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Something Shiny: ADHD!

Something Shiny: ADHD!

Written by: David Kessler & Isabelle Richards
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How many times have you tried to understand ADHD...and were left feeling more misunderstood? We get it and we're here to help you build a shiny new relationship with ADHD. We are two therapists (David Kessler & Isabelle Richards) who not only work with people with ADHD, but we also have ADHD ourselves and have been where you are. Every other week on Something Shiny, you'll hear (real) vulnerable conversations, truth bombs from the world of psychology, and have WHOA moments that leave you feeling seen, understood, and...dare we say...knowing you are something shiny, just as you are.2021 Something Shiny Productions Hygiene & Healthy Living Personal Development Personal Success Psychology Psychology & Mental Health
Episodes
  • Summer Stole Your Structure. Here's What to Do About It.

    Summer Stole Your Structure. Here's What to Do About It.
    Jul 1 2026

    Remember when summer meant you got to just... whatevs? No school, nowhere to be, just go. But then as an adult with ADHD, summer shows up and the structure just evaporates. Your kiddos are out of school. Friends are on vacation. Meetings get pushed, projects stall, and everyone who used to be available just... isn't. And yet you're still supposed to be fully operational.


    David and Isabelle call it what it is: the evaporation of structure. Your brain is literally zapped by all the change before summer even really starts. So they get into what actually helps. You start with a whimper. You give yourself a menu instead of a resolution. Two or three low-stakes things to work towards that don't have to look any specific way. David has a summer goal story in this episode that proves it... aaaaand might also end with Italian ice.

    The whole point is permission. Permission to do it your way and take a break before you think you need one. Which is exactly what David and Isabelle are doing. They're stepping away for the summer while still dropping some of the best past Something Shiny: ADHD! episodes into the feed for you to revisit. Perfect for those moments this summer when the routine is gone and your brain needs something to hold onto.


    In this episode:

    • Why the evaporation of structure hits ADHD brains so hard, and why the first week is always a wash
    • Why your brain is literally zapped by all the change before summer even really starts
    • Why taking a break before you think you need one is one of the most adaptive things an ADHD brain can do
    • The menu approach to summer and why it works when goals don't
    • What getting out of the house alone for an hour a week actually does

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    Wait, What's That? Here are some of the terms and people mentioned in this episode explained:

    Dialectical David's word for something that holds two completely opposite truths at the same time. Summer is the break you waited for all year and also chaos incarnate. Both are true at once.


    Low-Demand Parenting Isabelle's approach to the summer transition. When the demands of changing schedules, new drop-offs, and constant curveballs go way up, she cuts herself and everyone around her way more slack. You cannot have all the disruption and all the expectations. Something has to give.


    The Menu Approach What David and Isabelle land on as the ADHD-friendly alternative to summer goals. Two or three low-stakes things to work towards through the summer. No pressure to finish. No pressure to do them every day. When your routine disappears, you pick from the menu.


    The Artist's Way A book by Julia Cameron that Isabelle brings up as a summer goal. Built around two practices: Morning Pages and the Artist Date.


    Morning Pages Three pages, any notebook, handwritten if possible, every day. Brain dump. You can burn them when you're done. The point is the release.


    Artist Date One hour a week, alone, outside the house, in a new environment that has nothing to do with your work. No spending required. Isabelle and Bobby still do these.


    Conception vs Perception David's distinction between what you imagine something will cost you and what it actually takes once you start. He started by walking around the block. One day he looked up from his audiobook and realized he was half a mile farther than he'd ever been.


    Replays What Something Shiny is dropping in the feed this summer while David and Isabelle take a break. Best of episodes coming your way now through August.

    Something Shiny Fanny Pack Isabelle's send-off going into the break: get the cool fanny packs and wear them with pride everywhere. Consider it one of your summer accommodations;) Grab yours here at www.somethingshinypodcast.com/merch/p/fanny-pack.

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    💬 What's one thing you're doing your way this summer? Leave a comment on Apple Podcasts or Spotify — we read them.


    🎧 Follow Something Shiny: ADHD for more conversations that help you understand your ADHD and remind you, you were never too much.
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    47 mins
  • Why Grief Keeps Finding You at 2 AM

    Why Grief Keeps Finding You at 2 AM
    Jun 17 2026
    If you have ADHD and grief shows up, do you stay busy? Keep moving? Find something else to do? Stay ahead of the quiet? And then through it all does it find you anyway? Waking up at 2 AM, out of nowhere, when you thought you were past it?That's not you doing grief wrong. That's just how ADHD brains grieve. And this episode is about what to actually do when it catches up.Last time, David and Isabelle unpacked why ADHD brains seem to grieve in the wrong order. Why you can stand dry-eyed at a funeral and then fall apart completely at a graduation. And why neither of those things means something is wrong with you. Then they get into the part nobody usually makes time for: what to actually do when it shows up.In this episode:Why ADHD brains get practical when grief shows up, and what it costs when everyone goes homeThe empirical case David makes from his own life for why how much you cry has nothing to do with how much you lovedWhat it actually means to grieve something that isn't a person. A city. A chapter. A version of yourself that no longer fits.Isabelle's therapist's tool for making a date with your grief so it stops ambushing you at 2 AM-------Wait, What's That? Here are some of the terms and people mentioned in this episode explained:Time Agnosia The ADHD experience of not being able to feel time passing the way neurotypical brains do. In this episode it comes up as one explanation for why grief doesn't hit when everyone expects it to. Your brain isn't programmed to feel things on the service's schedule. It hits when it hits, in its own time, in a future moment you weren't ready for.Asynchronous Processing What happens when your brain doesn't process the big emotional stuff in real time. You can be right in the middle of something and feel completely fine. Then weeks later on a walk, out of nowhere, it lands. That's not numbness. That's just how your brain works.Moral Reasoning Isabelle brings up something from a philosophy course that's stayed with her. The idea that a friend is someone you agree to mourn if they die before you. That choosing to be close to someone is already a quiet acknowledgment that one of you will miss the other. She has never forgotten it.Practical Griever The person who, when loss shows up, immediately pivots to action. Makes the calls, brings the food, goes and cleans the house. David and Isabelle both recognize themselves here. The thing is, the grief doesn't go anywhere. It just waits until the room gets quiet.Ambiguous Losses Grief without a clear name or a socially accepted reason to mourn. Moving away from a city you loved. Losing a version of yourself. A friendship that ended without a conversation. Isabelle talks about still carrying grief from leaving Chicago. These losses are real. They just rarely get the space real grief deserves."Nora" David and Isabelle's shorthand for norepinephrine, the brain chemical wired into mood, attention, and stress response. Comes up here in the context of making sure your basic needs are met before you try to sit with the hard stuff. Nora has to be okay before grief can move through you the way it needs to.Duration Measure Isabelle's term for the container David's timer approach creates. When you decide you're going to sit with grief for a set amount of time and then get up, that's a duration measure. It makes the feeling tolerable because it has edges. You're not drowning in it. You know when it ends.Bobby Richards Isabelle's husband and the new Executive Producer of Something Shiny: ADHD. Gets a very well-earned shoutout in this episode for the audio upgrade you're hopefully hearing right now.Autonomic Nervous System The system that runs the involuntary stuff including heart rate, breathing, and stress response. Comes up in Isabelle's deep dive into dyspraxia and how the brain's predictive processing works differently in neurodivergent people.Dyspraxia A motor coordination difference that often shows up alongside ADHD and autism. Isabelle has a paradigm shift in this episode about what dyspraxia actually is and how it connects to the brain's predictive software. Why change is so dysregulating. Why your body is always ten steps behind your brain.AuDHD Having both autism and ADHD. Comes up as Isabelle and David get into the overlap between the two and what it means for how neurodivergent people process change, repetition, and sensory experience.-------💬 When has grief caught up with you in the quiet? On a walk, at 2 AM, weeks after you thought you were fine. Leave a comment on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We read them.🎧 Follow Something Shiny: ADHD for more conversations that help you understand your ADHD and remind you, you were never too much.
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    34 mins
  • Why You Couldn't Cry at the Funeral But Sobbed Over an IKEA Table — The Truth About ADHD and Grief

    Why You Couldn't Cry at the Funeral But Sobbed Over an IKEA Table — The Truth About ADHD and Grief
    Jun 3 2026

    If you have ADHD, you might already know this particular kind of shame. You held it together at a super sad event (let's say a funeral). Dry-eyed, composed, functioning. And then weeks later you completely lost it over something small like a scratch in a piece of furniture, a voicemail you couldn't get a read on, or a realizing you missed claiming a hold on the book at the library you'd been waiting months for. Then you thought there was something wrong with you for not feeling grief or frustration when you were supposed to. Or for feeling it so hard in all the wrong places. Here's the thing: there's nothing wrong with you! And this episode is going to tell you why.


    This conversation with David and Isabelle started with the last ten percent of a move that never gets finished, with Christmas lights still up in January, with holiday cards that feel impossible to take down because taking them down means saying goodbye. You probably have your version of all of this. Isabelle shares her story of an IKEA table, a scrap truck, and how when her husband Bobby gave the table a voice in the alley while she watched from the window, she burst into tears.


    If any of this strikes a cord, David shares a reframe for all of these grief-based adventures. It's specific, it's kind, and it's going to rearrange some things you've been carrying around for a while.

    In this episode:

    • Why ADHD brains declare mission accomplished at 95 percent done, and why the last bit never happens
    • Why dopamine lives in anticipation, not completion, and what that means for the finish line of anything
    • What Toy Story, Beauty and the Beast, and The Iron Giant actually did to neurodivergent brains (and why you always buy the wonky stuffed animal)
    • Why ADHD brains tend to hold onto everything or onto nothing, and what both are reaching for
    • Why you couldn't cry at the funeral but sobbed over an IKEA table, and what David says grief actually is

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    Wait, What's That? Here are some of the terms and people mentioned in this episode explained:

    The ROI Equation What David calls the moment at 95 percent done when your anxiety drops, your brain decides the job is basically finished, and completing the last bit suddenly feels pointless. Not laziness. Not a character flaw. Just math.


    Dopamine The brain chemical most associated with ADHD. It gets released in anticipation of a reward, not when the reward actually arrives. This is why ordering the pizza feels better than eating it, why the first ninety percent of a project is exciting and the last ten is impossible, and why the Christmas lights are still up in February.


    Norepinephrine (Nora) Comes in after dopamine and helps your brain make meaning of what just happened. Also wired into the stress and anxiety response, which is why finishing something can feel worse than you expected. David and Isabelle call it "nora" throughout the episode.


    Existential Intervention David's term for the conscious act of changing the meaning you attach to finishing something, since your brain won't generate that motivation on its own. Instead of waiting to feel ready, you decide what finishing actually means to you. That decision becomes the thing that gets you across the line.


    Near-peer mentoring Learning from someone just a few steps ahead of you rather than an expert at a distance. Comes up in the context of the pandemic, when both David and Isabelle realized everyone's life looked a lot more like theirs than they'd assumed.


    Animism The tendency to believe objects have feelings or inner lives. It shows up as why Isabelle is nearly in tears watching an IKEA table get picked up by a scrap truck, why David buys the dying flowers at the store, and why you feel genuinely bad about donating a stuffed animal with slightly off stitching. Most neurodivergent people have it. The episode makes a case for why that makes complete sense.


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    💬 When has grief shown up for you in the wrong place? Dry-eyed at the funeral, then falling apart over a chipped mug or a table left out on the curb. Let us know in the comments on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We read them!

    🎧 Follow Something Shiny: ADHD for more conversations that help you understand your ADHD and remind you, you were never too much.
    Show more Show less
    30 mins
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