_{Originally published on JodiCarlton.com. You can read the original article here:}

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I couldn’t fall asleep last night.

It was after 1:30 a.m., and my mind kept returning to my daughter’s upcoming housing situation when she returns to college this fall. The landlords had communicated poorly, important details remained unresolved, and several things didn’t feel quite right.

As I tossed and turned, my brain kept sorting through what had happened so far—and what hadn’t. I crawled through a web of possibilities about what it all meant and what the potential implications might be.

Every thought branched into another one. Every potential problem sent me searching for a potential solution.

My body was exhausted after several nights of poor sleep, but now, at 2:05 a.m., my brain was conducting a full-scale risk assessment.

This is the point at which people with anxious or neurodivergent minds often think, I’m overthinking this.

Because that is exactly what many of us have been told by well-meaning people.

“Stop thinking about it.”
”Distract yourself.”

Sometimes the middle-of-the-night advice is, “You can’t solve anything tonight, so let it go and focus on it tomorrow.”

That advice is rarely helpful.

For many neurodivergent people, trying to stop the thoughts is exactly what keeps us stuck. Many neurodivergent minds, including mine, don’t like open loops. We don’t like unchecked boxes or pieces of information that don’t fit together.

Sometimes we can’t let go of something because our brains haven’t finished sorting through it.

Rumination Isn’t the Same as Mapping Possibilities

We often use the terms rumination and overthinking as though they mean the same thing. I don’t think they do.

Rumination is getting stuck on the same thought, group of thoughts, or fears. The loop repeats without producing new information, greater understanding, or a decision.

That was concerning. Something is wrong.

That was strange. Am I missing a red flag?

That doesn’t make sense. This feels dangerous.

The thoughts remain essentially the same, but the emotions attached to them grow. Worry becomes fear. Fear can even become panic. Our nervous systems may begin responding as if the feared event is already happening, even though we have uncovered no new evidence that it is.

Overthinking, though, can be a different cognitive process—one I call mapping possibilities.

Rather than circling the same thought, the mind begins crawling an entire web of possibilities:

What could explain what I’m seeing? It could be this, this, this, or this…

Which explanation best fits the pattern so far?

What might happen next? It could be this, or that, or this…

What other risks or possibilities have I not considered?

Do I need more information? Where can I get it?

What are the possible solutions or back-up plans?

Is there something I can ask, research, arrange, or prepare that would improve the outcome?

One possibility branches into several more. Before long, the mind isn’t considering a single concern—it is constructing an entire decision tree, complete with contingencies for problems that haven’t happened and may never happen.

Possibility mapping is familiar to many neurodivergent people. We may examine a situation from every conceivable angle, searching for patterns, inconsistencies, potential problems, and possible solutions.

ADHD thinkers often do this rapidly, crawling multiple threads at once—think high-speed fiber internet. Autistic thinkers may be more likely to crawl one thread at a time—think dial-up internet. AuDHD thinkers may rapidly crawl one web of threads while taking another slowly.

These are broad patterns rather than rules, of course, and many people experience both. Neither way of thinking is the “right” way. Both come with strengths and challenges.

But the difference may help explain why an ADHD thinker can sometimes appear spontaneous when they have actually mapped numerous possibilities at remarkable speed. An autistic thinker may need more time to consider each possibility thoroughly before feeling prepared to respond.

Both can be incredibly comprehensive.

That thoroughness is an enormous strength. It helps us notice details other people miss, anticipate complications, and develop creative solutions that others haven’t considered.

The problem is not that possibility mapping exists. The problem is that when uncertainty is high, and the stakes feel personal, the map may keep expanding.

Sometimes we generate possibilities faster than we can evaluate them. Remote possibilities begin to feel as important as probable ones. Every branch seems to require further investigation, and every potential problem starts to feel overwhelming—sometimes even equally urgent.

That is when possibility mapping can slide into catastrophic thinking: imagining the worst possible outcome and beginning to respond emotionally or physically as if it is likely—or already unfolding.

Processing Gives Possibility Mapping a Direction

While ruminating keeps us stuck on a thought loop and possibility mapping generates options, explanations, and potential outcomes, processing helps us evaluate our thoughts.

Processing creates movement. It helps us sort what we know from what we fear and narrows the problem instead of allowing it to multiply indefinitely.

Through processing, we can begin distinguishing among:

• Possibilities supported by evidence

• Reasonable predictions based on observable patterns

• Outcomes that are technically possible but unlikely

• Predictions being amplified by fear or confirmation bias

• Reactions connected to past experiences

• Feelings rooted in another layer of the situation entirely

When our brains feel overwhelmed by thoughts, some important questions to ask ourselves are:

Are my thoughts helping me see the situation more accurately?

Am I generating possibilities faster than I can realistically evaluate them?

If the answer to either of these questions is ‘no,’ then you are likely stuck ruminating or process mapping and need to move into processing.

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Processing = Giving Your Thoughts Somewhere to Go

Last night, once I recognized that ordering myself to stop thinking wasn’t going to work, I sat up in bed and began talking through the situation out loud.

Talking aloud can be a useful processing tool. Inside our heads, thoughts can move at rapid-fire speed, interrupting and looping back on one another before we have time to examine them.

Speaking requires us to slow the thoughts down enough to form sentences. We have to follow one idea at a time. And when we hear our own words, we can sometimes notice gaps, assumptions, contradictions, and emotional undercurrents that are much harder to detect while everything is ricocheting around internally.

As I talked, I began with what I knew to be true.

There had been repeated communication problems. Important matters remained unresolved. My questions had not always been answered clearly or completely. Some of my concerns were based on observable patterns, not imagination.

My discomfort wasn’t coming from nowhere.

Then I separated those facts from the predictions my brain had built around them.

Some predictions were reasonable. When someone has communicated inconsistently several times, it makes sense to anticipate that their communication may continue to be inconsistent.

Other predictions were possible but unsupported.

And a few—thanks to the true-crime department of my brain, which apparently works the overnight shift—had sprinted past the available evidence and begun pitching a limited series based on worst-case scenarios.

I started asking myself where the evidence ended, and the story began.

How likely was the catastrophic storyline based on the actual evidence?

Had my brain identified something that was merely possible and begun responding as though it were already happening?

That was how I recognized the catastrophic thinking.

Naming it did not require me to dismiss my instincts or pretend the legitimate concerns didn’t exist. Instead, it allowed my nervous system to take those concerns seriously without treating every possibility my mind could generate as a present reality.

When the Present Activates the Past

Sorting facts from predictions helped me organize my thoughts and identify possible next steps related to my daughter’s housing.

But it also surfaced something else: the intensity of my nervous system’s response didn’t quite match the present situation.

So I asked myself a question I teach people to ask in my communication course:

What else am I bringing to this situation?

None of us responds only to what is happening in the present moment. We also bring our history, previous relationships, accumulated stress, expectations, fears, sensory load, and past experiences of being safe—or unsafe.

In this case, other people’s failure to handle multiple things appropriately had placed me in the position of having to raise multiple concerns.

That alone was frustrating.

But why was I feeling fear and danger?

I was receiving incomplete answers, delayed responses, and dismissive communication. The more clarification I needed, the more I felt that I was being perceived as difficult.

I honestly don’t know whether that was true. For all I know, the other parties involved were mortified by their own disorganization and incompetence.

But my nervous system was writing the storyline in response to something much older and far more deeply entrenched in my life history.

In a past relationship involving narcissistic abuse, I was repeatedly placed in double binds. I was expected to navigate situations that were confusing, unreasonable, and even unsafe. If I asked questions, requested changes, or sought simple clarification, I was accused of being difficult or constantly complaining.

If I pointed out a legitimate problem, the focus often shifted from the problem itself to my presentation of the problem—or to my criticism of the situation. If I became emotional, which was difficult to avoid, I was described as too sensitive, hysterical, and emotionally unstable.

There was no safe response because the rules changed according to what was needed to make me the problem—a classic tactic of abusers.

That history taught my nervous system that being placed in an unreasonable situation—and then having to advocate for clarity—could be dangerous.

The present situation was not the same as the abusive one. But parts of the pattern felt familiar: another person failing to manage their responsibilities appropriately, multiple problems accumulating, partial and intermittent responses, little to no accountability, and the possibility of being cast as the problem for continuing to ask for answers.

My thoughts were responding to the present.

My nervous system was also remembering the past.

And because this situation affected my child, my protective instincts intensified the response. I wasn’t afraid only of being dismissed or labeled difficult. I was afraid that someone I love might be placed in a distressing or unsafe situation—and that my attempts to advocate for her would not be taken seriously.

That was the deeper layer.

I Didn’t Need to Stop Thinking. I Needed to Finish the Thought.

Of course, all of this demanded my attention at 1:30 in the morning.

During the busy week, I had not paused to notice my discomfort building around the situation. When everything else finally became quiet, the thoughts and feelings that needed my attention arrived with a megaphone.

When I finally took the time to process them, it did not magically resolve the situation. The unanswered questions were still unanswered. The communication problems were still real, and some concerns still required attention.

But one enormous, undefined sense of danger had separated into distinct pieces:

There were facts I could verify.

There were patterns I could reasonably consider.

There were problems that might require action.

There were questions that had not yet been answered.

There were remote possibilities that did not require immediate attention.

There were catastrophic scenarios my brain had generated to fill the gaps.

There was a trauma response connecting elements of the present to a genuinely dangerous past.

And there was the powerful protective instinct of a mother concerned about her child.

Once I could identify each piece, I no longer had to respond to all of them as though they carried the same meaning, probability, or urgency.

And guess what?

The entire process took about 15 minutes.

Then I laid my head on my pillow and quickly fell asleep.

When Your Mind Won’t Let Go, Ask Yourself:

Am I learning anything new, or repeating the same fear?

What do I know to be true?

What am I predicting based on an observed pattern?

Which possibilities are technically possible but not necessarily probable?

What possibilities are being driven primarily by fear?

What else am I bringing to this situation?

Does any part of the present feel familiar because of something that happened in the past?

Is my thinking leading toward greater clarity—or generating more possibilities before I can realistically evaluate each one?

Those questions don’t dismiss the concern or demand that the brain stop working. They help us understand what we may actually need to process.f

Most importantly, these questions help give your mind what it actually needs instead of trying to force yourself to interrupt important information processing.

Warmly,

Jodi

Don’t forget to pre-order my new book! Pre-orders currently available on Kindle. Paperback and hardback pre-orders are coming soon!

Place your Kindle Pre-order Here

For more help with investigating what you bring to a difficult situation or interaction, access the course I referenced in this article below:

_{All courses are “Pay What You Can Afford.”}

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Originally published on JodiCarlton.com. Read the original article here:

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If you're in a neurodiverse relationship — whether you're ADHD, autistic, or both — intimacy can be one of the most complicated things to navigate. In this episode, Mona Kay & I get real about routines, spontaneity, physical intimacy, and the hidden pattern that quietly undermines intimacy for neurodiverse couples: fawning.

From date night strategies that actually work, to what happens when one partner has learned to tolerate instead of communicate — this conversation goes places most podcasts won't.

🔔 Subscribe so you don't miss our next episode where we continue the conversation.

📩 Send us your questions: podcast@jodicarlton.com

Listen on Apple, Spotify, & More

Chapters:
0:00 Teaser
0:42 Intro
1:28 Routines, Structure & the ADHD/Autistic Couples
3:27 Date Night Strategies That Work for Both Partners
7:17 Communicating About Sex — When, How & Why Not During
8:42 Physical Intimacy & Predictable Patterns
10:43 Codependency, Fawning & People-Pleasing in the Bedroom
11:28 Sex & Vulnerability
18:19 The Resentment Cycle & When Sex Comes to a Halt
18:26 Outrowww

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Navigating Neurodiverse Life and Love is a casual show about neurodiverse romantic relationships, families, and life as a neurodivergent person or parent, hosted by Mona Kay and Jodi Carlton, two leading voices in the area of neurodiverse life and love. Send your questions, comments, and stories about neurodiversity to podcast@jodicarlton.com or click below to be featured on an upcoming episode.

Visit us:
neurodiverselove.com
jodicarlton.com

For the past year, you’ve watched this book slowly come to life. You’ve read snippets, celebrated milestones with me, cheered me on through countless revisions, and even volunteered to become early readers before the manuscript was finalized.

Today…

The Misunderstood Mind is officially available for pre-order on Amazon Kindle.

_{Paperback pre-orders are coming soon. Both editions release on October 6, 2026.}

Pre-Order on Amazon (Kindle)

While researching this book, I kept returning to one unsettling question:

What if some of our ideas about what is normal, what is flawed, and what is disordered are rooted in an incomplete understanding of ourselves as human beings?

Every generation inherits assumptions about what it means to think, feel, communicate, learn, and relate to one another. Over time, those assumptions become so deeply embedded in our families, schools, workplaces, healthcare systems, and culture that they stop feeling like beliefs.

They feel like facts.

But history has shown us, time and again, that what feels like common sense isn’t always correct.

I believe we’re living through another one of those moments.

The problem isn’t the human mind. It’s how we’ve been taught to understand it.

That idea became the foundation for The Misunderstood Mind.

Over the past few weeks, a small group of early readers has had the opportunity to read advance copies. Their responses have affirmed to me that this conversation is one people have been waiting to have.

“Jodi’s book illuminates... guiding readers away from blame and toward the framework of double empathy. A reflective and grounding read that celebrates neurodiversity with nuanced appreciation and insight.”

—Eva A. Mendes, LPC, Author of Marriage and Lasting Relationships with Asperger’s Syndrome,
Armchair Conversations on Love and Autism, and Gender, IdentitySexuality, and Autism: Voices from
Across the Spectrum

---

“The Misunderstood Mind will be especially useful for parents, teachers, and therapists to introduce them to the concept of neurodiversity. It has a really good, straightforward style, which explains that neurodiversity is a difference and not a disability.”

—Temple Grandin, PhD, Author of The Autistic Brain and Visual Thinking.

---

“Reading this book left me with two regrets: that I wasn’t properly diagnosed as being neurodivergent while in my teens... and that I didn’t have this book to help me understand myself when I first suspected I was neurodivergent.”

—Joe, Late-Diagnosed Autistic Reader

---

“Everybody in a neurodivergent person’s life should read this book... The stories helped me understand my husband in ways I never had before.”

—Mabel S., Neurotypical Spouse

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Reading these responses has reminded me why I wrote this book.

Whether you’re neurodivergent yourself, love someone who is, are raising a neurodivergent child, work as a clinician, educator, or healthcare professional, or simply want to better understand the incredible diversity of the human mind, I hope this book leaves you with a greater sense of understanding and renewed curiosity.

Because clarity changes everything.

When we change the way we understand neurodivergence, we change the way we parent, teach, provide healthcare, build relationships, lead workplaces, and perhaps most importantly, the way we understand ourselves.

If you’d like to continue on this journey with me, I’d be honored if you’d pre-order your copy today.

Pre-Order Your Amazon Kindle Copy Today

Thank you for trusting me with your stories and lived experiences. They have shaped this book in ways you may never fully realize. I truly couldn't have done it without you.

With gratitude,

Jodi

Are you neurodivergent and trying to navigate dating? Especially after a divorce? We can relate!

In this episode, my co-host, Mona Kay, and I get real about our personal dating experiences after divorce, the patterns we've learned to recognize in neurodiverse partners, and how to spot toxic, narcissistic behavior.

From info dumping on first dates to sensory quirks in the bedroom, we share candid, sometimes funny, always insightful stories that will help you navigate neurodiverse dating with more clarity, compassion — and better boundaries. Be sure to tune in for Episode 7 to catch the second half of our conversation.

Topics covered:

- Spotting neurodivergence (and narcissism) on dating apps
- Info dumping on dates — and what to do about it
- When autism and narcissism overlap
- Alcohol, self-medication & neurodivergence
- Sensory sensitivities in romantic and physical intimacy
- How to adapt without losing yourself

Listen on Apple, Spotify, & More

Timestamps:

0:00 – Teaser: When autism masks toxic behavior
1:24 – Welcome & intro: Meet Jodi & Mona
1:46 – Today's topic: dating, sex & neurodiverse relationships
2:16 – Dating in your 50s and 60s as a neurodivergent person
9:01 – Mona becomes a dating coach for her friends
9:18 – The guy with a strict 2-hour bandwidth for dates
10:35 – Real talk: there was one man who info dumped for 3 hours
11:42 – Tips for autistic daters: giving your partner space to talk
13:57 – Jodi's story: dating someone autistic AND narcissistic
17:24 – Love bombing, triangulation & the "harem"
19:13 – Don't assume it's just autism — key warning signs
20:16 – When you're constantly dysregulated in a relationship
20:49 – Mona's experience: dating an autistic man for almost a year
21:18 – Alcohol & neurodivergence: self-medicating to socialize
21:55 – Needing 6 beers just to go to a restaurant
24:10 – Sensory & intimacy differences: holding hands, kissing
28:10 – Eye contact during intimacy — an honest conversation
29:38 – The cold water toothbrush moment
30:52 – When sensory reactions feel like rejection
32:07 – Where to find Jodi & Mona

Share

Navigating Neurodiverse Life and Love is a casual show about neurodiverse romantic relationships, families, and life as a neurodivergent person or parent, hosted by Mona Kay and Jodi Carlton, two leading voices in the area of neurodiverse life and love. Send your questions, comments, and stories about neurodiversity to podcast@jodicarlton.com or click below to be featured on an upcoming episode.

Visit us:
neurodiverselove.com
jodicarlton.com

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I was that child. The one who drove adults crazy asking “Why?” One answer was never enough. My curiosity usually led to another “Why?” and then another.

Not much has changed. Today, I still spend my days asking why.

Over the years, I have worked with thousands of people carrying deep hurt. Couples trapped in painful cycles of rupture and reunion without true repair. Parents desperate to correct a child’s behavior. Adults trying to heal from the wounds of childhood.

In decades of helping people, I’ve noticed something fascinating. The people who seemed the most stuck were rarely the ones asking “Why?” More often than not, they came with an answer and a goal of getting help to change someone else’s behavior.

“My husband doesn’t care.”

“My wife is controlling.”

“My son is lazy.”

“My mother is so critical.”

Sometimes they were right, sometimes they weren’t. But almost always, they were certain - and with that certainty often came hopelessness and a feeling of powerlessness. Certainty has a way of closing doors. Once we’ve decided we know why someone behaves the way they do, we stop asking questions that might lead us somewhere new.

I usually start by asking a simple question.

“Why do you think that?”

Usually, people have an answer. Then I ask another question.

“And why is that?”

By the third or fourth “why,” something interesting begins to happen. The certainty starts to unravel. Not because their pain isn’t real - it absolutely is - but because they begin to realize they don’t actually know why the other person behaved the way they did. They’ve filled in the gaps with the explanation that makes the most sense to them.

Our brains are remarkably good at that.

Curiosity Changes the Story

I remember one husband who described his wife as controlling. The conversation went something like this.

“She wants me and the kids to do everything her way,” he told me.

“Why do you think that is?” I asked.

He paused.

“I don’t know. I guess it’s her personality. She’s just always been that way.”

“What happens if things aren’t done her way?”

“She says none of us care about her - but that’s just not true! She just takes everything personally.”

“Why do you think it feels personal to her? What has she said?”

“I guess because sometimes things don’t get done or we forget things. We’re all busy or distracted.”

“And what happens then? Particularly for your wife,” I explored.

“She says she’s the only one who gets things done.”

“Why might she believe this? Can you think of some examples that have been upsetting to her?”

“Last week our 16-year-old forgot to take the garbage to the curb, so the garage was overflowing and stunk something awful in the heat. It didn’t really bother me much, but my wife said it made her gag every time she went into the garage, so she put on a mask and loaded it up in the truck to take to the dump. She was so mad, and I think she’s being a little dramatic about all that.

Yesterday our daughter’s soccer jersey wasn’t clean for her game. I wasn’t home for that, but my wife said she managed to get most of the stains out somehow. She said our daughter was hysterical and crying, and my wife was furious with our daughter for forgetting to wash it. It was a big fight.

Oh, and here’s one about me. We were supposed to go to an open house at the school a couple of weeks ago, and we missed it. She asked me to put it on the calendar when we got the email, and I forgot. I got in big trouble for that one. She said I didn’t care enough to do just one simple thing. I just forgot - I’m human. She could’ve just put it on the calendar herself if it was that important to her. But, yeah, it’s always something.”

“So does your wife have time to take on all of these tasks herself? Or to pick up the slack when others forget?”

“She’s pretty busy. I wouldn’t say she has time to do it all, and I don’t think she should have to. It’s not that. We all definitely need to do our part. She just gets pretty stressed out and overwhelmed. She’s always saying she’s exhausted, and I’m walking on eggshells constantly because I never know when she’s going to get mad again.”

“It sounds like she’s stretched far beyond what she can reasonably manage,” I responded, offering an alternative explanation that did not require him to dismiss his own experience.

“Yeah. I guess you’re probably right about that.”

I let the silence sit for a moment before asking, “Let’s go back to where we started. You said your wife is controlling. Why is that?”

He thought for a moment before answering.

“Maybe controlling isn’t the right word. I think my wife is really overwhelmed and has way too much on her plate.”

There it was. Clarity.

His experience hadn’t changed. He still felt controlled. But his understanding of why his wife behaved that way had begun to shift. He was no longer viewing her behavior as a character flaw. He was beginning to see it as an attempt, however imperfect, to manage a household that often felt on the verge of falling apart.

Curiosity brought clarity, and once he understood the situation more accurately, we could begin exploring what actually needed to change.

We All Live by Invisible Rulebooks

Sometimes the stories we tell ourselves are rooted in beliefs and expectations we’ve carried for so long that we no longer recognize them as beliefs. They simply feel like the truth. We inherit them from our families, our culture, and our past experiences, and they quietly shape what we believe love, respect, responsibility, or caring are supposed to look like. Without realizing it, we begin measuring other people’s behavior against rules they may not even know exist.

I remember working with one couple whose biggest conflict centered around a question the wife asked almost every session. “Why don’t you ever ask about my day?” To her, asking questions was how you showed love. Interest. Emotional connection. She had grown up in a family where conversations were long, detailed, and deeply personal. If someone cared about you, they asked.

Her husband was equally confused. In his mind, asking questions felt intrusive, like an interrogation. He believed that if something important had happened, she would tell him. Giving someone space to share what they chose to share was how he showed respect and trust.

Neither of them was trying to hurt the other. Neither of them was uncaring. They were living inside two completely different stories about what love looked like.

When Behavior Doesn’t Mean What We Think It Means

I have seen the same thing with parents who believed their teenager was becoming disrespectful or pulling away from the family because they disappeared into their bedroom after school every day. They stopped joining family dinners. They forgot to do their chores. Their backpack, shoes, and half-finished projects seemed to collect in every room of the house. They needed constant reminders to pick up after themselves. Some parents worried their child was becoming depressed. Others feared they were falling in with the wrong crowd or experimenting with alcohol or drugs. Still others concluded they were simply becoming lazy, selfish, or disrespectful.

Sometimes those concerns were warranted, but often, they weren’t.

Time and again, when we’ve explored why teenagers retreat to their rooms, especially neurodivergent teens, we discover they have spent hours at school navigating social expectations, fluorescent lights, constant noise, executive functioning demands, sensory overload, and the exhausting work of masking or simply trying to keep up. Being alone in their rooms allowed their nervous systems to finally feel safe.

What looked like withdrawal was recovery.

What looked like laziness was cognitive exhaustion.

What looked like disrespect was a brain that had nothing left to give.

I’ve seen the same thing play out in the workplace.

An employee requests to keep their camera off during virtual meetings. Their manager begins to wonder if they’re really paying attention. Maybe they’re trying to get away with doing less work. Maybe they’re answering emails instead of participating. Maybe they’re not even sitting at their desk.

A coworker eats lunch alone in their car every day instead of joining everyone else in the breakroom. Before long, people begin to describe them as aloof, unfriendly, or simply uninterested in being part of the team.

Sometimes those interpretations are accurate, but sometimes curiosity tells a different story.

The employee isn’t avoiding work at all. They’ve discovered that monitoring facial expressions on camera while trying to listen makes it much harder to concentrate. Turning the camera off allows them to be more present, not less.

The coworker isn’t rejecting their colleagues. They’re trying to recover from the constant demands of the morning. The quiet of their car gives their nervous system a chance to reset before heading back into another afternoon of meetings, conversations, and sensory input.

The behavior hasn’t changed.

Our understanding of it has.

Curiosity Is One of the Most Important Tools We Have

Curiosity is not about denying reality. It is about making sure we are responding to reality rather than to our assumptions about it.

Some people truly are disrespectful, disinterested, uncaring, manipulative, controlling, or even dangerous. Asking “why” does not make them care more, become safer, or act more kindly. It simply reveals what is actually true.

I learned that lesson personally.

A couple of weeks ago, I shared the story of a former relationship where I repeatedly explained away the behavior of the man I was dating. I told myself stories that fit my understanding of autism, social communication differences, and emotional processing because I wanted those explanations to be true.

They weren’t.

The more I asked “Why?”, the clearer it became that his behavior was not rooted in misunderstanding at all. It was intentional, exploitative, and harmful.

For me, the purpose of asking “Why?” has never been about feeling better about someone else’s behavior. It is to see reality more clearly. We cannot repair a relationship, establish healthy boundaries, forgive, grieve, or make wise decisions until we understand what is actually true.

Curiosity did not save my relationship with the toxic man. It gave me the clarity I needed to end it.

Clarity Changes Everything

Both professionally and personally, I’ve come to realize that most of us stop asking “Why?” too soon. Or we never ask it at all. Instead, we fill in the gaps with a story that makes sense to us, then begin responding to that story as though it were reality.

To be clear, this is not a character flaw. It’s a very human trait. Our brains are prediction machines, designed to make rapid judgments because, throughout most of human history, doing so helped us survive. We cannot stop to investigate every situation we encounter, but in the relationships that matter most, where we have the time and opportunity to be curious, those same shortcuts can become obstacles that can lead to painful misunderstandings and errors in judgment.

Curiosity is not the goal. It is the path to the goal: clarity.

Sometimes clarity transforms a relationship because we discover we have misunderstood one another.

Sometimes it transforms our understanding of a relationship by confirming that our instincts were right all along.

Other times, it gives us permission to stop trying to force a healthier explanation onto an unhealthy reality.

The Question That Changed My Life

It turns out that asking “Why?” is more than a habit for me. It has become my framework for understanding myself, others, and relationships. It is the foundation of my communication course because every interaction and every conflict begins with a story we tell ourselves. Before we can solve the conflict, we have to understand the story.

Over the years, I realized that this same question was shaping everything else I was writing and teaching. Eventually, it became the starting point for an entire book. Preorders open soon for The Misunderstood Mind: What We Got Wrong About Autism, ADHD, and Neurodivergence. I can’t wait to tell you more about it.

In the meantime, if this essay left you thinking differently about a relationship in your own life, perhaps the next question to ask isn’t “How do I change this situation?” but “What might I not understand yet?” And if you’d like help exploring that question, I’d be honored to help you find clarity.

_{All courses are “Pay What You Can Afford.”}

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Originally published on JodiCarlton.com. Read the original article here:

GO TO FULL BLOG

Tell me about your own experiences.

Leave a comment

Is your relationship struggling because of neurodivergence — or because you're just not compatible? In this episode of Navigating Neurodiverse Love and Life, Jodi Carlton and Mona Kay get honest about one of the hardest questions neurodiverse couples face.

In episode 4 of Season 6:

• The two extremes of autistic commitment: the revolving door and staying forever in a toxic marriage

• Why blaming the diagnosis is unfair to your partner AND the neurodivergent community

• How compatibility changes when you move in together, get married, or have children

• Why traditional marriage therapy often makes things worse for neurodiverse couples

• Nesting — the alternative living arrangement helping neurodiverse families find peace

• Jodi's personal story of neurodivergent burnout after her kids left for college

• How ADHD and autism create opposite conflict styles in the same household

• How to ask genuinely curious questions — and why most questions are actually setups

Whether you're in a neurodiverse relationship, raising a neurodiverse family, or just trying to understand yourself better, this episode will help you stop blaming the diagnosis and start building real understanding.

Listen on Apple, Spotify, & More

⏱ Chapters
0:00 Intro — Meet Jodi & Mona
1:33 Episode Begins — Commitment Extremes in Autistic Relationships
2:23 Mona's Story: He Would Have Stayed Forever
2:51 Loyalty, Aversion to Change & Letting Go
4:46 Mona's Coaching Philosophy: Compatibility Over Neurotype
5:49 You Can't Blame It on the Diagnosis
7:05 Compatibility Changes — Moving In, Marriage & Kids
7:53 Nesting: A New Container for the Relationship
9:10 Jodi's Story: Dating After Divorce
9:35 Neurodivergent Family Burnout
14:04 Key Lesson: Understand Yourself & Your Partner
15:00 Jodi's Tip: How to Ask Curious Questions
16:13 Mona's Experience: Check Yourself
17:52 Wrap-Up & Closing

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Navigating Neurodiverse Life and Love is a casual show about neurodiverse romantic relationships, families, and life as a neurodivergent person or parent, hosted by Mona Kay and Jodi Carlton, two leading voices in the area of neurodiverse life and love. Send your questions, comments, and stories about neurodiversity to podcast@jodicarlton.com or click below to be featured on an upcoming episode.

Visit us:
neurodiverselove.com
jodicarlton.com

So, you get something special. Aside from my editors and endorsers, including Temple Grandin, today you are among the very first people to read an excerpt from my upcoming book, The Misunderstood Mind: What We Got Wrong About Autism, ADHD, and Neurodivergence.

And…

If you’d like to read the entire book before it is released, I’m looking for a small group of advance readers. All I ask is that you be willing to leave an honest Amazon review when the book launches.

So, if you’d like to join the launch team, sign up below, and I’ll send you the complete PDF. Spots are limited!

Request Your Copy Here

Many of you have been following my work for years. You have read my articles, listened to my podcast, attended my trainings, trusted me with your stories, and helped build this community. It felt right that you would be the first to see what I have been working on.

Whether you’re neurodivergent yourself, love someone who is, or work with neurodivergent individuals, this book was written for you.

So, before pre-orders open in late July, and before the book arrives on Amazon on October 7, here is the first-ever peek inside The Misunderstood Mind:

Excerpt:

INTRODUCTION

While researching this book, I was shocked to learn that, in some medical settings, infants once underwent surgery without anesthesia. This practice persisted into the 1980s, when I was a teenager, alongside the appearance of MRIs and robotic surgery in our modern hospitals. As a mother, I wondered how something that felt barbaric could have been accepted by educated, respected physicians.

The explanation was not that doctors lacked compassion. It was that they were working from the scientific understanding available to them. At the time, physicians thought infants’ nervous systems were too underdeveloped to feel pain. Performing surgery without anesthesia made sense within the framework they had been taught.

As a clinician trained in research methods, I understand that we build frameworks from the best evidence we have and revise them when new information emerges. That is how progress happens. Science moves forward because we are willing to discover where we were wrong.

Yet, what feels unthinkable now, we once considered responsible, informed care.

Thankfully, the belief that infants cannot experience pain was challenged by research and has been disproven. Still, it is not beneficial to criticize the physicians who performed procedures without anesthesia (Anand & Hickey, 1987). They were not being cruel. They were performing life-saving surgeries and procedures on infants who might otherwise have never made it to their first day of school. Many parents are grateful to these physicians who gifted their children with life.

Even understanding all of that, one question stayed with me:

How could we have ever believed that?

Reflecting on that singular question, the connection to neurodivergence was suddenly clear to me. Other questions that had been swirling around in my mind for quite some time rose, again, to the surface of my thoughts.

What if our ideas about what is normal, what is flawed, and what is disordered are rooted in an incomplete understanding of ourselves as human beings?

What if future generations look back at us and ask:

How did they ever think that?

We like to think we are immune to those kinds of mistakes now, but every generation has its own set of assumptions. Many people rarely stop to question their beliefs about how they think, feel, perceive, and relate. These beliefs become so embedded in families, schools, communities, and culture that they feel like common sense. They feel like facts.

In my work with couples, one partner often says, “Everybody knows [that],” or insists, “[That] is just what you do when you love someone.”

For example, many people assume that loving someone means naturally anticipating their needs, remembering what matters to them, or expressing care in familiar ways. As a relationship specialist, I can tell you that many people love deeply and wholeheartedly while struggling with these exact skills.

There is a widespread belief that healthy emotional awareness, communication, and responsiveness should look roughly the same from person to person.

Most of us carry around a long, invisible list of things we think we should do.

People should recognize how others feel without needing it explained.
People should know how to behave in social situations.
People should make eye contact, notice tone, and read body language naturally.
People should stay organized, focused, and productive.
People should remember important details and responsibilities.

When someone consistently struggles with these expectations, we tend to think something is wrong with their attitude, effort, maturity, or character, instead of considering that their mind might simply process the world differently.

When we cannot meet these expectations, our doubts often turn inward: What is wrong with me?

The psychologist Albert Ellis, who founded Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, famously warned that we spend our lives “shoulding all over ourselves” (Ellis & Harper, 1975). As a young therapist, this made an impression on me, and I have been sharing it with clients for more than twenty-five years.

These rules affect nearly everything. They influence how we raise children, teach students, hire employees, judge partners, and judge ourselves. They create misunderstanding, shame, conflict, and unrealistic expectations about what being human is supposed to look like.

So, let us pause to ask some critical questions.

What if the real issue is the invisible rulebook you were handed about what is “normal?”

What if everything you have been taught about how to live, love, learn, and connect only works for certain people?

Who gets to decide the correct way to be human?

Some of our most deeply held beliefs about what it means to be different from most people are due for reconsideration. Cognitive, emotional, and sensory differences are often treated as personal or relational failures to be corrected rather than as natural differences between people.

This raises other essential questions:

What makes a person defective rather than different?

What if differences are also strengths?

History offers a clear example of why we need to ask these questions and examine our assumptions because we have gotten this wrong before.

Imagine if we labeled left-handed people as having a “handwriting disorder.” While that sounds absurd now, there was a time when this belief impacted education, medicine, and parenting practices (de Kovel et al., 2019). Left-handedness was once associated with moral failure, developmental deficits, and even criminal tendencies (Coren, 1992). Children were forced to switch hands, often through methods we would now recognize as abusive. A neutral human trait was once pathologized because it fell outside the norm.

The history of left-handedness reminds us that what we consider “normal” is determined by culture and context, not objective truth. Yet, these same forces continue to mold our understanding of neurological differences today.

What if that entire foundation is wrong?

Request Your Copy Here

Get more from Jodi Carlton, MEd in the Substack app

Available for iOS and Android

Get the app

Can you really build a loving relationship with someone whose brain works differently from yours? We say yes — but it takes radical honesty, self-awareness, and letting go of the idea that your partner needs to change.

In Season 6, Episode 3 of YOUR Neurodiverse Relationship podcast: Navigating Neurodiverse Life and Love, Mon Kay and I dive into one of the most common fears around neurodiverse relationships: Is it even possible? We answer comments from viewers, including some who are skeptical, confused, or even fearful, and share candid stories from our own marriages and divorces, as well as from the clients we've worked with.

Topics covered:

• Why sensory differences (sound, touch, smell, light) create unexpected friction in relationships

• What the Gottman Institute’s research on contempt reveals about neurodiverse couples

• Porn, intimacy, and why online sexual behavior may be connected to sensory overwhelm

• How to be a “relationship detective” before jumping to conclusions
  

Listen on Apple, Spotify, & More

⏱ Chapters

0:18 – Introductions
1:49 – Sensory differences in neurodiverse relationships
3:19 – "The sound of your voice is painful to me" — Mona's personal story
5:17 – Viewer comment: "I don't think it's possible to date an autistic person"
5:57 – Why Mona totally disagrees — and what actually makes relationships work
10:01 – The Gottman research on contempt and the "Four Horsemen"
13:33 – Breaking down a viral comment blaming autism for bad dating behavior
17:50 – Dating apps, loyalty, and why autistic partners often go to extremes
19:10 – Hookup culture and neurodivergent dating patterns
21:27 – Wrap-up and where to find Jodi & Mona

Share

Navigating Neurodiverse Life and Love is a casual show about neurodiverse romantic relationships, families, and life as a neurodivergent person or parent, hosted by Mona Kay and Jodi Carlton, two leading voices in the area of neurodiverse life and love. Send your questions, comments, and stories about neurodiversity to podcast@jodicarlton.com or click below to be featured on an upcoming episode.

Visit us:
neurodiverselove.com
jodicarlton.com

I Thought It Was Autism

Lovebombed

Today, I came across a photo of a long-forgotten gift. I received it nearly 10 years ago, shortly after I started dating a man who turned out to be a narcissist.

An autistic one.

The gift was a jewelry box with a verse about love.

I had been slow to date after my divorce, and even slower to try a dating app, but a friend convinced me to give it a shot. I was terrified, imagining rapists and murderers. Serial killers.

Little did I know, there was another kind of danger; the kind where your love becomes entertainment in someone else’s game.

He was the second man I met. Calm. Kind. Smart. Funny. Gentle.

He wasn’t particularly attractive, a man in his late 40s with a little extra around the middle, thinning hair, and a wardrobe straight out of the 1980s. He had a middle-aged dad bod, and that was perfectly fine with me. He certainly wasn’t the charming, center-of-attention type I associated with narcissism.

He told me he loved me within weeks. He’d never met anyone like me. After being in a 19-year destructive marriage, it felt pretty good to be valued, and honestly, it felt believable, although a little surreal. Love had happened that fast for other people, so why not us?

I later learned the term for this initial phase of lovebombing: fast-forwarding.

He said all the right things about relationships, values, parenting, careers, and the kind of future we both wanted. It felt like we had so much in common.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that he was studying me carefully.

He mirrored my values and interests, my dreams, and even my wounds and fears. The more he reflected pieces of myself back to me, the more convinced I became that I had finally found someone who fit me deeply.

But I wasn’t connecting with the real him. I was connecting with an image of myself reflected back to me. As a result, he felt comfortable, familiar, and safe.

I remember him telling me one evening on the phone how he had been outside throwing a football with his son in the front yard. He said they did this almost every night. He also knew that I had spent years deeply involved in my kids’ events, attending games, concerts, and organizing much of my life around their activities.

My nervous system logged a connection because his story fit what I valued: family involvement, engaged parenting, and shared priorities. Yet, in two years together, I never once saw him throw a football with his son or attend one of his daughter’s soccer matches.

The version of him I believed in had been built from stories, not reality. He carefully constructed my sense of compatibility with him through hundreds of conversations and small moments that made us seem deeply aligned.

Some of it was partial truths. Some of it was flat-out lies.

I eventually learned that he was actually in his 50s. He openly admitted lying about his age on dating apps, saying “everybody does it.” Most of his interests, values, and priorities were nothing like mine. Nothing. The compatibility I felt had not developed naturally. It had been built through selective disclosures and strategically shared similarities designed to convince me we wanted the same things. I was being fed a constructed version of intimacy built to create trust, closeness, and investment.

Bait on a hook.

We lived an hour apart when we met, so it was easy for him to manipulate my knowledge of him. He said he wanted to marry me, but what he really wanted was more access to me. He suggested I move closer to him so our families could gradually get used to each other. It made sense, so I did. I uprooted my children and moved. A decision I will forever regret.

After moving, we spent much more time together. I remember feeling increasingly confused by the gap between what I observed and what I had come to believe about him. The stories he had told me and the person I experienced did not align, but I kept trying to make them fit. I was experiencing something called cognitive dissonance: the discomfort that occurs when reality and belief no longer match.

Looking back, I can see that my instincts noticed the inconsistencies long before my conscious mind did. I remember feeling like I was living in a reality where everyone else knew something I didn’t. If you’ve ever seen the movie, The Truman Show, it felt like I was living my own version of it.

Gaslit and Devalued

Growing up with a narcissistic father, I had learned to people-please. I had spent a lifetime learning to override discomfort and explain away red flags. Second-guess myself.

So when the microaggressions started, I did what I had always done. The devaluation was bewildering and subtle. I thought I was imagining things. He treated me as if I were naive and incapable, financially, and as a parent. My professional knowledge was questioned despite his total lack of education in my career field. He dismissed my opinions and shrugged it off as “just joking” when I objected.

Then there were the comments about my body that seemed innocent, but stung.

Things like:

“Why don’t you let your fingernails grow out a little more like other women? Most women like pretty nails.”

One time, he gave me a new bottle of lotion and told me he’d never seen elbows as dry as mine. I didn’t think my elbows were dry at all, but he was being thoughtful, right?

Then there were the sexual comments comparing me to other women, implying that I was unusual or strange for my preferences, especially when my boundaries were being pushed.

He portrayed himself as a “mentor” who cared about me, loved me, and wanted what was best for me, all while subtly planting doubt and criticism in ways that left me confused and off balance.

He was a nonviolent predator playing a psychological game with his prey.

Instead of questioning him and questioning the experience I was having, I questioned myself. My abilities. My knowledge. memories. My parenting. My instincts.

Autism: The Part That Confused Me Even More

He was autistic. Undiagnosed, but autism was my professional specialty, and I recognized it immediately.

He had a teenage son who had been diagnosed with Asperger’s years earlier, before it was reclassified as autism, the same as my daughter. We bonded over that shared experience.

I learned early on that he wasn’t open to the idea that of being autistic himself, but I didn’t need him to accept or acknowledge it.

Ironically, my understanding of autism, both as a mom and as a professional, ended up keeping me STUCK in the relationship.

I tolerated, excused, or explained away many of his harmful behaviors by attributing them to difficulties with social skills, emotional blind spots, rigidity, communication challenges, or misunderstandings about the impact he had on others. All related to neurodivergence.

And to be fair, some things really were related to autism.

My confusion stemmed from the fact that both were true: some behaviors reflected autism, while others suggested something much darker.

He genuinely struggled to read social cues. He genuinely had sensory needs. He genuinely had rigid thinking patterns.

He also absolutely understood the impact he had on others. He reveled in it. Exploited it. Weaponized it.

That is not autism.

When I raised concerns about his friendships with other women, behaviors that violated my relationship boundaries, or situations that left me feeling unsafe or disrespected, I didn’t see manipulation in his dismissive responses.

I believed he was naive to social nuance. I believed he genuinely did not understand why his behavior hurt me.

I didn’t consider that he might fully understand the impact of his behavior with other women, or the pain I experienced from being dismissed and devalued. I certainly didn’t realize that he was using all of us, individually, to diminish one other. Triangulation.

So, I kept explaining the relationship to myself through the lens of neurodiversity; different wiring and misunderstanding.

For many couples, that really is the explanation.

Neurodiverse relationships can cause confusion, conflict, hurt feelings, and strain. Partners may feel, communicate, solve problems, and experience sensations differently. What’s easy for one may be overwhelming for the other. What seems like resolution to one can seem critical or rejecting to another. Relationships can turn dysfunctional, but this usually results from unseen differences rather than deliberate harm.

Neurodiverse relationships can also be abusive. One partner might be indifferent to the other's suffering or, worse, take pleasure in controlling their pain, actions, decisions, or happiness. For this individual, control extends beyond managing executive dysfunction, sensory overload, anxiety, or routines; it centers on exerting power over another person.

These patterns are frequently linked to personality disorders, especially when they also involve exploitation, entitlement, manipulation, and lack of remorse. Conditions such as narcissistic personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder, and sometimes borderline personality disorder should be considered.

Regardless of the label, this is abuse.

And either partner in a neurodiverse relationship can be the abusive one.

Many people in confusing and painful relationships begin categorizing behaviors to seek a plausible explanation: Autism, stress, trauma. If a reason exists, perhaps the pain is unintentional, beyond their partner’s control, something they can’t help. Many find ways to endure painful relationships, just as I did.

No one wants to believe that their partner is aware of the harm they inflict, unbothered by it, or even deriving satisfaction from it.

Hope Was the Drug He Fed Me

In hindsight, it’s clear he did not truly love me. He needed me to believe he did, to remain hopeful that he loved me and that we still had a chance at happiness.

That was the drug he fed me, and it worked for a long time.

I continued interpreting his behavior as autism. Wrongly. His manipulation was not autism.

I questioned myself, and my instinct that something was very wrong, for far too long. I remained stuck trying to make sense of things, trying to be more accommodating, and to become a better partner.

All while tolerating increasingly harmful behavior.

When You Stop Trusting Yourself

One of the clearest warning signs in an abusive relationship is when you begin questioning your own reality.

Because once you stop trusting yourself, you become easier to control.

I grew up learning to fawn, people-please, minimize myself, and keep the peace at my own expense. Self-doubt felt normal to me.

Not everyone has a childhood like mine, though. Abusive, exploitative people can con anyone. They are often charming, attentive, and patient. They study people and learn what makes someone feel special, safe, needed, chosen, or understood.

Sometimes old wounds make people more vulnerable. Sometimes it’s loneliness, hope, and even love.

The problem is not trusting someone. It’s that someone used trust as a weapon.

Borrowing Trust From People Who Could See What I Couldn’t

So, when we’re struggling to know what to believe, and we don’t know if we can trust ourselves, we have to turn to our safe people; the ones who have consistently had our best interests at heart over the course of time.

My closest friends and family were my trusted circle, my grounding force. They knew me before him and saw me getting lost in that relationship. When I lost trust in my own instincts, they became my litmus test. They echoed my suspicions even when I tried to ignore them.

One of the last times I forgave him and went back to him, one of my best friends, frustrated and speaking very bluntly, told me I was acting “desperate and pathetic.” Her delivery was not soft, and I am grateful for that. It stung - a lot - but she was right, and it was exactly what I needed to hear.

However, I still didn’t leave him.

Not yet.

The Tipping Point

There were dozens of moments and arguments when I promised myself I was done. For two years, I got pulled back in by love bombing, apologies, hope, guilt, confusion, or the belief that if I could just explain myself differently, maybe things would change.

The tipping point for me was when he made a decision that endangered me physically, and then was indignant when I became upset. He was enraged and insulted that I would criticize him. There was not an ounce of care or concern for my well-being.

That was finally it. I realized I didn’t matter to him and never had. I had envisioned us growing old together, but now I saw myself battling old age and illness while he continued living his best life, completely ignoring me.

I walked away and never looked back. I completely cut him out of my life.

That relationship transformed my life. It was the start of my full comprehension of the narcissistic abuse cycle. It also marked the beginning of understanding something I now help others decipher:

Autism and narcissism absolutely can co-exist within the same person.

Relationships involving autism, narcissism, or both are rarely simple. They are complex, nuanced, and often deeply confusing.

Autism is a neurotype, rooted in genetics passed through generations. It shapes how people think, feel, perceive, communicate, and experience the world.

Narcissism is about character, personality structure, power, and control. Narcissistic abuse involves the use of manipulation, control, exploitation, or harm in pursuit of power, validation, attention, or personal gain.

Autistic individuals are not inherently abusive, but autism can absolutely complicate narcissistic abuse.

It can blur the lines and make harmful behavior harder to interpret. It can keep partners stuck trying to answer the question:

“Is this autism?”

The more important question is:

“Am I being harmed?”

What I Want You To Learn From My Mistakes

You do not need proof to trust your own experience or take your confusion seriously.

You do not need to know whether behavior is intentional before acknowledging that it is harming you.

Pay attention when your reality starts shrinking and when you stop recognizing yourself.

Pay attention when you keep explaining away behavior that leaves you confused, small, chronically anxious, or disconnected from yourself.

Your nervous system notices danger long before your mind catches up.

Do not try to figure this out alone. Talk to trusted people who knew you before the relationship. Ask them what they are seeing. Let them help you reality-check what has become confusing.

If you suspect autism, narcissism, or both, find support from professionals who understand both.

Because clarity matters.

If you are stuck in the same sorting process I was, trying to determine whether you are experiencing neurodiversity, abuse, personality pathology, or some complicated combination of them, I created a course specifically for that question.

GO TO THE COURSE

Originally published on JodiCarlton.com. You can read the original article here:

GO TO FULL BLOG

Tell me about your own experiences.

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Suitcases. Laundry. Lists. Last-minute preparations.

In a few days, my 23-year-old autistic daughter will leave for Taiwan for two months of intensive Mandarin study.

Five years ago, I wasn’t sure she was ready to leave home for college. Not because she wasn’t intelligent. She’s always been smart.

I wasn’t sure she was ready for everything else.

The executive functioning demands. The social demands. The daily living demands. The sensory overwhelm of dorm life. The reality of navigating the world in a neurodivergent body that sometimes creates challenges of its own.

Truth be told, she wasn’t ready for it.

There were tears.

Anxiety.

Lots of texts and phone calls.

But, there was also perseverance.

What I’m reflecting on today, as I step over suitcases and piles of clothes, isn’t how far she’s traveling geographically. It’s how far she’s traveled personally.

Over the years, she has worked incredibly hard to build skills that did not come naturally. She has learned to navigate challenges that many people never see. She has faced difficult situations with roommates, professors, friends, and family members, solved problems, recovered from setbacks, and kept moving forward.

One of the most influential books I ever read as a parent was The Loving Push by Temple Grandin and Debra Moore (affiliate link). Its message is simple but not easy: don’t do for your child what they must learn to do for themselves.

That approach was uncomfortable, sometimes more for me than for her. There were many times I wanted to step in and make things easier.

The time her roommate’s guy friend walked into her dorm room unannounced while she was dressing. When another roommate let food spoil to the point that an odor was reported. I still get upset when I think about the professor who failed her for the entire course over a single assignment submitted five minutes late while she was sick with a high fever, despite maintaining an A all semester and communicating with him throughout her illness.

So many times, this mama bear wanted to rush in and save her.

And if I had, she might have gotten through those situations more comfortably.

But she wouldn’t have learned that she could get through them herself.

Instead, I took the book’s message to heart. At times, it was a monumental struggle for me. 🙊 But I stayed out of it, remained available for guidance and nearby while she figured things out.

And she did.

Today, she’s earning two degrees, maintaining academic excellence, winning scholarships, receiving departmental recognition, and heading to one of the most competitive Mandarin immersion programs in the world.

What makes me proud, though, isn’t just the résumé. It’s the effort.

The persistence.

The willingness to keep trying when things were difficult.

Really difficult.

I think that’s why I’m feeling surprisingly little anxiety about her traveling to the other side of the world, where I can’t get in my car and get to her in a few hours if she needs me.

Where most people don’t speak her language.

But, then I remember: the world has never spoken her language.

As an autistic young woman, she has spent her entire life navigating environments that weren’t designed with her in mind. In many ways, she’s always been learning how to function in a foreign land.

Taiwan isn’t the first foreign territory she’s entered.

It’s just the first one that requires a passport.

So I know she’s got this.

But okay, let’s be real. I’m going to ugly cry when I drive away from the airport.

I’m choking up now just writing this article, tears that are a mixture of joy, gratitude, love, and yes, a little nervousness.

But underneath all of that, I genuinely feel good about this.

I’m excited for her.

And I’m so damned proud of her.

I’ve spent years watching her do hard things. She’s prepared.

So, now I get to stand back and watch her fly. ✈️ ❤️

Have you ever felt like your emotions were wrong — or like your partner simply couldn't understand why you were upset? You might be experiencing the impact of alexithymia in your neurodiverse relationship.

In this episode of Navigating Neurodiverse Love and Life, Mona Kay and Jodi Carlton open up about their own long marriages to neurodivergent partners — and the years of unintentional hurt that came from not understanding why they felt so misunderstood.

In this episode:

• What alexithymia is and why it’s so common in neurodiverse relationships

• How interoception challenges affect emotional communication

• Why your autistic partner may logicalize your emotions — and what they actually mean by it

• The difference between not caring and not knowing

• A beautiful listener story about loving an autistic partner with awareness

Whether you’re in a neurodiverse relationship, recently discovered your partner is autistic or ADHD, or are neurodivergent yourself — this conversation will help you feel less alone.

Listen on Apple, Spotify, & More

⏱ Chapters
0:00 Intro — Meet Mona & Jodi / About the Show
1:28 Episode 2 Begins — Our Neurodiverse Marriages
2:36 Mona's Story: 30 Years of Unintentional Hurt
3:03 Communication Breakdown: Logicalizing Emotions
4:21 What Is Alexithymia?
5:11 Interoception & the Body-Brain Disconnect
6:18 The Bewildering Reality of Feeling Wrong
7:34 Jodi's Story: Alexithymia Wasn't Our Issue — But...
15:20 Emotional Flooding & Communication Differences
16:45 Writing Novels He Wouldn't Read
18:13 Listener Comment: "He Was the Best Partner I've Ever Had"
19:46 Unintentional Hurt & Looking Through Different Lenses
21:30 Outro — Find Us & Closing

Share

Navigating Neurodiverse Life and Love is a casual show about neurodiverse romantic relationships, families, and life as a neurodivergent person or parent, hosted by Mona Kay and Jodi Carlton, two leading voices in the area of neurodiverse life and love. Send your questions, comments, and stories about neurodiversity to podcast@jodicarlton.com or click below to be featured on an upcoming episode.

Visit us:
neurodiverselove.com
jodicarlton.com

Introducing Season 6 of my podcast, YOUR Neurodiverse Relationship. This season is entitled: Navigating Neurodiverse Love and Life

I’ve teamed up again with one of my favorite colleagues, Mona Kay, host of the Neurodiverse Love podcast and the Neurodiverse Love Docuseries (featuring your truly).

In this premiere episode, Mona and I share our backgrounds and why we partnered to create a more personal, casual show about neurodiverse romantic relationships, families, and life as a neurodivergent person or parent. Mona describes discovering her marriage was neurodiverse late in a 30-year relationship and shares the pain of her divorce in 2018.

I share how understanding neurodivergence began with my 23-year-old daughter’s autism diagnosis when she was 5 years old, and how I eventually discovered that my own marriage was neurodiverse after 19 years and a destructive divorce.

Also, get a sneak preview of my upcoming book, The Misunderstood Mind.

Listen on Apple, Spotify, & More

00:00 Meet Mona and Jodi
00:35 New Podcast Launch
01:10 Send Questions In
01:28 Why We Teamed Up
02:30 Mona’s Story and Mission
04:55 Jodi’s Journey and New Book
08:37 Show Topics and Healing
11:53 Community and Networks
13:37 Family Patterns and Narcissism
18:47 Bodies Hormones and Health
22:39 Coaching vs Therapy
30:57 Wrap Up and Where to Find Us

Share

Navigating Neurodiverse Life and Love is a casual show about neurodiverse romantic relationships, families, and life as a neurodivergent person or parent, hosted by Mona Kay and Jodi Carlton, two leading voices in the area of neurodiverse life and love. Send your questions, comments, and stories about neurodiversity to podcast@jodicarlton.com or click below to be featured on an upcoming episode.

Visit us:
neurodiverselove.com
jodicarlton.com

• Cats, Chaos, and Freedom From Evaluation

• New Podcast Episode

• Poll Results

• Neurodiversity Notes Sneak Peek

• Recommended Reading and Other Resources

Cats, Chaos, and Freedom From Evaluation

Hi friend,

I loved my dogs with my whole heart and soul. In the last couple of years, they both passed within months of each other at ages 14 and 12. I still miss them deeply. The last of my children’s three childhood cats had also passed at age 18, within months of the dogs. It was a heavy year.

The house felt quiet, and I knew I could never live without pets in my home, but I felt pulled toward getting kittens instead of another dog. So, first I rescued a pair of siblings, then another a few months later. I now have four cats under the age of three. They are absolute chaos.

Every night, my house sounds like it’s being burglarized when the zoomies begin. My curtains are picked apart. There’s fur. Lots of fur. Occasionally, I step on a hairball. And somehow… my nervous system is completely fine with all of it. More than fine.

One day recently, that realization made me pause to consider why. As someone with ADHD, chaos can be incredibly dysregulating for me, while at the same time, I also crave stimulation and novelty. It’s a strange paradox that many ADHD people understand well.

So I started wondering why the idea of getting another dog immediately creates a jolt of anxiety in my body, while the chaos of four cats feels like a ray of sunshine.

I eventually realized something that surprised me.

It’s about evaluation.

Growing up with a narcissistic father and then being married to a narcissistic man for 19 years, I spent much of my life being evaluated, compared, criticized, and measured against impossible, often changing, standards. I couldn’t simply exist as myself. Love was tied to performance.

My dogs were working breeds: a Border Collie mix and a Belgian Shepherd mix. Both were rescues and absolutely wonderful dogs, but the working-drive wiring was still there. They constantly needed direction, feedback, structure, reassurance, correction, and engagement. They needed jobs, which I gave them in various ways, and they needed to know they were “good dogs.” They needed me to lead, evaluate, guide, and monitor. Their sense of safety and wellbeing was directly tied to the feedback they received from me..

I loved them deeply, but I realize now that their needs quietly collided with my nervous system’s desperate need for freedom from evaluation. My dogs didn’t evaluate me - their love for me was pure and unconditional, but they required me to evaluate them to know they were loved.

My cats, on the other hand, genuinely do not care what anyone thinks of their performance. At all. 😄

They just want to feel safe in their home. To play. To watch the birds. To nap in sunbeams (I call them solar “power-ups). To love and be loved.

And that’s where I am in my own life now, too.

After decades of living under scrutiny and pressure, my nervous system rejects relationships built around performance, hierarchy, criticism, or constant self-monitoring. This carried over into my friendships, my professional relationships, and even my family.

A few years ago, I invited a few colleagues who specialize in neurodiversity to meet up with me once a month on Zoom. We respect and value each other, learn from each other, and refer people to one another without an ounce of competition. Through the years, we’ve selectively invited others to join us, and our little group has grown to a couple of dozen professionals who all value the safe space we hold sacred.

In all aspects of my life, these days, I just want spaces where everyone in them, human or furry, is allowed to exist safely, freely, imperfectly, and authentically.

Including me.

Warmly and Respectfully,

NEW PODCAST SEASON DROPPING!

This season I’m teaming up again with one of my favorite friends and colleagues, Mona Kay, host of the Neurodiverse Love podcast and Neurodiverse Love docuseries (which features yours truly).

For this podcast season, Mona and I decided to relax a bit, step away from interviewing professionals and others, and have a casual chat with each other about our own lived experiences with neurodivergence in our relationships and in just everyday life. We’ve already taped the first few episodes, and I’m just going to say, our ADHD is on full display (we left in some of the bloopers for you)! We also get really personal with you about things like dating, sex, and abuse.

In these first few episodes, we answered some questions and comments from my YouTube channel, but we want to answer YOUR questions and hear about your lives. You can comment on this post in Substack or if you’re reading this in your Inbox, just hit reply or email me at podcast@jodicarlton.com. I will personally read all of your emails (promise!), and we will read and respond to some of them on the podcast.

So grab your coffee or your lunch, and hang out with Mona and me!

POLL RESULTS

Last week, when I sent out this newsletter through Substack for the first time, I was curious to know how many of my subscribers are already using Substack, and it turns out a lot of you are. I encourage you to try it out if you haven’t. You’ll get extra little nuggets from me, like these, from the last couple of weeks. Hop over to inside.themisunderstoodmind.com and click on “Notes” to get caught up.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES

I’m constantly asked about books and resources for understanding neurodiversity and tools for managing sensory processing difficulties and executive dysfunction. So, I’ve put together a page on Amazon of what I read and what I have used, myself, through the years.

RECOMMENDED READING AND OTHER RESOURCES

I miss talking with you.

Several years ago, I started a Facebook group because I genuinely loved going live and interacting directly with people. I loved the conversations, the questions, the shared experiences, the humor, and the connection. It felt less like broadcasting and more like sitting in a room together trying to make sense of life, relationships, neurodivergence, and being human.

But over time, social media platforms changed. I’d go live in a group of 2,500 people, but Facebook would show the live to maybe 125 of them. I experienced similar challenges when I streamed on YouTube for a while, too. Eventually, it started to feel less like connection and more like talking into the void while an algorithm decided who was allowed to see it.

That was frustrating because so many people told me that what I was sharing about both my personal experiences and professional work around neurodivergence was making a real impact. So I kept showing up through videos, podcasts, and articles.

Eventually, well over a million people watched my YouTube videos, and hundreds of thousands listened to my podcasts and read my articles.

But I keep coming back to this: my favorite thing is connection.

I respond to YouTube comments as much as possible, but it’s disjointed and never quite feels like an actual conversation. Some of my favorite moments happen during podcast conversations, whether on my own show or as a guest on someone else’s. More recently, my newsletter has become more like a personal letter to you, and so many of you have taken the time to reply via email, sharing your own experiences with me - and I love getting those emails!

That’s why I’m excited to move to a new way of interacting with you that’s more in the moment. This new platform (Substack) is more than just an email newsletter. It is a community.

Some of you will read these posts in your email inbox and never use the Substack platform, and that’s completely fine. If that’s all you ever want to do, nothing really changes for you. You will receive my newsletter (like this one) with updates about new articles or podcast episodes, and you can still reply to me via email.

You can also click the link below (bookmark it) to read all of my newsletters (going forward), browse my podcast episodes (including archives), and read my shorter “Neurodiversity Nugget” notes (brief bits of what’s on my mind, and what’s going on in my world).

All in one place!

Inside.TheMisunderstoodMind.com

But, if you’re like me and you’d like a more interactive experience, you can log in to post comments on newsletters and other posts to interact with others (and me) much like you do on Facebook or other social media platforms.

I’m genuinely excited about having more conversations with you again.

Going forward, my engagement with you will look a little different from the old newsletter format. More conversational. More in-the-moment. Less polished. More human.

And honestly… that aligns more with me.

Warmly,

ANNOUNCEMENT: Podcast Guest Appearance

Today, I want to share a podcast episode with you where my colleagues and friends, Stephanie Holmes and Barbara Grant, invited me to talk about my upcoming book, The Misunderstood Mind, which is also what I chose to name this community and newsletter, because it truly captures what my work has always been about.

This is the first time I’ve spoken publicly about the book, which releases in October (with preorders opening in July).

So if you’d like a sneak preview of The Misunderstood Mind: What We Got Wrong About Autism, ADHD, and Neurodivergence, I’d love for you to listen.

I’m especially excited to announce a new podcast show that I’m co-hosting with Mona Kay, Navigating Neurodiverse Love & Life, premiering May 26. Mona and I are both ADHD professionals with neurodivergent families, and each episode is basically a casual coffee chat about whatever is on our minds - and yours!

We’ll be sharing stories from listeners and responding to listener questions and comments about neurodiversity in life and relationships.

So please send them to me at podcast@jodicarlton.com.

Each episode will come right here to your email inbox, and if you’re subscribed to my podcast on any major platform, you’ll still get them there, too.

Explore articles, podcast episodes, videos, resources, and my Neurodiversity Nugget notes about neurodivergence, relationships, communication, and everyday life.

Subscribe to get new content and updates delivered straight to your inbox.

Subscribe now

Jodi Carlton, MEd

Neurodiversity in Life and Relationships

Contact Me

770-685-7973 (call/text)

JodiCarlton.com

YouTube | Facebook | LinkedIn

I cover what autism actually looks like across the lifespan, what the DSM-5 levels mean in real terms, and why the push to find a "cure" fundamentally misunderstands what autism is. I also speak honestly to families who are struggling at the more profound end of the spectrum — because their experience is real and deserves to be part of this conversation too.

Autism is a lifelong, hereditary, natural variation of the human brain. And our world wouldn't be where it is without it.

Follow the show so you never miss an episode.

➔ Watch on YouTube

➔ Read the blog: Autism Isn’t a Childhood Disease—It’s Time We Embrace Neurodiversity at Every Age

➔ Free quizzes, assessments & resources at jodicarlton.com

I share the research, the language that's holding us back, and the personal moment that started my own journey: sitting in a workshop and realizing—with chills—that the speaker was describing my daughter.

When we stop trying to fix neurodiversity and start understanding it, everything changes: our relationships, our communities, and how we see ourselves.

👉 Watch this episode on YouTube

👉 Read the blog: A New Perspective on Neurodiversity: Understanding Differences Without Judgment

👉 Free assessments and resources

If you've ever felt like you're running on empty, or wondered if any of this gets easier, this one is for you. Part personal story, part permission slip.

Follow the show so you never miss an episode!

👀 Watch this episode on YouTube

👉 Read the blog: Hey Mama, I See You — Navigating The Exhaustion of Parenting a Neurodivergent Child

"You don't look autistic."
"We're all a little autistic."
"You're too articulate to be autistic."

These comments feel like compliments. For autistic individuals, their partners, and their families, they land like paper cuts—small, accumulating, and quietly damaging over time.

In this bonus episode, I unpack why these well-meaning comments are so harmful, how confirmation bias and outdated stereotypes lead even professionals to dismiss autistic people, and what masking is really costing the people we love. I also share something my daughter—diagnosed autistic at five, and told repeatedly that she doesn't look it—asked me to read on her behalf.

Autism doesn't have a look, but it does deserve to be seen. 💙

➔ Watch this episode on YouTube

➔ Read the blog: Autism Microaggressions: Why "You Don't Look Autistic" Does More Harm Than You Think

➔ Free assessments and resources

Neurodiverse Relationship Expert

Jodi Carlton, MEd

February 24, 2026

conflict, connection, diagnosis, expectations

YOUR Neurodiverse Relationship Podcast
Host: Jodi Carlton
Season 5, Episode 17
Guests: Jeremy and Charity Rochford

In this episode, I sit down with Jeremy and Charity, a couple married for over 20 years, who share their journey of discovering neurodivergence in their children—and eventually in Jeremy himself.

Like many families, their story began not with a marital crisis, but with a preschool evaluation. What followed was a cascade of questions, shifting beliefs, and ultimately a reframing of what autism actually means. Jeremy candidly describes how his understanding of autism was frozen in a 1980s narrative shaped by Rain Man and stigma. Charity shares how becoming a parent softened her lens and allowed her to reinterpret behaviors that once felt frustrating as sensory overwhelm and autistic burnout.

What makes their story powerful is not that neurodivergence disappeared as a challenge. It didn’t. Instead, they developed systems. They experimented with accommodations. They adjusted expectations. They chose mutual respect over resentment.

You’ll hear us talk about:

• Why autism and ADHD don’t excuse behavior but do explain it

• The difference between accommodating someone and losing yourself

• Why both partners “pulling the rope” matters

• How unspoken marital expectations create friction

• The importance of building a “marriage system” instead of blaming each other

• And what it looks like when life doesn’t match the picture you originally imagined

This conversation reflects something I emphasize often: neurodivergence itself is rarely the core problem in a relationship. Misalignment, unwillingness, trauma history, and lack of mutual regard are far more predictive of breakdown than brain wiring alone.

Jeremy and Charity demonstrate that when there is willingness, motivation, and respect, a neurodiverse relationship can not only work—it can grow stronger because of the clarity that comes with understanding.

Season 5 Introduction

This is a lightly edited transcript from Season Five of Your Neurodiverse Relationship Podcast. Grammar and formatting have been corrected for clarity. Meaning and intent remain unchanged.

Jodi:

Hello, and welcome to Season Five of the Your Neurodiverse Relationship Podcast. I’m Jodi Carlton, your host and a neurodiverse relationship expert. Like so many of you, I’ve been on my own journey of discovering and understanding neurodiversity — both personally, with my family members and even myself, and professionally, as a therapist and now a relationship coach to people around the world.

I’m often asked: can neurodiverse partner relationships actually work? And the answer is absolutely they can. Just like any relationship, there are core variables that influence whether or not you’ll thrive as a couple. Neurodiverse relationships are no different — they just have the added layer of one or both partners being neurodivergent. This season, I’ve got a lineup of couples and partners who are in neurodiverse relationships that are working. They get real and personal with me about the challenges they’ve faced and how they’ve overcome them. Let’s get started.

Meet Jeremy & Charity

Jeremy and Charity Rochford—known as Team Rochford—are certified life coaches and co-founders of NeuroFam, where they specialize in coaching for neurodiverse couples, parents, and families. Married for 25 years and raising two autistic children, they blend professional expertise (Jeremy has a BA in Communication Studies; Charity a BA in Psychology) with lived experience to deliver a truly balanced perspective.

NeuroFam’s coaching is forward-focused and results-based—helping families create practical systems, reduce resentment, and build relationships that thrive. Jeremy works primarily with autistic/ADHD men, fathers, and young adults, while Charity supports neurotypical partners, mothers, and women navigating ND/NT family dynamics.

Jodi:

All right, today I’ve got Jeremy and Charity here with me today, and I’m really excited to have the two of you on the show because you are a neurodiverse couple.

You have your own podcast, you’re coaches, and you’re making it work. So that’s what this whole series is about. Let’s just start with you introducing yourself to our viewers and listeners.

Charity:

So, I am Charity Rochford. I am wife and mom of the house, and as we will get into it, I’m the odd man out. I’m the neurotypical. And we have two kids. So we’ll get into that as well, but yes, I’m the—

Jeremy:

I’m Jeremy, probably the most autistic of the group, kind of the bloodline that started a lot of this, where both kids are on the spectrum. We run NeuroFam, which is a coaching practice, and we’ve got the podcast.

I’ve got my bachelor’s in communication, and so I kind of came to the conclusion that instead of using public relations practices to help companies sound better talking to each other, let’s help couples actually start to sound better in their communication. And so that’s a very quick snapshot of who we are. I’m the dad.

Jodi:

Yeah. Obviously, this will be in our show notes, but could you go ahead and tell folks your website and the name of your podcast?

Jeremy:

So our website is ourneurofam.com. The podcast is Neuro FM, which you can also find at neurofm.com. And the goal of the podcast is to be the least depressing neurodivergent podcast in the world.

We found when we got into this space, not just with our diagnosis but trying to help others, that there can be a lot of darkness around this, a stigma, whether it’s autism or ADHD. And we found that it’s actually freeing to know that we’re on the spectrum because it explains so many behaviors.

And so we want to bring that side of the reality to the journey. We want to bring the positivity because you hear a lot of the negative and the doomsday shame. And it’s like our life has gotten exponentially better since each diagnosis occurred.

So the whole goal of the podcast is to kind of give that voice some amplification and to say marriages don’t have to end. You weren’t duped. There is a way toward happiness and joy. It might look different than you expected, but what journey doesn’t?

Jodi:

Yeah. That’s really one of the reasons why I’m doing this whole series this season of my podcast, because there is a lot of focus on the challenges. There are so many myths out there about it just not being possible.

I see people on my YouTube channel saying, “Just run, run. If you know, don’t stay in a relationship.” And I’m like, hold on. Neurodiversity is only one layer of who we are. There are neurodiverse couples who are misaligned just like neurotypical couples can be misaligned.

And there are other dysfunctional things and traits that can prevent a neurodiverse relationship from working, but the neurodivergence itself is rarely the problem. So I cannot wait to hear what you guys have to say. And that’s what this whole season’s about.

I want to circle back to what you just said about instead of helping companies learn how to communicate, let’s help couples.

I actually refer to couples as a company sometimes. I’m like, think about your partner as your co-founder. Would you talk to your co-founder like that? Even in dating, I’m like, look for somebody you’re willing to trust your company with and look for that person that aligns with you. So anyway, I just wanted to share that.

Jeremy:

We are totally aligned on this conversation.

Jodi:

Awesome. We’re already vibing then. So let’s just jump right in. Where do you want to start and what message would you like to share?

Charity:

I guess we should add in that we have been married 20 years. We dated four years before that, so we’ve been together a while.

Jeremy:

And then the neurodiversity part, the neurodivergence probably entered about five years ago, first with the kids, which then started a multitude of questions, which led to answers, which led to more questions, which led to more answers, which I think finally got us to a place of understanding.

And kind of like you said, neurodivergence isn’t quite the problem, but it might be something that makes solving the problem more challenging.

Jodi:

Yes, absolutely.

Jeremy:

From our coaching standpoint, autism and ADHD don’t excuse the behavior, but they explain it. And if we can at least understand the why, we can then ask what’s the best direction to solve the what.

Jodi:

Yes. Oh my gosh, you guys, we are so aligned because I think I’ve said those exact words before. I’m constantly taking my clients through the layers of why. Why is that? And why is that? And why is that?

Something you just said is also such a common pattern. It starts with the kids. The kids get identified as, “Something different’s going on here.” Or the school system says, “What’s happening here?”

And then they get identified as neurodivergent in some way, whether it’s ADHD or autism or sensory processing or dyslexia, or just one of those things. And then the parents—or I’ve even had grandparents come to me in their seventies saying, “Okay, my granddaughter got diagnosed, and that’s how it was in my family too.”

I don’t even know that we have a neurotypical representative in the family. I don’t think that person exists.

So just tell me more about that journey for you guys.

When the Diagnosis Begins with the Kids

Charity:

Yeah, so ours was identified by our son’s preschool program.

It was a long, kind of not quite clear process, right? Because they didn’t want to come out and say, “Hey, we think this about your kid.”

So it was, “You should probably have your child evaluated.” So we had a behavioral therapist come in and a behavioral specialist who did therapy as well come in and observe our son in preschool and say, “Okay, we have sensory issues, so we’ll get a sensory box, blah, blah, blah.”

And the director was like, “Yeah, no, that’s not it. You’re going to have to go back in and get some more.”

So then we got on the waitlist. We were figuring maybe ADHD. That would make sense to us. He was the only boy we had, so Sunday school teachers would just say, “Oh, he’s all boy. Here, you can have him back.” So we just figured that was what all boy was like. We didn’t know any different.

Charity:

So, in our months of waiting, I had actually met with a friend who’s a special education teacher while we were preparing for our full child psychiatrist evaluation process.

And for her to help kind of walk me through what I was seeing—I’m going to need to know ahead—we’d gotten our initial first step of questionnaires.

And just through the conversation with her, she planted the seed of like, “Yeah, it might be autism.” I was able to see it through her and see it in a very positive light because I was a psychology major. To me, it was all just, “Oh, okay, this is a new interesting thing that I should learn more about and be prepared and figure out how to help.”

That’s just my thing. I’m the helper in the family, right?

Jeremy was not quite as positive right away.

Jeremy:

Slow to adopt the belief, the understanding.

Jodi:

Can I jump in and ask you, Jeremy, from your perspective—because I know that is a thing for a lot of people—what was going through your mind? What was part of that slow process?

Updating the 1980s Autism Narrative

Jeremy:

Being a child of the 80s, at least from my perspective, with a lot of these things you grow up with, you kind of timestamp them when you first learn about them.

So when I hear autism, I think Rain Man. I think all these things from the 80s. I think mental deficiency, not mental difference.

And so that was my deeply held belief that hadn’t needed to be challenged until then.

So my default was, wait a minute, here are all these negative things. I learned about it when I was going through school. It must still be the same.

And so I think for me, that was where a lot of hesitancy was—hoping that there wasn’t an autism diagnosis because I knew, in 1980s autism diagnosis—

Jodi:

That’s what you were picturing for the future for your son.

Jeremy:

Exactly.

And so it wasn’t until Charity really brought me out of my comfort zone to challenge those beliefs of, “Wow. Okay, wait—that person’s autistic? They seem so normal. That person’s autistic? They’re hilarious. I thought autistics couldn’t communicate. What’s going on here?”

Right? And kind of bring me along to what autism is in the 2020s, not the 1980s.

That’s where my hesitancy came from. It was a 40-year delay of understanding and not paying attention to the research that we have now.

Jodi:

I think that’s such a valuable thing that you’re sharing because a lot of times it’s a partner who starts to realize, “This is neurodivergence. This is autism.” And then when they bring it to their spouse, there’s that heels digging in and, “Whoa, that is not what I am.”

Because that definition of what autism is—I know my generation too—my first exposure to the word was Rain Man. So that narrative has never been updated. It’s never really had a reason to be.

I’m working with a couple right now. She told me on the side, “He still doesn’t like it when you say autism.” And I’m like, “Okay, okay, okay. Thanks for letting me know.”

It is a process.

I’ve been working with a man whose one son had been diagnosed with Asperger’s back in the day, and I clearly saw that the other son was autistic—and the dad too. But when I brought that to him, he’s like, “Oh no.” And it was because they were like three different groupings of traits.

So to him, that one grouping—he accepted that his one son was autistic, Asperger’s autistic—but not him and not his other child. But they very much were.

So I think that’s very relevant.

Jeremy:

Well, I think it’s a really good segue, honestly, into how we discovered our daughter was on the spectrum because a lot of the questions we were going through to prepare for the test—they kind of give you this questionnaire of, “Do you recognize these things in your child?” to kind of give the psychiatrists a heads-up.

Charity:

“How often do they do this? How often do they do that?”

Jeremy:

Yeah.

Charity:

The classics are like, “How often do they line up toys?” And then the examples are all very boy-driven, like lining up trucks and cars.

But as we went through, there were some traits in there where we’d be like, “Oh, Jonathan doesn’t do that, but Corinne does that all the time. Maybe we should get her evaluated for something.”

And I should add in—Jonathan is diagnosed autism level two plus ADHD. His was the most evident to society, so that’s why his got picked up first.

And then, yes, as we were going through the evaluation and looking at things and being like, “Oh wow, that sounds like our daughter,” attention kind of focused on him for a little while. And then when we had the brain space to look more—

I was doing a lot of watching videos, right? That’s one of the ways that I take in things and process them really well, is to have real-world examples. So watching a lot of Tony Attwood videos—

Jeremy:

And that’s going to lead us to the next part of the story.

As Dr. Attwood was doing a really great job explaining how women tend to mask better and that’s why it’s so hard to diagnose, and you may get two of the five but you don’t get the extra—

You kept sending me these videos about these middle-aged New Zealand guys or these middle-aged Australian guys who are on the spectrum.

And my first response was, “This is great, but I think they’re a little old for our daughter. I don’t know if they’ll resonate.”

Which was your very nice, polite, covert way of saying, “We’re chasing the why, and we’re probably going to end at you.”

And I just wasn’t getting it.

Jodi:

You weren’t getting the subtle cues at all.

Jeremy:

I was becoming more open to the reality because once Jonathan got diagnosed, it was very much a fighting, “This isn’t going to change anything.”

“Do We Have to Tell Anyone?”

Charity:

And you did slowly go into it because you were like, “Okay, so it’s a thing, but do we have to tell anybody?”

Jodi:

What did that mean to you, Jeremy?

Jeremy:

Well, again, going back to the stigma, there’s such a close association with other mental deficiencies.

This was my first true experience.

And so it begat all the questions of, “Will people look at him differently? Will people have different expectations for him?”

Yes, we can control how we react to it internally and the narrative we create for him. But if we take that beyond our control, how much harder are we going to have to work if we build up this belief of what it can be for him and then you have some ignorant person just destroy that?

Now it’s like all that work we did is undone by someone’s ignorance or by a clinician who doesn’t fully understand, or a teacher who doesn’t understand or doesn’t care to understand.

So for me, it was more protective of, “This is our reality. How can we build a foundation that’s strong enough that’s not going to be wrecked by an outside influence?”

That was my greatest concern of sharing.

And then all of the perceived stupid questions that would follow, and trying to always have to defend my son as a label rather than a person.

Jodi:

And clearly you’ve gone from that to now you have a podcast. So that’s quite a journey.

I completely relate to that one as well because I’m also out here now trying to really spread the awareness and the education and really shift the paradigm of what we understand about what neurodiversity and autism is.

When Compassion Replaces Frustration

Jodi:

Okay, so talk me through—you’re learning, you’re starting to realize, you’re recognizing this in your son, you’re seeing maybe your daughter, Charity’s starting to see maybe it’s Jeremy too—and how is this affecting the two of you as a couple?

Charity:

For me, I feel like I kind of got lucky in that as a mom, you have this automatic internal compassion for your children and all the challenges they go through.

So when I would see our son being challenged by certain things, or our daughter struggling through something, that would change me. It made me feel the same for Jeremy.

So instead of things that had previously been like, “Oh, come on, get it together. You’re an adult.” Like when he would get angry offhand, what felt like out of the blue—now we know that it was building, building, building, and then he hits autistic burnout or just having a meltdown. Like a grown man meltdown, right?

Jodi:

Yeah, sensory overload. The spoons are gone.

Charity:

Right.

Jeremy:

Regularly. Mine went to eleven.

Charity:

Because through the years, there were all these other reasons for all of those things, right? Like his sensory issues with loud noises.

He had always just been like, “Well, I’m the only one who cares about my ear health.” So it was always like, “Okay, you’re just making a fight. You’re just picking a fight. You don’t care about your ear health more than anybody else.”

But coming forward and getting to see it through the kids—like, “Oh my gosh, Jonathan is really affected by loud noises that he doesn’t make.”

Jodi:

Key differentiator there.

Charity:

So getting to look at that and see, “Oh, that’s really stressful for him. That’s a real challenge for him.”

Instead of seeing it through the way that I had for 15-plus years of, “Oh, he’s just being too much,” now it’s, “Oh my gosh, this is a sensory thing.”

This has never been identified as a sensory thing. I can have compassion for that, and my response comes from a completely different place.

And because of seeing it in the kids—and my automatic reaction is compassion for the children and what they’re going through—it made it so much easier for me to see things in that way with Jeremy.

Personal Responsibility and Growth

Jeremy:

And from my perspective, this might seem irrelevant and random, but it lays the foundation for the answer.

About 20 or so years ago, I went on a weight loss journey where I lost 200 pounds without surgery.

This was late 90s, early 2000s. So it’s not like you could just Google, “How do you lose weight?” You had to figure it out.

Charity:

There was no Biggest Loser.

Jeremy:

Yeah.

And surgery wasn’t an option because my father was very much of the mindset that it’s not a lack of surgery in your life that’s causing you to be overweight. So adding surgery to your life isn’t going to solve it.

So I kind of devised a plan of, “This is what I need to do to lose weight.” I lost 200 pounds and kept it off since then.

And I brought that reality into the autism of, “Okay, inherently you don’t come factory-installed with executive function.”

We know that.

So if I need to be empathetic and I don’t have empathy, what do I need to do to learn empathy?

If I lack theory of mind and I need theory of mind, what do I need to do to strengthen my theory of mind?

And I started looking at the executive function things from the mental aspect almost as a physical aspect of, “Okay, I have weak arms. I need to do arm exercises.”

Okay, I lack theory of mind. What can I do to better understand theory of mind?

Apply it in my own terms so that I benefit from it, but so do those around me.

And so in the same way where Charity will feel that she got lucky because she has this compassion, nurturing understanding of the kids, I feel like I got lucky to have Charity to help me find that balance of accommodation while I’m striving to advocate for myself to be better.

As competent and reliable as possible.

And not to sit back and go, “Well, I wasn’t born with these things, so you just kind of have to deal.”

In the same way, I didn’t want to stay overweight, so I had to figure out how to change that.

I didn’t want to be the husband or the father who wasn’t able to participate and meet these expectations that society deemed as normal.

So it was the drive of going, “What do I need to do to operate in this world that’s not designed for me?”

All the while Charity’s running alongside of me saying, “Yes, we’re striving, but let’s take the accommodations where we can make them.”

So things like if noise is an issue, what type of headphones?

Well, headphones don’t work because they press on my glasses.

Okay, well are there noise-canceling earbuds?

Yes, but only certain ones, because some create a suction, which is another sensory issue.

But having the patience to go through five to ten different pairs until we finally got the right one, and having that balance of her accommodating that experience while I’m driving to improve the experience.

So that way, with the earbuds, I can still be present.

I can still be in the noisy situation my son is creating without being dysregulated myself and lashing out at him because I need that sensory protection.

As an adult, I was smarter than the situation and found a way to figure out the situation so our son can be a kid, but I can also be involved.

Jodi:

Even using that systematic logic to figure out the accommodation.

Charity, I want to hear from you. I have a question for you about accommodation, but I want to respond to what you’re saying because I find it fascinating that those of us who are in this space of figuring this out—and even working with other people—are coming to so many similar conclusions and even using some of the same language without ever having met each other.

Because I use the software and hardware analogy a lot. I talk about the hardware you’re born with and then the software that’s installed, and then needing a software upgrade or figuring out what you need.

One of my more popular podcast episodes was with David Glick, who is autistic and also a therapist. The name of the podcast was “You Need an Updated Software,” because he was talking about that.

And then here you are talking about it too.

I oftentimes use the analogy that all three of us are wearing glasses right now. We have this hardware—our eyes are not seeing effectively.

Do we just go around life going, “I can’t see very well, but you need to accommodate that”?

Or do we go to the eye doctor and get ourselves some glasses?

It takes the shame out of it because people feel so much shame when they say, “I was born this way. There’s nothing I can do about it.”

It’s like, well hold on. You were born this way, but is there nothing you can do about it?

I think there probably is something you can do about it.

So I just wanted to say it’s really cool to me that we’re all kind of understanding it in this similar way.

Charity, as far as accommodation goes—one of the things that comes up a lot in my Facebook group (I have about 2,600 members, both neurodivergent and neurotypical men and women in there, and we don’t allow any kind of bashing of any neurotype)—is resentment.

This resentment of neurotypical partners: “Why do I have to be the one to accommodate?”

I would love to hear you speak to that.

Accommodation Without Resentment

Charity:

That’s a hard question. Why do we have to do it?

Again, I feel like I’m lucky because I do have the kids first, right? So I see it through the eyes of my kids also. I can’t divorce that question from my children as well.

If I see them struggling and I can do something differently that is going to make it not as much of a challenge and help them be the them that I know they can be, why would I not do it?

We’ve developed some different processes now, but we had had our cars set up for different driving experiences.

When the kids were in the car with me, I’m theater carpool mom. We do carpool theater karaoke. It’s musicals at the top of our lungs, and there’s full kid autonomy and they can do whatever they want and be loud in my car.

Jeremy:

And we—

Charity:

In Jeremy’s car, our way of setting that up was to make it so his car was going to be more quiet.

Jodi:

So we’re at the museum in Jeremy’s car. We’re using our museum voices.

Jeremy:

Well, it started out with smart words.

So we would listen to some appropriate audiobooks and things like that because I didn’t want it to be such a lame experience. I didn’t want the ladies to have all the fun.

But I also knew that the kids screaming at the top of their lungs would feel like hell on earth.

So the original iteration before the earbuds and everything was smart words.

Let’s listen to podcasts and audiobooks that are educational but also kind of fun. Dad can control the volume.

And because they’re podcasts and audiobooks, you don’t expect them to be glaring at the top of the speaker.

Charity:

Dad controls what’s on. Dad controls the volume.

There’s no participation with the activity. It’s just the one sound that he’s expecting.

So that’s an example of an accommodation that really isn’t a negative to me in any way.

Yes, I’m doing things, but they’re not things that are hard to me.

They’re different, but I don’t feel “woe is me.”

I do have some sensory differences.

I was the first one to say years and years and years ago, “Hey, I don’t like certain things.”

We don’t generally vacation at the beach. Even our honeymoon, everyone else was like, “Oh, we’re going to Sandals or we’re going to this beach. Where are you guys going?”

And I was looking at him—he’s a ginger and me—and I’m thinking, no.

We like potatoes, so we agreed to go to Idaho.

Jeremy:

That being the response, it’s like, “Can I marry you twice?”

Because as a former fat kid, the idea of taking your shirt off at the beach—not awesome.

And then being someone who’s brutally ginger and Caucasian, I have two pigments. I have white or I have red. There is no tan for me.

But yeah, to your point—

Charity:

Yeah, I’ve kind of been making accommodations for my own sensory stuff.

There are just some smells that I cannot stand and I will avoid like the plague.

I do those things for myself to make me not completely grossed out.

I do that for me, and it’s not this super difficult thing. It’s just, okay, that’s just the next thing to do.

I don’t look at them negatively.

So anything that we do for you or the kids, it’s felt almost like a fun game of, “Oh, what new thing can we put into play that actually works?”

The visual clocks have been amazing.

We have clocks that are paired with our Amazon speakers that we use for a lot of things.

And I love Disney stuff, so I got Mickey Mouse ones.

Now when we’re prompting the kids for a transition, we’ll let them know, “Hey, you’ve got 20 more minutes to play.”

Instead of me having to remember to give them a prompt at 10 minutes and a prompt at 5 minutes, now we’ve gotten to the point where I can say, “Hey kids, you’ve got 20 more minutes. Set your timer.”

They’re learning that step themselves.

Now we’re getting to the point where I don’t even have to prompt them as much.

All I say is, “Okay, here’s 20 minutes.”

They audibly set their timer, and they can see how much time they have left.

Every time they think, “Oh, how much time do I have left?” they can look up at the clock and it shows them visually how many minutes they have.

And then it goes off to let them know when their time is up.

That’s another accommodation that we use in the house.

For me, it was just a bonus because I got Mickey Mouse clocks in the house.

Jodi:

But it makes everybody’s quality of life so much better.

Charity:

Right.

So I don’t see accommodating in our household as a negative.

Both Partners Pulling the Rope

Jeremy:

And I’d be interested to see as well, just to compare experiences from a clinical and professional standpoint.

The wives that we work with who feel the bitterness and the resentment—quite often that’s compounded by the autistic husband not really trying.

The autistic will say, “Well, why wouldn’t you make these accommodations? I’m the one with the clinical diagnosis.”

The ones who are able to get through that bitterness and resentment are the ones who see the genuine effort coming from their husband.

They can say, “Well, I’m doing this extra effort, but he’s seeing the effort I’m making and he’s making effort too.”

And I’ve found that the couples that really make it, both parties are pulling the rope.

Capacity, Willingness, and Motivation

Jodi:

I 100 percent agree with that.

This whole series is about what are those ingredients that can make a neurodiverse relationship work.

The three pillars that I say are necessary are capacity, willingness, and motivation.

Someone has to have the capacity, and if they don’t, they have to be willing to look at, “What kind of glasses can I put on? What kind of software can I upgrade?”

But if they’re not willing or motivated to do that, then now we have a misalignment problem.

I absolutely agree with you there.

But the other layer I’ll add is that a lot of times it’s other things that aren’t even related to neurodivergence.

Trauma history with other relationships, childhood trauma—there can be huge insecurity and a need to be validated and affirmed and reassured that you’re loved.

And then neurodiverse couples oftentimes communicate love in different ways.

One person is looking to be confirmed in one way, and the other person’s not doing that.

So there are a lot of layers there.

Again, it doesn’t go back to just the neurodiversity itself.

It’s the personality traits and the willingness and motivation.

I want to go back to what you were saying, Charity.

First of all, timers were a godsend in my household.

I raised my kids before a lot of this new technology came on the scene.

I went and got these little egg timers. They were like two dollars, and we had them everywhere—every room of the house, every car.

They were so effective and helpful because the kids could see that visual and get that transition period.

And I also wanted to say, I think what you said about being a mom is very relevant.

There are times when I hear conversations like, “Would you even want to be in a relationship with someone who’s autistic?”

I’m like, “Hey, you’re talking about my daughter.”

She’s a wonderful human being and fully capable of having self-awareness.

But I love what you said about accommodation.

There’s just this basic regard for who we are as human beings.

This is who you are. This is who I am. This is who our children are.

And because I love you, because I love them, what can we do to make everybody’s quality of life better?

Where it gets tricky is when people feel like, “I have to accommodate you at my own expense.”

Do you want to speak to that?

It’s Not the Person. It’s the System.

Jeremy:

Do you want to answer that, or do you want me to chime in?

Where a lot of this could be curbed is, did the two of you ever have a conversation pre-marriage of what an ideal marriage looks like?

Most honestly haven’t.

So what happens is spouse one will come in with expectations and spouse two will come in with different expectations. They’re never communicated, so off the bat they are prone to not meet each other’s expectations.

Then you throw in a differing neurotype who can’t understand their reaction to this disappointment, and then it just kind of spirals from there.

From our standpoint, working with the couples, we try to reset and go, “Okay.”

There’s a book called Thanks for the Feedback that talks about it’s not the communication that’s the issue. It’s the communication system that’s the issue.

Looking at marriage the same way, it’s not the people that’s the issue. It’s the marriage system.

Most parties never actually created a marriage system. So no wonder it doesn’t work.

Going back and establishing that system takes the pressure off the, “You’re wrong. No, I’m wrong. No, you’re wrong.”

No—the system’s wrong. Neither of us are wrong because we never actually established it.

We have found that that really helps make things better as it pertains to the resentment and the frustration and the entitlement and all of those things.

Jodi:

Yeah, I think so too.

I have an entire communication course and a model that I developed because of what you just said.

I even have this analogy—people who follow me have heard it a hundred thousand times—of this backpack, like a virtual backpack that you carry with you. Everything that’s in it makes you who you are at any given moment in time.

Those expectations, the values, your history—it’s all in there.

A lot of times people are just showing up and interacting without even being aware of the why.

Why do I feel hurt by what you just said?

Well, it’s because I expected you to say something different.

Why did I expect you to say something different?

Why did you have a different expectation?

It helps people unpack where those breakdowns are.

When Expectations Don’t Match Reality

Charity:

When you were talking, I was thinking about another piece to answer the last question a bit more on my side too.

There have been some accommodation pieces.

I love Disney. I worked in the Disney parks. I’m on a Disney podcast. I love Disney, and I love going down to the parks.

When I initially envisioned going down to the parks, it was as a family.

He would be like my podcast panel mates, right?

He would eventually love it as much as I do.

Looking at the way that they pose that question—well, what do you have to do? You’re giving up things essentially to accommodate them.

Part of accommodating Jeremy is knowing that that whole Disney park experience is too much for him.

It Just Looks Different

Now, it looks different.

I don’t not get to do it.

We’ve worked things out so that maybe it’s me and the kids, or me and the kids and my mom, or I’ll go with friends now. I’ll go on trips by myself.

I still get to really enjoy the things that I love.

It just looks differently.

Now we figured out that he actually doesn’t mind Disney cruising. It’s a different experience.

It is something that we get to do together as a family, and I still get to do some of those things.

Sometimes it just doesn’t look the way I imagined it would.

Jodi:

And that’s true of life though, isn’t it?

We imagine what life’s going to be, and then it definitely doesn’t always turn out that way.

Jeremy, what were you going to add?

Mutual Respect as the Foundation

Jeremy:

I think from the guy side too, being appreciative of that.

I’ve worked with a lot of guys who would respond very differently in that situation where, “I don’t like Disney, so why would we go to Disney? Let’s go to my special interests.”

And I go, “Why should she suffer because of something I don’t appreciate?”

Likewise, why would I diminish?

There are a lot of guys who’d be like, “Disney’s stupid. How old are you? Shouldn’t y’all be growing up?”

And it’s like, no.

She loves that.

In the same way, you could ask a grown man, “Why are you wearing another grown man’s jersey? That’s not you. You’re not playing for that team.”

If she’s not going to belittle my special interests—NASCAR or hockey or things like that—why would I belittle something that has deep emotional attachment to her childhood?

Closing Reflections

Jodi:

I think that’s such an important message, particularly for our autistic thinkers who sometimes have difficulty with theory of mind and recognizing that your point of view, your perspective, is really valid to you.

What I’m hearing from you both is that one of the fundamental ingredients is mutual respect and mutual regard.

Even though you are really different from me, and in a lot of ways I cannot relate to you at all, I still respect you and value you and recognize that your experience is just as valid for you as mine is for me.

I really think that’s one of the most fundamental ingredients of a healthy relationship, no matter the neurotype.

I want to thank you both.

This has been a delightful conversation.

Obviously, we could talk for hours and hours, so if you ever want to come back, please reach out to me. I’d love to talk to you again.

Charity:

Thank you.

Jeremy:

We’d love to.

Charity:

Yeah, this was great. Thank you.

Jodi:

That’s a wrap for today’s episode.

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Until next time.

The post How a Child’s Autism Diagnosis Reshaped Their Marriage first appeared on Jodi Carlton, MEd, LLC.

Jana shares two practical accommodations that changed everything for them: adjusting seasoning so everyone can eat comfortably, and normalizing separate sleep spaces to protect deep rest. Matt explains why requests land so differently than criticism—and how problem-solving as a team builds connection, trust, and day-to-day ease.

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