There was a time when a household like this would be described—politely—as "a lot."

The calendars don’t match.

The noise levels are a study in amplitude.

The fridge has six different milk substitutes, none of which are labeled. No one remembers whose turn it is to take out the trash, and honestly, that discussion might cause a shutdown.

Welcome to the Neurospicy Household—a meme, a reality, and a quiet revolution in family life.

It’s the term of endearment popping up across ADHD TikTok, autism blogs, late-diagnosis memoirs, and therapist Instagram accounts.

A house where everyone is neurodivergent and learning to function together—in a way that doesn’t always look tidy, but often feels deeply honest.

A recent study published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior has found a significant connection between ADHD symptoms and distressing sexual problems in adults.

Folks who screened positive for likely ADHD were over twice as likely to report painful and persistent struggles with sexual function and satisfaction compared to adults without ADHD symptoms.

The results suggest that the same emotional regulation and attention difficulties that disrupt daily life in ADHD may also interfere with the ability to feel connected, satisfied, and at ease in intimate relationships.

In the past decade, a growing number of clinicians and researchers have begun wrestling with what many now call the “trauma-autism diagnostic gray zone.”

This refers to the complex clinical overlap between Developmental Trauma—especially complex PTSD or early relational trauma—and autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

Increasingly, families, therapists, and neurodivergent adults are raising concerns about missed diagnoses, misdiagnoses, or dual presentations that defy traditional diagnostic categories.

So how did we get here? And what does the research really say?

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.