Let’s say you’re in the middle of a disagreement with your partner.

You want to talk about it now—get to the bottom of it, hash it out, fix it with words and eye contact and, if you’re lucky, a slightly teary hug.

But your partner?

They’re staring blankly at the wall, quietly retreating into a distant realm of spreadsheets, cat videos, or obscure documentaries about Cold War architecture.

Their soul has clearly left the building.

You’re not being dramatic. They’re not being passive-aggressive. You’re just caught in a mismatch of emotional pacing—a concept that’s finally getting its moment.

What Is Emotional Pacing?

For children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a seemingly simple task—like looking at someone’s face—can feel like deciphering Morse code during a fireworks show.

Neurotypical adults might mistake this difficulty as indifference or disinterest.

But the truth, as emerging neuroscience shows, is much more human: faces can feel overwhelming, neurologically and emotionally.

Now, scientists are exploring whether a molecule best known for bonding babies and mothers might hold part of the answer.

Could oxytocin nasal spray reduce social anxiety in autism by lowering the brain’s reactivity to faces? And more importantly, should it?

Let’s sniff around the evidence.

Is it ADHD, or is it trauma—or both?

That question is becoming more urgent across pediatric clinics, classrooms, and therapy offices.

For many children, symptoms like emotional outbursts, inattention, and executive dysfunction are not simply signs of a brain-based disorder—they may also reflect the lasting impact of developmental trauma and early attachment rupture.

As a couples and family therapist, I’ve worked with kids who can’t sit still and others who’ve stopped trying.

Some are labeled with ADHD before their sixth birthday.

Others are quietly enduring toxic stress, dissociating their way through childhood without a diagnosis. Many of these children are doing the best they can with nervous systems built for survival, not for school performance.

To truly support them, we need to go deeper.

It’s come to my attention that some of my readers do what I do.

So I figured I’d offer a quick and dirty guide to working with clients suffering with what appears to be either ADHD, an anxiety disorder, or perhaps some combination of both.

ADHD and anxiety are two of the most challenging experiences for therapists to unpack.

Let’s talk shop.

If ADHD and anxiety were characters in a sitcom, ADHD would be the lovable chaos agent with a million ideas and zero follow-through, while anxiety would be the neurotic roommate constantly cleaning up after them and muttering about deadlines.

Together? They’re exhausting—but also oddly relatable.

For adults—especially in romantic relationships—the co-occurrence of ADHD and anxiety isn’t just common; it’s a clinical headache.

They amplify each other in unpredictable ways.

ADHD forgets to pay the bill. Anxiety lies awake all night obsessing about identity theft. ADHD gets distracted mid-sentence. Anxiety spirals into self-doubt and rumination.

Yikes! Let’s jump in!

As a family therapist, I’ve seen the same question echo through the minds of exhausted parents and overwhelmed kids: Why does my child struggle with everything at once?

When one diagnosis pops up—ADHD, for example—others often follow, like a conga line of learning challenges: dyslexia, dyscalculia, executive function disorder, anxiety. Is it just bad luck?

A landmark study out of the Netherlands offers a compelling (and slightly comforting) answer: it’s in the genes.

If your child is flapping their hands while explaining the plot of a cartoon in microscopic detail—and you’re Googling “Is this normal?”—you’re not alone. Welcome to the new normal, where the family operating system is being rewritten in real time.

Once upon a time, parenting was about conformity.

Children were expected to sit still, speak when spoken to, and color inside the lines—preferably with the correct grip. But now, more families are discovering that the “rules” don’t apply.

Or rather, they never did.

Neurodivergence is no longer an outlier; it’s a reality shaping how families communicate, regulate, and grow. And the culture is finally catching up—if only just.

Let’s trace how we got here, how the memes reflect the movement, and why this shift may be the single most optimistic development in modern parenting.

Lucía once told Ravi, “Sometimes I feel like we’re two ghosts haunting the same device.”

And Ravi, smiling through a headset in Toronto, whispered back: “Maybe we’re not ghosts. Maybe we’re the first generation of lovers who understand that presence can exist without physical form.”

That may sound poetic—but it’s also philosophical. As the nature of intimacy evolves, we’re being asked questions our ancestors never had to answer.

• Can love exist without touch?

• Is intimacy still “real” when mediated by screens?

• What does it mean to feel close to someone you’ve never physically smelled?

Welcome to the strange, shimmering realm of virtual intimacy—where affection is coded, conflict is buffered, and love lives in the cloud.

Are We Still Embodied Without Bodies?

Let’s finish this series where so many relationships begin and end: with the question of care.

Who supports whom? Who carries the load? Who breaks down first—and who always seems to hold everything together?

n many traditional relationships, care has been unevenly distributed.

One partner becomes the emotional caretaker, the calendar keeper, the fix-it person.

And in neurodiverse couples—especially when only one partner has a diagnosis—this imbalance can easily morph into codependency: a dynamic where one person over-functions and the other under-functions, often in the name of love.

But a new model is emerging. A mutual one.

More neurodiverse couples are stepping out of the “rescuer–rescued” narrative and into something far more hopeful: mutual care based on autonomy, honesty, and negotiated support.

It’s not about one person managing the other. It’s about co-creating a relationship that respects difference and honors each person's limits and growth edges.

Let’s be honest: most relationship conflict gets misdiagnosed.

He’s selfish. She’s cold. They never listen. I’m always walking on eggshells.

But what if these “character flaws” are actually cognitive differences? What if your partner’s frustrating habits aren’t moral failings, but processing styles you don’t share?

Neurodiverse couples are pioneering a powerful reframe—one that replaces blame with curiosity, shame with understanding, and emotional explosions with emotional translation.

This chapter explores how reinterpreting conflict through a neurocognitive lens is helping couples not only fight less—but connect more deeply, even in moments of disagreement.

Once upon a time, being neurodivergent meant being alone.

If you didn’t mirror facial expressions, make small talk, or “play the part” of normality, the social world could be brutal.

And if you were in a neurodiverse relationship? You might feel even more isolated—too weird for the mainstream, too misunderstood by professionals, too overwhelmed to find help.

But something beautiful is happening.

Thanks to digital connection, social justice movements, and the rise of self-advocacy, neurodiverse couples are finding each other—and building networks that make belonging not only possible but powerful.

This chapter explores how digital spaces, support groups, and in-person ND communities are offering the social scaffolding needed for healthy, connected relationships.

Because even love needs a village—and now, that village is online, offline, and everywhere in between.

Let’s be honest: most relationship advice assumes everyone processes emotions the same way. If you’re sad, you cry. If you’re mad, you talk about it. And if you don’t, something’s “wrong.”

But neurodiverse couples know better.

They know that emotions don’t always arrive on schedule.

That grief can take three weeks to register.

That some people need to stim, journal, or take a nap before they can name what they feel. And that emotional expression doesn’t always look like we’ve been taught it should.

This chapter is about embracing neurodiverse emotional rhythms, recognizing nontraditional emotional expressions as valid, and creating space for processing differences that actually strengthen—rather than sabotage—connection.