Parenting on Hard Mode: ADHD, Autism, and the Untold Truth of Family Life

0:00If the world were like a Sleep Number mattress, everything would adapt for your comfort. Your coffee would never get cold. Your flight would always be on time. And your mattress would always respond to you and your unique sleep needs. Sleep Number mattresses are designed to respond to your body and shift with your changing life, helping you fall asleep faster and stay asleep longer. To experience a whole new world of comfort, visit a Sleep Number store or go to sleepnumber.com. Sleep Number. To a good life's sleep. If the world were like a Sleep Number mattress, everything would adapt for your comfort.

0:35Your coffee would never get cold. Your flight would always be on time. And your mattress would always respond to you and your unique sleep needs. Sleep Number mattresses are designed to respond to your body and shift with your changing life, helping you fall asleep faster and stay asleep longer. To experience a whole new world of comfort, visit a Sleep Number store or go to sleepnumber.com. Sleep Number. To a good life's sleep. The following podcast is a Dear Media production. Okay, the DMs are always asking us, what is it like parenting in a neurodivergent household? So I want you to imagine ADHD, autism, and three kids walk into a bar.

1:18That is our life, except the bar is our house, nobody's drinking, and somebody's probably screaming. Unfortunately, it's usually me. It's usually you. Usually me. It's usually you. And today we're pulling back the curtain on what it really looks like when autism, ADHD and parenting collide. Not the perfect Instagram version, the messy, meltdowny, funny, heartbreaking, deeply human, real version that is our lives every day. Welcome to After Bedtime, where the house is finally quiet, but the real noise begins. The thoughts, the questions, the wondering if you're doing any of this right. We're Kristen.

2:04And Dina, child behavior experts, moms, and co-founders of Big Little Feelings. And we're not here to give you more pressure or perfect parenting energy. Nope. We're here to tell the truth. The unfiltered, beautiful, brutal truth about what it means to raise kids and re-raise ourselves in the process. Because parenting isn't just about sleep schedules and snack hacks. It's about healing. It's about breaking cycles. It's about becoming the kind of adult you want your kids to grow up to be. This is the place where we say the quiet parts out loud, and we're so glad that you're here. Hi. Hello. Hey.

2:40It's weird because we are around each other every minute of every single day. We're both in this house every single minute of every single day. And then we show up here, and Dina's not here. Dina, we miss you. Dina's on maternity leave. We miss you. I wish you were here with your little baby, Dina. What up, baby? you're listening so then it's weird because we show up here and i'm like hey i've talked to you literally every single second of every single day but let's talk some more yeah it's like let's catch up what have you been up to in the five minutes since i haven't seen you let's do the catch up but i've also seen you all morning okay what happened when when i didn't see you you took the dog for a walk it was really nice okay that's nice it was like a touch chilly but i get so sweaty that I can't wear a sweatshirt.

3:28So like I'm a little bit colder than I want to be. But if I wear a sweatshirt, then I'll get sweaty. And so just like I just have to go no sweatshirt. And that's autism. What phenomenal introing this is right now. What a riveting, riveting story that we're bringing to this podcast. That was your morning. That's great. Maybe this will be more to the besties. We woke up and Tyler's job, if you didn't listen to the last second to last episode about our marriage is Tyler's job in the morning is to wake up early with me so that I'm not resentful. And his job is to just get out of the house with the dog because the dog is a puppy.

4:07He's absolutely crazy. He's a nuisance. He's crazy. And he needs a walk. And also we have learned that I am a nuisance in the morning. You're not wrong. I was going to be a little gentler about it but sure the household runs a bit smoother when i can take care of the mornings and get everybody out to school on time and i can do it in a calm way and sometimes when tyler is there he's just really triggered he's you know what do you want to say if me and noodle are here in the morning it's goblin mode and not in the good way i don't know what goblin mode i mean can you explain can you explain just pure anarchy just absolute chaos yeah chaos yelling we're gonna out of the door we're gonna be late everybody's crying because he's he's anxious so he's making everybody else anxious i'm not actually crying he's crying like i'm just very overstimulated i'm super overstimulated super overstimulated so anyway and i worry about timing i'm so concerned about being late for everything and i am late for everything then you're super super super late i'm late for everything in my life so hard i'm also late for everything but anyways i have a shred of dopamine in the morning that's nice personally yeah that's the only time i have it so we have divided it up where he goes he takes a walk he's he's out of the house and I actually completely take over the mornings it's been a it's been a dream it's been awesome we get out the door on time we get out the door calmly but this morning during the five minutes that I didn't see you the 45 minutes that I didn't see you one of our children woke up with croup okay if you don't know what that is it's like the coughing one where they really can have a hard time breathing and like a bark cough and strider and they're like so one woke up with group the other one then really didn't want to go to school because her sister wasn't going to school so she's screaming and she's crying because like the other one isn't going to school and so she doesn't want to go to school and then she's like coughing and being like i'm sick you know the whole gamut the third one is asleep thank god somehow i don't even know i don't even know how so then i'm in like a 45 minute long, gentle, you know, I don't want to call it interrogation because that's not the right word, but like a 45 minute negotiation of getting this child to go to school.

6:20Okay. In the end, it's her idea to go to school, which is great and awesome. I have about five minutes to pack everything that I wasn't going to pack. We get out the door. We did it. And that was my morning. and now I'm here and I don't know how people do it. Like that was a full day of work in the 35, 45 minutes that I didn't see you this morning. I had a really nice walk. Okay. There were views and that kind of ties into like the intro. So I feel horrible about it. Like I feel so much guilt and shame about it. Even like when I'm having that pleasant walk, even when I'm like, oh, it's me. That's the one that's yelling in the morning.

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10:25For a limited time, Nutrafol is offering our listeners$10 off your first month subscription and free shipping when you go to Nutrafol.com and enter promo code FEELINGS. Find out why Nutrafol is the best-selling hair growth supplement brand at Nutrafol.com, spelled N-U-T-R-A-F-O-L,.com, promo code FEELINGS. that's neuterful.com promo code feelings so i'm excited to just get into today's episode yeah get in it all right our family an essay by kristin gallant wow sure time magazine would you like to pick that one up that'd be great that'd be great we are shipping shipping headlines shipping them shopping them i like shipping better i think you shop headlines shop headlines you ship how do you ship vibes i think if you can't tell by this episode tyler and i have discovered that we have very different brains and part of that is neurodivergence we have a couple of different episodes on this if you want to go back but at 37 yeah 37 how old are we 37 i was diagnosed with ADHD.

11:35And at 37, I was diagnosed with autism and ADHD. Yes. I got that combo meal, baby. Okay. Of neurodivergent. All right. And okay. Our nervous systems could not be wired more differently. And I think that this used to be a real asset and why we got married in the first place like we have always been polar opposites we've always thought in polar opposite ways about things even though we agreed on the big stuff we agreed on somehow we got parenting aligned we parent that's what i mean though we have our core values yeah it's true are completely aligned that's true and then how we approach things what we are good at what we struggle with With all of those, we are complete opposite.

12:29So it was actually perfect because we really supplemented each other well to become this whole person. And we weren't really competing in any categories. It was just like, oh, you're great at this. You've got this. You're great at this. You've got this. Oh, you struggle with this. I've got it. That's always how we work because we're so different. Now we're raising three kids, one of whom is also neurodivergent. So one of our children over the summer was diagnosed with autism. But let's just put it out there that anybody listening who has a child who has been diagnosed as neurodivergent, this isn't like all of a sudden our child started acting autistic.

13:15Right. And that might be some people's stories. but for us nothing really changed in terms of the day-to-day we have been in a neurodivergent household a our whole lives but b since we became parents we became a neurodivergent household we just didn't know that i had adhd that you have autism which affects the things a lot and the touch of the adhd and that we have an autistic child and what we thought we had was just this like really chaotic really different household yeah just like oh family life's so chaotic everybody is everybody has a chaotic household everybody has like struggles in the morning everybody has kids that have meltdowns and overwhelm like this is so normal i hate the word normal too man i've been getting so far away with that yeah that was internalized that's what i like their ableism typical right there that's what i go with yeah everybody this is like every typical family and deals with all these struggles.

14:14And then it's like, boop, did you know? It's like a popsicle stick fact. You finish that popsicle and it's like, oh, did you know you have autism? What? I don't know how we got there. I'm saying the neurodivergence. You have a neurodivergent family. Yeah. It's a surprise. Is it? OK. So for me, it's a little different because that's interesting. For me, it was a slow build of like, what's wrong with me? What's wrong with me? Why can't I be a mother like everybody else is? Why can't I keep a clean house? Why is everything so much harder for me? And then I would think like, not what is wrong with my child, but I would know deep down that something is different and something that is actually really beautiful for the for like most of it.

15:01All of it is something really beautiful, really special, really unique. and it's not like the other kids that are running into the birthday party. My birthday party experience with my child is very different than everybody else's experience with taking their children to birthday parties. My experience is being on the side 45 minutes and really accommodating my child who's having a very, very, very hard time. The noises, the stimulation, the people, the socialization. That's been, you know, every park journey, every school journey. I've always known that something was very different than, let's call it now we know, a neurotypical family and a neurotypical experience.

15:50And while this is not completely unique because every family that has an autistic child goes through this, it is extremely isolating because in that exact moment, you're not seeing another parent at that birthday party or at the school function. You're the quote unquote only one that is having this experience. We don't run our household in a typical way. We run it in the way that our brains can survive and help our children thrive. And us thrive, honestly. Truly. Yeah. And I still feel horrible about like having to make those accommodations for myself like we touched on it like in the first minute of it of like oh there's chaos in the morning and blah blah blah blah and like someone's usually yelling and I'm like it's usually me like I feel terrible about that.

16:38When you talk more about what your experience is being an autistic parent because this is such a big part of talking about a neurodivergent household not just parenting neurodivergent kids but what does your diagnosis bring to the table yeah I mean part of it is I have an issue with overstimulation and when I get to that point of overstimulation that's when I feel like I have to go into safety mode that like I am in danger if I am dealing with too much noise which is fantastic with three kids but are you joking oh I'm big time joking I feel terrible about that Cause I want them to like live their lives as normal children.

17:18I don't want to come into the room and be like, okay, everybody has to be quiet now cause dad's in the room. And like, if you guys are normal kids, like popping off right now, like I'm going to get overstimulated. I'm going to feel like I'm in Dane. Like my body is going to feel like it has to defend itself right now. I don't want them to have to be like, okay, like we have to make accommodations because otherwise dad's going to get like really upset and on edge. And so that's something I feel horrible about. So I've had to make accommodations for myself. the biggest one being wearing earplugs.

17:46And the part that makes me feel bad about that is like, if we're riding in the car, one thing I've had to realize is that if I'm in the car with all three of them, I have to immediately put in earplugs. I can't be like, oh, we'll test it out this time. And I'll see like, you know, maybe it's not going to be like that noisy with all three of them. Maybe it'll just be like a chill car ride. And every time I get overstimulated and then I put in my headphones, but then it's too late at that point. I have to be like, okay, I have to put my earplugs in now before we get going. And then I'm like, OK, this is working.

18:16And I feel horrible about it because I'm like, I should be able to ride in the car with my kids without earplugs. Isn't that the normal thing to do? Isn't that like what a normal dad would be able to do? A normal parent should be able to ride in the car while their three kids are having fun. It's not even when they're fighting. They can be having fun and being loud and it's too much for me. I really want to touch on shame showing up in such a profound way in the neurodivergent experience. And anyone listening who is diagnosed or is thinking like, oh, maybe I have a maybe I have ADHD or maybe I have autism or not.

18:57I think such an indicator of being neurodivergent is living with so much shame, feeling like they can't be quote unquote normal. Yeah. I don't have that experience because noises are just not my I'm fine. I they can. I love it. But I have it with so many other things, keeping the household work, any executive functioning at all, any kind of executive functioning. It's like it's a nonstop barrage of God, like what is wrong with me? Why can't I just do this? Why can't I just do that? It's such a sad part of the neurodivergent experience that I just that is one of the biggest things I want to do anything I can to take away from our neurodivergent child slash who knows, we might have another one based on statistics.

19:52it's just the most heartbreaking part for me knowing that our children might grow up with the amount of shame that we have grown up with and that you're still like you're saying even right now doing something that's so good for you that doesn't affect anybody I don't give a shit if you put your loop headphones in put your headphones and you feel such enormous shame over something that is so easy good for everybody yeah and it's it's the same stigma that you get with like mental health is there's so much stigma with neurodivergence and so all you see is typical typical typical typical unless it's you know dramatized in some show or movie of like oh this person's autistic they can fucking crunch numbers in their head like a genius i mean i can't but that's aside from the point they don't see like oh this guy's autistic he they can't be around loud noises or it'll still freak out although they also do that but then it's to an extreme point of like absolute bonkers meltdowns and freak outs but yeah i feel terrible about it because i'm not typical in that sense and somehow in my own mind something that only affects me i think it affects everybody i think that i am negatively affecting their childhood by wearing earplugs when the part that's affecting them is having the overstimulation episodes.

21:13Part of the overstimulation with noise, for example, for me, is that I'll kind of allow it, be okay with it, be okay with it, be okay with it. It builds, it builds that feeling in your body that's just like, something's not right. Something's not right. I can't, this is not right. This shouldn't be the way this is happening. Like my body is, it cannot take this. And then it gets to that tipping point. And that's when that meltdown occurs. That's when my body says, this situation is not okay. Your body is in fight mode now. You have to control the situation now. So I feel like, okay, I have to get control back of this situation to get my body back to a sense of normalcy.

21:54And what that looks like is me telling the kids, be quiet. You have to be quiet. Stop yelling at your brother. Stop yelling at your sister. You need to do this. You need to do that. I can't do this. We're going to be late now. You have to get in, you know, getting everybody in line. And just so that somehow in my mind, if I get everybody to be perfect and doing exactly what they need to do, that will somehow reduce the noise, reduce the chaos and let my body come back to peace on the outside. That can be yelling, being really short with everybody, having like a really short fuse. And it can be overwhelming for everybody else at that point.

22:31It can be scary at times. Yeah. And I think what's really interesting is that's not necessarily how you or we were before kids. But I know that part of the neurodivergent experience is once you have kids, everything gets heightened so much. So like we both used to be pretty even keeled, go with the flow people. And then our neurodivergence just like really came roaring when we had kids, which like is a very common experience. So for me, my ADHD shows up as like bursts of wild ideas. And like once I get hooked on something, I just have to have it. I cannot let it go. Does that feel accurate? Yeah.

23:17OK. And I'm obsessed with something and I have to do something now or I will change the plans at the last second, which is very not conducive with autism. But, you know, like we will have plans and then I'll be like, you know what we should do instead? We should go to the beach. Let's pivot to the beach. It's a beautiful day. And that sends him spiraling. But it's what really fuels me is to get that dopamine hit of like, you know what? We were supposed to do this, but let's just go do this. Let's do something crazy. And then after that, I crash. I crash really hard. I have nothing left to give anyone.

23:52I have definitely nothing left to give Tyler, which is something we've talked about in our marriage. And the guilt for me is really brutal because now I am like comatose. I am just so depleted because I just go from like 100 to an absolute, absolute zero. Yeah. And unfortunately for me, another one of my very major triggers is when plans change and I'm not the one changing those plans. If I'm changing the plans, I'm in control of the situation. I can already prep my body ahead of time. Changes are happening. but if Kristen comes in and tries to make those changes like I will either overreact about like why are we doing this right now we can't do this right now we already tried to we already planned to do this why would we change it this is gonna be too hard to do that or shut down mode it's like okay and then I'm just an absolute miserable person to be around just like from like a shut off point of view of like I'm not interacting I'm not gonna be having fun and it can take me 30 40 minutes to come back and actually join the family and whatever it is we're doing and you'll say it out loud too you know you'll be like i'm not talking and fine you know it's a very much like uh because your body is just like i'll be like this is a horrible idea but i don't want to do this but and i i don't like the beach i don't like that beach you know it's a very like it and then you're just kind of like a dick honestly it's like this is a terrible idea to go do this we already planned to do that it would have been so much more fun to do the original plan this is gonna be terrible this is gonna be a horrible time yeah i'm gonna make sure it's a horrible time Yeah, that's literally how it goes.

25:23And as a quick pause, because I think people need to know that autistic meltdowns, which is what we're sort of describing, it can either be what Tyler's describing as just shutdown, where it's almost like childlike defiance, if you will, where it's like, well, fine, and I hate it and bop, bop, bop and beep, beep, beep. It could be that or it could be yelling, which happens frequently. Again, if the plans change, it's just yelling because he's just overstimulated his body. There's like a fire alarm going on inside of his body over something that the rest of us can't really understand why this would be a problem.

26:04In this case, you kind of understand. We change the plans, yada, yada. But sometimes it's over, quote unquote, nothing, right? It's like, I don't understand what's happening. And a fire alarm is going off inside of him. Just to put this into context, about 80 % of autistic adults say sensory overload is their number one daily challenge. And that is what's happening when Tyler, when you yell, or when you go into that shutdown mode of like, fine, bop, bop, bop. It's not a choice. It's your nervous system. It's a body response, unfortunately, because it's out of my control. the stimulation is out of my control so like what I've been doing is how do I control that external stimulation yeah because it's so much again once you become a parent it's not just that I changed the plans and we came in or whatever because maybe in the past before we had kids maybe you liked that about me and it made you feel like I don't know but you could cope and now it's like well the plans are changing there's three kids who are screaming fighting yelling and happiness There's a dog that's doing this.

27:09There's just too much. It's overload. It's just complete overload pushing you past your what you like to call window of tolerance. Yeah, because it was just me and you. I mean, it was you and I could kind of let you control the show, which was nice because I didn't have to worry about any other perspectives. I myself have a hard time with executive functioning. So to have you be like, let's go do this today and be like, OK, cool. That sounds great. Like as long as it's something like I would be down with, you know, doing, then it'd be great. But now that we have like you saying like, OK, let's change this.

27:42And then one of the kids is like, I don't want to do that. And then like another one's like, I'd rather do this. And it's like, everybody be quiet. We're going to do the thing that we plan. That's it. And if we change it, I'm going to be miserable. But then also to call myself out. It's not just that. It's like, OK, well, now also we have to do. I'm like, OK, so let's jump on it. And Tyler, you got the backpack and I'll get the this and then we'll get the this. and like my brain loves it. It's like, cool, I'm going to go executive function, which I'm not good at, except when I get this rest of dopamine, I'm like, cool, let me go pack a million different things.

28:15And then you've got this and like, let's go. And for you, you're just like, what the actual fuck? This is my nightmare. It's chaos in my body. It may not seem like chaos to everybody else, but it just sets my body into an absolute tailspin. Yeah. And then how this translates into again, the household, the marriage, being in a neurodivergent household that has really sort of push and pull attributes to it is Tyler and the autism leads to those meltdowns. What meltdowns look like can often look like yelling. It can look like a lot of anger. It can look like an outburst. And for me, I grew up with a lot of yelling in my household, a lot of outbursts in my household.

29:10And so I am extremely sensitive to anger and yelling. And this has been one of the hardest parts of our marriage, just transparently, because I never, ever, ever thought that I would be in a household with a yelling parent or with a yelling partner. It's not just at the kids. Oftentimes it's at me. And it's part of this meltdown experience where, again, 80 % of autistic adults, they have meltdowns. It's really unavoidable when the sensory experience is happening. And I know that you are working on it and you're using your headphones and trying to leave. But during those parts where Tyler does yell, my body goes into absolute sort of panic mode.

29:59It's not annoying to me that he's yelling. It's it's terrifying because it's so reminiscent of my childhood. And that's a recipe for disaster, I think. I mean, to be like very vulnerable and honest, that's been probably one of the biggest strains on our marriage and has like you know as a big topic of conversation in couples therapy and then you know seeing how my meltdowns are affecting you and kind of bringing you back to that place where you don't want to be from your childhood is really showing me like okay like this is the stuff that I need to get on and get ahead of so that I can kind of make sure that you're feeling emotionally safe the kids are feeling emotionally safe and I'm creating the household that like I envision for our family.

30:47And then I have to take some ownership in it too, where my brain is just natural at wanting those really like high, high moments or to pivot or to do whatever. And I sort of, before getting our diagnoses, I didn't think that I would have to tame that in order for you. Is that our child downstairs? Speaking of children, you can hear a child in the background having a great time luckily time of his life i never really understood that i needed to change that part of me i thought like well he's just being this or he's just being that he needs to be nicer but now having the diagnosis is such a game changer for both of us because i can understand okay maybe this is a a little bit unreasonable of me b is this going to affect only me or is this also going to affect tyler right we are a partnership we are a marriage okay if it's also going to affect Tyler, I have to really understand my impact on then you.

31:51I used to think almost in a way that you do where it's like, well, he should just be able to handle this. Why can't he handle this? And in fact, it's both of us really, right? It really is. And then when I can bring that to the table, then we get a little somewhere. Seeing your diagnosis instead of my own is the one that's like oh like that's why this is happening is because your body is telling you xyz and i'm reacting in this way and it's not even like oh i'm reacting from an autistic perspective it's like oh i'm reacting because i'm expecting her to be neurotypical yeah getting quality sleep as a mom can feel impossible but making a few smart adjustments around the house has helped all of us wind down better.