The Cost of Perfection: Understanding Internalized Ableism in ADHD

Hi, I'm Ash. And I'm Dusty. And this is Translating ADHD. So Dusty, today we are going to talk about internalized ableism. And listeners, this is actually... This topic was prompted by some feedback that we got from a listener on the adulting episode a couple of weeks ago, and particularly Dusty's statement of just use the frickin' paper plates. This was a very kind email that had nothing but nice things to say about the podcast other than their concern about this statement.

And the concern was coming from an environmental standpoint. And so Dusty and I kind of talked about how do we want to address this? We want to come back to this topic because... This is something we face so often as ADHD people. We're afraid to do the imperfect thing that we might need in that moment to support ourselves. And things like this can reinforce that belief that...

We are not allowed to do the imperfect thing. We are not allowed to accommodate ourselves. So the bigger topic on the table today is really about internalized ableism. But... Just first and briefly, let's start with the paper plates thing, because Dusty, I know you have some things that you'd like to add. Particularly on this topic, before we jump into the broader topic of how do you deal with your own internalized ableism as a person with ADHD?

So, and, you know, the listener that gave feedback made a good point about the fact that this isn't sustainable if everyone does it. And I think the part that's maybe being missed here is that we're not talking, we're not suggesting that everyone should do it all the time, right? We're talking about 5% of the adult population that has ADHD. And of that 5%, not everyone with ADHD is struggling with the maximum amount of executive dysfunction at the same time.

And some of those people with ADHD may not even struggle with something like dishes, right? We're all different. But there is a good subsect of that ADHD impacted population who do struggle with cleaning and who do struggle with... executive dysfunction, and maybe also comorbid conditions like chronic fatigue or illness, you know, depression, right? And so my point was about sort of giving yourself permission to do what you need to do to like get through your day.

And I think the important thing to note here, a couple things, right? We're not talking about everybody doing this all the time. We're talking about the people who really need it, being able to do it when they really need to do it. But I also just want to say, I think one of the issues we get into with internalized ableism does come back to like black or white thinking, right? We get into very all or nothing thinking and with stuff like environmentalism.

You know, it seems like such a good thing. Of course, we all want to be environmentally concerned. We want to all be good environmentalists. But it's not as easy on the surface as it seems. Like we know now more than ever that stuff like recycling isn't nearly as impactful as we think that it is, unfortunately. And like I know people, you know, and I've been this person who like meticulously recycled every single thing.

Well, let me tell you that the majority of plastic recycling that we do in Canada, at least, just ends up on like a barge somewhere on the shores of some country in Southeast Asia. Like it doesn't actually get recycled. And when it comes to paper plates.

Let me just, you know, for comparison, tell you that there is a Belgian airline that during the pandemic ran 3,000 empty flights in a year to keep its landing strip priority. So to put that into perspective. A hundred people would need to recycle 31.4 million cans each. Each person.

I don't think I'm going to use 31.4 million cans in my entire life. A hundred people would need to recycle 31.4 million cans each to offset the carbon cost of 3,000 flights, and that's in one year. So when we do talk about environmental damage, I think we like... You know, we get this message from, you know, from polluting corporations that like we should be the ones, you know, cutting back and putting ourselves in uncomfortable positions when really like we consumer like.

climate change and consumer issues make up a tiny fraction of this. I also looked up how many paper plates you can get from one tree, and it's between like five and 700, right? So if I am a person struggling with executive dysfunction, I can use one paper plate every day for more than a year, for like almost two years, and that's only one tree. But I think that, you know, the point here is...

You don't often need to use a paper plate every day for a year. You need to use a paper plate or a few paper plates every day for like a month or a couple of months or maybe even six months if you're going through a really tough time. But our capacity fluctuates.

And giving ourselves permission to do that imperfect thing, like you said, is what's going to get us back to full capacity where we can be, you know, doing the most that we can. And at the end of the day, like even never using paper plates is like a very.

Like, it's not going to have the same impact as some of the other things that we could be doing. But when we're mired in depression and executive dysfunction and physical pain from our comorbid conditions, like, we're not doing any of that anyway, right? So Dusty, what you're talking about there is meeting yourself where you are. One of the big challenges with ADHD is that...

We tend to have pretty static expectations of ourselves, no matter what else is going on in our lives. We're really bad at... ADHD people are actually pretty decent at introspection, but because... Our brains are such busy, disorganized places. We are really bad at connecting to what we know at any given time. So...

Oftentimes my work with my clients is around recognizing diminished capacity, recognizing the other context in your life that is causing struggle right now. I'm working with a client right now who... This is not her first foray into coaching or having success in creating change with ADHD. She's had a lot of challenging life circumstances in the last few years, and some of those are ongoing right now.

Her partner has some chronic health stuff that they are working through together. Her dog has some acute health stuff. That puts her in a caretaker role, especially since dogs are silly and they don't know how to not rip out their own sutures when they've had a surgery. She's got some stuff going on with her house and turned from some repair, some repairs that.

did not go very well. There's just a lot. And all while she's embarking on a career change. It is a lot of stuff all at once. And our first several sessions... She just kept repeating, I know how to do this. I know how to do this. And as we'd start to talk about a topic, she'd go searching for what did I used to do? And so...

Our first little story arc in coaching has been about adjusting that curiosity or that search from what I used to do and how do I get back there to where am I now and what's possible right now. And more so than some of my other clients, we're intentionally keeping her practice really small. Really small week to week because we're respecting both where this client wants to go, what her bigger... visions are for what she wants out of this coaching process.

but also and equally respecting the limitations of where she is right now, which is the intersection of being a person with ADHD, which is already something that creates struggle in the areas that we're coaching about. All of this other context that further makes those things difficult, right? Taxes her executive function, means she has less energy, means she has less bandwidth, less attention, less time. Let's be real.

It's not all ADHD. Some of it is just the very real constraints of what else needs your attention in your life right now. Yeah. And I think at the end of the day, we're also talking about the concept of like return on investment. Right. And that like each action is not absolute in terms of its sort of like moral goodness or impact or even impact on us.

So one of the things I did recently is I spoke with some of my clients about how to spend money, right? And we talked about this idea of paying the ADHC tax up front. And so one of the things we were talking about is this idea of like, okay, say you like decide you want to start doing yoga at the local yoga studio.

And like the monthly pass is really exorbitantly expensive, but the yearly pass is super cheap. So what do you do? You want to be wise. You want to make good choices. So you sign up for the yearly pass. Then you never go. waste of money right and so we were talking about this concept of knowing when it's better to pay the higher price which seems like the worst deal because it's actually going to save you money in the end as it pertains to adhd versus like knowing

when it's actually best for you to say buy in bulk or you know like it's not or to pay the annual you know cost or something because it's not saving you any money to buy a bunch of stuff in bulk that you don't eat and then throw out and i think the whole like The whole like paper plates or accommodating yourself argument really comes down to the same thing. It's about recognizing when.

The thing that you're going to do now that seems like the wrong thing or not the best thing is actually going to lead to a better outcome long term, right? And so we see this again with the concept of like, I discuss this a lot with people around like pre-cut fruit, right? Or pre-cut vegetables, which come in the like sort of plastic like clam shells or whatever from the deli.

And people are like, oh, I don't want to buy that. All the environmental waste, blah, blah, blah. But like how many of us buy that fruit like whole and then we don't. actually cut it up and we don't eat it and it rots and then it just like food waste is a huge problem in the United States and globally really but like especially in North America so

What's worse? These two pieces of plastic from this like container of cut fruit, if I actually eat it and then I nourish my body and then I have the energy to go out and do good things in the world versus like an entire bag of apples, which like goes bad, right? Like they're, you know.

They're both environmentally impactful. But in one scenario, I get the nourishment that I need to have the energy in my body to go out and make positive change in other ways. Right. Really well said, Dusty. And I want to give an example that. kind of takes us even out of the realm of environmentalism. My lawnmower has been in my office for eight months now.

Okay, eight months, eight months, this lawnmower has been in my office. And when I first brought it into my office, by the way, it did not work because a massive tree limb fell on my metal shed and put a hole in the roof. And I did not realize that right away because I have ADHD. And my lawnmower got rained on and it's an electric mower. So I needed to get the lawnmower fixed. I needed to figure out what I wanted to do about the shed.

There's this bigger problem of my property backs up to a railroad line. So there are trees and limbs and things that are sort of out of my control to deal with. I'm not sure I want to put up another metal shed because if another branch like that falls, it's just going to cave it in. But to afford like a custom built shed, that's going to be more durable.

was something that I wasn't able to do right away. And for the longest time, my lawnmower just sat in my office broken, right? And I was frozen. And so part of this is about perspective shift. Right. And every day I would look at the shed with the hole in it and I would feel guilt and shame and feel bad that my neighbor who is really into gardening, she's retired. So she's really into gardening and she has the time and the capacity and the interest and desire.

to keep a really beautiful yard, I would feel some amount of shame and judgment. Even though this neighbor has never, ever said anything judgmental in my direction, I'm applying self-judgment that isn't even there. And it kept me stuck.

Right. I wasn't moving forward. And so and compounded with I've got a lot of other like I just I'm in a place in life where I've got more problems that I can tackle once at a time. So it all just felt like it was collapsing on itself. So. What I needed to do in that case was step back and be like, okay, what is the first step and what is the problem I can solve now?

Do I love having my lawnmower in my office? No, but my office does open directly up to my deck. So if I get the lawnmower fixed, the lawnmower is once again a usable tool. that I can relatively easily get in and out of my office. So as a temporary solution, that is fine. And at the time that I was coming to this solution, we were also coming into the winter season. So not a lot can happen in terms of constructing new buildings, which gave me time to step back and think about...

how I wanted to solve this problem in a bigger way. So just that, fixing the lawnmower, getting that part functional, I can now mow my own grass again.

gave me the bandwidth to think about, okay, how do I tackle the rest of it? What am I going to do here? And while I'm still in process of solving that, and if you look out in my yard, you visibly don't see any difference from six months ago, I've made some... progress on the other challenges in the way things like the finances of it things like in what order do I want to do things I should probably no matter what kind of shit I get

I should probably get the trees trimmed so that I don't build any kind of brand new shed and open it up to damage that could have been preventable. Number one. Number two. I plan on staying in this house for a good long time. So it is probably worth the investment if I can solve for how to comfortably enough afford it to construct something that is more durable.

than buying another metal shed. It's going to be three or four times the cost of another metal shed, but it's also going to solve the problem for a much... longer period of time. So listeners, I want you to hear that my thinking there just started with just sort of like taking a breath and saying, okay, this is something I say to myself often, especially in the last couple of years. Okay, you're here now, right? Here's the slate of problems for you.

You're just here now. And for me, that's an acceptance thing. That's letting go of all of the stories, letting go of all of the judgment and the shoulds, letting go of the worry about letting my sheds sit the way that it sat for the better part of a year now, looking pretty junky in my backyard and just. acknowledging that i'm here now and the only way that i can carve a path forward is to take one step at a time when i have the capacity the bandwidth the time

the money, the other resources, whatever resources I need to take a step in that direction. And that it is okay to identify the next step and recognize that I can't take that step yet. I don't have what I need or I have too many other things or whatever it is. It's okay to acknowledge that step is there and nothing terrible is going to happen if I don't take this step right away. So. Finding that nuance and distinction. Because your ADHD wants a solution now. Your ADHD wants to fix it all.

And so being able to step back and find nuance and distinction and to ask yourself, what am I capable of right now in this moment? What am I not capable of? And therefore, what are my options? Well, for me, my options were to go ahead and get the lawnmower fixed because that wasn't that expensive. And to store it in my office until I am in a place where I can reasonably take what I now know the next steps are. And that's it's we've been in that place for a while.

And that's okay, right? Because I've got other things to work on to get me to a place where I have what I need to take those next steps. Was that a helpful antidote, by the way? Yes. And also it reminded me that I was thinking of you in your lawnmower this past weekend because of all the storms and the rain. Was everything okay at your house?

Actually, fortunately, yes, we did get really nasty weather like very close to where I live. It was a luck of the draw situation as far as tornadoes go. My backyard is... absolutely covered in dead limbs right now but nothing close to my house no house damage

The shed can't possibly be any more damaged if anything hit it because it is functionally not able to do its job already. So thank you for that. And yes, thankfully that did not create any new problems beyond the fact that I've got several weeks worth of yard waste.

to go out and gather over time and get out to the curb, which isn't too bad. I'll take it. Okay. Yeah, well, I mean, just listening to what you're saying, there's sort of two things that stand out to me, and they're two sides of the same coin. You know, one is that when we talk about accommodations and about return on investment, it makes me think of like how, you know, we have like Braille or we have.

wheelchair ramps in places and like let's think of the like tiny minority of people who actually might need those things right like most of us say we're going into a building with braille on the wall maybe i don't know what percentage of us but maybe like 95 of us or more are not going to need that braille right and so there's a pretty small minority of people who are going to use it

And I'm sure that it, you know, costs money and resources to install that or to install a ramble, whatever, right? And we never stop to be like, oh, well, that's, you know, not, why, right? Like, because we care about accessibility. We care about... People who can't do the same things as us having what they need. Right. And I think this is anything like this, whether it's paper plates or it's, you know, paying me an easy tax up front or it's lawnmowers, like whatever it is.

It's the same kind of thing, but turned on ourselves, right? We are in that minority of people who need that. And we have to remember there's a big majority of people who don't need these accommodations and aren't using them. And it's okay.

to give ourselves permission to use it because we do need it, right? And so I think the flip side, like, you know, if we can agree that there's utility in installing wheelchair ramps and putting Braille on things, even though it costs money and there's effort and it probably...

requires construction materials which are not environmentally friendly or time-consuming whatever right inconvenient as we're you know doing construction if we can agree that those things are necessary and worthwhile and that they're important We can, I think, go to that other side of the coin where we're always so willing to allow accommodations for others. And we're always so willing to like.

do for others and to care for others and to go yeah like of course these people should have what they need right but when it comes to ourselves there's always that like oh well do i really need this am i just being lazy Right. And if you think that other people should get to benefit from accommodations, but that you shouldn't need to, shouldn't have to, aren't worthy of.

That, my friend, is the internalized ableism. That's the internalized ableism at work, right? You're just the same as everyone else, right? You're not special. You're not better. You're not like this superhero who can both... occupy an identity of a disability and yet be able to do everything all the time and not need anything. You're just a person and sometimes your capacity is low and it's okay to need what you need.

Just like it's okay for other people to need wheelchair ramps or braille or paper plates or whatever the case may be, right? It's hard for us to turn that on ourselves. And ironically, I think a little bit part of the like...

neurochemical makeup of ADHD itself. It's like a little bit of chicken and egg, you know? Oh, 100% Dusty. I find myself often saying in coaching, and this is interesting because you and I have never talked about this before, that like, oh, we've got like a chicken and an egg dilemma here.

right? And so that's an opportunity to get curious about which is which. I kind of want to talk about another scenario. So what we've talked about so far is sort of giving yourself permission to be where you are and to accommodate your needs in that moment in time, taking into account your own.

context what is the bigger context here what am i capable of doing what am i not capable of doing where can i let go and support myself a little bit in a way that's going to help me find more capacity and move forward you talked about this before we got on mic dusty and you called it i don't think this was quite your language but this is how i'm gonna say it like surrendering to the flow which by the way is a fish lyric but also something that i

have embodied for a long time on my own journey the trick is to surrender to the flow that's a that's both a fish lyric but also a really poignant way of thinking about journey thinking and thinking about how to live a life that better suits you as a person with ADHD instead of fighting against the current being able to step back and say, okay, I'm here now.

Let's drop all the stories and the shame and the guilt and the things and just try to figure out what I'm actually capable of and what I'm not right now. But... I think there's another conversation to be had about internalized ableism in terms of the things that are just immutable and that we can't, despite our best efforts to do so, that... we can only get so far in creating change on and for me one of those things is remembering people that i've met if we have only met on a

I'm Ash. I'm Dusty. We're both ADHD coaches at a conference. basis if I didn't have a conversation with you or if there's not more context for me to remember who you are in a bigger way then the next time I see you I'm probably not going to remember you, even if you remember me. And there's a couple of things. I've been thinking a lot about this, actually, because I am running into this in... the queer organization that I'm in, right? I am a person that will talk to everybody.

I am in a position in that organization where I'm involved with memberships. So part of my goal at any one of our events is to seek out and talk to new people and to be that space where they can ask questions about what our organization is and if it's something that they might.

be interested in but i struggle with the fact that i'm not going to remember that person the next time and i've had people get offended at me for not remembering them like deeply offended i've had people like yell at me for this and so i've been thinking a lot lately about what's my stuff here what can i work on here and here's the conclusion that i've come to

The way that I remember people is unique to me because not only do I have ADHD, I have no visual brain. So even in the case of somebody like Dusty, you have... orange hair you have a pretty memorable aesthetic stacking you up against other women who might be like a similar height similar features similar whatever you have some very memorable things about you visually but i have no visual brain so those aren't things that they're things i notice and appreciate about you now that i

know your context and know that external reflection is just a like a billboard to the bigger thing that is one of your strengths that you're so relentlessly and unapologetically yourself but That first time we met, that was neither here nor there in terms of my ability to contextualize you and remember who you are. And so I need context, right? I need, and sometimes...

If another person can help me with that context, a question I will often ask is, oh, what did we talk about? Right? Where were we? What did we talk about? Because if I can remember that conversation, because I don't have a visual brain, words are huge for me. If we had an interesting conversation about something and you can help me put two and two together, now...

I'm starting to build context and I'm starting to build memory of you in a real way. And so I've thought a lot about this. It's like people are just sort of like a fuzzy amalgam for me. Like you're either like fuzzy and in the crowd. or you stand out to me because in the ways that I am able to remember, retain, and recall things, I need the context, which is an ADHD thing, right? Context helps all of us, but...

I also don't have the backup of the visual, right? And so the last couple of times somebody has gotten upset with me for this, I have actually stopped and said, hey, listen, I have ADHD. Like this is not personal. This is just the way that my brain works. I need to meet you enough times to have some context of you in order for me to remember you, especially right now in this moment of time where I am.

constantly and consistently meeting new people and people who are likely to remember me because I'm one of two or three people that they talk to in our organization. but where it might be very challenging for me to remember them because I talk to new people at every single event that I go to. And I'm not one for on-the-fly advocacy work, but in those moments, I don't let that fly anymore.

Right? Because it's such a, especially if it's coming from a place of like moralistic judgment that I'm a bad person because I don't remember you. And somebody says something critical or harsh to me. I will clap right back. And stand in my own truth. I have ADHD. I am sorry that you are offended by this, but here is how my brain works and here is how I form memory of people. And if you can't understand that, then...

I don't think there's anything more to say here and we probably should certainly shouldn't be friends because my entire existence is going to drive you crazy. That's very powerful. Well, thank you. I have to say about that. And I was just kind of like reflecting that's true of me as well. Like, I think I have a more visual brain than you, but often like I'll remember like the weirdest little fact about someone like someone will be like from like, I don't know, Montenegro.

Or they will have like done work in some really obscure area. And when I meet them again, I'll be like, oh, you're the person who, and they're like, oh, like, I feel like maybe I should just start because I have the same thing. Even though I have more of a visual brain, I still forget people. So, like, maybe I should just start with, like, hi, I'm Dusty. Tell me one really interesting fact about yourself. You should probably just do that.

Dusty, we're out of time, unfortunately, because what you just spoke to, I actually want to talk offline with you a little bit more about that, because now I'm really curious about what the broader ADHD experience is. in this scenario of remembering people, right? So listeners, if you have anything to share about your own experience there, if you've run into situations where you have been criticized or called out or admonished.

for not remembering someone, if someone has been offended at you for that, and if you know something about what it is for you to remember someone. I would be really interested. I think Dusty and I would both be really interested in hearing that. But for today, to kind of bring it full circle.

None of us is capable of doing it all. None of us is capable of being perfect. And we're bad at recognizing that with ADHD. So I think the big moral of the story here is stepping back and taking into account where you are, right? You're here now. You're here now. What are you capable of? What are you not capable of? And giving yourself permission to do whatever it is you need to do.

to get from where you are now to where you're trying to get to, even if those solutions in the moment are imperfect, even if it means using paper plates or having your lawnmower live in your office. It is okay. to live in perfectly and it is okay to accommodate yourself and do what is best for you as a person with ADHD like It just is. There is a time in my life when I would not have let people in my house at all with my lawnmower in.

my office and now when i give people a tour and i'm like and there's my lawnmower because there's a hole in my shed and you can see it right out there and we're working on it but we're not there yet that's literally what i say And I'm not just saying it, I mean it, right? I'm working on it, but I'm not there yet. Two things can be true.

I'm at peace with it, and it's not something that I let eat myself alive in terms of shame and self-judgment. And even that, just not carrying around the shame and self-judgment, frees up so much time, energy, and bandwidth. a other things and b the steps along the way i need to take to get from here to having the lawnmower back in a shed that does its job and has a functioning roof

Yes, my final thoughts on this matter are don't let your disability get in the way of you recognizing that you have a disability. For example, you know, we're not talking about everybody keeping their lawnmower in their living room for eight months. We're not talking about...

Everybody needing a wheelchair ramp in their house. We're not talking about everybody using paper plates forever. We're talking about a small segment of the population of which you are a part. And it is different for you. And yes, it is harder for you. So if you are struggling.

And it would make your life easier to send your laundry out to a wash and fold surface, even though you have a washing machine. To use paper plates, even though you have a dishwasher. To order food in, even though you have food in the fridge that you could cook.

Whatever the thing that you need to do to get through the day is, just remember, like, that's where you're at today. And this is just you. Don't go to that all or nothing place where it's like, well, I can't sustain this forever. Or like, what if everybody did it?

That's not what we're talking about. And that's the like that's the all or nothing black or white like ADHDness of it all. That's going to keep us from doing the thing that actually works to get ourselves to the next step. Perfect being the enemy of good is like one of the. ultimate and perpetual ADHD boss battles. It's something I still grapple with.

all of the time in my own life is noticing that perfectionism that all or nothing coming in and needing to step back and do some work to shift my perspective to let go to see where i'm at and what i can do from this place so I think there's probably more to say on this topic, and Dusty and I are going to work on exactly what that more is. But listeners, until next week, I'm Ash. And I'm Dusty. And this was the Translating ADHD Podcast. Thanks for listening. you