When ADHD overwhelm hits, it’s usually not because of one big event. It’s the work project and your kid’s school play and the relationship thing and everyone is out of clean socks... and now you’re caught in a spiral of OMG. Today, Cate and our fabulous producer, Jessamine, dig into Reddit stories about work screw-ups, panic lying, and how pattern recognition can quietly turn everyday moments into emotional flashpoints in relationships. What actually can stop that spiral?
When ADHD overwhelm hits, it’s usually not because of one big event. It’s the work project and your kid’s school play and the relationship thing and everyone is out of clean socks... and now you’re caught in a spiral of OMG.
Today, Cate and our fabulous producer, Jessamine, dig into Reddit stories about work screw-ups, panic lying, and how pattern recognition can quietly turn everyday moments into emotional flashpoints in relationships.
What actually can stop that spiral?
For more on this topic:
For a transcript and more resources, visit Sorry, I Missed This on Understood.org. You can also email us at sorryimissedthis@understood.org.
Cate Osborn: Hi everybody, and welcome back to "Sorry, I Missed This," the show where we talk about all things ADHD and its impact on relationships, sex, intimacy, and more. Today on the podcast, we have an historic first, our fabulous, glorious producer, Jessamine, who I cannot say enough nice things about the team of people who work on this show, dear listeners. And Jessamine is one of them. Hi, Jessamine.
Jessamine Molli: Hello.
Cate: I just tricked you into getting complimented, just right off the bat.
Jessamine: I love it. Well, it was a group compliment, and I can agree with that. It's a good team.
Cate: I love you all so much. On today's episode of "Sorry, I Missed This," we are bringing you another Reddit reactions. Jessamine, in secret, has prepared some tasty, choice Reddit posts that we're going to read and talk about together. Jessamine, what do you have for us today?
(00:52) A live accounting of an intense situation.
Jessamine: So, I wanted to kind of start with this sort of a live accounting of a situation that is very intense for this poster.
Cate: Okay.
Jessamine: I've kind of edited this down slightly, but I'm going to read it to you. It's part one, part two, and part three.
Cate: Oh my gosh, so there's like lore and stuff. Okay, I'm ready. Let's go.
Jessamine: The title is, "I'm in deep shit." So that tells you a lot. Okay, really. "I might be about to lose my job tomorrow. About six weeks ago, I was going through a difficult time with my ADHD where nothing was working out and I was constantly overwhelmed. At this time, I had an inquiry for a rather large group that I collected the quotes for, but never actually sent the agent." So this is a salesperson in hotel sales, but we don't need to get into details.
Cate: Okay, okay.
Jessamine: "My supervisor realized it had not been sent. She asked me to provide proof, so I sent doctored emails. And now my manager, supervisor's boss, and head of HR want an in-person meeting tomorrow. If I'd asked for help in August or actually sent it even a few weeks ago, I would have had something, but instead I have a bunch of fake emails where I've so clearly tried to cover my ass."
Cate: Okay. So that's the setup.
Jessamine: Part two.
Cate: Okay.
Jessamine: "I am sitting in our meeting room after the meeting got cut short. I told the truth to my manager and HR and they weren't expecting it. Apparently my manager knew there was something funky and thought I'd been deleting emails, but hadn't figured out the whole truth. So when they asked for the email, I immediately told them everything. They were very kind about it, but they said they need to take time to discuss between themselves. So I could still be losing my job, but it's not today and I told the truth, so hopefully I can at least sleep tonight."
Cate: Okay.
Jessamine: Here's the finale.
Cate: Oh my god, okay. I'm so invested.
Jessamine: "Okay, bad news first. I was asked to resign."
Cate: Okay. Oh.
Jessamine: "They were, as it turns out, completely ready to fire me yesterday, but after I told the truth about my fuckups, they went away and came back with two offers. The good news is they were very generous offers. Because what I did goes against code of conduct and constitutes as fraud" — something I hadn't considered.
Cate: Um.
Jessamine: "Being fired would have been like a no-severance deal. So all in all, it's probably the best-case scenario considering I was positive I was going to be fired on Monday. I'll be looking for an ADHD therapist to make sure I can effectively recognize when I'm overwhelmed and communicate with my future superiors before I get to a committing crimes level. Also, thank you to every single person who's commented. You will help me get through this because not a single person in my life would have got it."
(02:57) How small lies can spiral.
Cate: Man, I have a lot of thoughts about that, up to and including I have been that person. I used to work in a hotel. That's deep lore about me. I used to work at a casino hotel, and I would mess stuff up at work all the time and I would lie my ass off about it. Like what? I was just like, "Is this me from the future sending this email?" No, that's so hard. And I think when you have ADHD, I think it's interesting because I think that story could absolutely have been told by somebody who didn't have ADHD. But I think when you have ADHD and when you frequently find yourself making those mistakes, that panic that can set in and that self-judgment that can set in can be so anxiety-inducing, and then the anxiety kind of stacks, right?
'Cause now you're like, "Okay, I like fixed the problem, but I have to like lie to my boss about it. But now I have to remember that I lied to my boss about this thing. So when they ask about this thing," you know? And like it starts to compound and it gets more and more stressful and harder and harder to navigate. And so yeah, I really respect that the original poster chose honesty. I think that is really difficult. Like I don't know if I would have done that. I've been like, "Oh man, I don't know what happened." You know? But they did. They chose honesty. They chose to come clean.
And I think like it sucks that they were asked to resign. Like I understand why, right? Like actions have consequences. But honestly, I wonder if this isn't a moment where maybe this poster can take the sort of, like, extrapolate the lesson but leave the bad behind, leave the bad feelings around it behind. Because I don't know, it's so weird that it's like this specific thing because that was one of my moments, too.
That was one of my moments where I was like, "Wow, like I really messed this up." And I, it wound up working out. It wound up being okay. But I really have to watch myself. I really have to make sure that I'm doing better. And so yeah, I don't, I don't know if I have like any super educational thoughts, but I relate to that so so heavily. Did you ever mess anything up at work, Jessamine?
Jessamine: Oh, only constantly. I think the honesty thing is a good point. My gut reaction is to always be almost too honest. My brain doesn't do the thing where I can keep all the lies. And almost like I had to learn to maybe maybe walk that back a little and protect myself a little more and not tell like, you know, bosses every single mistake I've made. But like the overshare quandary.
This isn't related because I didn't even cover it up, but I remember a fuckup so bad. I was a PA on a pretty big show, like an HBO show, and like they wanted me to drive to Queens in this van and pick up this director's like special dinner or something. And I just was driving. I think I was 22, 23. I'm not a great driver. And yeah, I like side-swiped a car or like a cab kind of tried to go around me, side-swiped me.
And I just like had a meltdown and it like this whole trip like took me like two hours when it should have taken me like 45 minutes. But I just remember feeling like I can't do anything. Like this is a completely unrelated situation and yet it brought me to the same feeling of like, I'm such a screw-up that I have to do all these things to like undo this small, because my attention was elsewhere, mistake, and then it just like compounds and compounds onto a bigger thing, right? And this poster is saying like, if I had just done X, I could have been fine. Or if you hate the word just, but it's totally that. It's right? Like…
Cate: Yeah. Yeah.
Jessamine: But all the emotions, I think, usually get in the way of fixing it, sometimes. 'Cause you're like, "I can't face that. I did that horrible thing, like, I can't face it." And then it just compounds, compounds, compounds.
Cate: That moment of like, "Oh no." You know? And like when I was working at the Renaissance Festival, there were a couple times where like I messed up payroll and like people didn't get paid because of me, you know? And like I, that feels bad and that feels yucky. And there wasn't anything I could do. The way that the system was built was like you put in the request and then if the request didn't get put in by a certain time, then like out of luck until next week.
And the shame and the embarrassment and stuff. And so especially when you know that it's like directly impacting people, I think it can make it even harder to, I don't want to say like own up because you know that you did it, but just that kind of like having to really face it and interrogate it and learn from it can be more difficult because it's just like painful.
Jessamine: Yeah. And like you're saying, the lesson, unfortunately for this poster is hard won and that sucks that they have to learn the lesson that way.
Cate: Yeah.
Jessamine: But if you can let go of the bad feelings sooner and forgive yourself and be like, "Hey, I have ADHD and it affects me these ways," then you can probably avoid even digging this deep, right? Like you can solve it, face it like head on, and then cut it off at the pass.
Cate: And honestly just building like little signposts, like little systems and structures. Like do a double check at the end of the day and then do another double check at the end of the week. And so even if you missed it on Monday, you might catch it by Friday. And then by Friday, it's not a problem that it is at the end of the month, you know?
Jessamine: Yeah.
(07:40) How pattern recognition can backfire in relationships.
Cate: Okay, what's the next one? I want to know the next one.
Jessamine: Okay, "Pattern Recognition Backfiring in Relationships." "I think my pattern recognition tendencies, while often a positive, are causing issues in my marriage. Last night my husband said he didn't feel like getting us water like he usually does before bed and asked me to do it since I was up already. Here are the things that my brain recognized as related and subsequently reacted to: There was a time in our marriage where he barely helped around the house and we fought about it a lot. He has grown up since then and has worked through depression issues, so the division of labor is much better now. He's been sick this week, so I've been doing a lot of things for him. When I am sick at his level, I don't ask to be helped as much.
“That morning, he left a dish out even though I've asked him to put things in the dishwasher. I watched a TikTok yesterday of a woman complaining about how the burden of putting kids to bed always falls on her. We don't have kids now, but we want to eventually. There wasn't a conscious train of thought about all of this. It was like all of these memories and worries hit me subsequently, unless left with the feeling of frustration, resentment, and a fear that felt totally justified. Long story short, we got in a huge argument. We were both very tired, which didn't help. He thought I was just mad about the water and overreacting. Meanwhile, I felt my reaction was justified because there were so many pieces of evidence, which came to me sporadically during the argument. Does anyone relate to this or have strategies to combat it?"
Cate: That's an interesting one. I'm really interested in pattern recognition. Like it's, it's interesting that you pick that one because that's been a thing that I've been writing about a lot lately for the show. And what I hear is not necessarily pattern recognition getting that poster in trouble. What I hear is resentment and annoyance and frustration growing to the point where emotional dysregulation occurred and that was the catalyst.
Pattern matching is data, right? Pattern matching is giving us information. But there is still a lens by which we are viewing these things that is giving us an emotional relationship to it, right? Like you see a dish on the counter, okay, that is a dish on the counter. But if you have been living with the same person for 10 years and every single day they put that dish assuming that you are going to put it in the dishwasher for them, there can be some like very strong emotions attached to that.
So part of what I'm hearing is that was like a moment where this sort of like dam broke, you know? It was like all of this stuff had been going on in the background, and then the water thing was like the straw that broke the camel's back. It almost kind of reminds me of the first one a little bit in terms of like building in checkpoints.
I always feel bad giving advice that is like, "Well, me and my perfect relationship partner," because we're not perfect. We fight. And actually it's really interesting what the poster talked about because like my husband also went through that. He also went through a period of depression. And I was really frustrated that he wasn't like helping more around the house and contributing, and I know how that feels, and it sucks and like the frustration and the like, "Do you see me? Do you know how much work I put in?" And like it can be really difficult and really tough.
But one of the things that we did to mitigate that was starting instituting like check-ins. Starting trying to talk about stuff not when it would all just sort of jumble up together, but say, "Hey, like in the moment we're going to call this out," or, you know, like, "We're going to, we're going to check in once a week or whatever it might look like in a way that makes sense for that poster." But building in those little signposts, building in those little checkpoint moments where you can check yourself before you in fact wreck yourself. That can be really helpful.
I want somebody to do a study about partner resentment and ADHD. I think the results of that study would be fascinating because I think regardless of whether or not you are the partner with ADHD, there can be a lot of resentment, inadvertent, right? Even resentment you might not even know is there under the surface. And if you're not really talking about these things, if you're not really addressing those things, if you're, "Well, when I'm sick, I don't ask for that amount of stuff, so you're asking for that amount of stuff is taking extra or it's needing more than me."
Partners are allowed to need more than you, and relationships are not always 50/50. You know, sometimes they're 90/10. Sometimes they're 70/30, sometimes they're 60/40. Like sometimes people are dealing with things and they can't necessarily give full support to the relationship. But where that gets hairy, I think, is when you also have ADHD. And so if you are not putting all of your focus and all of your energy into the thing, then stuff can fall by the wayside. You can forget to put the dish back, you can wind up being emotionally dysregulated, all of that different stuff.
I definitely see myself in that poster. I think the emotional regulation component cannot be understated because when you are emotionally regulated and have a partner who can support that emotional regulation — even if it needs to be, "I'm going to yell and scream and stamp my feet and be real mad. I'm going to go away for five minutes and then we're going to have an adult conversation." You know? Like having a safe outlet to express that frustration without getting the, "Yeah, well, you do this or you do this or you don't do this." Making it the you versus, "Here's how I'm feeling." That's just unhealthy in any relationship regardless of whether or not you have ADHD.
Jessamine: Yeah, scorekeeping is never good. Comparison is never good. And like you're saying, sometimes it's unequal between partners in certain areas, and then maybe you're giving a lot somewhere else. I definitely relate to the pattern recognition issue and specifically in this argument where she's like, "He thought it was about the water. I was upset about this whole other like network of things that I had been, almost" — and like I think this poster is saying — "unconsciously cataloging."
And then in the moment, if you're getting in an argument and it's heightened and, like they said, "They're tired," which is always when things get worse, you can't rationalize and hold back all this stuff that you, like, it just kind of comes to the surface whether you want it to or not. Like I have definitely had this similar thing and my husband and I, our danger zone is trying to leave the house. I have ADHD, if I have not made that clear on the show. And yeah, getting out of the house has just always been a huge issue for me and so we're always in a rush. We're always either late, you have this narrow hallway in our one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn. I'm always like trying to go back past him to get my thing and he's always like, "Stop. Where are you leaving?" You know? And so that's when our worst arguments always happen.
There's this one thing I've noticed where he'll also be like, "Do you need a coat?" And I'll say, "No." And he's like, "Are you sure? It's really cold out." And I said, "No." And then like he'd ask me like two more times because he thinks I'm just rushing, so I'm not thinking, I'm just trying to get out the door. And I'm like, "No, no, I told you what I need." And da da da. And now I'm like, "Now you're bossing me around and you're always trying to do that and you always think you know what's better than me." And he's like, "Whoa, I just noticed it was chilly out." You know, like, and we've had that exact argument multiple times.
And now we know when to cut it off, by the way, because we have actually gone through it so many times that we are like, "Wait a minute, this is what's happening." The ADHD brain, especially in those moments of dysregulation, is suddenly like, "Bing, bing, bing. Here's all the five things I've actually been thinking about, but I don't really need to talk about it when I'm regulated because it's actually fine. And you're not doing anything wrong." But when I'm dysregulated, watch out.
Cate: So Chris and I, we actually did couples therapy for a while. And our therapist started calling that, "And another thinging." Because I would be in the middle of a fight and I'd be like, "And another thing." And it's like that's not, that's no way related. But my pattern-matching brain would be like, "Oh, clearly this is related to that." And it's like, "No, the toothpaste getting all like crusty on the counter because you leave the lid off is a different conversation than like who's doing the laundry."
And I understand how they're sort of like in the same family and umbrella, but it's not fair to just keep, "And another thinging," instead of just working to resolve the issue and then slowly over time sort of like working towards more significant change. And I was like, but I don't know, I love it. Like, "And another thing!" In the throes of argument, it feels so tasty. And so it's like you have to be aware of that.
Jessamine: Oh, especially because we're not really arguers. So like when it's happening, I'm like, "Well, this is my moment to say it," like,
Cate: You're like, "I've been saving it up."
Jessamine: It's like, "Yeah."
Cate: You're like, "All right, this is our monthly fight. So I'm going to get all the..." It's like the airing of grievances for Festivus. Like maybe that should be just be a scheduled thing. But yeah, I was like, "And that's the thing." It's like I I have to try really hard not to do that because I really do see, I don't know, this is I feel like we've gotten way too far off topic, but I think the other thing is like any person's pattern matching is still based on their lens, like the way that they are viewing things.
And so I think that there's a way to like look at a dish on the counter and the toothpaste and, you know, that he leaves his like beard hair in the sink. And you're like, "He doesn't care about me. He doesn't care about the house. He's not contributing." Right. Or you can be like, "Hey, that was like three separate incidents across like three separate weeks where like he was in a rush or he wasn't feeling well or whatever."
And like not to excuse the partner because I think you do have to take accountability and participate in your household, but sometimes pattern matching can also involve a lot of emotional asterisks. And I think watching out for that can be helpful, too. There's two books that I would recommend. The first one is called "Weaponized Incompetence" by Noris Elliott. And it's a really good breakdown of sometimes we don't know how to do things, or no one has ever taught us how to sweep a floor. But sometimes we just choose not to learn how to sweep a floor because it's easier for our partner to sweep the floor.
And so it goes into a lot of detail around what is fair, how do we create equality in our partnerships. And the other book that I would recommend is "Emotional Labor: The Invisible Work Shaping Our Lives" by Rose Hackman. And it's the same thing, but a lot of it has to do with not necessarily like household tasks, but the emotional labor that often people put into relationships unseen.
And reading those two books kind of as companions to each other really helped me unpack not only where I was doing too much in a relationship, but where like I needed more, and it really helped rebuild mine and my partner's relationship around fairness and equity rather than, "Well, you're home all the time. So clearly you're the person who should do the dishes," because I hate doing the dishes. So,
Jessamine: Yeah. And then also our episode with KC Davis talks about this a lot.
Cate: Yeah, KC Davis wrote "How to Keep House While Drowning." That's another really good one. And "Fair Play" is the other one that I would also recommend.
Jessamine: Amazing. A little reading list for people who are going through this.
(17:38) Wrapping up and looking ahead.
Cate: All right, everybody, that's it for this week's episode of "Sorry, I Missed This." A huge thanks to our wonderful, amazing, extraordinary producer, Jessamine, for having a little bit of fun this week. Thank you so much for being here.
Jessamine: Thank you. This was really great.
Cate: And dear listener, I know that you all love these Reddit reactions. So if you see a Reddit thread that you would love to hear us talk about on the podcast, shoot it over to us in an email: sorryimissedthis@understood.org. Thanks for being here, and I hope that you have a good day.
Thank you for listening! Anything mentioned in the episode will be linked in the show notes, with more resources. Have a question, comment, burning story you'd like to share? Email us at SorryImissedthis@understood.org.
This show is brought to you by Understood.org. Understood.org is a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering people with learning and thinking differences, like ADHD and dyslexia. If you want to help us continue this work, donate at understood.org/give.
Cate: "Sorry, I Missed This" is produced and edited by Jessamine Molli.
Video is produced by Calvin Knie and edited by Jessie DiMartino. Our theme music was written by Justin D. Wright, who also mixes the show. Production support provided by Andrew Rector.
Briana Berry is our production director. Neil Drumming is our editorial director. From Understood.org, our executive directors are Laura Key, Scott Cocchiere, and Jordan Davidson.
And I'm your host, Cate Osborn. Thank you SO much for listening!
Jessie, don't use me doing finger guns just now. Actually, you can, I don't care. Finger guns. Pew pew pew pew.