In this episode, Ash and Dusty delve into the concept of internalized ableism, particularly as it relates to individuals with ADHD. Prompted by listener feedback regarding the use of paper plates, they explore how societal expectations can pressure ADHD individuals to avoid accommodations that might support their daily functioning. Both hosts emphasize the importance of recognizing personal limitations and offering oneself grace during challenging times, illustrating their points with relatable anecdotes about managing executive dysfunction and the weight of self-judgment.
The conversation also highlights the significance of understanding one’s unique needs and circumstances without falling into an all-or-nothing mindset. Through examples like dealing with household challenges and making choices about sustainable living, Ash and Dusty encourage listeners to embrace imperfection and prioritize self-compassion. Ultimately, they empower individuals with ADHD to permit themselves to make choices that may seem less than ideal but are necessary for their well-being and productivity.
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Episode Transcript:
[00:00:00] Ash: Hi, I am Ash. [00:00:03] Dusty: I’m Dusty. [00:00:04] Ash: And this is Translating ADHD. So Dusty. Today we are gonna talk about internalized ableism. Listeners, this topic was prompted by some feedback that we got from a listener on the adulting episode a couple of weeks ago, and particularly Dusty’s statement of “just use the fricking paper plates”. This was a very kind email that had nothing but nice things to say about the podcast other than their concern about this statement.The concern was coming from an environmental standpoint, and so Dusty and I talked about how we wanted to address this. We want to come back to this topic because this is something we face so often as ADHD people. We are afraid to do the imperfect thing that we might need in that moment to support ourselves.
And things like this can reinforce that belief that we are not allowed to do the imperfect thing. We are not allowed to accommodate ourselves. So the bigger topic on the table today is really about internalized ableism. But first and briefly, let’s start with the paper plates thing because Dusty, I know you have some things that you’d like to add, particularly on this topic, before we jump into the broader topic of how do you deal with your own internalized ableism as a person with ADHD.
[00:01:24] Dusty: So, the listener that gave feedback made a good point about the fact that this isn’t sustainable if everyone does it. And I think the part that’s maybe being missed here is that we’re not suggesting that everyone should do it all the time. We’re talking about 5% of the adult population that has ADHD, and of that 5%, not everyone with ADHD is struggling with the maximum amount of executive dysfunction at the same time, and some of those people with ADHD may not even struggle with something like dishes, right?We’re all different, but there is a good subsect of the ADHD impacted population who do struggle with cleaning and who do struggle with executive dysfunction and maybe also comorbid conditions like chronic fatigue or illness you know, depression, right? And so my point was about sort of giving yourself permission to do what you need to do to get through your day.
And I think the important thing to note here, well a couple things. We’re not talking about everybody doing this all the time. We’re talking about the people who really need it, being able to do it when they really need to do it. But I also just wanna say, I think one of the issues we get into with internalized ableism comes back to black or white thinking. We get into very all or nothing thinking. And with stuff like environmentalism, you know, it seems like such a good thing. Of course, we all wanna be environmentally concerned. We wanna all be good environmentalists, but it’s not as easy on the surface as it seems.
We know now more than ever, that stuff like recycling isn’t nearly as impactful as we think that it is, unfortunately. And I’ve been the person who meticulously recycled every single thing. Well, let me tell you that the majority of plastic recycling that we do in Canada at least just ends up on a barge somewhere or on the shores of some country in Southeast Asia, like it doesn’t actually get recycled. And when it comes to paper plates let me just, you know, for comparison tell you that there is a Belgian airline that during the pandemic ran 3000 empty flights in a year to keep its landing strip a priority.
To put that into perspective, 100 people would need to recycle 31.4 million cans each – I don’t think I’m going to use 31.4 million cans in my entire life. 100 people would need to recycle 31.4 million cans each to offset the carbon costs of 3000 flights, and that’s in one year.
So when we talk about environmental damage, I think we get this message from polluting corporations that we should be the ones cutting back and putting ourselves in uncomfortable positions when really, we the consumer, make up a tiny fraction of consumer issues related to climate change.
I also looked up how many paper plates you can get from one tree and it’s between like 500-700. So if I am a person struggling with executive dysfunction, I can use approximately one paper plate every day for more than a year, for almost two years, and that’s only one tree.
But I think that the point here is, you don’t often need to use a paper plate every day for a year. You need to use a paper plate or a few paper plates every day for a month or a couple of months, or maybe even six months if you’re going through a really tough time. But our capacity fluctuates and giving ourselves permission to do that imperfect thing, like you said, is what’s gonna get us back to full capacity where we can be doing the most that we can.
And at the end of the day, even never using paper plates is not gonna have the same impact as some of the other things that we could be doing, but when we’re mired in depression and executive dysfunction and physical pain from our comorbid conditions, we’re not doing any of that anyway.
[00:05:07] Ash: So Dusty, what you’re talking about there is meeting yourself where you are. One of the big challenges with ADHD is that we tend to have pretty static expectations of ourselves. No matter what else is going on in our lives, we’re really bad at that.ADHD people are actually pretty decent at introspection, but because our brains are such busy, disorganized places, we are really bad at connecting to what we know at any given time. Oftentimes, my work with my clients is around recognizing diminished capacity, recognizing the other context in your life that is causing struggle.
Right now I’m working with a client who, this is not her first foray into coaching or having success in creating change with ADHD. She’s had a lot of challenging life circumstances in the last few years, and some of those are ongoing right now. Her partner has some chronic health stuff that they are working through together. Her dog has some acute health stuff that puts her in a caretaker role, especially since dogs are silly and they don’t know how to not rip out their own sutures when they’ve had a surgery. She’s got some stuff going on with her house and some repairs that did not go very well. There’s just a lot. And all while she’s embarking on a career change, it is a lot of stuff all at once. Our first several sessions she kept repeating, “I know how to do this. I know how to do this”. And as we’d start to talk about a topic she’d go searching for “what did I used to do?”
Our first little story arc in coaching has been about adjusting that curiosity or that search from “what did I used to do” and “how do I get back there” to “where am I now, and what’s possible right now”. More so than some of my other clients, we’re intentionally keeping her practice really small week to week because we’re respecting both where this client wants to go, what her bigger visions are for what she wants out of this coaching process, but also and equally respecting the limitations of where she is right now, which is the intersection of being a person with ADHD, which is already something that creates struggle in the areas that we’re coaching about and all of this other context that further makes those things difficult. Right? Her executive function means she has less energy, means she has less bandwidth, less attention and less time.
Let’s be real, it’s not all ADHD. Some of it is just the very real constraints of what else needs your attention in your life right now.
[00:07:57] Dusty: Yeah, and I think at the end of the day we’re also talking about the concept of return on investment, right? And that each action is not absolute in terms of its sort of moral goodness or impact or even just impact on us.So one of the things I did recently is I spoke with some of my clients about how to spend money. And we talked about this idea of paying the ADHD tax upfront. So one of the things we were talking about is this idea of, let’s say you decide you wanna start doing yoga at the local yoga studio. And the monthly pass is really exorbitantly expensive, but the yearly pass is super cheap. So what do you do? You wanna be wise, you wanna make good choices. So you sign up for the yearly pass, then you never go – which is a waste of money, right? We were talking about this concept of knowing when it’s better to pay the higher price, which seems like the worst deal, because it’s actually going to save you money in the end.
As it pertains to ADHD versus knowing when it’s actually best for you to say buy in bulk or not to pay the annual cost of something ’cause it’s not saving you any money to buy a bunch of stuff in bulk that you don’t eat and then throw out. And I think the whole paper plates or accommodating yourself argument really comes down to the same thing. It’s about recognizing when the thing that you’re gonna do now that seems like the wrong thing or not the best thing is actually going to lead to a better outcome long term.
We see this again with the concept of, I discuss this a lot with people, pre-cut fruit or precut vegetables which come in plastic clamshells or whatever from the deli. And people are like, oh, I don’t wanna buy that, there’s all the environmental waste, blah, blah, blah. But like, how many of us buy that fruit whole and then we don’t actually cut it up, we don’t eat it and it rots. Food waste is a huge problem in the United States and globally really, but especially in North America.
So, what’s worse, those two pieces of plastic from a container of cut fruit, if I actually eat it, and then I nourish my body and I have the energy to go out and do good things in the world versus buying an entire bag of apples, which mostly goes bad? They’re both environmentally impactful. But in one scenario, I get the nourishment that I need to have the energy in my body to go out and make positive change in other ways, right?
[00:10:13] Ash: Well said, Dusty. I wanna give an example that kind of takes us even out of the realm of environmentalism. My lawnmower has been in my office for eight months now. Eight months, eight months! This lawnmower has been in my office and when I first brought it into my office, by the way, it did not work because a massive tree limb fell on my metal shed and put a hole in the roof and I did not realize that right away because I have ADHD. Anyways, my lawnmower got rained on and it’s an electric mower, so I needed to get the lawnmower fixed and I needed to figure out what I wanted to do about the shed. There’s this bigger problem of my property backs up to a railroad line, so there are trees, limbs and things that are sort of out of my control to deal with.So, I’m not sure I wanna put up another metal shed because if another branch like that falls, it’s just gonna cave in. But to afford a custom-built shed that’s gonna be more durable was something that I wasn’t able to do right away. And for the longest time, my lawnmower just sat in my office broken and I was frozen.
This part of this is about perspective shift. Every day I would look at the shed with the hole in it and I would feel guilt, shame and feel bad that my neighbor, who is really into gardening, she’s retired and has the time, capacity, interest and desire to keep a really beautiful yard, but I would feel some amount of shame and judgment, even though this neighbor has never ever said anything judgmental in my direction. I’m applying self-judgment that isn’t even there, and it kept me stuck.
I wasn’t moving forward, and compounded with the fact that I’m in a place in life where I’ve got more problems than I can tackle at a time. So it all just felt like it was collapsing on itself. What I needed to do in that case was step back and be like, okay, what is the first step and what is the problem I can solve now?
Do I love having my lawnmower in my office? No, but my office does open directly to my deck, so if I get the lawnmower fixed, the lawnmower is once again, a usable tool that I can relatively easily get in and out of my office. So as a temporary solution, that is fine. At the time that I was coming to this solution, we were also coming into the winter season, so not a lot can happen in terms of constructing new buildings, which gave me time to step back and think about how I wanted to solve this problem in a bigger way.
So just fixing the lawnmower, getting that part functional, I can now mow my own grass again, gave me the bandwidth to think about, okay, how do I tackle the rest of it? What am I going to do here? And while I’m still in the process of solving that, if you look out in my yard, you visibly don’t see any difference from six months ago but I’ve made some progress on the other challenges like the finances of it and in what order do I want to do things.
I should probably, no matter what kind of shed I get, I should probably get the trees trimmed so that I don’t build any kind of brand new shed and open it up to damage that could have been preventable, number one.
Number two, I plan on staying in this house for a good long time, so it is probably worth the investment – if I can solve for how to comfortably afford it – to construct something that is more durable than buying another metal shed. It’s gonna be 3-4x the cost of another metal shed, but it’s also gonna solve the problem for a much longer period of time.
So listeners, I want you to hear that my thinking there just started with sort of taking a breath and saying, okay, this is something I say to myself often, especially in the last couple of years. “Okay, you’re here now, here’s the slate of problems before you. You’re just here now.” And for me, that’s an acceptance thing, that’s letting go of all of the stories, letting go of all of the judgment and the shoulds. Letting go of the worry about letting my shed sit the way that it sat for the better part of a year now looking pretty junky in my backyard and just acknowledging that I’m here now and the only way that I can carve a path forward is to take one step at a time when I have the capacity, the bandwidth.
The time, money and whatever resources I need to take a step in that direction – it is okay to identify the next step and recognize that I can’t take that step yet. I don’t have what I need, or I have too many other things, or whatever it is. It’s okay to acknowledge that step is there and nothing terrible is going to happen if I don’t take that step right away.
So finding that nuance and distinction, because your ADHD wants a solution to fix it all now, and so being able to step back and find nuance and distinction and to ask yourself, what am I capable of right now at this moment? What am I not capable of? And therefore, what are my options?
Well, for me, my options were to go ahead and get the lawnmower fixed because that wasn’t that expensive, and to store it in my office until I am in a place where I can reasonably take what I now know the next steps are. And I’ve been in that place for a while and that’s okay, right?
Because I’ve got other things to work on to get me to a place where I have what I need to take those next steps. Was that a helpful anecdote, by the way?
[00:15:45] Dusty: Yes. And also it reminded me that I was thinking of you and your lawnmower this past weekend because of all the storms and the rain. Was everything okay at your house? [00:15:54] Ash: Actually, fortunately, yes, we did get really nasty weather, like very close to where I live.It was the luck of the draw situation. As far as tornadoes go, my backyard is absolutely covered in dead limbs right now, but nothing close to my house.
No house damage. The shed can’t possibly be any more damaged, because it is functionally not able to do its job already. So thank you for that. And yes, thankfully that did not create any new problems beyond the fact that I’ve got several weeks worth of yard waste to go out and gather over time and get out to the curb, which isn’t too bad. I’ll take it.
[00:16:31] Dusty: Okay. Yeah. Well, I mean, just listening to what you’re saying, there’s sort of two things that stand out to me, and there are two sides of the same coin. One is that when we talk about accommodations and about return on investment, it makes me think of how we have braille or wheelchair ramps in places, and let’s think of the tiny minority of people who actually might need those things, right? Most of us going into a building with braille on the wall, maybe like 95% of us or more are not gonna need that braille, right? So there’s a pretty small minority of people who are gonna use it. And I’m sure that it costs money and resources to install that or to install a ramp. We never stopped to be concerned about that because we care about accessibility.We care about people who can’t do the same things as us having what they need, right? And I think anything like this, whether it’s paper plates or paying the ADHD tax up front or lawnmowers, like whatever it is, it’s the same kind of thing, but turned on ourselves, right? We are in that minority of people who need that.
And we have to remember there’s a big majority of people who don’t need these accommodations and aren’t using them. It’s okay to give ourselves permission to use them because we do need it. The flip side, if we can agree that there’s utility in installing wheelchair ramps and putting braille on things, even though it costs money and there’s effort and it probably requires construction materials, which are not environmentally friendly or time consuming, construction is inconvenient, etc. If we can agree that those things are necessary and worthwhile and that they’re important, we can, I think, go to that other side of the coin where we’re always so willing to allow accommodations for others, and we’re always so willing to do and care for others, but when it comes to ourselves, there’s always that “do I really need this? Am I just being lazy?” And if you think that other people should get to benefit from accommodations, but that you shouldn’t need to, have to or aren’t worthy to – then that, my friend, is the internalized ableism.
You’re not just the same as everyone else, right? You’re not special, you’re not better, you’re not this superhero who can both occupy an identity of a disability and yet be able to do everything all the time and not need anything.
You’re just a person and sometimes your capacity is low, and it’s okay to need what you need. Just like it’s okay for other people to need wheelchair ramps or braille or paper plates or whatever the case may be, right? It’s hard for us to turn that on ourselves. And ironically, I think a little bit, part of the neurochemical makeup of ADHD itself, it’s like a little bit of chicken and egg, you know?
[00:19:25] Ash: 100% Dusty. I find myself often saying this in coaching, and this is interesting ’cause you and I have never talked about this before, that oh, we’ve got a chicken and an egg dilemma here.And so that’s an opportunity to get curious about which is which. I kind of wanna talk about another scenario. So what we’ve talked about so far is sort of giving yourself permission to be where you are and to accommodate your needs. In that moment in time, taking into account your own context, what is the bigger context here? What am I capable of doing? What am I not capable of doing? Where can I let go and support myself a little bit in a way that’s going to help me find more capacity and move forward?
You talked about this before we got on mic, Dusty, and you called it – I don’t think this was quite your language, but this is how I’m gonna say it – “surrendering to the flow”, which by the way is a phish lyric.
But something that I have embodied for a long time on my own journey is the trick to surrender to the flow. That’s both a phish lyric, but also a really poignant way of thinking about journey thinking and about how to live a life that better suits you as a person with ADHD instead of fighting against the current, being able to step back and say, okay, I’m here now.
Let’s drop all the stories, the shame, the guilt and the things, and just try to figure out what I’m actually capable of and what I’m not right now. I think there’s another conversation to be had about internalized ableism in terms of the things that are just immutable and, despite our best efforts to do so, that we can only get so far in creating change on.
And for me, one of those things is remembering people that I’ve met. If we have only met once in passing, like we’re both ADHD coaches at a conference basis. If I didn’t have a conversation with you or if there’s not more context for me to remember who you are in a bigger way, then the next time I see you, I’m probably not going to remember you, even if you remember me.
And there’s a couple of things I’ve been thinking a lot about actually, because I am running into this. In the queer organization that I’m in, I am a person that will talk to everybody. I am in a position in that organization where I’m involved with memberships. So part of my goal at any one of our events is to seek out and talk to new people and to be that space where they can ask questions about what our organization is and if it’s something that they might be interested in. But, I struggle with the fact that I’m not gonna remember that person the next time and I’ve had people get offended at me for not remembering them, like deeply offended. I’ve had people yell at me for this. And so I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what’s my stuff here? What can I work on here?
Here’s the conclusion that I’ve come to, the way that I remember people is unique to me because not only do I have ADHD, I have no visual brain. So even in the case of somebody like Dusty, you have orange hair, you have a pretty memorable aesthetic, and stacking you up against other women who might be similar height, similar features, similar whatever, you have some very memorable things about you visually.
But I have no visual brain. So those are things I notice and appreciate about you. Now that I know your context and know that external reflection, those things are like a billboard to the bigger thing that is one of your strengths, that you’re so relentlessly and unapologetically yourself. But, that first time we met, that was neither here nor there in terms of my ability to contextualize you and remember who you are. So I need context, right? Sometimes another person can help me with that context.
A question I will often ask is, oh, what did we talk about? Where were we? Because if I can remember that conversation, since I don’t have a visual brain, words are huge for me. If we had an interesting conversation about something, and you can help me put two and two together, now I’m starting to build context and I’m starting to build a memory of you in a real way.
And so, I’ve thought a lot about this. It’s like people are just sort of like a fuzzy amalgam for me. Like you’re either fuzzy and in the crowd, or you stand out to me because in the ways that I am able to remember, retain, and recall things
I need the context, which is an ADHD thing, right? Context helps all of us. But I also don’t have the backup of the visual, so the last couple of times somebody has gotten upset with me for this, I’ve actually stopped and said, “hey, listen, I have ADHD, like this is not personal. This is just the way that my brain works. I need to meet you enough times to have some context of you in order for me to remember you, especially right now in this moment of time where I am constantly and consistently meeting new people and people who are likely to remember me because I’m one of two or three people that they talk to in our organization.”
Where it might be very challenging for me to remember them because I talk to new people at every single event that I go to, and I’m not one for on the fly advocacy work, but in those moments, I don’t let that fly anymore. It’s, especially if it’s coming from a place of moralistic judgment, that I’m a bad person because I don’t remember you and if somebody says something critical or harsh to me, I will clap right back and stand in my own truth.
I have ADHD and I am sorry that you are offended by this, but here is how my brain works and here is how I form memories of people. And if you can’t understand that, then I don’t think there’s anything more to say here, and we probably shouldn’t be friends because my entire existence is going to drive you crazy.
[00:25:30] Dusty: That’s very powerful. [00:25:31] Ash: Well, thank you. [00:25:32] Dusty: That’s all I have to say about that. And I was just reflecting but that’s true of me as well. I think I have a more visual brain than you, but often I’ll remember the weirdest little fact about someone. Like I’ll remember someone is from, I don’t know, Montenegro, or they will have done work in some really obscure area and when I meet them again I’ll be like, oh, you’re the person who da. And they’re like, oh yeah.I feel like maybe I should just start ’cause I have the same thing. Even though I have more of a visual brain, I still forget people. So like, maybe I should just start with like, hi, I’m Dusty, tell me one really interesting fact about yourself. You should probably just just do that.
[00:26:06] Ash: Dusty, we’re out of time, unfortunately, because what you just spoke to, I actually want to talk offline with you a little bit more about that because now I’m really curious about what the broader ADHD experience is. In this scenario of remembering people, right? So listeners, if you have anything to share about your own experience there, if you’ve run into situations where you have been criticized or called out or admonished for not remembering someone, if someone has been offended by you for that, and if you know something about what it is for you to remember someone, I would be really interested.I think Dusty and I would both be really interested in hearing that, but for today, to kind of bring it full circle, none of us is capable of doing it all. None of us is capable of being perfect, and we’re bad at recognizing that with ADHD.
So I think the big moral of the story here is stepping back and taking into account where you are. You’re here now. What are you capable of? What are you not capable of? And giving yourself permission to do whatever it is you need to do to get from where you are now to where you’re trying to get to.
Even if those solutions in the moment are imperfect, even if it means using paper plates or having your lawnmower live in your office, it is okay to live imperfectly and it is okay to accommodate yourself and do what is best for you as a person with ADHD. It just is. There is a time in my life when I would not have let people in my house at all with my lawnmower in my office.
And now when I give people a tour and I’m like, and there’s my lawnmower because there’s a hole in my shed and you can see it right out there. And we’re working on it, but we’re not there yet. That’s literally what I say, and I’m not just saying it, I mean it. Right. I’m working on it, but I’m not there yet.
Two things can be true and I’m at peace with it. And it’s not something that I let eat myself alive in terms of shame and self-judgment and even that just not carrying around the shame and self-judgment frees up so much time, energy, and bandwidth for other things like the steps along the way I need to take to get from here to having the lawnmower back in a shed that does its job and has a functioning roof.
[00:28:19] Dusty: Yes. My final thoughts on this matter are, don’t let your disability get in the way of you recognizing that you have a disability. For example, you know, we’re not talking about everybody keeping their lawnmower in their living room for eight months. We’re not talking about everybody needing a wheelchair ramp in their house. We’re not talking about everybody using paper plates forever. We’re talking about a small segment of the population of which you are a part of, and it is different for you. And yes, it is harder for you.So if you are struggling, and it would make your life easier to send your laundry out to a wash and fold surface, even though you have a washing machine to use or use paper plates, even though you have a dishwasher or to order food in, even though you have food in the fridge that you could cook, whatever.
The thing that you need to do to get through the day is just remember that’s where you’re at today and this is just you. Don’t go to that all-or-nothing place where it’s like, well, I can’t sustain this forever. Or like, what if everybody did this? That’s not what we’re talking about. And that all or nothing or black or white, like ADHD-ness of it all, that’s gonna keep us from doing the thing that actually works to get ourselves to the next step.
[00:29:25] Ash: Perfect. Being the enemy of good is like one of the ultimate and perpetual ADHD boss battles. It’s something I still grapple with all of the time in my own life. Noticing that perfectionism, that all or nothing coming in and needing to step back and do some work to shift my perspective, to let go, to see where I’m at and what I can do from this place.So. I think there’s probably more to say on this topic and Dusty and I are gonna work on exactly what that more is. But listeners, until next week, I’m Ash.
[00:29:56] Dusty: And I’m Dusty. [00:29:57] Ash: and this was the Translating ADHD podcast. Thanks for listening.
