If you have ADHD and grief shows up, do you stay busy? Keep moving? Find something else to do? Stay ahead of the quiet? And then through it all does it find you anyway? Waking up at 2 AM, out of nowhere, when you thought you were past it?

That's not you doing grief wrong. That's just how ADHD brains grieve. And this episode is about what to actually do when it catches up.

Last time, David and Isabelle unpacked why ADHD brains seem to grieve in the wrong order. Why you can stand dry-eyed at a funeral and then fall apart completely at a graduation. And why neither of those things means something is wrong with you. Then they get into the part nobody usually makes time for: what to actually do when it shows up.

In this episode:

• Why ADHD brains get practical when grief shows up, and what it costs when everyone goes home
• The empirical case David makes from his own life for why how much you cry has nothing to do with how much you loved
• What it actually means to grieve something that isn't a person. A city. A chapter. A version of yourself that no longer fits.
• Isabelle's therapist's tool for making a date with your grief so it stops ambushing you at 2 AM

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Wait, What's That? Here are some of the terms and people mentioned in this episode explained:

Time Agnosia The ADHD experience of not being able to feel time passing the way neurotypical brains do. In this episode it comes up as one explanation for why grief doesn't hit when everyone expects it to. Your brain isn't programmed to feel things on the service's schedule. It hits when it hits, in its own time, in a future moment you weren't ready for.

Asynchronous Processing What happens when your brain doesn't process the big emotional stuff in real time. You can be right in the middle of something and feel completely fine. Then weeks later on a walk, out of nowhere, it lands. That's not numbness. That's just how your brain works.

Moral Reasoning Isabelle brings up something from a philosophy course that's stayed with her. The idea that a friend is someone you agree to mourn if they die before you. That choosing to be close to someone is already a quiet acknowledgment that one of you will miss the other. She has never forgotten it.

Practical Griever The person who, when loss shows up, immediately pivots to action. Makes the calls, brings the food, goes and cleans the house. David and Isabelle both recognize themselves here. The thing is, the grief doesn't go anywhere. It just waits until the room gets quiet.

Ambiguous Losses Grief without a clear name or a socially accepted reason to mourn. Moving away from a city you loved. Losing a version of yourself. A friendship that ended without a conversation. Isabelle talks about still carrying grief from leaving Chicago. These losses are real. They just rarely get the space real grief deserves.

"Nora" David and Isabelle's shorthand for norepinephrine, the brain chemical wired into mood, attention, and stress response. Comes up here in the context of making sure your basic needs are met before you try to sit with the hard stuff. Nora has to be okay before grief can move through you the way it needs to.

Duration Measure Isabelle's term for the container David's timer approach creates. When you decide you're going to sit with grief for a set amount of time and then get up, that's a duration measure. It makes the feeling tolerable because it has edges. You're not drowning in it. You know when it ends.

Bobby Richards Isabelle's husband and the new Executive Producer of Something Shiny: ADHD. Gets a very well-earned shoutout in this episode for the audio upgrade you're hopefully hearing right now.

Autonomic Nervous System The system that runs the involuntary stuff including heart rate, breathing, and stress response. Comes up in Isabelle's deep dive into dyspraxia and how the brain's predictive processing works differently in neurodivergent people.

Dyspraxia A motor coordination difference that often shows up alongside ADHD and autism. Isabelle has a paradigm shift in this episode about what dyspraxia actually is and how it connects to the brain's predictive software. Why change is so dysregulating. Why your body is always ten steps behind your brain.

AuDHD Having both autism and ADHD. Comes up as Isabelle and David get into the overlap between the two and what it means for how neurodivergent people process change, repetition, and sensory experience.

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💬 When has grief caught up with you in the quiet? On a walk, at 2 AM, weeks after you thought you were fine. Leave a comment on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We read them.

🎧 Follow Something Shiny: ADHD for more conversations that help you understand your ADHD and remind you, you were never too much.

If you have ADHD, you might already know this particular kind of shame. You held it together at a super sad event (let's say a funeral). Dry-eyed, composed, functioning. And then weeks later you completely lost it over something small like a scratch in a piece of furniture, a voicemail you couldn't get a read on, or a realizing you missed claiming a hold on the book at the library you'd been waiting months for. Then you thought there was something wrong with you for not feeling grief or frustration when you were supposed to. Or for feeling it so hard in all the wrong places. Here's the thing: there's nothing wrong with you! And this episode is going to tell you why.

This conversation with David and Isabelle started with the last ten percent of a move that never gets finished, with Christmas lights still up in January, with holiday cards that feel impossible to take down because taking them down means saying goodbye. You probably have your version of all of this. Isabelle shares her story of an IKEA table, a scrap truck, and how when her husband Bobby gave the table a voice in the alley while she watched from the window, she burst into tears. 

If any of this strikes a cord, David shares a reframe for all of these grief-based adventures. It's specific, it's kind, and it's going to rearrange some things you've been carrying around for a while.

In this episode:

• Why ADHD brains declare mission accomplished at 95 percent done, and why the last bit never happens
• Why dopamine lives in anticipation, not completion, and what that means for the finish line of anything
• What Toy Story, Beauty and the Beast, and The Iron Giant actually did to neurodivergent brains (and why you always buy the wonky stuffed animal)
• Why ADHD brains tend to hold onto everything or onto nothing, and what both are reaching for
• Why you couldn't cry at the funeral but sobbed over an IKEA table, and what David says grief actually is

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Wait, What's That? Here are some of the terms and people mentioned in this episode explained:

The ROI Equation What David calls the moment at 95 percent done when your anxiety drops, your brain decides the job is basically finished, and completing the last bit suddenly feels pointless. Not laziness. Not a character flaw. Just math.

Dopamine The brain chemical most associated with ADHD. It gets released in anticipation of a reward, not when the reward actually arrives. This is why ordering the pizza feels better than eating it, why the first ninety percent of a project is exciting and the last ten is impossible, and why the Christmas lights are still up in February.

Norepinephrine (Nora) Comes in after dopamine and helps your brain make meaning of what just happened. Also wired into the stress and anxiety response, which is why finishing something can feel worse than you expected. David and Isabelle call it "nora" throughout the episode.

Existential Intervention David's term for the conscious act of changing the meaning you attach to finishing something, since your brain won't generate that motivation on its own. Instead of waiting to feel ready, you decide what finishing actually means to you. That decision becomes the thing that gets you across the line.

Near-peer mentoring Learning from someone just a few steps ahead of you rather than an expert at a distance. Comes up in the context of the pandemic, when both David and Isabelle realized everyone's life looked a lot more like theirs than they'd assumed.

Animism The tendency to believe objects have feelings or inner lives. It shows up as why Isabelle is nearly in tears watching an IKEA table get picked up by a scrap truck, why David buys the dying flowers at the store, and why you feel genuinely bad about donating a stuffed animal with slightly off stitching. Most neurodivergent people have it. The episode makes a case for why that makes complete sense.

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💬 When has grief shown up for you in the wrong place? Dry-eyed at the funeral, then falling apart over a chipped mug or a table left out on the curb. Let us know in the comments on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We read them!

🎧 Follow Something Shiny: ADHD for more conversations that help you understand your ADHD and remind you, you were never too much.

If you have ADHD and you got your diagnosis as an adult, odds are it felt like a spotlight switched on over your entire life and everything, every struggle, every pattern, every thing you couldn't explain about yourself is suddenly lit up.

Afdhel Aziz has spent decades building an extraordinary creative life. Writer, filmmaker, keynote speaker, Forbes contributor. He even recorded an entire album in his living room last year. Through it all buildling a framework that made his career work without knowing it was an accommodation. All of it running on a neurodivergent brain he didn't have a name for yet. Then about a month and a half before this conversation, that changed.

What you're about to hear is what happens when David and Isabelle get to sit with someone who is learning to understand their ADHD in the moment. Unpacking in real time what his brain has been doing all along, why the things that worked worked, why the things that didn't couldn't, and what it means to finally see yourself clearly after years of a blurry reflection. The epiphanies were still arriving while we were recording. You'll feel that.

In this episode:

• What a late ADHD diagnosis feels like when you're already successful
• The Four P's framework (Purpose, Priorities, Process, People) and how Afdhel built it without knowing it was an accommodation
• Why ADHD and anxiety create a loop that keeps you stuck, and what breaks it
• What happened when he told his team about his diagnosis and the instruction manual that changed how they work together
• How his marriage shifted when he stopped trying to be good at things he wasn't good at
• Afdhel's self-forgiveness practice: "I forgive myself for judging myself for doing X"
• Accommodations plus Community equals Self-Esteem and why that equation is simpler and more powerful than it sounds
• Why medication might not have to be the only path and what to do when it doesn't work for your brain

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Wait, What's That? Here are some of the terms and people mentioned in this episode explained:

Inattentive ADHD One of the three presentations of ADHD, characterized primarily by difficulty sustaining attention, frequent distraction, and challenges with organization and follow-through rather than the hyperactivity most people associate with ADHD. Often goes undiagnosed longer, particularly in adults who have built workarounds without realizing it.

The Four P's Afdhel's personal framework and accomodation for operating with an ADHD brain. Purpose (who you are and where you're going), Priorities (deciding what actually matters right now), Process (building systems so your brain only does the parts it's built for), and People (surrounding yourself with those who complement what you can't do alone). Learn more at afdhelaziz.com.

Dave Flink Founder of the Neurodiversity Alliance, a nonprofit supporting neurodiverse students in high schools and colleges. His equation from this episode: Accommodations + Community = Self-Esteem

Metacognition Thinking about your own thinking. In this episode it shows up as Afdhel's growing ability to observe his own thought patterns as they're happening and redirect before going down a rabbit hole.

Saint Royale Afdhel's music project. He wrote, produced, and performed an entire album in his home studio in LA, available on Spotify.

Good is the New Cool Afdhel's creative studio and book series built around purpose-driven storytelling. His most recent book, Good is the New Cool: Guide to Personal Purpose, explores how to find and build a life around your purpose. Find it here.

Afdhel's Forbes Article Before this conversation happened, Afdhel wrote about Something Shiny: ADHD!. Read it here.

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💬 What's something that finally made sense about yourself after your diagnosis, or after hearing someone else's story? Tell us in the comments.

🎧 Follow Something Shiny: ADHD for more conversations that help you understand your ADHD and remind you, you were never too much.

If you have ADHD, chances are "just believe in yourself" has never quite landed. Not because you're broken, but because traditional self-esteem advice wasn't built for a brain like yours.

In this episode, David offers a reframe that actually makes sense for neurodivergent minds: self-esteem isn't about confidence or positivity. It's about something more fundamental — the belief that you will survive what happens next. That one shift changes how you start things, why waiting to feel ready keeps you stuck, and why you can feel completely competent in one area of your life and utterly lost in another.

Isabelle works through it live — and it gets uncomfortably specific. The kind of specific that might stop you mid-listen and make you go: oh. that's me.

In this episode:

• Why "believe in yourself" feels abstract or impossible for ADHD and neurodivergent brains — and why that's not on you
• The difference between self-esteem and self-efficacy, and which one actually gets you moving
• Why your confidence can feel solid one day and completely gone by 4pm
• How ADHD variability makes traditional self-esteem advice quietly set you up to fail
• Why doing something imperfectly still builds more trust in yourself than waiting until you're ready
• Why outsourcing might actually be a self-esteem strategy — and when it isn't

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Wait, What's That? Here are some of the terms and people mentioned in this episode explained:

Albert Bandura — The psychologist behind self-efficacy theory. Shifted the conversation from "feeling good about yourself" to something more specific: your belief that you can handle a particular situation. David respectfully disagrees with part of his model. In the best way.

Self-efficacy — Your belief that you can act and influence an outcome. The key thing: it's built through experience, not feelings. You don't have to feel ready to start building it.

Self-esteem (reframed) — Traditionally, how you feel about yourself. David's version: the belief that you'll survive the outcome — even when things go sideways. That shift makes it possible to act without needing confidence first.

VAST (Variable Attentional Stimulation Seeking Trait) — From ADHD 2.0 by Hallowell & Ratey. A reframe of ADHD as variability of attention rather than a deficit. Your ability to focus, engage, and follow through shifts depending on context, stimulation, and internal state. Sound familiar?

Norepinephrine — A neurotransmitter tied to attention and alertness. More involved in your moment-to-moment sense of I can do this than most people realize.

Metacognition — Thinking about your own thinking. Useful for understanding your patterns. Also a reliable path to an overthinking spiral at 11pm. Both things are true.

Self-perpetuating feedback loop — When thoughts, feelings, and behaviors keep reinforcing each other. Not acting builds doubt. Acting — even imperfectly — starts building something else instead.

Neophobic — The very human tendency to resist new things. Especially loud when there's no precedent and the stakes feel like they have no bottom.

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💬 What's something you know you're good at — but still can't quite say out loud without adding a disclaimer? Tell us in the comments.

🎧  Follow Something Shiny: ADHD for more conversations that help you understand your ADHD and remind you—you were never too much.

This week, David and Isabelle continue their conversation with Avari Brocker — Neurodiversity Alliance student advocate and founder of LearningCurb.org. Avari talks about what it felt like to go from being on her own little island to being surrounded by other neurodivergent people, and realizing (maybe for the first time) that it was actually safe to be fully herself. The group also gets into the difference between being around people who tolerate you vs. being around people who just get it. 

If you’ve ever felt exhausted from constantly managing yourself around other people or if you’ve ever needed a reminder that belonging is not extra, it’s foundational… this one’s for you!

Here's what's coming your way:

• Why being around like-minded neurodivergent people can feel like coming home
• A clear breakdown of what high masking feels like from the inside
• Why shared experience can make it easier to stop overexplaining and start relaxing
• How community can help you stand up for yourself in ways you might not otherwise
• The story behind Learning Curb and why its whole mission is rooted in access
• A reminder that the things you needed most can become the very things you build for someone else 

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Wait, What's That? Here are some of the terms and people mentioned in this episode explained:

Neurodiversity Alliance: An organization that supports neurodivergent young people through leadership, mentorship, and advocacy. In this conversation, it’s also the community space where David and Isabelle first connected with Avari. Learn more at TheNDAlliance.org. 

Dyslexia: A learning disability that affects reading, spelling, and language processing. In this conversation, Avari talks about how meaningful it was when other dyslexic people heard her speak not just about the hard parts, but the good parts too. 

Dysgraphia: A learning disability that affects writing. Here, it’s part of the group of neurodivergent experiences Avari has already been advocating around and building resources for. 

The “curb cut” effect: The idea behind Learning Curb’s name. Curb cuts were added to sidewalks after the Americans with Disabilities Act to support wheelchair users, but they ended up helping lots of other people too — parents with strollers, skateboarders, cyclists, and delivery workers. Avari uses that as a model for education: when you lower the barrier to access for the most vulnerable people, everybody benefits. 

High masking: Constantly adjusting your behavior, communication, or presentation so you seem more acceptable, understandable, or “normal” to other people. Avari describes doing this in neurotypical spaces and contrasts it with the relief of not needing to do it so much in neurodivergent community. 

Neurospicy: A playful community term some neurodivergent people use for themselves. Isabelle uses it here while talking about the way neurospicy conversations can go from breadcrumb-level sharing to a full French dip hoagie in about two seconds. 

Narrative Reasoning: Avari’s phrase for the way her brain explains things through story, analogy, and comparison that other people can understand. 

Neurotypical: People whose brains work in ways that are more socially expected or normalized. In this conversation, Avari contrasts neurotypical spaces with neurodivergent ones, especially in terms of masking, safety, and how much self-management is required. 

Love bombing: A phrase Avari uses jokingly while talking about how quickly people bonded at the Neurodiversity Alliance. In context, she’s naming the relief of being able to connect intensely without immediately worrying that it’s “too much.” 

“English is just three languages in a trench coat”: Avari’s explanation for why English spelling is chaos, and Isabelle immediately clocks it as the best saying ever!

Night Witches: The nickname given by German soldiers during World War II to the Soviet Union’s all-female 588th Night Bomber Regiment, known for flying dangerous nighttime bombing missions against Nazi forces. Isabelle brings them up as an example of the kind of fully formed special-interest tangent that can come pouring out once someone takes the bait in a neurodivergent conversation. 

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💬 Have you ever found a space where you realized you didn’t have to mask so hard? Drop your story in the comments on Spotify.

🎧  Follow Something Shiny: ADHD for more conversations that help you understand your ADHD and remind you—you were never too much.

This week, David and Isabelle sit down with Avari Brocker — Neurodiversity Alliance student advocate and founder of Learning Curb — for a conversation about something so many neurodivergent people carry quietly for years: knowing you’re different, only seeing your deficits, and not having language for why life feels so much harder than it seems to for everyone else.

Avari shares what it was like to be diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia at 16 after struggling for most of her life, and why the worst thing she thought she might hear was that something wasn't actually wrong. David and Isabelle unpack why that fear lands so deeply, especially for high-achieving, high-masking kids who get told they’re just too anxious or “you'll be fine” while they’re privately drowning.

Avari also shares how that late diagnosis lit a fire under LearningCurb.org, the resource hub she built so other neurodivergent kids and families don’t have to spend a year desperately searching for answers while they’re still in the middle of struggling.

If you’ve ever thought, “I know something’s different, but I don’t know what”… if you’ve ever worried that a label would make things worse… or if you’ve ever needed someone to say there’s a reason this has felt this hard, this one’s for you.

Here's what's coming your way:

• Why the label you fear can sometimes be the thing that finally brings relief
• A powerful breakdown of what it means to grow up seeing only your deficits and not your strengths
• Why high-masking, high-achieving kids can get missed for years
• How research, self-understanding, and advocacy can change the trajectory of someone’s life
• What Avari built after diagnosis — and why it matters for neurodivergent kids and families now

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Wait, What's That? Here are some of the terms and people mentioned in this episode explained:

Neurodiversity Alliance: An organization that supports neurodivergent young people through leadership, mentorship, and advocacy. In this conversation, it’s also the community space where David and Isabelle first connected with Avari. Learn more at TheNDAlliance.org.

Dyslexia: A learning disability that affects reading, spelling, and language processing. In this episode, Avari talks about finally having language for why reading and spelling had felt so hard for so long.

Dysgraphia: A learning disability that affects writing. It can show up in handwriting, spelling, and getting thoughts onto the page. Avari references how physically hard writing tasks could be for her.

LearningCurb.org: Avari’s resource hub for neurodivergent kids and families. She created it to give people one place to find tools, support, and information for different neurodiverse needs.

Interconnected Thinking: Avari’s phrase for the way her brain naturally links ideas, experiences, and patterns together. She talks about this as one of her neurodivergent strengths.

Hyperfocus: A common ADHD experience where attention gets locked onto something intensely. Avari mentions that she used to assume everyone experienced hyperfocus the way she did.

Eye Diagnosis for Slow Tracking: A diagnosis related to how the eyes track across a page or visual field. In Avari’s case, that diagnosis helped her access extra time on tests before she later received her ADHD and dyslexia diagnoses.

Trauma Mastery: A phrase Isabelle uses to describe the way people sometimes make meaning out of painful experiences by using what they learned to protect or help others.

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💬 Have you ever gotten an answer or label that finally made your life make more sense? Drop your story in the comments on Spotify.

🎧  Follow Something Shiny: ADHD for more conversations that help you understand your ADHD and remind you—you were never too much.

This week, David and Isabelle unpack why moving can hit neurodivergent brains so much harder than people realize. Yes, there’s the obvious stress of boxes, clutter, visual chaos, and trying to remember where literally anything is. But underneath that, they get into the deeper part too: what happens when your routines disappear, your environment stops making sense, and even the tiniest automatic actions suddenly don’t exist anymore.

Because this episode is really about more than moving. It’s about that awful, disorienting in-between where something is objectively good… and your nervous system is still like, “Absolutely not.” David breaks down why change itself can land as painful, why losing patterns can feel like losing your footing, and why so many neurospicy folks get slammed by overwhelm before the new environment has had a chance to make sense yet.

And instead of just naming the problem, they get to what actually can help. The conversation gets into why your brain may need to physically build new patterns before anything feels manageable again, why body doubling can interrupt the buffering, why visual overwhelm matters more than people think, and how different neurospicy brains need totally different systems in order to function.

If you’ve ever been excited about a change and still felt totally wrecked by it. Or, if you’ve ever looked around and thought, “Why does this feel so hard when this is supposed to be good?” this one will probably hit home.

Here's what's coming your way:

•  Why “good change” can still feel painful, disorienting, and weirdly grief-y for ADHD and AuDHD brains
• A really helpful breakdown of how routines, environment, and repeated actions quietly hold daily life together
• Language for the specific kind of overwhelm that happens when nothing feels automatic anymoreWhy unpacking can create instant buffering, shutdown, and decision fatigue
• How body doubling, music, and visual clarity can help interrupt overwhelm and make starting easier
• Why different brains need wildly different organization systems--and why that doesn’t mean anyone is doing it wrong

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Wait, What’s That? Here are some of the terms and people mentioned in this episode explained:

Bobby: Isabelle’s husband.

Sarah: A partner in David’s practice. David brings up a conversation with Sarah while wondering out loud whether change can actually register as pain in the brain. 

Robin: David’s partner, who comes up while he’s describing the home setup that helps his own brain keep track of where things are. 

Clutterbug YouTube: The decluttering channel Isabelle shouts out because those videos have basically become her fake body-doubling companions while unpacking. https://www.youtube.com/@Clutterbug

Body Doubling: A support strategy where doing a task gets easier because someone else is there with you — even virtually. Isabelle talks about using decluttering videos that way during the move. 

Object Permanence: The very real neurospicy experience of something effectively disappearing once it’s boxed up, put away, or moved out of its usual place.

Externalized Memory: David’s phrase for needing to physically put something somewhere yourself in order to actually remember where it is later. 

Procedural Memory: Isabelle’s way of describing how much she relies on repeated physical action — reach here, plug this in there, turn this direction — instead of remembering things abstractly.

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💬 Has a “good change” ever completely overwhelmed your brain at first? Drop your story in the comments on Spotify.

🎧 Follow Something Shiny: ADHD for more conversations that help you understand your ADHD and remind you — you were never too much.

Ever needed extra time, extra support, or a different way of doing something and immediately thought, “Wait… is this cheating?”

Yeah. That feeling is way more common than you think.

This week, David and Isabelle are back on stage at the Neurodiversity Alliance Leadership Summit in Denver for the second part of their live conversation with Jesse Sanchez, President of the Neurodiversity Alliance. Jesse has been part of this community for years as a mentor, leader, and now the person helping guide the organization forward. The Leadership Summit is where Neurodiversity Alliance mentors and student leaders from across the country gather for training, storytelling, and connection. It’s a room full of neurodivergent students learning how to talk about their brains with confidence—and how to help younger kids do the same.

In this part of the live conversation, Safia Mohammed, a Brooklyn-based nursing student and Neurodiversity Alliance Student Ambassador who’s been part of the community for several years, joins the conversation. She shares her story about something a lot of neurodivergent people wrestle with: the uncomfortable feeling that needing support somehow means you're doing something wrong.

Safia talks about her experience first received an IEP (Individualized Education Program) in elementary school. At the time, it felt confusing. She was being pulled out of class for extra help and didn’t really understand why. And like a lot of neurodivergent kids, she started wondering something was wrong with her. David and Isabelle unpack why moments like that are so common in the neurodivergent experience, from the stigma around accommodations to the deeply ingrained belief that success only counts if it’s hard.

If you’ve ever hesitated to ask for help because you didn’t want to feel like you were getting an advantage, this conversation might shift how you think about support and what it’s actually there to do.

Here's what's coming your way:

• Safia’s story of receiving an IEP and why it felt confusing when she was younger
• The moment that changed how she understood accommodations
• Why so many neurodivergent people feel shame around getting support
• How stigma around accommodations keeps people from advocating for what they need

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Wait, What's That? Here are some of the terms and people mentioned in this episode explained:

IEP (Individualized Education Program): A formal education plan used in U.S. schools to provide accommodations and support for students with learning differences or disabilities. These supports can include extra time on tests, alternative learning environments, or additional instructional support designed to help students demonstrate what they actually know.

Accommodations: Adjustments made in school or work environments that allow people with learning differences or disabilities to access the same opportunities as others. Examples include extended time on exams, quieter testing environments, or different ways of presenting information.

Neurodiversity Alliance (formerly Eye to Eye): An organization where neurodivergent young adults and teens mentor younger neurodivergent kids through art projects and advocacy work. The rebrand reflects what they actually do: build an alliance of humans across the neurodivergent spectrum who know how to tell their full stories, vulnerabilities and superpowers included.

OI: A term used by members of the Neurodiversity Alliance community to refer to the organization’s annual leadership summit where mentors and student leaders gather for training and connection.

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💬 Have you ever had a moment where getting support changed how you saw your abilities? Tell us your story in the comments on Spotify.

🎧 Follow Something Shiny: ADHD for more conversations that help you understand your ADHD and remind you—you were never too much.

Ever walked into a room full of neurodivergent people and thought, "Oh no, what if I'm NOT actually ADHD? What if I don't belong here either?" Yeah. That's a thing. And it's weirdly universal.

This week, David and Isabelle are taking you inside the Neurodiversity Alliance Leadership Summit in Denver for a special live recording with Jesse Sanchez, President of the Neurodiversity Alliance (formerly Eye to Eye). If Jesse's name sounds familiar, that's because he joined us recently to talk about mentorship and the intersectionality of neurodivergence with race, class, and systemic barriers. This time, we're bringing you the live conversation that started it all!

The Neurodiversity Alliance brings together neurodivergent young adults and teens who mentor younger neurodivergent kids through art projects, advocacy, and identity work. The ND Alliance Leadership Summit is where their mentors and leaders gather for training, and David and Isabelle got to do a live podcast on stage in front of the whole group.

What "finding your people" actually means when you have ADHD is more than just support. It's about finally stopping the cycle of feeling like a broken, defective version of a person and starting to feel like you belong. Jesse talks about showing up to his first summit 15 years ago "ADHD curious," terrified he wouldn't get the diagnosis and therefore wouldn't get to be part of this incredible community. Isabelle tears up remembering the moment David brought her to her first ND Alliance event and she realized, "Oh. OH. This is me." And David reflects on two decades of watching this organization do something he's never seen anywhere else: teach neurodivergent kids that being different doesn't mean being deficient.

This isn't a "yay, you found support!" episode. This is about finding your SHAPE (your superpowers, your heart, your abilities, your personality, your experiences) and realizing your worth has absolutely nothing to do with how much money you make or how well you perform. It's about walking into a room where you don't have to mask, where everyone's fidgeting, and where "wait, you do that too?" is the most healing sentence in the English language.

If you've ever felt inadequate, like you're failing at being a person, or like you don't quite fit anywhere, grab tissues. This one's for you.

Here's what's coming your way:

• Jesse's journey from "ADHD curious" to diagnosed adult to president of the organization that changed his life
• Why the fear of NOT being neurodivergent enough to belong is just as real as the fear of having ADHD
• The moment Isabelle realized she had ADHD and David said "welcome to the community" (she's still not over it)
• What "finding your SHAPE" actually means and why it's the key to career alignment and calling
• Why neurodiversity creates connection across race, class, and identity in ways other affinity spaces sometimes struggle with
• What Jesse would tell his 10-year-old self (spoiler: "You are worthy and loved beyond measure, and no one can take that from you")
• How the Neurodiversity Alliance is literally changing education by teaching kids to talk about their brains with mastery instead of shame

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Wait, What's That? Here are some of the terms and people mentioned in this episode explained:

Neurodiversity Alliance (formerly Eye to Eye): An organization where neurodivergent young adults and teens mentor younger neurodivergent kids through art projects and advocacy work. The rebrand reflects what they actually do: build an alliance of humans across the neurodivergent spectrum who know how to tell their full stories, vulnerabilities and superpowers included.

"ADHD Curious": Jesse's term for showing up to his first summit without a formal diagnosis but knowing something was going on. He was literally exploring his own brain to figure out if neurodivergence explained his life.

Masking: Hiding or suppressing your natural neurodivergent behaviors to fit neurotypical expectations. Isabelle talks about being hyper-aware she's masking on stage but also being able to fidget and move in ways that feel freeing instead of shameful.

The "SHAPE" Framework: An acrostic Jesse uses for career alignment

• S = Superpowers (what you're naturally great at)
• H = Heart (what motivates you)
• A = Abilities (what you can actually do)
• P = Personality (how you show up in the world)
• E = Experiences (what you bring from your journey)

Job vs. Career vs. Calling: Jesse breaks it down: a job pays the bills, a career is something you're invested in growing long-term, and a calling is something bigger than you (something you feel pulled toward whether you like it or not).

Metacognitive Skills: The ability to think about your own thinking (understanding how your brain works, what you need, and how you learn best). The ND Alliance teaches kids to get really good at talking about their learning styles instead of hiding them.

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💬 Have you had a "finding your people" moment? Drop your story in the comments on Spotify.

🎧 Follow Something Shiny: ADHD for more conversations that help you understand your ADHD and remind you—you were never too much.

Ever wonder why seeing another neurodivergent person succeed can literally change your life? This week, David and Isabelle bring you the second half of their conversation with Jesse Sanchez, Executive Director of the Neurodiversity Alliance, and it goes deep. They're talking about the kind of mentorship that doesn't happen in an office—it happens in moments of "wait, you do that too?" They also get brutally honest about why neurodivergence isn't just a rich kid's diagnosis, it's an intergenerational survival story that intersects with race, class, incarceration, and educational access in ways we desperately need to talk about.

Missed Part 1 of this conversation? Catch up here.

Jesse shares his own story: growing up with a single mom who left home at nine, a father in federal prison, navigating the world as a first-gen, low-income, multiracial kid—and how none of the incredible educational access programs he benefited from ever addressed the neurodivergent piece. David drops the "glasses metaphor" that'll make you rethink everything. And Isabelle connects the dots between pulling all-nighters, calling it a moral failing, and why our school system was literally designed to create worker bees during the Industrial Revolution (spoiler: neurodivergent brains were never meant to fit that mold).

If you've ever felt like an imposter for doing things differently, this episode is your permission slip to stop hiding!

Here's what's coming your way:

• Why real mentorship is exposure to a reality you didn't know existed—not instructions on how to succeed
• How seeing a successful neurodivergent person changes the way you view yourself (and why that matters more than any advice)
• The intersectionality we're not talking about: neurodivergence, unemployment, incarceration, economic insecurity, and social justice
• Jesse's powerful story of intergenerational neurodivergence and why he's bringing neuro-inclusive practices to NYC public schools
• Why your all-nighters aren't a character flaw—they're an accommodation (and how that reframe changes everything)
• The glasses metaphor: imagine never getting glasses until your 30s. That's undiagnosed ADHD.
• What Jesse would tell his 5-year-old self entering the school system (grab tissues for this one)

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Wait—What's That? Here are some of the terms and people mentioned in this episode explained:

Mentorship (the real kind): Not lectures about success—it's living life together and taking the behaviors you like while leaving the rest. It's "try my biscuits and gravy" energy. Exposing someone to a reality they didn't have before.

Normalization: Making something feel normal by seeing it modeled by others. When you see another neurodivergent person succeed while doing things differently, it normalizes your own approach and reduces shame.

Moral Failing: The story undiagnosed neurodivergent people tell themselves: "I pull all-nighters because I'm lazy/broken/bad"—instead of recognizing it as an accommodation for how your brain works.

Accommodation: A strategy that helps you work with your brain instead of against it. Pulling an all-nighter isn't cheating—it's an accommodation. Just like glasses.

Intergenerational Neurodivergence: ADHD and other neurodivergent traits often run in families. Jesse talks about his mom's undiagnosed ADHD and how neurodivergence intersects with intergenerational trauma and survival.

Intersectionality: How different identities (race, class, neurodivergence) overlap and create unique experiences. Jesse emphasizes how neurodivergence intersects with being low-income, first-gen, Latino—and how that's overlooked in social justice work.

Social Capital: The networks and resources you access through community. The neurodivergent community shares social capital—connecting first-gen students with Ivy League students, leveling the playing field.

The School System's Origins: Our current education system was designed during the Industrial Revolution to create efficient worker bees for factories. Everything from the bells to the desks to the subjects was built for output and performance—not for neurodivergent brains. Learn more about the factory model of education: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factory_model_school

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💬 What would you say to your younger self entering the school system? Jesse's answer brought Isabelle and David to tears. Drop yours in the comments on Spotify.

🎧 Follow Something Shiny: ADHD for more conversations that help you understand your ADHD and remind you—you were never too much.