

Frogging is where you mentally leapfrog through a few topics.

Trying to explain is too hard.

People think you were distracted by something unexpected, rather than you had several complicated thoughts.

11/03/2026

Regret and Guilt
-----------
Full Article: https://www.jomida.com/regret-and-guilt/

[Page 1]
We feel regret because our plan failed.
* Understanding Regret
The point of regret is to learn and grow.
This helps us be better cooperative social animals.

Regret tells you that your plan went wrong.
- we rarely feel regret when things go well.

Very few people choose for a bad outcome.
- You made the best reasonable choice in the circumstances.
- If you knew it would go bad and had a better viable choice,
- you would have made it (hindsight bias).
You did not make this choice out of malice.

* Learning And Growing
Work out what went wrong, and what you could do next time to do better.

Lingering regret is a reminder, not a problem.
It prompts you to try the new option if this ever repeats.

[Page 2]
We feel guilt as someone got hurt.
* Understanding Guilt
The point of guilt it to identify harm,
your responsibility for that, and do something about it.

{Work through the regret section above first.}

* What to do
If someone claims they were harmed:
- Check that they were harmed as claimed.
- Explore the mechanism for the harm.
- Determine your fair share of the responsibility.

If valid:
- Own your part of the outcome.
- Offer reasonable amends, and
if accepted by them, do it.

[Page 3]
Beware: Toxic People Exist

* Understanding Toxic Hijacking.
Regret and Guilt are neurological social tools to improve group cooperation.
Toxic people will try to hijack these tools.

Toxic People will make nonspecific false or misrepresented claims of harm.
- They hijack your mechanism to fill in the blanks.
- Pretend explanation are full of emotional triggers, absent on details.
- That is why you want the claimant to specify.

If you fall for it, they’ll:
- Demand too much compensation.
- Will claim you owe them beyond fair amends.

Note: reasonable people in fight/flight mode also do this,
but will be fair once they have calmed down.

[Page 4]
Ruminating or Over Expression.

* The level should feel mild to moderate,
once solved / resolved, ruminating should stop.

The two major causes of ruminating or too many feels:
1. A mental health condition (eg Anxiety Disorder, PTSD)
- Talk to your doctor about medication for your condition - most mental health has a biological basis.
- Talk to a therapist to go through this process, and gain better insight into the situation.

2. Someone is interfering with resolving the earlier methods
- Someone in fight/flight mode may be emotional and non-logical. When they calm down, they should be more reasonable, so things can be solved / resolved.
- If they aren't being reasonable when calm, check for signs of a toxic person
—> beyond the scope of this: see a good therapist, or our Conflict Page, Jomida.com/conflict

03/03/2026

"No" is an important boundary.

When people cross your "no", that is a clear warning about them - if that is their trend, then work on getting away from them.

03/03/2026

Psychedelics in Mental Health (Summary)
https://www.jomida.com/2026/03/03/psychedelics/ [summary article]

This is a brief version of the full article, https://www.jomida.com/psychedelics-and-mental-health/

Psychedelics specifically refers to a class of drugs that cause hallucinations, that is the primary effect is to trigger an altered state of mind. This “trip” can be perceived as an “expansion of consciousness”.

The most common psychedelic drugs are L*D (Lysergic Acid Diethylamide), ketamine, mescaline, psilocybin, and DMT (Dimethyltryptamine). Psychedelics are not a current standard medication for mental health therapy, although some people do receive a positive mental health response to this class of drug.

Although the chemicals themselves often have little evidence of causing harm, there is some evidence of a risk of permanent drug induced psychosis, health complications due to contaminants, and lifestyle health risk due to where these drugs are often sourced.

- How Psychedelics Work
Psychedelic drugs bind to a specific type of serotonin receptor, forcing it to turn on and disrupting the ability for the neuron it effects to properly manage intracellular signaling, messing up the ability for your brain to process sensory inputs (causing temporary hallucinations), and understanding (causing temporary psychosis).

Psychedelics can trigger neuroplasticity, the ability for neurons to grow and change. This can allow people to let go of old ideas, add new ideas and be prepared to make life changes. The long term effects of this are not strong, but show some potential.

- Neuroplasticity
Many psychedelics promote the expression of genes related to neuronal plasticity. While this sounds like a plausible mechanism for real change, in adults it appears that the actual neuron change is minimal and often irrelevant.

- Psychedelics in Mental Health Therapy
Back in the 1970s psychedelics were experimented with as an adjunct to talking therapy. It was thought that perhaps the hallucination effect of new understanding would help the patient be more open to thinking in new ways, and thus changing the base cognitive or memory that was causing mental distress. Remember, back then it was thought that mental illness was caused by trauma, which caused a dissonance between the conscious brain and the unconscious desires. If this was true, then using psychedelics to try to change those causes makes sense.

We now know that this old idea of what causes mental illness is mostly wrong. While it is true that a healthy person who is harmed enough may change for the worse, this is actually fairly rare. What is mostly behind mental ill health is biology – which we’ve talked about in other areas extensively (Talking Therapies & Medicine Therapies).

There are three variants to how psychedelics might help in letting your mind adjust, all to do with dosage.

* Micro Dosing
* Regular Dosing
* Heroic Dosing

- Micro Dosing, mechanically, is taking a sub-therapeutic amount and hoping for a therapeutic results, which doesn’t make sense. We pretty much get the no-therapeutic result from micro dosing.

- Regular dosing is about how much of the substance it takes to get the mind-altering effects. There is next to no serious evidence that this does anything therapeutic. While you will find some anecdotes that this works, you aren’t hearing all of the people who didn’t get this, so should those anecdotes be real, the effect is incredibly weak and unpredictable.

- Heroic dosing is where you take a much larger amount than a regular dose to try to force the neuroplastic effect. This has some evidence of working, but the studies are so few and small that we don’t know if we are actually only seeing the lucky few or if this is a predictable outcome, and thus should be considered as more than a last ditch effort. It certainly doesn’t have enough evidence to be a front line treatment, especially since the trips last at least 8 hours and you need a qualified trip sitter to be with you and help you process your trip afterwards. So far, this is not done in Western Australia.

- Risks of Psychedelics
The risks for psychedelics are complex.

Mortality: For most people, the active chemical itself is relatively harmless, although that may not be specifically true for you. What often causes harm is the actions you take while you aren’t in your right mind due to intoxication.

Psychosis: There is low evidence that psychedelics cause long term drug induced psychosis. What often causes problems is the other ingredients you that may be mixed in from the distributor.

Social: Often people who take psychedelics frequently are in social groups that aren’t good for them.

Psychedelics specifically refers to a class of drugs that cause hallucinations, that is the primary effect is to trigger an altered state of mind. This "trip" can be perceived as an "expansion of consciousness". The most common psychedelic drugs are L*D (Lysergic Acid Diethylamide), ketamine, mescal...

27/02/2026

Social Anxiety and Conflict Avoidance suck.

26/02/2026

Oh no, you too?

13/02/2026

I often escape into fiction.

13/02/2026

I saw the news today, oh boy...

08/02/2026

ADHD Dino's, you know me so well...