Medical gaslighting is when your experience of your body is denied or dismissed by a medical professional. Neurodivergent people frequently experience this even though providers don't always realize the harm they're doing.

When we talk about neurodivergence, we usually focus on the mind — but what about the body? In this episode of our "Navigating Neurodiverse Love & Life" series, my co-host Mona Kay and I dive into the physical side of neurodivergence that too often gets dismissed, misunderstood, or flat-out ignored by the medical system.

From dysautonomia and migraines to depression as a physiological experience, Mona and I share our own lived experiences with bodies that don't regulate the way they're "supposed to." We discuss the gut-brain connection, pain sensitivity differences across the autism/ADHD spectrum, Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, seasonal affective disorder, hormones, and why so many of us have spent years feeling like we were "making it all up" — only to discover our symptoms were real all along.

I also share the story of a doctor who recently reached out wanting to learn more about his neurodivergent patients, and why that kind of curiosity gives me hope. We talk about medical gaslighting, why even well-meaning physicians miss the signs, and what needs to change in medical training so neurodivergent patients stop falling through the cracks.

Whether you're neurodivergent yourself, love someone who is, or you're a professional working with neurodivergent clients, this conversation is a reminder that validation changes everything.

🔗 Find me at www.jodicarlton.com (it's Jodi with an I — but even if you misspell it, you'll find me!)

🔗 Find Mona at www.neurodiverselove.com

If you're a physician or helping professional who wants to learn more about working with neurodivergent patients, reach out to me about joining the Neurodiverse Peer Professional Network.

Listen on Apple, Spotify, & More

Chapters
0:00 Teaser
0:26 Intro
1:21 Checking In
1:49 Neurodivergence & the Physical Body
2:20 Migraines & Dysautonomia
3:00 Depression as a Physical Experience
5:00 Depression Is Physical, Not Just Mental
5:54 What Is Dysautonomia?
6:40 Hormones, Menopause & Feeling Alone
7:32 Finding Knowledgeable Physicians
8:04 A Doctor Who Wants to Learn About Neurodivergence
9:31 Medical Gaslighting & Imposter Syndrome
10:00 Ehlers-Danlos & Connective Tissue
10:34 The Gut-Brain Connection
11:28 “You Are 100% Wrong”
13:23 Pain Sensitivity: Autistic vs. ADHD
14:06 Interoception & My Autistic Uncle
15:25 There’s an Explanation for Your Partner’s Sensitivities
16:28 Validation Changes Everything
17:11 Outro

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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

Now we take all of that wiring and put it into relationship with other people.

And that’s where things get interesting. 😊

Because we all experience ourselves and each other through our own nervous system, our own expectations, and our own interpretation of what behavior means.

This week’s chapters

Chapter 12: Connection, Communication, and Relationships

Chapter 13: Neurodivergent Life Beyond Home

Part 4 begins with intimate relationships—how different neurotypes experience love, communication, emotional connection, conflict, and repair.

Then we move beyond home into workplaces, schools, healthcare systems, and communities, where many of the same neurological differences are interpreted through expectations about how people are supposed to communicate, learn, work, participate, and behave.

One of the concepts I explore in Chapter 12 is the double empathy problem.

Here’s a small excerpt:

Once these interpretations take hold on both sides, partners stop responding to what is actually happening and start responding to what they believe it means.

Pain accumulates, and defensiveness grows. Each person feels unseen in different ways.

Researchers call this the double empathy problem: when two people with different neurotypes interact, both are genuinely trying, and both are genuinely missing the mark.

One partner believes they are being clear. The other experiences that clarity as coldness.

One withdraws to regulate. The other feels abandoned.

Neither is lying about what they experienced. Neither is wrong about their own pain. They are just reading from different source material and arriving at different conclusions about what the other person meant.

This is something I’ve watched unfold in neurodiverse relationships for years.

Two people can walk away from the same interaction with completely different—and completely sincere—accounts of what just happened.

I was trying to help.

You were criticizing me.

I needed a minute to think.

You shut me out.

I told you exactly what I needed.

I had no idea you were upset.

When I meet with partners separately, their accounts are sometimes so vastly different that if I didn’t know they were a couple, I might not even realize they were describing the same relationship—much less the same interaction.

Here’s the pitfall: when we assume our interpretation is the obvious one (or the only one), misunderstandings take root, and we often mistake differences for intention.

And that’s where so much unnecessary confusion and hurt begins.

But, this isn’t only a romantic partner relationship problem.

A student asking a teacher repeated questions about an assignment may be perceived as too lazy to read the instructions. An employee who communicates directly may be considered rude. A patient who has extensively researched their symptoms may be treated as difficult or even controlling. Someone who needs movement, quiet, predictability, literal communication, or more processing time may be judged according to expectations built for a different nervous system.

Part 4 is about what happens between us as we interact with each other—and what becomes possible when we stop assuming everyone is operating from the same internal rulebook.

Paid subscribers can download and read PART 4: Navigating Relationships, Work, and Community below.

If you’re a free subscriber and you’d like to keep reading The Misunderstood Mind with us before its October 6 release, you can upgrade to paid and get Part 4 today, along with access to Parts 1–3 and Part 5 next week.

Or, if you’d rather wait for the finished book, you can preorder The Misunderstood Mind now in multiple e-book formats or hardcover. Paperback preorders are taking a little longer to become available, but the paperback will be available for purchase on October 6.

Check availability and order your preferred edition here.

Order Your Preferred Edition Here

Next week, in our final book preview email, we’ll turn toward what we do with everything we’ve learned:

PART 5: Moving Forward Together.

Read more

My ADHD brain likes movement, novelty, and possibility. And once I establish a routine, that routine tends to take on a life of its own. The newsletter is written. The podcast gets recorded. The clients get seen. Eventually, the things I normally do can start feeling like things I have to do.

Those aren’t necessarily the same thing.

Everything can’t be a MUST

This is an ongoing challenge for me, and it’s something I see frequently with other neurodivergent people. We can struggle not only with remembering and completing tasks, but with assigning the appropriate weight to them.

The kid’s school party sign-up, the laundry, the unanswered email, the work deadline, the doctor’s appointment, the groceries, and the thing we promised somebody three weeks ago can all show up in our brains demanding attention. Some really are urgent. Others just feel urgent because they’re unfinished, expected, or part of our routine.

I have a ridiculously mundane example from my own life.

Garbage pickup at my house is Wednesday morning, so Tuesday night I take the garbage out. Except sometimes I forget. Then at 11:30 p.m., when I’m already in bed, I remember.

Cue the internal dialogue:

I really should get up. But I’m already in bed. But the garbage needs to go out. But I’m exhausted. But then I’ll have twice as much garbage next week—the bin might overflow . . .

The amount of time I can spend negotiating with myself, and the stress I feel about it, is completely disproportionate to the actual stakes.

Because you know what happens if I don’t take my garbage out one week?

Almost certainly nothing. Maybe it gets a little smelly, but I’m not sticking my nose in there, so what does it matter?

The garbage sits there until next Wednesday.

My brain, however, has categorized Take garbage out Tuesday night as something that happens. Not doing it registers as a problem to solve rather than an entirely reasonable choice based on my capacity that particular Tuesday.

Obviously, not everything in life is as simple as garbage night. There are responsibilities we really can’t postpone. But that’s exactly why prioritization matters.

If everything gets treated like a MUST, we’re using the same finite resources on things that matter enormously and things that really don’t.

Lately, I’ve been taking a harder look at my own MUSTs.

For quite a while, I’ve been writing personal essays here every other week, with a new podcast episode on the alternate weeks. Each podcast also means short video clips, descriptions, and thumbnails. For more than three years, I’ve hosted a two-hour monthly meeting with some of my most trusted professional colleagues in the neurodiversity field. Somewhere in the midst of all of that, I wrote my first book and launched a new publishing company focused on illuminating neurodiversity.

Then there are the businesses behind all of it. I manage a team, oversee the finances, make strategic decisions, troubleshoot problems, and handle the countless behind-the-scenes details that keep things running.

Oh, and I also provide consultations and ongoing coaching every week to clients who need help in their relationships. Let’s not forget that part!

And I’m a single mom to two neurodivergent college kids who aren’t quite out of the nest yet. They’re increasingly independent, but, as anyone with young adult kids knows, almost launched and fully launched are not the same thing.

I’m not listing all of this to impress you, but to impress upon you how easily things pile up. Once these things became part of my routine, none of them felt particularly optional to my brain, even as my overwhelm continued to grow.

Classic ADHD.

Go and go and go until burnout forces an exhausted collapse or life forces a slow down.

I wish I could say I recognized what was happening and proactively made some brilliant strategic decisions. I didn’t. Some things outside of my work life have demanded more of my attention recently, forcing me to look more closely at what I’ve been calling a MUST.

And right now, the real MUSTs are pretty clear: my health, my family, meeting my financial obligations, and taking care of the clients who rely on me.

Some other things matter very much to me. But mattering doesn’t automatically make them mandatory.

So, I’m slowing my pace down.

I’ll probably publish these essays about once a month for a while.

The YOUR Neurodiverse Relationship podcast is also winding down for a break, although we still have a few episodes coming—including a conversation I’m VERY excited to share with you with Dr. Tony Attwood. Yes, that Tony Attwood. 😊

I’m also hoping to release a new and improved version of my holiday survival guide for couples this year. Ironically, prioritizing our MUSTs is something I talk about in that webinar every year. Whether I actually finish the new version will depend on how much of a pause I need.

And I’m trying to be okay with that.

Because slowing down doesn’t work particularly well if I immediately fill the space with something else. (My ADHD brain has approximately 37 suggestions.)

Maybe that’s the bigger lesson in all of this. Sometimes capacity changes before our expectations of ourselves do. We keep doing things because we’ve always done them, because they’re expected, or simply because we’d prefer to get them done.

But when everything is a MUST, nothing really is.

So I’m giving myself permission to let some things happen less often, let others wait, and let a few things not happen at all for a while.

You’ll still hear from me. I have a full library of thoughts, experiences, and ideas queued up in my mind that I want to write about, teach, and share. There will just be a little more space between getting them out of my mind and onto the page.

And on the occasional Tuesday night, the garbage may just have to wait until next week.

Maybe it’s worth taking a look at your own MUST list, too. What genuinely has to happen right now—and what have you labeled a MUST simply because it’s what you normally do, what someone expects, or what you’d prefer to get done?

What would actually happen if you did it less often, postponed it, asked someone else to handle it, or simply didn’t do it this time?

You might discover that something you’ve been carrying is heavier than the consequences of putting it down.

Share Inside The Misunderstood Mind

There was blood (a lot) on three floors of my house. 😳

Everyone is okay. I promise.

But the incident involved one of my cats, named Astra, who has apparently decided she is less of a cat cat and more of a person cat.

Something happened this week that forced me to pay attention to a dynamic I’d been missing.

And once I saw it, I realized how familiar it was and how much it relates to my life and work with neurodiversity.

Because

sometimes what looks like bad behavior is actually communication.

Sometimes the person—or animal—who is lashing out, withdrawing, becoming irritable, or struggling to tolerate everyone around them doesn’t need another consequence.

They may need us to ask a different question:

What is making this so hard for you right now?

In this week’s behind-the-scenes video, I’m sharing what happened, what I realized I’d been overlooking, and why it made me think differently about the way we respond when the people we love become dysregulated.

And yes...I’ll also explain why my house looked like a crime scene. 😂

What happened turned into a surprisingly good lesson about space, regulation, and what can happen when we focus only on behavior without understanding what’s underneath it.

It also got me thinking about my own life—and a moment this week when I realized that I needed space too.

How do you know when you’ve reached the point where you need space? And are you good at asking for it before you reach your limit?

Read more

But you can understand all of that and still not understand what it actually feels like to live in a neurodivergent brain and body.

That’s where we’re going in Part 3.

And this part gets much more personal.

This week’s chapters

Chapter 8: Stories from Inside the Neurodivergent Life

Chapter 9: How Neurodivergent Minds Think

Chapter 10: Our Sensory and Emotional World

Chapter 11: Masking, Identity, and Self-Discovery

We explore how neurodivergent minds process information, learn, create, organize, regulate, feel, and experience the sensory world.

But we also explore what happens when you spend years—or decades—moving through the world without understanding why you experience it differently.

Here’s a small excerpt from Chapter 11:

For many, this is the first realization that nothing was ever truly “wrong” with them. Their personal narrative shifts.

Childhood experiences of feeling different, social fatigue, emotional highs and lows, and struggles with expectations now fit into a cohesive, understandable pattern.

As clarifying as neurodivergence can be, the discovery often carries its own emotional weight.

The recognition often brings grief before it brings relief.

Some feel anger at the systems that missed them: schools, doctors, therapists who looked right at them and saw something else entirely.

Some grieve the child they were, the one who tried so hard and was told to try harder.

That last line lands hard for a lot of people.

Because, for so many late-identified neurodivergent adults, discovering neurodivergence isn’t simply learning something new about yourself.

It’s going back and reinterpreting an entire lifetime.

The child who was “too sensitive.”

The teenager who couldn’t seem to fit in.

The adult who was told they were lazy, difficult, disorganized, antisocial, dramatic, rigid, selfish, or simply needed to try harder.

Part 3 is about understanding that person from the inside.

Paid subscribers can download and read the full manuscript from PART 3: The Unfiltered Neurodivergent Life below.

If you’re a free subscriber and you’d like to keep reading the book with us before its October 6 release, you can upgrade to paid and get Part 3 today, along with access to Parts 1 and 2 and the remaining installments as they’re released.

Or, if you’d rather wait for the finished book, you can preorder The Misunderstood Mind now.

Pre-order Now

Next week, we’ll take everything we’ve learned about how neurodivergent minds work and bring it into the places where our differences so often collide:

PART 4: Navigating Relationships, Work, and Community.

Read more

What happens when two people in a neurodiverse relationship remember the same conversation completely differently?

This week, Mona and I explore the memory and communication disconnects that can put neurodiverse couples in what I call “the boxing ring”—where partners become opponents, each trying to prove who’s right and who’s wrong.

From the partner who remembers every word but misses the meaning to the one who remembers the feeling but not the details, we break down why this happens—and why it doesn’t have to be a deal breaker.

We also talk about executive functioning in daily life, the cereal box story, and important questions every couple should ask before moving in together.

Listen on Apple, Spotify, & More

Chapters:
0:00 — When memory differences feel like gaslighting
0:57 — Meet the hosts: Mona Kay & Jodi Carlton
1:50 — Memory, meaning, and where neurodiverse couples miss each other
3:00 — Accuracy vs. emotional connection: the core disconnect
4:20 — Sarah's story: getting stuck on every wrong detail
6:02 — The boxing ring: when couples become opponents
6:18 — It's not a deal breaker: hope for neurodiverse couples
6:57 — Intent vs. impact: why curiosity beats taking it personally
8:29 — Trust erosion: why couples wait decades to get help
11:09 — Executive functioning in real life: the garbage night problem
12:41 — Codependency and bailing out: why it backfires
15:39 — Neurodivergent people are accountable too
17:19 — Neurodiverse Love Conversation Cards
18:17 — The 50% divorce rate and undiagnosed neurotypes
19:09 — Questions every couple should ask before moving in together
19:35 — The cereal box story: not wanting to be "perceived"
21:29 — Wrap-up

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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

We looked at what neurodiversity actually means, how human minds vary, and how we came to categorize some of those differences as neurotypes and others as disorders.

But that raises a much bigger question:

Who decided what a human mind is supposed to be like in the first place?

That’s where we’re going in Part 2.

This week’s chapters

Chapter 4: How the Rulebook Was Written

Chapter 5: Culture, Power, and the Policing of Difference

Chapter 6: Media as Mirror and Mask

Chapter 7: The Pecking Order of Neurodivergence

This section looks backward before we move forward—at the institutions, cultures, belief systems, families, media, and power structures that shaped our ideas about which ways of thinking and behaving are acceptable.

And it asks us to consider something that isn’t talked about nearly enough:

We don’t value all forms of human difference equally.

Here’s a small excerpt from Chapter 7:

Consider Superman. Is he defective? What about Batman? In the

most literal sense, yes. Their differences set them apart from others in

ways that save the day. Yet Superman, for all his strength, is weakened

by kryptonite, which can render him physically vulnerable and even

kill him. His connection with Lois Lane is defined by secrecy, distance,

and the burden of protecting her from a world she does not fully see.

Batman operates with an intensity, focus, and discipline that place

him far outside the norm. He lives by a rigid code and unwavering

rules, driven by a singular commitment to his mission, often at the

expense of stability and connection. His relationships reflect this.

He keeps people at a distance, struggles to be emotionally open, and

repeatedly chooses his work over the people he cares about.

They are fictional. But the reason those stories keep getting made

is that something in them feels true. We recognize the person who

does not quite fit, whose differences are both their greatest asset and

the thing that costs them everything. We understand, on some level,

that the world needs people like that.

What we are less honest about is what we do with those people

when they show up in our actual lives, without the cape, without the

arc, and without a script that highlights their worth.

The question is not whether society ranks human differences. It

clearly does. The more important question is whose traits rise to

the top, who falls to the bottom, and who pays the price when those

judgments become embedded in education, healthcare, workplaces,

and relationships.

And that’s really the foundation of Part 2.

Who gets celebrated for being different?

Who gets accommodated?

Who gets diagnosed?

Who gets punished?

And who decided?

Paid subscribers can download and read PART 2: The Rules for Being Different below.

If you’re a free subscriber and you’d like to keep reading the book with us before its October 6 release, you can upgrade to paid and get Part 2 today, along with the remaining installments as they’re released. You will also be able to access Part 1 here.

Or, if you’d rather, you can preorder The Misunderstood Mind now.

Pre-Order Your Copy Now

Next week, we’ll move from the rules society created about neurodivergence to what it actually feels like to live inside a neurodivergent mind:

PART 3: The Unfiltered Neurodivergent Life.

VISIT THE BLOG

I had lunch with a longtime friend recently, and in the middle of a conversation that had absolutely nothing to do with neurodivergence, she asked me a question.

“What does it change if someone is autistic?”

My answer was immediate:

Nothing.

They’re the same person they were yesterday. Their brain didn’t suddenly become autistic because somebody recognized it. Their history hasn’t changed. Their personality hasn’t changed. The things you love about them haven’t changed. And the things that drive you absolutely crazy haven’t changed either.

But while they haven’t changed, something potentially very important has:

The framework for understanding them has changed.

And that can change quite a lot.

We interpret behavior through the explanations available to us.

This is especially important in relationships.

Imagine someone who is very rigid about the way things should be done. They don’t simply prefer their way. They seem completely baffled by why anyone would do it another way.

You offer an alternative and they argue with you. You explain your reasoning and they explain theirs again—only louder and with more detail. You tell them you understand their reasoning but simply don’t agree, and now they seem genuinely agitated.

After enough years of this, you probably have an explanation for that behavior.

He’s controlling.

She’s impossible.

He always has to be right.

She doesn’t care what anyone else thinks.

Everything has to be his way.

And sometimes those explanations may be accurate.

But sometimes there’s something else happening underneath the behavior.

Some autistic people have a much stronger need for certainty, predictability, consistency, or internal logic. Some think quite categorically. Once something has been established in their mind as the correct, safest, fairest, most logical, or most efficient way to do something, another person’s suggestion may not register as simply an equally valid preference.

It can register as wrong.

That’s very different from consciously thinking:

My opinion matters more than yours.

The behavior on the outside can look remarkably similar.

The internal process may not be.

And that distinction matters.

Understanding isn’t the same thing as excusing

This is where conversations about neurodivergence can get complicated.

If we discover that someone’s rigidity, emotional dysregulation, communication differences, sensory needs, or difficulty shifting perspective are related to autism or ADHD, it’s very easy to swing too far in one direction:

Oh. They can’t help it.

I shouldn’t upset them.

I need to accommodate this.

I guess this is just what being married to an autistic person is like.

No.

Understanding the neurological why behind a behavior does not determine what everyone else is required to tolerate.

This is one of the most important distinctions I often make in my work with clients.

Explanation and accountability can exist at the same time.

Someone may genuinely become dysregulated when their certainty is challenged.

And you are still allowed to disagree with them.

Someone may genuinely struggle to shift perspective in the moment.

And your perspective still matters.

Someone may experience an unexpected change as enormously distressing.

And that doesn’t necessarily mean the entire household must organize itself around preventing that distress.

Someone’s neurodivergence may explain why a particular interaction is difficult.

It does not automatically make harmful behavior acceptable.

Sometimes the person who changes is you

This was really the heart of the conversation with my friend.

Recognizing neurodivergence isn’t valuable because now we know what is “wrong” with somebody.

There isn’t suddenly something to fix.

The value is understanding the invisible wiring underneath what we’ve been seeing all along.

And once we understand that wiring, we can make different choices.

Maybe I stop interpreting your need for clarification as deliberately challenging me.

Maybe you stop assuming my forgetfulness means I don’t care.

Maybe I understand why changing plans at the last minute is so much harder for you than it is for me.

Maybe you recognize that when I say I need time alone, I’m regulating—not rejecting you.

Maybe I become more comfortable letting you be frustrated when I disagree with you instead of immediately changing my position to make the discomfort stop.

Maybe we finally recognize that we’ve spent twenty years trying to solve the wrong problem.

That’s not nothing.

That’s enormous.

A framework isn’t a free pass

There’s another reason I think understanding neurodivergence matters so much.

Without an accurate framework, we tend to fill in the blanks ourselves.

We assign motives.

We make character judgments.

And sometimes we excuse behavior we shouldn’t excuse because we’ve been told, “That’s just the autism” or “That’s just the ADHD.”

An accurate understanding should help us do less of both.

It should help us distinguish between neurological differences that require understanding and accommodation, relationship skills that can be learned, and harmful patterns that require accountability and boundaries.

Those things are not interchangeable.

And knowing someone is autistic or ADHD doesn’t answer every question about them.

It simply gives us better questions to ask.

So what does it change?

Maybe nothing.

You’re still you.

Your partner is still your partner. Your child is still your child. Your parent is still your parent.

No diagnosis—or self-recognition—rewrites the person who was already there.

But it can rewrite the story you’ve been telling yourself about that person.

And sometimes, that story has shaped a relationship for decades.

That’s why I don’t think the value of identifying neurodivergence is finding out what’s “wrong” so we can treat it or fix it.

It’s understanding how a particular brain experiences and navigates the world.

Because when the framework changes, our interpretations can change.

Our expectations can change.

Our communication can change.

Our boundaries can change.

And sometimes our relationships can change, too.

P.S. This question—what actually changes when we understand neurodivergence differently—is a core basis for why I wrote The Misunderstood Mind: What We Got Wrong about Autism, ADHD, and Neurodivergence.

The book comes out October 6, 2026. If you’d like to read more about it or reserve your copy, you can do that here:

Learn more about The Misunderstood Mind

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

VISIT THE FULL BLOG

Read more

A few weeks ago, I asked whether anyone would like to read The Misunderstood Mind before it was published to provide feedback.

More than 80 people responded in less than 24 hours, and since then, the feedback and endorsements have been flooding in.

I invited my entire subscriber list of over 3700 readers, without targeting any particular group. But as I read through the responses, I noticed they had self-selected into an almost perfectly representative group of the people for whom I wrote this book: 1/3 neurodivergent, 1/3 family/partner, 1/3 professionals.

That matters to me because The Misunderstood Mind was never intended to speak to only one group.

It is about all of us.

Here’s what some of them have said:

Different readers are finding themselves in different parts of the book. Some have told me they finally have language for experiences they have struggled to explain. Others are reconsidering things they were taught professionally. Partners and family members are recognizing that behaviors they once interpreted personally may mean something very different.

Five weeks from now, the book will officially make its way into the world.

Between now and then, I invite you to start reading it with me.

The book has five parts, so I’ll be sharing one complete part each week with paid subscribers.

We begin today with Part 1.

PART 1: Understanding Human Neurodiversity

Upcoming:

PART 2: The Rules for Being Different

PART 3: The Unfiltered Neurodivergent Life

PART 4: Navigating Relationships, Work, and Community

PART 5: Moving Forward Together

Pre-order your Kindle copy today

Get your download below:

Introduction

Part 1: Understanding Human Neurodiversity

Chapter 1: What Is Neurodiversity?

Chapter 2: Mapping the Human Mind

Chapter 3: What Is Your Neurotype and Is It Common?

Listen on Apple, Spotify, & More

Chapters:
0:00 — When a partner's special interest makes you invisible
1:45 — Today's topic: executive functioning challenges
2:19 — Jodi's ADHD spotted while editing the podcast
8:39 — Feeling invisible when a partner locks in
10:41 — ADHD vs autistic hyperfixation: how long is too long?
15:01 — Memory struggles: locked in but can't remember a thing
20:00 — Binging shows and forgetting you ever watched them

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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

I was behind the scenes setting up something new for my newsletter, Inside The Misunderstood Mind—and I somehow told Substack to email you about the Chat before I had even explained it to you.

So, let me explain.

I’ve just opened paid subscriptions for readers who would like to come further inside my work as I prepare to release The Misunderstood Mind: What We Got Wrong about Autism, ADHD, and Neurodivergence.

Free subscriptions aren’t going anywhere. You’ll continue to receive selected articles, publication updates, and opportunities to be part of the larger conversation.

But if you want more behind-the-scenes access, I’ve got a few options for you.

Option 1: Basic paid subscription: $7.99 monthly or $85 annually

This gets you:

• Pre-release access to chapters from The Misunderstood Mind, which releases October 6, 2026

• Videos from my audiobook recording sessions—with bonus commentary from yours truly—leading up to its December 8, 2026 release

• More personal, informal posts from behind the scenes of my neurodivergent life and work

This is the less-polished side of the finished articles, books, podcasts, and videos: the ideas I’m still developing, the questions I’m considering, and the occasional chaos involved in bringing all of it together.

Option 2: Impact Team membership: $129 annually

If you would like to contribute more toward publishing and marketing the book, you may choose a higher annual amount at checkout.

Substack will identify this as the “Founding Member” option at checkout, but I’m calling it the Impact Team because I want to ask you to help me get this book into the world.

As an Impact Team member, you will receive everything included with a paid subscription, along with:

• a signed hardcover or paperback copy of The Misunderstood Mind

  • I’ll cover standard U.S. shipping. If you’re outside the U.S., I’ll apply that amount toward your shipping and contact you about any additional postage before mailing your book.

• Private LIVE Impact Team brainstorming sessions with me

• Access to the members-only Impact Team Chat (that’s what the earlier Substack email was all about)

For me, this book release is bigger than simply “Hey, I wrote a book.” It’s about challenging outdated assumptions and bringing a more accurate, affirming, and nuanced understanding of neurodivergence into the world.

Impact Team members are invited to participate actively in private Chats and LIVE brainstorming sessions about how we can help the book reach more people—through libraries and bookstores, online and local communities, and the friends, family members, and professionals who need its message.

Participation is never required. You may want to join those conversations, or you may simply want to help make the launch successful.

All subscription revenue will help cover the very real costs of publishing and marketing the book—including production, audiobook development, publicity, advertising, distribution, and getting it into the hands of reviewers, professionals, libraries, and others who can help its message travel further.

Click below to choose the membership that’s right for you.

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Of course, you can cancel or downgrade your subscription at any time, but annual subscriptions will not be refunded or prorated at cancellation.

If a paid membership isn’t in your budget, you can also earn complimentary subscriber access by referring new readers. You will also receive referral credits whenever you share an article or post that results in a new subscriber.

Whether you remain a free subscriber, become a paid subscriber, or join the Impact Team, I’m glad you’re here. You matter to me.

Together, we can make an impact on how the world understands autism, ADHD, and neurodivergence.

Warmly,

Jodi

I do talk about it for hours on my podcasts. I write extensively. My first book is about to be released, and I have hundreds of pages of notes for several more in the queue. There is no shortage of things I have to say about my favorite topic.

But the one question that quite literally renders me speechless is:

“What do you do for a living?”

I freeze. Every time.

How do I answer that?

Frequently, I half-mumble, “That’s a great question,” followed by an uncertain chuckle.

Of course I know what I do for a living! I write, teach, coach, consult, and create educational content and courses. I am currently in the sixth season of my podcast, and I host a think tank with other neurodiversity experts.

But nobody wants to hear me rattle off a list like that. I am envious of people who can simply say, “I’m an attorney,” or “I’m a teacher,” or “I’m a stay-at-home parent.”

While my brain rapidly runs through its prepared list of canned responses, I usually blurt out one of the following:

“I’m a therapist.”

That isn’t really true anymore. I was a licensed therapist for 19 years before shifting my focus more than six years ago. Still, it is an easy answer that people understand.

“I’m in the field of neurodiversity.”

That usually gets a polite nod accompanied by a blank stare. Most people still aren’t familiar with the term.

“I work in autism.”

Although that stops far short of describing what I actually do, it gets immediate recognition.

The minute I mention autism, most people tell me about an autistic child they know—their grandchild, nephew, or friend’s child. Sometimes it is their own child.

That is what happened at a doctor’s appointment last week.

My doctor asked, “What do you do for work?”

I decided to try a new approach.

“I’m about to release my first book.”

“Wow! What’s it about?”

“It’s about the way we’ve misunderstood autism, ADHD, and other forms of neurodiver—”

“Oh, my son is autistic! My youngest is probably somewhere on the spectrum, too.”

“Ah! I have an autistic daughter and an ADHD son myself,” I responded. “My work is primarily with adults, though, who—”

“Oh, I really want to read it because I want to understand my son better!”

I loved hearing that. Of course I hope the book helps her understand her son!

But I also hope her son is only the beginning of what she sees.

The conversation waned as my appointment ended. It was casual chitchat. People who ask what I do are not expecting a seminar on the history and cultural framing of neurodivergence.

Still, I left feeling frustrated.

Not with my doctor. With the cultural misunderstanding at the root of my problem.

The exchange perfectly illustrates why I cannot answer that seemingly simple question. We have language for working with autistic children. We have language for diagnosing and treating disorders. People understand what a therapist does.

But when I say I work with neurodivergent adults and relationships, many people have no mental picture for what that means.

That limited picture is exactly why I wrote this first book, The Misunderstood Mind: What We Got Wrong About Autism, ADHD, and Neurodivergence.

Pre-order Your Kindle Copy

As I drove home from my appointment, I realized I wanted to share with you the exchange with my doctor as an example of why our collective understanding of neurodivergence needs an update. So I started formulating this article in my mind.

Then, a few days later, something happened that I could not have scripted any better.

Dr. Tony Attwood said it out loud

This newsletter was still sitting unfinished on my screen when I recorded a podcast episode with Dr. Tony Attwood and my season co-host, Mona Kay (airing in September).

For those who don’t know his work, Dr. Attwood is an internationally recognized clinical psychologist who has spent more than 50 years working with autistic people and their families.

He has written extensively about autism, but Asperger’s Syndrome: A Guide for Parents and Professionals was the first book I read after my daughter was diagnosed more than 15 years ago.

I wanted to understand my daughter, just as my doctor now wants to understand her son.

And now I was interviewing Dr. Attwood.

As if that weren’t surreal enough, my review copy of The Misunderstood Mind had arrived just hours before the podcast taping.

For the first time, I was holding the book I had spent two years researching, writing, and revising.

Two enormous career milestones in a matter of hours!

During our conversation, Dr. Attwood reflected on how dramatically the autism field has changed over the course of his career.

When he first began studying autism in 1971, the prevailing picture was based largely on Leo Kanner’s description: autistic children who were conspicuously different, minimally speaking, and had high support needs. Dr. Attwood spent approximately the first 20 years of his career working primarily with people who fit what we would now call an ASD Level 3 presentation.

Today, he explained, we understand that this presentation represents only about 25 percent of the autism spectrum.

He was not suggesting that the remaining 75 percent never experience disability or need support. His point was that the conspicuous, high-support-needs presentation that defined autism for decades represents a minority of autistic people.

He noted that the majority have intellectual abilities within the typical range, and some are intellectually gifted.

Yet that earlier, narrower picture still dominates our collective imagination.

Dr. Attwood also spoke about something that has bothered me for years.

“You read the DSM-5,” he said, “and it’s all deficits.”

I could barely contain myself.

Dr. Attwood was putting into his own words what my entire book is about.

So, of course, I held up my freshly minted copy and stuck it in the camera.

“This is my new book!” I told him. “It’s about what we got wrong about autism, ADHD, and neurodivergence.”

“Ah, so you agree!” he said.

Yes.

Yes, I do.

Our culture still talks about autism and ADHD primarily as disorders. We talk about diagnosis, symptoms, impairment, intervention, and treatment. We have made enormous progress in recognizing autistic children, but our language and understanding have not kept pace with them into adulthood.

Moreover, many autistic adults build careers, have relationships, raise families, and move through the world without ever being recognized as autistic.

This is part of why I struggle to explain what I do for a living. My work exists in a space that society does not yet understand.

Then, Dr. Attwood reflected on something that made the point almost impossible to miss.

After more than 50 years of working in the autism field, he has recently concluded that he is autistic himself.

Case in point.

One of the world’s best-known autism experts spent more than five decades helping other people understand autism before recognizing his own place within that picture.

He had not recognized himself in the familiar diagnostic criteria or the cultural image of autism.

I can relate. I didn’t recognize my own ADHD until a few years ago—after working in psychology for more than two decades and specifically in neurodivergence for more than ten years.

If those criteria and stereotypes did not help Tony Attwood recognize his own autism—or help me recognize my ADHD—imagine how many other neurodivergent adults remain unseen by their doctors, partners, families, employers, and even themselves.

More than 20 years ago, Tony Attwood’s work was helping professionals and parents like me understand autism.

Now my own first book is intended to help carry that understanding beyond childhood, diagnostic criteria, and the limited presentations society has been taught to recognize.

And Dr. Attwood told me he wants to read it.

I am still taking that in.

So, what do I do about the dreaded question?

I still don’t have a concise answer, but for those willing to listen, here is the long version:

I work with neurodivergent adults who are physicians, engineers, therapists, executives, teachers, entrepreneurs, attorneys, stay-at-home parents, and retirees.

They are managing careers, marriages, children, household responsibilities, aging parents, sensory overwhelm, burnout, intimacy, and the same argument they have been having with their spouse for 20 years.

Some know they are neurodivergent. Many do not.

I write and teach about the adults whose sensory experiences are repeatedly dismissed as anxiety.

The adults whose executive-function difficulties are mistaken for laziness or irresponsibility.

The successful professionals who appear to be managing life beautifully but are quietly unraveling from the effort.

The exhausted parents who have spent years learning to accommodate their child’s nervous system without realizing they have never understood their own.

These are some of the people sitting in my doctor’s examination rooms every day.

Some may even be telling her about their autistic or ADHD children without realizing that the family history they are describing contains clues about themselves.

Maybe I’ll take her a copy of The Misunderstood Mind at my next visit.

I hope it helps her understand her son. I also hope it helps her recognize the neurodivergent adults she already knows, treats, works alongside, and encounters every day.

Hopefully one day I will be able to say, “I work with neurodivergent adults and relationships,” and people will understand what that means.

For now, I suppose this is the work: writing the books, having the conversations, and helping broaden our collective understanding of neurodivergence.

Because autistic and ADHD children grow up.

And the rest of us were here all along.

—Jodi

P.S. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast or subscribe to my Substack to watch or listen to our interview with Dr. Attwood in September!

Subscribe now

Help This Book Reach the People Who Need It

If you believe this broader understanding of neurodivergence needs to reach more people, you can help make an impact.

Preordering does more than reserve your copy. Amazon counts Kindle preorders toward the book’s sales rank and other Kindle Store promotion before release. That early activity can help Amazon recognize that the book is relevant—and make it more likely that new readers who are searching for this information will discover it.

The Kindle edition will be released on October 6, 2026, and preorders are available now. Paperback and hardback pre-orders are coming soon!

Pre-order Your Kindle Copy Now

This article was originally published at jodicarlton.com. Visit the blog to read other articles about neurodiversity and complex relationship dynamics, including abuse.

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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 love vs. sex, masking in the bedroom, asexuality, ethical non-monogamy, separate bedrooms, and the hidden pattern that quietly undermines intimacy for neurodiverse couples: fawning.

In this episode, we talk about why so many neurodiverse marriages end up with "zero sex," but also creative solutions that actually work for both partners — this conversation goes places most podcasts won't.

Listen on Apple, Spotify, & More

Chapters:
0:00 Teaser
0:35 Intro
1:21 Love vs. Sex Myths
1:56 Masking & Mismatched Scripts
3:15 Asexuality & Misalignment
5:50 Get Help Early
6:57 Find Neurodivergent-Fluent Support
8:10 Creative Relationship Solutions
11:54 Define Your Own Relationship Rules
12:33 Dating Non-Negotiables & Self-Work
14:59 Support Options & Trusted Guides
15:48 Outro

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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

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

READ MORE BY JODI CARLTON

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.

Pre-Order My New Book

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.”}

GO TO COURSES

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

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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.

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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.

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

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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