When Everyone in the House is Neurospicy (And Nobody Has Any Spoons Left)

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When Everyone in the House is Neurospicy (And Nobody Has Any Spoons Left)

 

Some days it feels like everyone in your house is running on 3% battery.

Someone forgot to pick up something they agreed to on the way home. Someone else is hiding in their room because they are overstimulated. The kitchen is a wreck, the dog is barking and someone is crying (it might be you.) And someone can’t find the phone that they are currently using like a flashlight to look for their phone. 

Chaos!

The hardest part is that nobody’s trying to make anyone else’s day harder.

When people picture ADHD or neurodivergence in a family, they often imagine one person who needs some extra support. But many households have more than one neurospicy brain.

ADHD, for example, is known to run in families. Maybe two partners both have ADHD. Maybe one person is autistic, and one person has ADHD.  In my house – we have three adults: one with ADHD, one with Autism, and one who is AuDHD.

Maybe everyone has different sensory needs, different executive functioning challenges, different ways to communicate, and differeing ways to of handling stress. It might sometimes feel less like a family and more like a group project where no one wanted to be in charge.

The good news? You aren’t the problem – and neither are they. Nobody is the problem.

The challenge is that everyone’s nervous system is asking for something differing all at the same time.

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Capacity Changes

There are days when everything feels like way too much.

No one has the same amount of energy or executive functioning available every day. For me, even different parts of the day have fluctuations in energy and capacity.

Some days you might be able to manage cooking dinner, answering your emails, helping with homework, and knocking items off your to-do list like a pro.

Other days deciding what to eat feels like a research project and you realize you left the wash in the washer for the third time.

With multiple neurodivergent brains, everyone can have lower capacity at the same time.

A parent is overwhelmed. A teenager is tapped out after school. Your partner has shut down from sensory overload. A child is melting down because their socks suddenly become unacceptable.

Nobody is refusing, nobody is lazy, nobody is being difficult.

Everyone is just running on low capacity.

This is often where resentment can sneak in – not because people don’t care about each other, but because everyone has less to give than they often wish they did.

Sometimes if teels like everyone is drowning in three inches of water at the same time.

 

 

Different Brains Can (and do) Accidentally Crash In Each Other

It’s definitely tricky living with other neurodivergent people when your support needs don’t match.

One person needs silence to focus and the other can’t think without music playing.

One wants to make plans in advance while another doesn’t like to plan until approximately seven minutes before a decision needs to be made.

In my house, one of us like subtitles watching TV and another one finds them incredibly distracting.

It can also look like one person interrupting because they don’t want to forget what they were thinking, another experiences being interrupted as being invalidated or invisible.

In each case, neither person is wrong.

They’re simply solving different problems.

The goal doesn’t need to be figuring out whose needs are “right” or “correct.”

It’s learning that different brains need different things at different times – and making room for that whenever you can.

 

 

 

Fair Isn’t Always The Goal

 When my kids were little, I felt like I was constantly trying to make everything equal for everyone. And this is something many families, with our without children, get stuck trying to do.

• Equal chores.
• Equal time.
• Equal contributions.
• Equal number of freaking marshmallows.
• Equal everything.

That’s exhausting.

Neurodivergent households often work better when we stop trying for perfect fairness and start setting the goal as being sustainable.

Some days one person has 80% to give, someone else has 20%, and tomorrow it could be completely reversed. Sometimes everyone has 20% which is how cereal ends up becoming dinner again.

Capacity isn’t a personality trait. It changes. Fluctuates.

Some days your brain gives you access to your skills. Some days it absolutely does not.

The goal isn’t keeping score.

The goal is making sure everyone gets thre the day with as much dignity – and as little shame – as possible.

Replace Assumptions With Curiosity

Our brains can lie to us. And when we are overwhelmed or flustered, it’s super easy to listen to the lies.

“He doesn’t care.” “They are ignoring me.” “She’s being lazy.” “They know this bothers me and refuse to change.”

Sometimes those stories are true.

A lot of the time? They’re not true.

Often, the other person is struggling just as much as you are.

Instead of assuming, try getting curious.

• “What do you have capacity for today?”
• “Do you want help or would you like me to just listen?”
• ” Would it help to work on this together?”

These aren’t magic questions but they create something incredibly valuable.

Connection.

When people feel understood, they are much more likely to work together instead of against each other.

Home Shouldn’t Feel Like Another Place You Have To Perform.

Many of us spend all day trying to hold it together. Masking at work, at school, in public.

Trying not to interrupt. Trying not to fidget. Trying to remember things and make appropriate eye contact. Trying to seem “normal.”

Home shouldn’t have to be another place where everyone feels like they are failing some test.

Home can be the place it’s okay to say,

• “I’m overstimulated or overloaded.”
• “I forgot.”
• “I need a few minutes.”
• “I’m struggling with words right now.”
• “I need help.”

Home shouldn’t have to be another place where everyone feels like they are failing some test.

Not because we expect others to magically meet every need…but because those things can be said without shame.

That doesn’t mean we stop taking responsibility.

It means that we can stop assuming that struggle equals laziness, carlessness, or a lack of love.

 

 

One More Thing: If everyone in your house is neurospicy, you’re probably going to have days that feel spectacularly messy.

Appointments will be forgotten. Miscommunication will happen. Dinner can come from the freezer. Again.

There will also be incredible creativity, deep empathy, hilarious conversations, unique perspectives, and people who understand each other in ways the outside world rarely does.

The goal isn’t to create the perfect neurodivergent household.

The goal is to become students of each other instead of critics of each other. To replace assumptions with curiosity. Perfection with flexibility. Blame with compassion.

Because when everyone is out of spoons, the kindest thing you can offer each other isnt’ another explanation, it’s grace and understanding.