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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.
(AUTO-GENERATED TRANSCRIPT)
ISABELLE RICHARDS: [00:00:00] Hello. I'm Isabelle. She, her, hers,
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): and I'm David. He, him, his,
ISABELLE RICHARDS: 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.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): Do you
DAVID KESSLER: 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. You tapping your voice. That,
ISABELLE RICHARDS: that could be, that could be our first intro. That's so
DAVID KESSLER: good.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: So without further ado, welcome to something Shiny.
DAVID KESSLER: I'm David, I.
DAVID KESSLER: Okay, so today I'm really, really excited, uh, grace goer [00:01:00] pronouns. She, her, I've met you before. This is a moment where this is not our first meeting. Yes. This is not like you and I meeting on the interwebs and being like, oh, you and I were in a small group together talking about a DHD and like part of me wants to be like, what was that like to be in a room with me not knowing who I was?
DAVID KESSLER: Right.
DAVID KESSLER: Yeah.
DAVID KESSLER: But the other piece is like, I think you started, you've listened to this podcast and I think you started picking up. I think some really interesting things that, you know, Isabelle and I have been talking to and you know, in our conversations, uh, it was like, oh my god, grace, would you, would you like to come on this podcast, please?
DAVID KESSLER: Let's talk more.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): Yeah.
DAVID KESSLER: And so here you are. I,
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): to be so completely honest, David, uh, and I met you, you were so excited and passionate. I was like. I gotta talk more to him. And I knew that we didn't get through everything he'd prepared. And so I talked to my boss and I was like, we're getting David back. When is David coming back?
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): Uh, and in that time you had so Demurely plugged this podcast and so I listened to a bunch of it and [00:02:00] I just kept having all these questions and things coming up. So I was honestly sort of hoping that exactly what has happened would happen, uh, where I get to, to meet Isabel and talk to both you about.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): All this stuff. But yeah, I'm excited. I love being excited and I'm glad to be with both of you.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Oh my gosh. That this just like thrills me so much 'cause like, okay, first off, welcome. It is a big, exciting thing to be able to meet you. 'cause I will say that in the background. Mm-hmm. Like with so many folks we have on, right.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: It is very much like, this is sort of what the back conversation sounds like. Oh my gosh, Isabel, I just met the coolest person ever. They gotta be on this podcast. She's the coolest, da da dah, dah, dah. And then I go, oh yeah. And then we play the game of attempting to executive function our way to a joint time where we can all meet and we can like get to know each other.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: But in my head. You know, like I've been like amped up to meet you for so long. So it kind of delights me that I feel like if I was a dog, I think what you [00:03:00] were just talking about this, like my tail is really waggy and I'm coming in with a lot of excitement too, so Yay. I feel like there's gonna be a lot of, uh, exciting things.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Oh my gosh. So curious, what are your thoughts as you're listening to the podcast? Or like, what's the thing that stands out to you? We can go everywhere.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): So many things. I think the biggest thing right is, so I'm a trans woman. I work primarily with, uh, trans people, whether they're trans people of color or also lots of trans neurodivergent people like myself.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): And something that is sometimes taken for granted in a lot of trans spaces is a, like, there's a lot of us that are neuro neurodivergent, and b, this similar idea around like neurodivergent culture. The idea that. What some people might call trauma responses or like learned behavior to right cope with how the world is not designed for us, becomes embedded in the culture and like what we expect and perform for each other.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): And so as I'm hearing you guys, I'm like. [00:04:00] You know, I, I remember one moment in particular talking about, uh, going to, I think it was from an undergrad, maybe it was from about graduate school, but the idea of like, we didn't have a story for what it was like for a person like me to go to an institution like this.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): And I was like, that's what it was like as a brown woman. That's what it was like as a trans person. And the idea of like, I kept having this feeling of like, they're saying like. This like really similar stuff to these other communities that I'm a part of. And yet it was never, uh, like totally text that like these kinds of cultures like grow and are cultivated in similar ways.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): And so I was just like. Shaking at the bars of my listening to podcast present. So like, no, you're like, you're so close. And so, yeah, I was just, I've been thinking a lot about that, about the ways in which, uh, my own neurodivergent shows up in my life as well as like, yeah. When I [00:05:00] meet other, other queer people, especially other queer people of color, there's an expectation that this is also part of it.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): Like this neuro divergent. Spiciness is, is always in the mix. Uh, and so, yeah, I just had like a billion thoughts and I'm so glad
DAVID KESSLER: there's, there's so, like part of what you're saying is it's like. David, you're, you're kind of talking about neurodivergent culture, say neurodivergent culture. Mm-hmm. Talk about neurodivergent culture, like label it David, for, for you like banging on these bars.
DAVID KESSLER: Like please like say it explicitly and it's, yeah. I think neurodivergent culture is real. I think A DHD has a culture and I think what happens in, I'm just gonna say a phrase of saying it. I think what happens in society is what happens when we pathologize parts of culture, which is problematic. 'cause if, if we were to look at like a DHD culture, right?
DAVID KESSLER: And I'd say like, it's kind of normal for us to like organize things in piles, right? Like, I got a pile of mail somewhere. Who else has a pile of mail? We would all say, or lot of us, like I have a pile of mail somewhere. Right? [00:06:00] Why isn't that just a cultural trait? Why is it something that we're trying to change in people?
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Oh, okay. Sorry, my brain just unlocked a little bit. And also, and I will cut this part out, but, um, my, our nanny. Bless her. Just put my dog, who's a big old, David knows she's the love of my life. She's barking, but Oh my gosh. With the thing, the thing I don't wanna like lose momentum on and also my brain.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Okay. I have to let her out 'cause she's gonna go for it. I'm so sorry. Yeah,
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): no
ISABELLE RICHARDS: worries. Keep going. David. I'll be here.
DAVID KESSLER: No, I, it's okay. So there's not much to go, but does it make sense when I'm talking about the culture, because I think you were making. You were specifically in the, in the room when we were talking. Yes. You started thinking about post feminism, if I remember correctly, in the context of a culture.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): Yeah, so thinking about relational cultural theory in particular, which is right, like a way of doing therapy that really highly prizes, how do we feel when we're talking together?
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): [00:07:00] Like entry level stuff is like mirror neurons, right? Like I see you get excited. I get excited. We're connecting in a way that is really healing and important. And so tying that part of that way, right, like that kind of intimacy is also part of like, uh, larger conversations about like ableism and fighting racism.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): Fighting transphobia and I, in some ways, like we all have a huge amount to learn, but I, I'm, I'm pretty familiar with those spaces and it's much more novel to me to be learning about my neuro, my neurodivergence and learning about like neurodivergent communities. In particular as its own thing. So I'm coming here with this.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): You could say expertise and like what all these other identities are like, uh, and what we are talking about and interested in, and then coming here and being like, oh my God, right? Like it's all ableism. But the phrase that's really coming to my mind honestly is like a carceral [00:08:00] logic.
DAVID KESSLER: What does that mean?
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): So, so exactly. So the, the idea that if you fuck up, then the default solution is like, let's remove you from the space. Like a really clear, a, DH, D example is like kid in school not hitting whatever benchmark, which was created for whatever reason, and they're like, oh, you need to be in a different class.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): Or maybe you're not going to get into the same spaces later on. And so instead of accommodation, instead of, you know, if it's interpersonal, especially like managing, hey, like these children could be having a positive relationship and aren't like, why? What do we need to work through there? Like that kind of, um, yeah, a, a more restorative.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): Uh, look at justice, right? It's really different from by default, like, if you don't fit in or if you're gonna make us uncomfortable, or if you have higher needs that we're not being met, then you just don't belong here. Like, [00:09:00] this isn't the space for you. And so our society in like, uh, so many domains is dominated by this logic of like, if you don't fit in, then you shouldn't be.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): Here is like the default answer. Uh, and that really sucks for everybody, but especially for people who have any kind of marginalized identity, because then the spaces were not designed with you in mind or your communities in mind. And so when I listen to like the conversations that you guys have had, I hear the same sort of thing of like, here's how this sort of punishing logic.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): Like made things really difficult, have made my own understanding of myself and the people in my life. Convoluted and strange. And what you're un, what you're learning or unlearning is like another way to respond to yourself, another way to make sense of yourself, another way to make sense of your role in the [00:10:00] world.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): And like that actually the world can adapt to you.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Grace, I just gotta hand it to you like that. I've never. We'll put it this way, it's not that I haven't put the, the intersections of the different identities, right? Like the, like being part of any marginalized or oppressed group and like the systemic setup of ableism, right.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Or the systemic setup of like the idea that, you know, I am not necessarily disabled. It is the lack of. Like, like the society disables me, right? Like it takes away my ability to do certain things because of its expectations and flexibility, norms, and the, but the additional thing you just threw in there about that idea of like, I mean, gosh, the first thing that came to my mind is orange is the new black, which I mean.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: I, one of my top shows of my life. Um, I'm gonna burst into tears just thinking about it. And I think about how I have so many places my brain is going. Pause, pause brain. One idea that [00:11:00] came into my head is how I've heard that described like Judith Herman, and I'll put all this in the show notes, like, we'll put all these fan, you know, these awesome words and things in the show notes everybody.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: But I think about how like trauma. In and of itself, right, is like this idea of trauma happens in isolation. Like it's not just when awful things happen to you, right? Like these awful micro, macro violence, aggression, all the things, right? And it's also those moments where it, you're then kind of like, well, you're over here.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: You are now other, you're not allowed to like reintegrate and come back to the community. Like literally like the principles of like restorative justice being way more trauma informed. Right, because it's like recognizing, oh no, when there's a wound, when there is someone who did something, you know, like something bad happened, we gotta take time to actually like call people in and like really hear.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Hear them out and [00:12:00] build the skill of empathy and build the skill of restoration and acknowledging harm and like all those things. Right. But it's such, it requires like the community cries, like the safety of more than just the person.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): Yes. Yeah. I think, I think this is why I really love your guys podcast, honestly, is because you are flexing that muscle and inviting people to flex that muscle.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): Uh. In a way that transcends boundaries, like what kind of marginalization or oppression you're experiencing, like something that's coming to mind hearing you talk about it is when I was in middle school, my father was deported from the US and I was the only person I knew who had an experience like that, like who had a family member who.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): Experience that. And so that's something that I'm still trying to make sense of, like what that means. Just 'cause that was never normal to me because I, I, [00:13:00] I did not have people who understood what that process was like. They didn't see the parts of those apparatus the way that I now did. And so recognizing that, for example, me, like Da David.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): Sort of gently broke it to me that I probably have a DH adhd, uh, during our training. Uh, he does. Thank you so much. Doesn't
ISABELLE RICHARDS: he do that?
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): Yeah.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: You're so
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): gentle of that. I mean, I think he's so, I think he's so, got it. Right, but recognizing right. That like, in the same way that like, oh, I thought I just like was batted reading.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): And actually I need to like have a smaller screen and invert my colors. And it's okay if I need to read in all these like tiny little sprints instead of like, oh, I'm never gonna finish more books that way. Uh, or leaning harder into like audio books and whatever, right? Like all these little accommodations.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): And finding that and finding other people for whom that's the normal thing to do is also similar to me working on like. Intergenerational challenges [00:14:00] that my family's faced, that I've faced for, for transitioning, for like all these other identities I hold. It's all a similar muscle of rape. Like by finding other people and legitimizing, like, no, you and I actually, we have a, a really valuable kind of knowledge 'cause we understand this, we understand what it's like to go through the world with this.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): And so not just like legitimizing, but like. I don't know if this is the right word, but what's coming to mind is like honoring what we have is, is not just, uh, special, but like really, really good, really worth something and helps us help each other not only as neurodivergent people, but like across all of these other boundaries.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): And so that's something that I'm thinking about as I hear you guys talk over and over again. I'm like, oh my God, that's so familiar. And also it means, right, that I see a lot of the work I'm doing just for myself personally, uh, but also in my work is like, oh, right, it's part of this whole. Network [00:15:00] of like challenging how we think about Thanks.
DAVID KESSLER: I love everything you're saying. My tail's wagging so hard. You can see me, but like no one else can. So I'm having to like marry my tail is wagging. I'm like popping around. While you're talking, you are making me think of like a number of things. Is it okay if I just like I'm, yeah, go for it. Okay. Like whether we talk about like, uh, philosophy or, or religion.
DAVID KESSLER: There's this idea of like Tablo rasa or the uncarved block or what it is to be this like untouched thing moving through the world. And like, you know, if we were to lean into Daoism, Daoism would say like, the point is to never let your block be carved, right? Like to, to stay this uncarved block as long as you can.
DAVID KESSLER: I'm not Taos, but I think it's an interesting principle, right? And I think that what you're, what you're talking about with, you know, how culture can be punitive for things that don't look like everyone else or, uh, sound like everyone else. It's what happens when society shaves us into things [00:16:00] and we resist the shaving, like school's supposed to take corners off.
DAVID KESSLER: Right. Oh, they lap off the right corner and cut it down the middle, and then they look and there's a whole bunch of like, you know, blocks that have been lopped in half of the corner off, but like one of them has all their corners and like, whoa, that's problematic. Yeah. And now that block feels like it's wrong because it couldn't be cut.
DAVID KESSLER: And we're talking about like a really confused and hard sense of self that like constantly checks in on like, man, how do I hide the fact that I got all these corners? It's like, man, you want corners, diamond's got corners, right? But like,
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): yeah,
DAVID KESSLER: we are, we are teaching people to look like everyone else.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): Here's, here's, here's the thing that to me is the, is the most beautiful. I don't know if you guys will also see this the same way, but like the same. For example, like taking the example of school, that same mechanism that's trying to cut off the neuro divergent corners is the same thing. That tried to like convince me that I wasn't or couldn't be trans.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): Yes. Or like any of the other [00:17:00] things I am, it's the same institutions that's trying to flatten all of these experiences and so Right. Sort of, I don't know if reviving is the right word 'cause it was never gone. But like recognizing and celebrating all of those corners are, it's all the same struggle 'cause it's all pressed down at the same points in our lives.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Yes. Oh yeah. Go, go, go, go, go.
DAVID KESSLER: I'm screaming. Yes. I'm screaming. Yes, because what we're talking, like, I, I'm, I'm gonna a small flex. I kind of have a degree in sociology. I have to say that. But like, one of, one of the things that you're talking about is what happens to marginalized culture? Any marginalized culture.
DAVID KESSLER: When, when, like it is pushed on by a domineering force or the norms, right? And you're articulating what it feels like a oppressed, marginalized groups tend to get pushed to the margins and then, and then all these groups are hanging out in the margins going like, y'all want to hang out. And I think like what?
DAVID KESSLER: What gets hard is. While we're being marginalized, and this is the painful part, [00:18:00] while we're being pushed to the corners, we are believing that everyone has, you know, has been turned into this, uh, circle. They're no longer the, the uncarved block, right? And then we finally get marginalized and look around, oh my God, I got uncarved blocks all over the place.
DAVID KESSLER: I got corners everywhere. Like now all of a sudden, representation normalizes experiences for other people. We cannot dream about what we haven't seen before. And so like, if our whole world is advertising that we're wrong for being us, and then, and then you walk into another world and it's like, oh, it doesn't, it doesn't matter if I can, if I listen to a book or read a book, oh, it doesn't matter if I wear shoes or, or heels or, oh, it doesn't matter if I'm listening to this kind of music or this kind of music, like.
DAVID KESSLER: We can't have that courage unless we see somebody else taking that step first.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Oh my gosh. I'm just having, I mean, you can't really, maybe you can see if I get close. I have so many goosebumps as you're talking. This is, oh, this feels like so deeply. Uh. Mean, gosh, I wish it [00:19:00] wasn't timely, but it feels very timely and very resonant and very like, oh, grace, you put it so well, it's like the same institutions, the same things are trying to like cut off our corners, but the idea that parts of you have to remain hidden or exiled using IFS.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Um, style talk, right? Like that, you, you, you cannot be a whole self. You cannot be your full self. You are allowed to be the, within this band of self, right? And it has to be the self that is, um, fits within those molds, but then is also the self that then gets all the praise or gets the validation. You know, I think about like, I, I mean, just thinking for myself in my case, right?
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Like school. In a way felt like a respite for me, just like in my life. Um, partly 'cause I had, I think I just, I had teachers who were like, oh, she, she likes to read good for her. Let's just have her sit in the back so she stops distracting everyone and read [00:20:00] for hours. You know? I'm like, oh, thank goodness that people saw this.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: Right. But I think about how like. It generates like these underground pathways and movements to like, nurture and shepherd, uh, like, almost like, like literally like save those parts of people, you know, like those, like under like, like the way that like in the margins actually, there is such a explosion. Of, of like celebration and culture.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: It's, I don't know, I dunno how to explain it, but like the second someone goes, oh, I have a DHD. Like, I, I'm on a binge right now watching a lot of home organizing things, you know, new special interest. And the second an organizer goes, I have a DH, adhd, and they start talking, I'm like, woo. You know? And like, I don't know how to explain it.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: It's like an aliveness,
DAVID KESSLER: a hundred percent. Like, oh my god, Isabel, it's a hundred percent. It's like. I'm a kid and I'm going to a birthday party and I'm like, I don't wanna go to this birthday party. I wanted to hang out with my friends and I'm like, Hmm, this sucks. Like you're probably not gonna have any toys.
DAVID KESSLER: And then like you go to the birthday party and someone kicks, open the door. It's like,
DAVID KESSLER: I
DAVID KESSLER: have toys you [00:21:00] wanna play? You're like,
DAVID KESSLER: yeah,
DAVID KESSLER: but until you see that possibility all terrible. Right? Like that's kinda what you're talking about. Like what it feels like to have that representation.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): Oh my God. Yeah. The biggest moment in my life so far where I really.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): Opted in to myself was with my transition. And also like that was this kind of hard work of like seeking out like people who are proud, people who, to be really honest, I thought were beautiful. 'cause for most of my life I did not know that trans women could be beautiful. That was so liberating. Uh, and that's really what we're tying out here.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): Unshackling yourself in your mind, there's this like self reinforcer, like this part of yourself that keeps you in line. The idea that, right, for example, like, I'm gonna meet new people. Whether that means like, oh, I better shave, or I better clean up my house and hide my piles. Or I better whenever else.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): Right? Like, we do all these things, but it's, it's self [00:22:00] reinforced and recognizing, seeing other people have the courage to say like, actually, I think there might be something outside of just like. Always trying to fit this mold or, or fit this presentation of like, yeah, I have a normal person's house.
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): That's exactly the right amount of clean that it should be. Right. Seeing you guys talk about neurodiversity, I also feel much more comfortable knowing I can talk about like my other experiences, like with my other identities, right? And like we have to, I think, intentionally nurture that. All of these spaces, right?
GRACE GAUTIER (GUEST): Like fighting, ableism, fighting this kind of like the hammer or like the chisel, I don't know, is opening up space for everybody.
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. Just as you are. If you like what you heard and you want to hear more free episodes of this podcast, [00:23:00] please subscribe, rate, and review anywhere you listen to podcasts or on Instagram as something shiny podcast.
ISABELLE RICHARDS: And if you're looking for more information, useful links, definitions, visuals, everything we can think of and more is on our website at. Something shiny podcast.com and it's all free. Thank you so much for listening, and we'll see you in two weeks.