Everything Is Connected to Everything with Dr. Mel Houser

Hey Team!

This week I’m talking with Dr. Mel Houser, a family physician and founder of All Brains Belong, a nonprofit that brings together healthcare and community support for neurodivergent people. Dr. Houser is also Autistic and ADHD herself and the author of A Failure of Imagination: How the Healthcare System Fails Neurodivergent People—and What We’re Doing Instead.

In our conversation today, we get into some topics I don’t normally cover on the show, including how physical health conditions can overlap for neurodivergent people and what gets missed when we treat each issue as its own separate problem. We also talk about a resource you can bring to your doctor to help get that conversation started.

From there, we get into understanding our capacity, setting boundaries around what we can actually manage, and why rest doesn’t always have to mean lying down and doing nothing. And Dr. Houser shares a way of thinking about those moments when we can’t stop scrolling: if your foot is already on the gas, what could it look like to steer somewhere else?

If you'd life to follow along on the show notes page you can find that at HackingYourADHD.com/321

YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/y835cnrk

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/HackingYourADHD

This episode's Top Tips:

1. Our boundaries need to account for our capacity. There’s a difference between not wanting to do something and not having the capacity to do it, even if those can look the same from the outside. We can still want to answer the phone, go to an event, or help someone and still need to say, “I can’t do that right now.”

2. It's important to pay attention to what drains you and what helps you recharge. Whether you think about that in terms of spoons or a battery, the point is to recognize that your energy has limits and those limits can change. Being able to push through something doesn’t necessarily mean you have the capacity to keep doing it, especially if you’re borrowing from what you’ll need later.

3. When you’re having trouble stopping, try changing direction. Dr. Houser describes this as having your foot stuck on the gas: instead of trying to slam on the brakes while the gas is still going, see if you can steer somewhere else. If you’re stuck scrolling, getting up while you’re still holding your phone might be a first step toward a transition. You don’t have to make the entire change at once.

4. Rest can mean reducing demands, not just stopping everything. A meeting where you can use the chat instead of speaking is one example where you're making participation less demanding. When you’re looking for ways to rest, consider which demands you can remove or reduce, even if you can’t step away from everything.