Structured Success - ADHD Coaching & Academic Strategy

Being a parent is hard. Being an autistic parent is a different challenge entirely. Not only do you have to navigate all the challenges of being a parent, but you also have to navigate your own autistic needs, and often the neurodivergent needs of your child all at the same time.

Self-regulation isn't the same as control. Whether it's emotional regulation, sensory regulation, somatic regulation or similar, self-regulation is about making sure that we have some slack in the system so unexpected events don't end up distressing us and making us respond in ways that compromise our physical, mental, or social wellbeing.

This means that you don't have to stop feeling an emotion, or even reduce the size of an emotion, in order to emotionally regulate. Instead, you need to check-in with yourself to see if you can absorb a mild shock, change, or unexpected event without it overwhelming and distressing you.

If you can, great, you are regulated. If you can't or if you aren't sure, take the time to process the emotion you're experiencing and use some self-regulation techniques to add that slack back into the system

Every single part of who we are is touched by the way our brain works. This means that neurodivergent conditions impact every bit of us, not just how we act towards others.

Being neurodivergent changes how we see ourselves, how we navigate the world, our how we respond emotionally, how we interpret and process our senses, AND how we act/behave. And this is true of every neurodivergent condition, from ADHD and autism to anxiety and personality disorders, and beyond.

Don't let anyone tell you that autistic people aren't every bit as diverse as the rest of humanity. There are autistic people in every culture, region, and community. There are autistic people of every gender and sexual orientation. There are autistic people of varying abilities, support needs, and communication abilities. Autistic people are diverse.

Unfortunately, sometimes our groups aren't as diverse as the rest of the autistic community. Invisible barriers can prevent people with different support needs from taking part. Assumptions and internalized narratives can make our groups less comfortable or safe for people who have different autistic experiences. This changes who we see at these groups, who is represented when we ask for opinions, and how we set up our communities and supports.

We'd all be better served by including more of the true diversity of autistic experience.

Understanding the basics of behavioural change is so incredibly helpful for learning to change our own behaviour over time. However, there is so much more to ethically implementing behaviour therapies than these basics.

Our behaviour is complex and connected to our identity, thoughts, feelings, and bodily needs. Changing the visible behaviour doesn't necessarily change the underlying currents that led to the behaviour in the first place. Without deeply and CONSENSUALLY understanding those needs and connections, punishing or discouraging a behaviour can be incredibly harmful.

Too many people see diagnosis or assessment as the end of a journey rather than the end of one and the beginning of another. Even psychologists can fall into this trap, issuing their findings without further support, resources, or referrals for folks to learn more.

The thing is, learning that you're neurodivergent doesn't come with a manual. We have to unlearn so many things, relearn a bunch more, and then find resources for things we didn't even know existed before getting diagnosed. This is the start of learning more about ourselves, and a difficult, time-consuming one at that.

So many different aspects of psychology cause feedback loops. They can push us towards skill specialization or hyperfocus. They can build us towards mania or depression. They can reinforce trauma responses and maladaptive coping mechanisms.

Basically, what happens is that, in response to an initial situation, we can experience behaviour, thoughts, emotions, and sensations that reinforce our initial response. For example, it is nature to feel sad when we fail a test or don't get the job we applied for, but this can cause us to think about other times we've failed, feel doubtful of our abilities, or downplay our strengths. This encourages us to feel emotionally worse, which starts the cycle over again.

Understanding these feedback loops doesn't mean that we'll always escape them and everything will be better, but it does allow us to understand what's happening, develop a plan, and maybe prevent them from getting worse. This is HUGE in terms of mental health.

I mean, I know the answer: it's an effect of executive function difference and interest-based nervous systems.

Because our nervous system rewards us so much more for doing things that we're interested in than things that we're not, our interests often capture us to a greater degree than allistic, non-ADHD'ers. This happens for the big things like our special interests and highly specialized skills, but it also happens for things like reading versus math.

We're more interested in one than the other, our brain rewards us MUCH more for our interest, we spend more time on it and gain more skills, and the gap between them grows bigger and more noticeable over time.

Getting a diagnosis is associated with both positive and negative consequences. On the good side, diagnoses can help us understand ourselves and plan appropriately for the future, including setting realistic treatment goals. They can also enable us to identify and build supports towards personal growth.

On the other hand, diagnoses can feel like a burden to shoulder, adding to self-shame and undermining self-esteem for some people. They can lead to a decrease of support from people in our lives sometimes, and can encourage stereotyped thinking and expectations.

On the whole, getting diagnosed with any neurodevelopmental condition is a mixed bag. There's some good that comes from it, but also some bad, and the amount of either really depends on the person and their context.

Source: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8727520/

The best treatment for ADHD is multimodal and it always will be. Medication can do wonders for some people. Professional support from a coach or therapist are amazing for others. Other people find community invaluable.

Finding the right combination for you is so important, and it's always a combination.

With a condition as complex and dynamic as ADHD, you can't expect yourself to manage it completely alone. Every ADHD'er needs support, so find the supports that work best for you.

There are bunch of different ways to get to the same behavioural or emotional result when it comes to psychology. Not being able to get started with a task, for example, can happen in many ways and is common to many neurodivergent experiences. However!

Different people, with different neurodivergent conditions, have different needs. Having the self-awareness to understand the root of these experiences is so important in finding the right tools for us. And this is also a reason why it's so important to try out a bunch of different strategies. Just because one doesn't work, doesn't mean that another won't~

Different people need different tools, so their tool boxes are going to look different too. That's okay. In fact, that's the point, imo

In many aspects of our lives, there is this invisible pressure to do things the neurotypical way. Whether that's social interactions, performing paying attention, reading, empathy, or any number of other things.

This constant pressure makes it awkward, at best, and unsafe, at worst, to do things in a way that isn't in line with these neurotypical expectations.

This. This is how power operates.