In this episode of Translating ADHD, Asher and Dusty explore the complex balance between adapting social behavior and advocating for oneself as a neurodivergent person, especially within the context of ADHD. They emphasize the distinction between harmful masking and healthy adaptation, underscoring the importance of choice in how one shows up socially. Dusty introduces the concept of “intimacy buckets” to help listeners understand social boundaries and appropriate sharing depending on the type of relationship, a framework she found highly useful for building social awareness.
The conversation shifts to the workplace, where navigating social expectations can have significant economic consequences for neurodivergent individuals. Both hosts acknowledge how difficult it can be to find or create inclusive environments but stress the importance of awareness, social skills, and advocacy under the protection of disability accommodations when possible. They also highlight the harsh reality that sometimes adaptation is necessary for survival in non-inclusive settings.
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Episode Transcript:
[00:02:08] Asher: Hi, I’m Ash. [00:03:21] Dusty: And I’m Dusty. [00:04:29] Asher: And this is Translating ADHD. Listeners, a little word from Cam. If you aren’t already aware, Cam has started another podcast called Integrating ADHD. So if you are missing Cam’s input on this podcast, now you have another option to listen to him. Search Integrating ADHD anywhere you listen to podcasts and you should find it. [00:28:10] Dusty: Also, I’m going to be doing another coaching demo on April 16th at 8:30 p.m. EST. So if you’re a Patreon subscriber then you get to come hang out with me. Watch me coach someone, maybe be coached, always very cool and informative. So it’s a good time to become a Patreon subscriber if you aren’t already. [00:48:25] Asher: So Dusty. [00:50:05] Dusty: So Ash. [00:51:14] Asher: You want to tell our listeners what we’re talking about today? [00:54:19] Dusty: Yeah, today we’re talking about that nuance space between adapting your social approach and your social communication, and kind of leveraging your social awareness to show up in a way where you’re going to be received properly with ADHD. The nuance between that and also advocating for yourself as a neurodivergent person and working towards disability justice and a more neuro inclusive world, it’s a very hard, fine line to walk.So to kind of explain what I’m talking about, a lot of us have had negative social experiences where we’ve been told that we’re too much or we don’t have good social skills, or we miss social cues. I think a lot of us have had to put in the work over the years to adapt our social responses.
This is something that autistic people do as well and it can be up to and including masking, which is a kind of harmful social adaptation that’s not sustainable long term. That’s not what I’m talking about. I mean, that can be included, but I’m talking about more like when you just have ADHD. We do have the social capacity to kind of adapt our approach.
And that is something I think that, like all people do, whether you’re neurodivergent, neurotypical, whatever, we all kind of bring different sides of ourselves to different social spaces because social spaces are shared and they’re co-created in who you are at church, at work or with your grandma is not necessarily who you are in the club when you’re with your girls.
There’s some amount of that that is healthy and adaptive, but it is harder for neurodivergent people, whether you have ADHD or you are autistic. And it’s not always something that people with ADHD are very good at so we tend to get more negative consequences.
But then on the other hand, as our understanding of neurodivergent increases, something that I’m seeing a lot more is space being advertised not just as inclusive, but neurodivergent affirming or neuro inclusive.
So there’s kind of this shift towards recognizing the dominant social style is leaving a lot of people out and making certain things more inaccessible for people like us. There is this movement towards, I can’t think of the word that would be relevant here, but like we have the concept of heteronormativity, right? This idea that heterosexuality is the norm and that homosexuality is the deviants, and we can accommodate it. But it’s not the standard, you know, and so that’s heteronormativity.
We have the same thing around neurotypicals, right? This idea that being neurotypical is the norm, communicating in a neurotypical way is the norm. Being neurodivergent is sort of the different way or the sort of deviance or whatever, and we can accommodate it. But accommodations only do so much. They don’t change the nature of what exists. And that’s what disability justice and neuro inclusion is about. So sometimes that’s what we want to go for.
But how do we know the difference between when we advocate for ourselves to show up fully, authentically as who we are and when we take that adaptive approach where we go, okay, ADHD or autism impacts my social skills and I need to modulate and how do I do that? Sort of a big topic.
[04:31:19] Asher: Dusty, before we dive in here, I think it’s really important to say that I think of one opportunity when you’re making this distinction between where and when can I show up authentically vs. where and when do I want to adapt is an element of choice. You said a moment ago, this isn’t about masking and it’s not.But I think part of that distinction means being a choice. I have certainly coached clients through job, career, circumstance or relationship changes where they’ve realized that they can’t show up in a way that works for them. So that’s a valid conclusion to come to as you’re starting to evaluate how and where do I want to show up differently or where it would benefit me to show up differently?
It’s equally valid to look at the situation and say, I can’t show up in the way that I’m being asked to or it’s harmful for me to show up in the way that I’m being asked to here. And therefore this may not be a workable situation, relationship, job, whatever for me.
[05:50:18] Dusty: Yeah, thanks for saying that. And I do really want to create a distinction here that I’m aware that masking is harmful. It is not sustainable. It is a problem for autistic people, and it means that they are working outside their capacity. And that’s different from the kind of flexible social approach that I might take as a person who just has ADHD because there is that capacity, right?I might not like it. I might not like to be really stuffy around my in-laws, for example. And I might find that tiring if I had to do it for a straight week on a cruise with them or something, but I could do it.
Whereas with masking, my understanding is, we’re talking about something that is coming at a cost that’s too high, right? And especially over time, can lead to burnout. So I want to be really clear for listeners, there is a difference between these two things. And I can’t tell you which one you’re doing, only you know.
But that’s the thing about masking, with autistic people, every autistic person is different. But I know that for some autistic people they just straight up can’t. They’re going to show up in any kind of space that they’re in the way that they’re going to show up, because that is the limit of what they can do. And again, I’m not saying all autistic people.
As a culture, when we talk about disability inclusion and we look at how people show up, whether it’s in the workplace or in a friend friend group, I think we can make space for that and go okay, this person isn’t trying to be any certain way. That’s just how they are. We’re going to adapt our understanding of their responses but that’s for some autistic people.
And then for others, there is more of a flexible, nuanced space where maybe they have a greater social capacity. That’s something I don’t know a lot about. So I don’t want to speak about it. I don’t want to put any ideas out there that might unintentionally be harmful because I am not autistic. So I’m speaking here really specifically about my understanding of the way that ADHD impacts communication and social information integration and how we adapt our approaches. Because for me, at least as a person with ADHD, I might not like it, but I have the capacity to do it, it doesn’t harm me in an irreparable way.
I mean, I don’t have to. I don’t necessarily love it, but I can do it.
[08:22:07] Asher: When I see this challenge with my clients, and this is so often the case for any challenge with ADHD, the first barrier or the first challenge we’re dealing with here is just awareness. Awareness of how you’re showing up, awareness of what is appropriate, awareness of how you’re being perceived by others.I had a client describe a moment where she found out that she was being perceived much differently than she realized by someone she was in grad school with. This person just reamed her out of what felt like nowhere to her, and she described the experience as the fantasy bubble being burst.
I think many of us with ADHD can relate to that experience where you think you’re being perceived one way, where you think you’re being appropriate or you’re being okay, and then all of a sudden you’re sometimes very harshly told, no, this is not okay. You are not okay in this situation.
And so awareness can be such a challenge for those of us with ADHD, really sort of tuning into and paying attention to ourselves and how we’re showing up for others and how they’re receiving us. That’s kind of the first opportunity here – to be aware.
You were describing before we started to record this model that someone else came up with about buckets of intimacy. That could be an interesting framework for how someone can start to think about or build awareness in social relationships. Do you want to say a little bit about that?
[10:10:01] Dusty: Yeah, absolutely. And it’s a good time to say it because the person I was talking about was Carolyn Maguire. She’s known for a book she wrote called Why Will No One Play With Me. It’s about soft skills and socio emotional learning for kids and how parents can coach their kids to have greater social awareness. But, the book was so popular that people kept asking her when are you going to write one of these for adults? I need one of these for me.She’s just written this book and I think it’s coming out in April called Friendship Skills For Neurodivergent Adults. I saw her give a talk online during the pandemic at the CHADD conference, and I’m gonna have to ask her about this talk, because I’ve never seen this framework anywhere else. I found it personally really useful. Like, it was like a moment for me.
And what Carolyn did was talk about this concept of intimacy buckets. She kind of had a visual that was like a bullseye. The most intimate intimacy bucket is people that you are the most intimate with, you’re able to be vulnerable. They know all your “bumps and bruises” and you know, dirty secrets. And she said, most adults in their life only have maybe between 1-3 really good, like best friends that they’re able to be fully vulnerable and intimate with. And then from there, the intimacy buckets went outwards from the center of the bullseye, where she was talking about how intimate you want to be with people that you have different types of relationships with.
So close friends, work colleagues who are also friends, work colleagues who you’re just friendly with at work, you know, the neighbor, your babysitter, the person you’re talking to in a grocery store line, or the server that you always see at your local restaurant. And I had never thought about it like that, but it kind of was this big moment for me because I was like, oh my gosh, other people have these rules – like other people aren’t just flying by the seat of their pants. They’re assessing me on intimacy buckets like this. And of course, again, not everyone, I feel like this is why neurodivergent birds of a feather flock together. We need to find each other because we’re like, yes, we can just be super authentic with you.
But she talked about types of relationships and types of intimacy. So sharing information that’s personal and a bit traumatic, like I’m going through a divorce, my pet just died, sharing information that’s still private and personal – personal that some people may consider too personal. Like, I have a boil on my back that I need to get lanced at the doctor, so like medical information, life information. And she was like, how do you know which is which because those are all considered kind of intimate topics. She was saying, how do you know how intimate you are with someone, what intimacy bucket someone is in and how do you move from one intimacy bucket to another?
If I have a really good rapport with the cashier at my local grocery store and we’re joking and talking all the time, just because we are joking and talking all the time, that doesn’t mean that it’s appropriate for me to share with her that I’ve got a boil on my back that needs to be lanced or that I’m going through a divorce. Right?
People have rules. They have social rules around what’s appropriate to be shared with what type of relationship. And of course, everyone is different. These are just broad strokes. But I think just the idea that there are these kinds of unwritten rules has never occurred to me because I totally just fly by the seat of my pants.
I’m definitely an oversharer and a very authentic person. But I have made people really uncomfortable, and I’ve had a lot of social struggles where I’m like, why doesn’t this person want to be my friend? Why does this person think I’m weird? I know that I’m always doing my best and coming from a place of kindness so why am I being received the wrong way?
And this was like a piece of the puzzle that I just didn’t have. This idea that it could be my oversharing and my desire to discuss topics that other people might find inappropriate, intimacy wise, to discuss with me based on the type of relationship that we had. And it was a really good piece of information that has helped me to make sense of where I stand with other people, just such a useful framework.
[14:21:28] Asher: Dusty, I do think this is such a useful framework because, as you said, we with ADHD, we naturally tend to be oversharers. It’s why when we find each other, we can form bonds of friendship so quickly, right? Often the ADHD people at a party will be the ones off in a corner having some really deep conversation about something because that’s our natural way. That’s how we tend to be.We just don’t have the same filters or rules on board that other people naturally have. So thinking about it this way, putting this model or framework around it is an interesting way to build awareness and start to distinguish where I might want to show up differently. I kind of want to pivot here, Dusty, because something you said earlier is how do we distinguish between when to advocate for yourself and when to adapt?
[15:21:04] Dusty: Well, this is kind of where I wanted to go with it as well. I think this approach is especially useful when we’re talking about stuff like professional development or the workplace, because between friends or between romantic relationships, I think you have a lot more discretion and a lot more control over, setting your life up in a way that works for you.But all of us live under capitalism. We all have got to pay our bills, and we don’t really have as much control when it comes to who we work for or having a job. And this is where I think it really impacts us. I think we don’t talk enough about the “lost cost”. What’s the word I’m talking about where there’s wage loss like not sunk cost.
But, I think we don’t talk enough about the sort of collective economic impact of neurodivergent thinking in the workplace, because we know that people with ADHD tend to suffer higher rates of job loss, unemployment and underemployment. We know that to be especially true as well of autistic people. I think it’s something like only 27% of autistic people are employed full-time or whatever.
We can point to a lot of things that cause people with ADHD to struggle in the workplace. But we’re not talking about the fact that part of this does come down to social skills, not being liked, not getting promotions, not being put on action plans or being passed over or not being hired because you’re coming off the wrong way and you’re being perceived like that.
People don’t like you basically or people find you obnoxious, annoying or too much. And if I’m running a workplace and there’s somebody who I can’t trust to show up appropriately, I can’t put that person in a position of authority over others or I may not want to entrench them further in my organization.
And I’m speaking royal. The royal, I’m not saying me personally, I love to promote a weirdo, but how much of the job loss in the underemployment do we see isn’t just a result of people struggling to get to work on time and people struggling to finish their work, but people struggling to show up in a way that employers can recognize as valuable and desirable.
[17:30:02] Asher: Dusty, I’m going to jump in here again. I know I’ve already said this once in this episode, but I think it’s really important to say it again that I think an element of choice here is really important to bring into this mix. I have had so many clients who have had interpersonal challenges in the workplace, where advocacy simply wasn’t an option for when it wasn’t going to be well-received.The disconnect between them and their employer, their supervisor, their coworker, whatever was simply too big and or there wasn’t a willingness on the part of the other person to come to the table in good faith, to try and find that happy middle ground. So all of this to say that as neurodivergent people, there are simply going to be situations that are untenable for us and that is okay. It is okay to walk away from a situation in pursuit of something that is better suited to who you are, that allows you to show up in ways that feel okay to you.
And the reason I wanted to make sure to say this again right here is because we are not always the problem. Sometimes it is someone else that is just unwilling to try to understand us, who almost willfully misunderstands us and will not come to the table in good faith to try and have a different experience there. And that’s not our stuff, that’s their stuff. But, it is something that as a neurodivergent person, you are going to run into in your life at some point. I think every one of my clients has been through something like this at work, be it in a family, be it in a relationship, be it in a friendship, where they are being misunderstood despite their best, good faith efforts to have a different experience there.
You can’t make someone else come to the table in good faith.
[19:35:26] Dusty: Well, this is exactly what I’m saying, right? Kind of like two things at once – on the one hand, yeah, there’s going to be people who are not going to understand you. And that’s exactly why we need to learn social emotional skills. That’s why we need to learn what the, you know, “hidden rules” are because it is going to cost us.We’re going to be the ones that suffer the job loss or being passed over for promotion in the workplace or someone breaking up with you or a friend being mad at you and then now you’re not included in the friend group trip and you don’t know why. We’re going to pay the cost, so we need to understand that.
And it would be great, you know, if we could advocate and create a more just world in all those circumstances. But like you said, we can’t. But I’m going to gently push back on that idea of there’s always choice here when we’re talking about the economic piece, because I do think that when we’re talking about workplace soft skills, people know divergent people are at a disadvantage.
Where I don’t, it’s both at once because, I want to hold on to the hope that any person I coach or any neurodivergent person could find a better situation for themselves if they’re working in an environment where they feel misunderstood, where it’s exhausting for them to have to internalize, understand and double check that they’re following all the unspoken rules and that they can’t show up as themselves. That’s terrible and crappy.
I want to believe that there’s a peg for every hole and that there are workplaces out there, no matter what profession you’re in, where you’re going to find your crew, and you’re going to find bosses that are like me or like you, where we are going to be creating more neurodivergent type of work environments.
I want to believe that’s true. But at the same time, I have to acknowledge that we’re talking about a group of people, a population of people who are higher on the poverty scale, who are suffering from more unemployment. And so sometimes we are in situations where we need this job and we need to keep doing this job or we can’t pay rent. And that means if you’re not going to be understood, like you’ve got to do the adapting, which is so crappy and so unfair.
So it’s kind of both at once. I don’t want to tell people, oh, you live under capitalism, you better learn how to get along with people. But I also don’t want to tell people you have choices if you’re not being understood, just go somewhere else because it’s not always that easy in the professional sense.
I think, you know, this is where this topic really diverges because of how we cope with this in our personal relationships, which we do have, again, maybe not full choice, but where we have a lot more choice over.
I think it can be different from the workplace, especially depending on your profession. I have some clients who work in tech. I have some clients who work in video games, and that’s really, really rapidly changing because of AI and stuff – both tech and video games are changing due to the advent of AI journalism.
So depending on your industry, you may have more or less wiggle room to find a different situation that’s going to suit you. Which doesn’t mean that you don’t have a choice. There’s always still choices beyond that, right? You could run away and ride the rails. You could start your own business. But those things are also not easy.
So I think this topic kind of diverges here.
[23:05:14] Asher: Yes, it does. I appreciate you jumping in with that point because you’re right, it’s not necessarily possible for everyone to make a change right now. And no workplace is perfect. No workplace is going to be just the right thing for your neurodivergence. And by the way, that includes self-employment, as we both know. We kind of have this fork in the road talking about what advocacy looks like and what does adaptation look like. [23:36:15] Dusty: Yeah, I think this is a good introduction of this concept and then talking about it because we started off talking about a client of mine who is having a professional struggle, where she was working really hard, trying really hard in her workplace, really wanted to put her best foot forward and got totally blindsided by being fired. Not for her work, literally.The boss was like, your work is great, but for her personality and for her communication style, which was perceived as aggressive and anti-authoritarian. Whereas she was coming from trying to be specific and careful and show that she was a go-getter. So, I think we’ve all had these experiences of just being so misunderstood.
It is absolutely heartbreaking when you are trying so hard and all you want to do is show that you’re like that, you want to do your best, and then the harder you try, the more you’re misunderstood. And then this version of you is reflected back at you that’s so not your own experience. It can be really jarring.
So that’s what got me thinking about this was how do we navigate social challenges in the workplace? And how do we know when to advocate for ourselves as neurodivergent people, which is like covered under the ADA? We talk about accommodations – accommodations aren’t just, hey, let this person record this meeting so they can play it back later. Basically, what I’m getting at is, I think we need to work towards a world where where workplace accommodations are more normally recognized as helping to accommodate some of these real challenges that, I don’t want to say real in the lives of the other ones aren’t real to need accommodations, but more nuanced challenges that we face in the neurotypical world as neurodivergent people.
And then also, how do we protect ourselves when it’s not a safe situation? How do we protect ourselves and learn skills that we need to know to get along and to be perceived correctly and accurately when we won’t be accommodated? How do we start to assess what kind of situation we’re in? How do we bring skills to the table to work with people who aren’t going to be our type of people and aren’t going to understand us so that we can look out for ourselves and not suffer the consequences of being unfairly perceived the wrong way?
[25:57:26] Asher: Dusty, such great questions that you’re asking. And, unfortunately, we are out of time for today, but everything you just said, the questions that you left us with is right where we’re going to pick up next week for a part two on this topic. [26:13:14] Dusty: Wonderful. [26:14:17] Asher: So, listeners, until next week, I’m Ash. [26:17:09] Dusty: And I’m Dusty.
[26:18:09] Asher: And this was the Translating ADHD podcast. Thanks for listening.
