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February 23, 2026
Your ADHD brain is one of the best storytellers in the room. The problem is it doesn't always know when it's making things up.
I'm recording this two days before movers arrive, from a house I no longer own, in a t-shirt, with dilated pupils. Classic.
I sold Bullfrog Farms, my six-and-a-half-acre country home, and decided to do the most opposite thing possible: move into a high-rise in San Francisco. Three HOA rejections later, all because of two small dogs named Teddy and Moe, I went from "this is inconvenient" to "we're basically going to be homeless" in under a week.
That spiral brought me back to something I keep teaching but had to relearn myself. In this episode, I talk about the ADHD brain's compulsive need to fill uncertainty with narrative, the difference between reacting to a story and reacting to data, why public criticism hits differently than private criticism when your nervous system has no agency, and how a misidentified baby egret became the most honest lesson of the month.
If your brain has ever taken one rejection, one unanswered text, one hard week, and turned it into a verdict about your entire life, this one is for you.
“From high-rise city living to homelessness in three days. That’s how fast the brain can escalate.”
- Tracy Otsuka
“Our brains hate uncertainty, so we create meaning. We fill in blanks. We build narratives that feel coherent and comforting.”
- Tracy Otsuka
“Just because something feels true doesn’t mean it is.”
-- Tracy Otsuka
"Someone telling a very certain story about me that wasn’t true didn’t shake me, because I’m clear on who I am and who I’m not."
-- Tracy Otsuka
"Some stories calm us. Some scare us. Most of them are just interpretations."
- Tracy Otsuka
"Storytelling is one of our gifts. The question is whether we’re using it to empower ourselves or scare ourselves."
- Tracy Otsuka
- Tracy shares leaving Bullfrog Farms, planning a drastic lifestyle shift to a San Francisco high-rise, and being denied three buildings because of their two dogs.
- She notices her brain escalating from inconvenience to catastrophe, building stories about AI money, being priced out, and impending homelessness.
- A conversation with her daughter reframes the situation as process, not punishment, interrupting the spiral.
[09:30 – 19:30] The Egret Story and How We Invent Meaning
- Tracy recounts seeing multiple great white egrets during the sale of her home and interpreting them as symbolic closure.
- She and her daughter misidentify a “baby egret,” construct a rescue narrative, and later discover it was an entirely different species.
- The moment becomes a live example of how ADHD brains fill in blanks to reduce uncertainty and create emotional coherence.
[19:30 – 36:15] Hate Email, Reddit, and Owning Your Story
- Tracy reads a hostile email criticizing her ADHD checklist and responds with clarity about her role, impact, and boundaries.
- She contrasts private criticism with public commentary, realizing the nervous system reacts differently when she lacks a voice in the narrative.
- The episode closes with a core insight: certainty is not clarity, and asking “Is this data or just a story?” creates space for agency.
ADHD isn’t a productivity problem. It’s an identity problem.
That’s why most strategies don’t stick—they weren’t designed for how your brain actually works. Your ADHD Brain is A-OK Academy is different. It’s a patented, science-backed coaching program that helps you stop fighting your brain and start building a life that fits. 👉Learn more here
- Website: tracyotsuka.com
- Instagram: @tracyotsuka
- YouTube: @tracyotsuka4796
- FREE 3-days to Fall in Love With Your ADHD Brain training on Jan 6th: tracyotsuka.com/ilovemybrain
- Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Here’s what actually does. FREE training here: programs.tracyotsuka.com