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How many times have you tried to understand ADHD...and were left feeling more misunderstood? We get it and we're here to help you build a shiny new relationship with ADHD. We are two therapists (David Kessler & Isabelle Richards) who not only work with people with ADHD, but we also have ADHD ourselves and have been where you are. Every other week on Something Shiny, you'll hear (real) vulnerable conversations, truth bombs from the world of psychology, and have WHOA moments that leave you feeling seen, understood, and...dare we say...knowing you are something shiny, just as you are.
Something Shiny: ADHD
This Is Why You Push Yourself Too Hard (And How To Immediately Stop The Cycle)
Drop Date: Wednesday, December 3, 2025
*this episode transcription was autogenerated and might contain errors
ISABELLE RICHARDS: [00:00:00] Hello. I'm Isabelle. She, her, hers, and I'm David. He, him, his, and we're two therapists with A DHD, who sit down to have some chats about A DHD. We can promise we'll stay on topic or be professional or even remotely mature, but we can promise that you'll end up looking at you or your loved one's, beautiful neurodivergent brain in a shiny new way.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: This is not a therapy session. This is something shiny.
DAVID KESSLER: I love it. Do you like it? Uh, that's amazing. And can this just be the intro you saying that and me freaking out about how amazing it's Yeah. And you tapping your voice. That
ISABELLE RICHARDS: could
ISABELLE RICHARDS: be, that could be our first intro. That's so, so without further ado, welcome to something Shiny.
DAVID KESSLER: I'm David. I.
DAVID KESSLER: I've been having like a, an interesting reaction to ableism as [00:01:00] of late. Mm-hmm. Because I see it in these really insidious places. Like, I totally think about like the voice in your head. Like, I, but Grace, it's like I'm, I'm behaviorally and psycho, you know, analytically trained, so I'm like, yeah, a super ego.
DAVID KESSLER: It's like everything we've been trained, all of our, like parents and cultural stuff is back there. I think so many people have been trained to look like everyone else. They don't know that looking like everyone else is at times contributing to ableism. No. No. And I think that I see it in really soft ways, and it's a big word, and I think people really don't like feeling like bad people.
DAVID KESSLER: So like if, if I say something and it makes you feel like an ableist, it's okay. You don't have to keep doing it. But like you are not inherently a bad person. We've all been kind of tricked into this, right?
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Yeah. Yeah.
DAVID KESSLER: I think that one of the clearest examples of this in a non like activating ways to talk about books, we have been trained to believe that someone that can read long books is smart.
DAVID KESSLER: We've been trained to believe that anyone can read. You just have to put the time into it. We've been trained to [00:02:00] believe that if you listen to an audio book, you're cheating. It's not really reading. All of these truths have been like absolutely pushed forward by society. Mm-hmm. And what research is actually showing right now, and this is where it gets really incredible for me to think about.
DAVID KESSLER: Research shows that if you read a book, you absolutely have a, like a ton of reading errors, like maybe you read of instead of the, or you skip a line or you misread somebody's name or a word or whatever. That happens to everyone, not neurodivergent people. By the way. Every one is a very normal thing. As a matter of fact, they say like the best you could get if you read a book being perfectly attending the whole time is 95% accuracy to the book.
DAVID KESSLER: That's the best anyone could get while reading. Do you know what accuracy you get when you listen to a book? It's the only time you can get a hundred percent.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Oh,
DAVID KESSLER: the person is reading every word correctly and editing it there. It is the only time. And, uh, podcast,
ISABELLE RICHARDS: podcast.
DAVID KESSLER: Podcast, exactly. I believe, [00:03:00] like I remember when I was a kid, there's this book, Stephen King wrote this book called The Stand, and I looked at this book and I'm like.
DAVID KESSLER: That book is so big. I'm gonna read that book and like, I don't know why, and I was, I was a little kid and I thought like if I read this book, I'll be able to do anything in life. Like, and I'll be able to do homework. Like I'll do everything. I read that book. As a kid, and I will tell you, no kid should ever read Stephen King's book called The Stand.
DAVID KESSLER: It's, it was, it is a, it is an epic journey for those of you that have never seen this book. And don't worry, it's a great story. But for those of you who've never seen, it's like a thousand pages.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): Oh my God.
DAVID KESSLER: And I'm not gonna ruin the book for everyone, but I'll say it. The ending is not what I wanted as a kid.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Okay. The complete and uncut edition, which is likely what you read. Oh yeah. Was is 1,152 pages.
DAVID KESSLER: That is exactly that. That's what it felt like.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: And it was like, I remember it's like a cheap paperback, right? Yeah. So as you open it, it would fall
DAVID KESSLER: [00:04:00] apart. Yes. I had the paperback. It was cracking. Yeah, it was cracking.
DAVID KESSLER: Yes. So I read that book. It ended in a way that like I was disappointed in whatever. I don't wanna ruin it for other people, but reading that book did not make me better, and I felt like I had just like bought like the wrong thing. It was, it's like this didn't fix anything. I hate you Stephen King, by the way, the Long Walk short book.
DAVID KESSLER: Love it. Anyway, but yeah.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Oh, okay. Really, really fast like that. I mean, not to say that that's a part of Aspace. S my neuros spicy culture. But I'm just gonna throw, see if anyone relates to this. That experience of like, oh, I'm gonna do this extremely hard thing and that's gonna somehow like. Show the world that like, I am prepared, or I'm ready, or I'm like, okay.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: You know, that in a nutshell was most of my attempts to like adapt to the social world of school.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): Mm-hmm.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Mm-hmm. Like
ISABELLE RICHARDS: the thing that I made. Do you remember [00:05:00] pogs?
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): That's a little before me,
ISABELLE RICHARDS: honestly. You, you didn't miss anything. Grace. Okay. You know what they were? They were literally, I think they started as milk.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Like, you know when you buy a gallon of milk, there's like a Yeah, like a milk cap. Little N on top. The little, yeah. It's just like a milk cap. Okay. And for some reason, suddenly everyone had pugs and you had these little holders. And of course my, my attempt was like, oh, I'm just gonna copy and paste what people are playing with and then that way they'll play with me.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Which is like, oh sweet. Who's gonna tell her? Um, so I got a POG board. Yeah. You don't need a POG board. A POG board. That's just a piece of plastic that they said, this is an official POG board. Because apparently there was like a game you played. No one played a game. You just traded them. You just looked at them and were like, oh, cool.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Bart Simpson. Ha ha. And you traded. But I, okay, I'm not joking. There was a moment, and I say I always share this as a funny story, but like, I kind of intend, this is like one of those like slightly traumatic things that like you also laugh about, but then like as you [00:06:00] get older, you go, oh. Oh, sweet, sweet kid.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: I remember we had to go out onto the blacktop to play for recess. This is fifth grade, so I'm like, what? 11 years old? 12 years old. I get the pogs, I buy the pogs with my allowance, right? Like I gather the pogs and I decide. My strategy's gonna be, I'm gonna go out on the blacktop. 'cause everyone would set up little stations.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: I'm gonna set up the first station and then everyone will come to me. 'cause then they, they see my p board, they see how cool this is. Right? I'm copying and pasting. I'm doing the thing. Not that it's the same as the book, David, but like I'm sort of creating a parallel for like the social part. It's the same of my neuro spice, right?
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Like, it's like the same, it's like my equivalent of that book was the POG board. I was like, aha, this will unlock friend. Friend will be unlocked. And so I'm holding these POG boards and of course you're staff's supposed to cut across the grass. There's like this long walk from the, from the lunchroom outside to this, uh, the blacktop, like the asphalt.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: It's been a rainy day [00:07:00] and I run on the grass, which you're not supposed to do. I broke a rule. I was so desperate, and I slip and fall and I face plant and I knocked myself out. I think I was concussed. I mean, well, oh God, this was back in like the nineties when I blame the
DAVID KESSLER: pod boards.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Yeah, well like, but the nineties where it's like, I don't think I went to the hospital.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: You know, like, no one, no, you're fine. Walk it off. Walk it off. But I'll never forget that I come to, and my pogs were missing. Okay, and, but this is not a sob story, right? Like it sucks, right? Like somebody took the POGS while I was, somebody
DAVID KESSLER: stole your pogs while you were on C.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Yeah. The thing that I remember I was more upset about, again, like thinking of like how deep that inner cop goes
ISABELLE RICHARDS: mm-hmm.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Mm-hmm. Was,
ISABELLE RICHARDS: oh my gosh, I don't know what the rule is with the pogs, but whatever my in was now it's like I'm even more. Isolated and ostracized, because I [00:08:00] literally kind of had this big swollen chin for a while. I mean, it's kind of surprising. I don't have like permanent whatever. Um, point is, it's the, it's like the same thing with the stand, right?
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Where it's like, it's, it's, you think that the means to an end, you think that the means. To belonging is gonna be the simulation of the norm or the thing. Mm-hmm. That like every, like the, yeah. All those standards. You think that if you just nail it mm-hmm. That's exists for like Yeah. A clean home. Yeah. If I just don't have piles, if I just, you know, don't have dirt on my baseboards or whatever the f that is, I don't know.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: It's gonna somehow then reflect on and then give me that internal sense that like, I'm okay. And that I did it.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): Yes. I think like a, a few things, a few like stories in my own life have been coming up, but hearing that last part really clicks on it for me. That right, like what you're looking for is that like [00:09:00] feeling of safety, the like bodily, like you're regulated, you're connected, you are trusting, you are calm, you're resonant, like all of these things, but you're looking for it from.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): Ps. Mm-hmm. Yes. Instead of each other. Yes. Instead of other people like you. Yes. Yes. And like I, yeah, I, I can definitely like one, one story that's coming to mind for me. Have you guys heard of this book called House of Leaves?
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Oh my gosh, yes. I'm so curious what your thoughts are. Okay. Please continue.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): I could never finish Ops of Leaves because it was.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): Uh, frankly, I made it like not, I was still so at the beginning of the book, but it was already freaky enough for me. 'cause I don't have a super high tolerance that I would be like, pretty freaked out afterwards. But I, I would like set this book down and then try and start again like a couple years later and whatever.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): And actually last summer I had a moment where I was like, great, I'm gonna do [00:10:00] this. I'm gonna read this thing, and I would have that feeling and, mm-hmm. I hit, uh, a point in the book where I just got like much more freaks out than before and I realized like, this is not world worth it to me. Like I had this idea, like I just took for granted.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): Like this is a great piece of art. I'm interested in these ideas. It's cool. And so it was not even so like I could tell people I'd read this book or like. You know, be in the house of lose house of Leaves community. Uh, but more just like I had really got in my head of just like, this is a value of mine. I do hard things when I want to.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): And it took me that moment of being like, wow, I'm, I'm really out of sorts after that. And like, I ended up giving the book away to a friend, but like. Having to really accept that. Just like, you know, I do love art and beauty and I could do hard things and this is [00:11:00] not one of the hard things I'm gonna do.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): 'cause there's just things that even when we're not pushing ourselves to conform, right, or to like prove ourselves that are just difficult about life and about all the, all the shit we go through. And so reserving my. Doing difficult things, energy for the things that I really care about, that I really value.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): And instead of looking for that like safety and connection from achievement to instead like. I just need to talk to someone else who also can't leave, who also can't read leaves. Yes. Like that's actually what I need right now.
DAVID KESSLER: That's, oh my gosh. Oh, sorry, David. No, no, no. Just do it. Do it. Isabel, jump
ISABELLE RICHARDS: really fast for the listener who's like, what is House of Leaves Grace.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: I'm smiling so big. I, I mean, not the same experience, but like almost the same experience in college. Also heard of Hazel Leaps for listeners. It's a equally super long book. I'm trying to look up how long it is. I think it's like 500 pages or something. It's like 500 pages, but it's [00:12:00] also like big. It's, you know.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Mm-hmm. It's like 500 big pages, but it's the way it's printed, it's curly and curvy and text changes and like the text itself. And the whole premise is that, I mean, in a nutshell, there's a house that's bigger on the inside than it's on the outside
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): and it's, and the house starts changing and the house starts changing.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): The books print starts to change to also reflect. All that stuff.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Yeah. I did not like it.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): Thi this is, this is the cop in your head thing, right? It's nobody's making you do this. You're not gonna get, uh, credit or whatever. But even just in your own head, there's like. I want to be the kind of person who blank.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): Mm-hmm. Instead of just the kind of person you are. The kind of person who just enjoys the things that you actually enjoy,
ISABELLE RICHARDS: like folding laundry. This is, I dunno what I'm looking at it right now. I wanna be someone who can fold laundry. I wanna be, I Why? Why [00:13:00]
DAVID KESSLER: do you wanna be the one that folds laundry? Or do you want to be the one that doesn't have laundry to do?
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Oh, totally. The second.
DAVID KESSLER: Yes.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: In my head, folded laundry is the finishing of the task. I know. I try. So I wanna be on the other end of this task at all times. I want it to be permanently done. But that's a good point.
DAVID KESSLER: As you all are talking about the house of leaves. Uh, it makes me think of two things. One, how many neurodivergent folks have books on the wall?
DAVID KESSLER: Like hunters have heads, you know, like, we, like I read this. I want the world to know I read this boom going on the wall. I, I have friends that read digital copies or audiobooks and then buy the physical copy and put it in their house so that people know that they've read that book and god bless 'em.
DAVID KESSLER: Like, no judgment on that, but like. We're talking about like the, you know, what it looks like to other people and like what it feel like, I gotta read House of Leaves, or I'm gonna, or no, I'm not gonna make it in the world, or whatever that thing is. And when you all were talking about House of Leaves, I was thinking like, man, I had, I struggled reading like I'm, I didn't have that experience with House of Leaves, that's fat.
DAVID KESSLER: And then, and then like, I had this truck fly through my [00:14:00] brain and it wasn't, it wasn't a book. It was cilantro. Cilantro, yes. All of like, everyone I knew. Ate and loved cilantro and made fun of people. Oh my gosh. You were teaching Citro. Anything you do taste, does this seem like soap to you? I thought they all liked soap.
DAVID KESSLER: I made it go down all the time. 'cause I didn't want people to like, I don't wanna be that stupid white guy like that. Doesn't like cilantro and onions. I, oh God, I would make this taco go down. Like it was awful. And then like I get to undergrad and someone goes, you know, that's a genetic thing. And I go, what?
DAVID KESSLER: Yeah, it doesn't taste like soap to me. And I remember just being like, oh, I'm never eating this again. Like, go parsley. Yeah, no cilantro 86 that
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): mm-hmm. That, that's exactly how I felt about being a man. I was just like, I, everybody seems to love this. I seem to be doing a great job, and it just must suck for everybody.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): Right. Just being a man is just like [00:15:00] about being tortured, I guess. It turns out no. Uh, but like the complicated search for like the, the word that's coming to mind, I don't know if this is like the thing we're gonna land on, but like, permission, right? Like, you find out like, oh, you have the cilantro gene.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): That means that you don't have to eat cilantro anymore. Same thing of like, oh, you have the, you have the gender dysphoria. That means that you actually don't have to do this anymore. You can do something that you would prefer. What? This is the reason why we. Seek that permission is because our society doesn't consider it like reasonable to just do something different.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): And so we look for why. Like I remember early in my like questioning my gender identity, like wondering if I should transition and talking to another trans woman who'd been transitioning for some years and she brought up in undergrad, she had taken some. Class that had like Catholic proofs for God, [00:16:00] like the existence of the Catholic God and the idea that like they were fine enough, but like she thought, well, they're only compelling if you're already Catholic.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): Like it's a compelling proof if you want to be Catholic and that's why you're seeking the proof out. And that trans people and neuro diversion people also by which. Something else we gotta talk about is there's a huge overlap in the neuro divergent trans community. Mm-hmm. But like you're, you're trying to prove to yourself because it's just something you wanna do.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): But like, we can also just get in touch with that, something we wanna do ness, and that by, you know, doing it with the, the laundry or the big old book or whatever, it's all practicing the same muscle. Like it's easier to be autistic knowing that I'm a trans woman and it's easier to be a trans woman knowing that I'm autistic.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): Therefore also, right? Like looking for that community is the thing that I've been looking for this whole time [00:17:00] and in the moments that I've had that connection, but people didn't have that same consideration of just like, oh yeah, grace is somebody who needs like these accommodations and like is just going to struggle with these things that are like commonly accepted or expected, right?
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): Like. That's the moment where I'm missing like the nutrient. But the solution to that is not just, I gotta be more confident in all these different areas. It's finding other people who are in the same boat. Ugh.
DAVID KESSLER: Yes. Increased understanding, reduces suffering.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): Mm-hmm.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Yes. Okay. So. Just talking about the prevalence, right?
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Like I kind of did a quick Google like I want to do and, oh, it's
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): a big
DAVID KESSLER: number.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): You're about
ISABELLE RICHARDS: to say. It's a huge number. Number. Okay. You're about to say one of the biggest
DAVID KESSLER: numbers out there. I love that. Google's a verb and it's a big number. I love this and I'm waiting.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: It's a big number that's coming. It is.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Okay. Based on, you know, like the, the National Institute of Health. I mean, to be fair, there's a lot [00:18:00] of. Um, needed more research, right? Yes, and certainly less bias in the research. Listen to these numbers. Transgender and gender non-conforming individuals are two to six times more likely to have a DHD compared to cisgender individuals.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: The rates of autism are roughly the same. It's. Like 1.72 to 7.21 times. And we know. So side note that like if you have, well, if you have a DHD or, or you are autistic, like, like your odds of having the other will go up or any other number of neuro spice too.
DAVID KESSLER: And I think like one of the things that we're talking about today, like when we talk about the parts of us that matter and like how to feel normalized and we're bringing up every aspect of marginalized culture, it's like, well, why, why, why?
DAVID KESSLER: What's the point? Okay, great, great, great question. Uh, listener, like, why are we bringing this up? The reason we're bringing this up is because masking has been evidenced to be detrimental to the development of people. We actually, if I wanna be [00:19:00] hyperbolic, I'll say that there's a correlation between masking and suicidal ideation, meaning people thinking about wanting to end their life because they're trying to be somebody they're not.
DAVID KESSLER: And the reason they're trying to be someone they're not is they don't know it's okay to be themselves. And so what Grace and Isabelle and I are talking about today are trying to validate parts of the culture, parts of us that are aren't deficient, but different. And that just because you are different doesn't mean you need to hide it.
DAVID KESSLER: And like research has shown there's one place that masking is effective in the world, just one. One job interviews, but everyone masks like, like people go into, like, I'm not planning on having a family. Like people lie all the time in a job interview, lots of masking, but it's the moment that like outside of that single serving event, we have to be able to be real.
DAVID KESSLER: It has to be safe to be us. We have to find that community. It feels safe.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): Yeah. I think this also highlights something really important, right? Not just the idea of like safety and safe spaces, but also being safe enough. Mm-hmm. That like [00:20:00] there are parts of our life. When we might prefer, like, it might be the thing that you actually really wanna do is like keep your shit on lock a little bit.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): Yeah. Whether that's something as high stakes as like engaging with police or lower stakes, like meeting new friends and I want them to like me, so like I'm gonna stay at the party a little longer than maybe I would before, like otherwise. Right. And so like. Huge spectrum. Sometimes it makes sense, but regardless of when we choose to mask in whatever ways, like with whatever identities we have,
ISABELLE RICHARDS: mm-hmm.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): Uh, we need to have moments of like genuine, sincere connection. Yes, it's necessary. It's not a nice to have. It's like you'll feel awful if you don't have it. And luckily there's always other people like us, even if they haven't had the same exact experience. People who like. Know what it's like to go through the thing you're going through.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): [00:21:00] Often that's what we need to reach for more than like, I just need to prove myself by being so good at this thing or whatever. So I think that's a super important point, David, because it gets it right that unmasking is not just, I am going to be completely uninhibited all the time. It's I'm gonna dedicate part of my life and a lot of my closest relationships to being myself.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): To not having to like listen to that cop in my head. There is something really valuable about being visible, being visibly, whatever you are. And I'm so grateful that both of you do that through this podcast. I think it is really important for not just your listeners, but also like there's a whole landscape that you're a part of.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): And even if somebody doesn't listen, and this might sound sort of strange, right? But like, even if they don't listen, like they know you're here. They know that there is a place that could go or that someone else could go. And so it's both like getting that connection, getting that [00:22:00] nutrient from the high visibility, but also you're normalizing it just by existing.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): That's how we save each other, is by being ourselves, by being a safe place for other people. So thank you so much for your part in that. Thank you.
DAVID KESSLER: Thank you so much for listening. If you ever have that thought where you think, Hey, I have nothing, stop. Remember, you're so something's shiny.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: That's right.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Just as you are. If you like what you heard and you want to hear more free episodes of this podcast. Please subscribe, rate and review anywhere you listen to podcasts. We're on Instagram as something shiny podcast, and if you're looking for more information, useful links, definitions, visuals, everything we can think of and more is on our website@somethingshinypodcast.com and it's all free.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Thank you so much for listening, and we'll see you in two [00:23:00] weeks.