Something Shiny: ADHD! - REPLAY: ADHD & Relationships Round Table

REPLAY: ADHD & Relationships Round Table

Explicit content warning

08/03/23 • 30 min

Something Shiny: ADHD!

While we reunite (in person!) and prep some amazing new episodes, here's one of our top ever: ever wonder if it’d be easier to be partnered with someone who also has ADHD (or, someone who is neurotypical)? How can you coexist no matter what the combo platter of neurodivergence? Robin, David’s neurotypical partner, and Bobby, Isabelle’s neurodivergent partner, join a relationship round table filled with practical tips on how neurotypical and neurodivergent partners can better support, communicate, and respond in key moments with one another.

For our younger ears: there is a swear in the last minute of the episode. Be warned.
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ADHD is often scapegoated within relationships. David & Isabelle are joined by David’s partner, Robin, who is neurotypical, and Isabelle’s husband, Bobby, who also has ADHD. David describes his friendship with Noah, who also has ADHD, and how the two of them have different and complementary needs and accommodation styles (for example, Noah likes structure and being on time, David is more accommodated by not wanting to let Noah down). How relationships could look when people are aware of what they are good at, not so good at, and that they need to work differently. This is similar to how when Bobby and Isabelle were first diagnosed, they had very different ways of experiencing ADHD and their sample size (“but wait, Isabelle’s more organized, she can’t have ADHD!”) impacted their understanding of it. David and Robin describe how Robin gives David a part of a shelf—a place where he could freely be messy and do his thing. Like spots that she, as his neurotypical partner, does not try to manage. The group goes on a tangent about cockroaches running up legs and spiders in your mouth while you sleep (see below). David also observes that Robin does not ask him to do a lot of things so when she does ask him, it feels novel and he received instant gratification for doing the task, so he’s more likely to do it (and eager to please the person he loves). This also connects to how Robin asks him to sweep or clean up crumbs (more thoroughly). Isabelle notes Robin’s warmth—and recognizes that Isabelle and Bobby both aren’t as warm to each other around this feedback. Robin points out that Isabelle (having ADHD) may not see the feedback as it goes, and instead notices the feedback when she’s already overwhelmed. Isabelle and Bobby note what they call a Great America moment (see below) and notes how she was able to observe Bobby circling around distracted, like a shark, and that she was able to see he needed a different environment to complete his tasks and was able to choose to go to Great America anyway (for herself): in short, she didn’t have to jump into the shark circling herself. David points out that children (which he does not have) are like the loveliest hedonist parrots (which Isabelle and Bobby add: are also the best thing ever). David also talks about mirror neurons and how people with ADHD can have much more active empathic responses, where they can really sync up to the moods/emotions of the people around them. As Bobby is circling like a shark, Isabelle’s mirror neurons are activated and she is syncing up, but Isabelle does not need the same level of intensity. How to know when you don’t need that level of intensity, knowing when you can’t think your way out of that circle (AKA Great American moment). Also important and hard to notice when you’ve self-stimulated yourself into some intense emotion but then your next task doesn’t need it. Hard to see yourself clearly in these escalated moments and how a partner can see you more clearly sometimes and help reflect back boundaries or what you need. And so when Isabelle syncs up to Bobby, she’s trying to soothe them both, instead of paying attention to taking a break and NOT syncing up, which will help them both. Bobby notes that podcast recording sessions helps everyone. Robin also names times when she and David need to ask for what they need to sync up (or not sync up). David will call and give her a heads up telling her he’s ‘coming in hot’ from his commute/work time, when she’s on the couch horizontal watching the Office or Park and Rec—how they try to meet them halfway. How both David and Isabelle forget their age all the time.

For more show notes, go to somethingshinypodcast.com

Why is the cockroach named Rick? For no reason, except David and Robin like alliteration.

Isabelle mentions a sacred pact between humans and bugs? Well, it’s an ancient truce predicated on the idea that if a bug is around, that’s fine, we’re on their turf, really, but if a bug is on your body without you electing to have said bug on your body, or the bug is on your bed or perhaps in the bath/shower with you, you will...

For more show notes, go to somethingshinypodcast.com

Why is the cockroach named Rick? For no reason, except David and Robin like alliteration.

Previous Episode

Am I using too many qualifiers?

Isabelle and David explore more strengths of neurodivergence, such as adaptability and responding in crisis/pressure situations (like a Ferrari on a racetrack, versus the parking lot of practice), and explore the question: why do we use so many qualifiers? Saying things like “I know I’m talking too fast,” to “nerd alert!” to “I know you hate me and want to kill me, but...” thinking about how we try to make ourselves appear aware, or harmless, or signal our vulnerability or fear of being put into a box, and how curiosity can work in our favor to make this a conscious choice rather than an automatic habit.

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David shares the stat that is most closely tied to income (not your test scores or math scores or writing ability)...but your vocabulary, the words you understand. It’s connected to travel, how well you can shift between different environments and understand things. We’re so used to thinking about things in different ways we may not even realize how adept we are at traveling between worlds. Isabelle recognizes how the oral tradition, storytelling, there’s some things she doesn’t take away from the written word that she takes away from hearing about it. How wonderful is it that she found her way into a profession where her role is a listener. She may not regurgitate all the info or nail that standardized test but If you look at her facility to adapt to novel or unusual or crisis circumstances, she wouldn’t trade all her masking for that ability, because she can chameleon her way through a lot of situations. She was recently on a panel and hadn’t been in front of so many humans in a long time. And she noticed that she doesn’t necessarily have the same stress response others have. When they were practicing for the panel, she didn’t do as well and the other amazing panelists seemed at home. When it came time to do it, she got in the zone, and their nerves were visible and it changed their performance. They went from being so organized and put together and getting nervous, whereas she noticed she was more at home and at ease under pressure. All these intangible but real things that we don’t give ourselves credit for. David names that her brain has always been a Ferrari, and when they’re doing the pre-planning, that’s like driving around a parking lot. It would be clunky. The panel itself was the racetrack and she could let herself go. This brings David to something he noticed lately when talking with his lovely colleague; he said “I know you’re going to kill me and hate me, but...I like football.” And his colleague pointed out that he says that sometimes. And his brain opened up the neurodivergent qualifier canyon—“but, I dunno, is it? I do” All the “am I taking up too much space? Talking too fast? Moving too much?” It’s something David has worked on so much. When we’re qualifying, we’re taking ammo out of someone else’s arsenal. We say the thing we’re scared someone is going to say to us, then when someone says something terrible to us, we’re not upset. David notices he does this with things he really, really likes but that he has a conflict around. He’s owning that he’s a really, really big football fan. And he’s the only football fan in his family, this wasn’t handed down, this was something he stumbled on that he loves. He’s also spent the last 30 years studying brains, trauma, and behavior, so it’s complicated, but he still loves football. He says “don’t kill me, I love football” as a way of saying “don’t worry, I know football is bad, it’s a guilty pleasure.” But in all moments when qualifiers come out, we disrupt other people’s agency. The questions need to be okay. The conflicts need to be okay. We’re allowed to be guarded, we’re allowed to be vulnerable, but it’s not always easy liking little shiny things, because you might like a shiny thing that someone else doesn’t like. The qualifiers are the ways we use language to soften blows for ourselves, to stop our rocket from fully going wild across the field, they’re like really sophisticated bumper guards. It’s a part of having self esteem hits from ADHD, but it’s not all bad. This makes Isabelle think of how many qualifiers she uses in a moment let alone a day. It also makes her think of how she first came across qualifiers in a book on negotiation that calls them accusational audits, where you disarm someone’s argument by naming the thing you think they’ll use against you (e.g. ‘I know I’m young and experienced, but...”) She also thinks she uses phrases like “nerd alert” and “get ready, I’m about to geek out on you...” because there’s a lot about herself she was the last to find out about. She feels like she’s the last to know and she misses a lot. That’s also a strength/vulnerability of neurodivergence, ...

Next Episode

Did I break it?

Isabelle and David reflect on going on 3 years of working on this podcast (note: this is now are 4th year working on it! WHAT?! WE LOVE YOU!) and how much the common way of interacting with inanimate objects is “did I break it?” And when we don’t, the realization of: “it’s more better!” Thinking about all the shiny neurodivergent folks gleaming around the planet, the power of your suggestions and ideas for shaping this podcast, and things we’ve learned as adults that changed the game (see: logos, gas station hacks, successfully getting everything for a recipe at the grocery store).

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David and Isabelle reflect on this being their 3rd anniversary of recording the podcast. David describes how he used to walk to Isabelle and Bobby’s place past a McDonald’s every time to record, mulling over what they would talk about or what they could do. But this McDonald’s had a lit awning but was also closed a bunch of the time, and was filled with the most awkward sidewalk and road configuration so you need to do a lot of things to find out they are closed. David would like to barter, somehow. On Isabelle’s end she remembers getting the table ready after putting their kid down for bed, and getting excited to have a guest over. Almost everything is improved by snacking, but also less ice, is better. The two ponder about what to talk about, or going meta with the podcast. David wants to go there because it has been so cool to see what happened since we started this. We started wanting to remove the paywall from good information about ADHD, reduce suffering. The letters and emails we’ve gotten, the reviews we’ve seen posted, David is constantly in awe and reminded that sometimes people hear something we’ve talked about and it makes them feel less alone or more seen. It’s so cool that it’s happening so much. And he’s sitting with ADHD in that he doesn’t respond. “This person is amazing, their heart is true, and man, I need to sit down and write an honest letter that matches the energy.” Isabelle is trying so hard to respond. David cries and wants to respond, and here is his verbal accommodation to responding. It’s really incredible and rewarding in ways he wouldn’t have thought. For Isabelle, it relates a delayed gratification time, having a roughly regular way of interacting with David is so rewarding. For a long time in person, this was the lifeline to getting to see each other and it is delightful and brought me so much, and then she turns to Bobby and goes “have you listened to the podcast?” Because they actually use this in their every day life. Let’s figure that out. In terms of the immediacy of what this means, every time she goes to listen and edits old episodes, it’s delightful, and then she gets something from it. And then she sits and edits and gets better and faster and it’s not her chosen profession, so she’s picked up a lot as she’s gone. And then she feels the growing load of never putting this out and it’s fine as long as there’s an episode up. And then we get a review, or a letter, or an email, and it’s like holy flying pieces of flaming something. And then it's a conversation. You’re listening on the other end of this. And she listens to the other end of this, she’s just listener, too. It makes her think of the first “X-Men” movie and Professor X in his machine, Cerebro, and seeing all of the shiny people all around the world. And David names, we can struggle with premeditation, and not rehearsing, or scripting anything, but these are very real conversations that can feel scary and vulnerable because they’re not here. There are certain topics and suggestions that lots of people have written in and we’ve been so excited to cover them and maybe do it. It’s really helpful if people tell us “give us more information on x” and that gives us structure, or like help me with littles, and how do we sit here and deal with partners, how do you reclaim a life when you learn you’re neurodivergent into your later adulthood? What might be really great, and maybe do a conversation around them, there are no capital A answers, but there are lots of answers to these things. We should rope in more people so we have more ways of talking about it, both from parents and non-parents, and more of a Q&A roundtable - and maybe we make it an event, a virtual, zoom type things. David gets balloons no matter what. On Isabelle’s scale of decorations, the top one is little paper accordions made of tissue paper, loves the opening of party decorations and then she closes them and they are flat. David has kept some of those up because why would you take them down. It’s like a 3D animation, now it’s flat and now it’s slowly getting not flat. Am I going to break it? It’s more better! This sums up half of Isabelle’s interactions with inanimate objects. Giant learning moments of things you didn’t know until way late and it changed the gam...