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Eric Tivers
Adhd Rewired Episode 559 Since 2014 this has been the podcast for ADHD adults who have really good intentions and is slightly wandering attention. I'm Eric Tivers. I'm a licensed clinical social worker by training and a coach by design. I'm your host and I'm Audiehd. ADHD Rewired is more than just a podcast. You can learn about our coaching and accountability groups, our virtual co working community and more all@adhd Rewired.com we are wired for connection and you are not alone. Learn more about our offerings, including our quarterly live Q&As. Get additional resources for every episode, including links to any resources we mention on today's show. You can support us on Patreon, sign up for our email newsletter and more, all@adhd rewired.com and if this is your first time listening, welcome. Don't forget to hit, subscribe or follow on your podcast app so you never miss an episode. We know that starting is the hardest part, so let's get started.
Podcast Host / Moderator
Hey everyone.
Eric Tivers
Hey. If you are new here, welcome. I really want to thank you for.
Podcast Host / Moderator
Hitting play and if you've been here for a while, thanks for sticking with me. I know it's been a while since my last episode, but it really does mean a lot. So what you're about to hear today is a Q and A that we recorded back in December 2025 and we talked about the CHAD conference and the presentation I gave there on Audihd burnout, grief, autism meltdowns and communication challenges. We also talked about how we're using AI and towards the end I actually.
Eric Tivers
Find myself in the hot seat getting.
Podcast Host / Moderator
Some much needed accountability to get back.
Eric Tivers
To my pickleball routine.
Podcast Host / Moderator
But before we jump in, I just want to let you know that pre registration is now open for upcoming winter coaching groups which start the first week in February. And and backed by popular demand, we are offering both an early morning section and an evening section. This season we're keeping the cost at just 999 with both three and six month payment plans available to make it a little easier for you to invest in yourself. To join you'll just need to complete pre registration and attend one of our registration events. We're hosting them for the next three Thursdays and Fridays. So we have Thursday January 15th, 22nd and 29th at 4:30pm Pacific, 7:30 Eastern and on Fridays starting January 16th, 23rd and 30th at 7:30am Pacific 11:30am Eastern. And if your brain just want Want, want.
Eric Tivers
Because there's too many numbers. Don't worry, it's all on the website.
Podcast Host / Moderator
You can get started by heading over to coaching Rewired.com and, and joining the interest list and beginning pre registration today. That's coaching Rewired.com all right, let's get into the episode.
Eric Tivers
All right, welcome back to another episode of ADHD Rewired. We are here for our last Q and A of 2025. So I think I'm going to start with just a little bit of an sort of improvisational update because I might be actually releasing this finally as a, an episode because it's been a while since I've released a Q and A on the podcast. So I put out an email yesterday reminding people about the Q and A and we have two people here right now. So it's a, it's a intimate, quaint Q and A. So we'll see kind of what happens. We do have a couple questions, but I just wanted to share with listeners just a little update, you know, as if you've been following my stuff this past year. You know, that, that I haven't been releasing episodes every week. I've been kind of going through, working through a lot of burnout. I was diagnosed with autism earlier this year and kind of trying to make sense of all of that. And it's, you know, a lot of things. ADHD just takes longer than you think it's going to. And you know, and I think I've, I've recently come to the realization while I think I've sort of stopped digging deeper into the burnout. I'm still kind of figuring out how to re. Energize myself because I'm, I'm not there yet. And it's been a kind of a, maybe a kind of a hard thing to admit to myself because I'm trying to convince myself that I'm kind of getting back to, to the things. But you know, the more I'm learning to listen to my body and listen to what my nervous system needs, the more I'm realizing like I still need more sort of burnout recovery time and it's inconvenience and frustrating at times, but I have to do what I need to do for, for my well being even though it's, you know, it's inconvenient. But here, here I am. So let's see what else. Last month we had the chat conference. I, I presented on having Audi HD and I did something that I had not done in a really, really long time and that was literally finishing the last final touch of the presentation the morning of the presentation which I actually used to do a lot but that was a long time ago. So I was actually proud of myself that this was the first time in a long time that I'd done that. But the presentation went really well. I hoping at some point soon that I'm going to actually be doing it as a webinar. It was called Wait, I'm Audihd. So that was, it was a kind of a good experience too of just putting together the presentation and helped me kind of organize a lot of my thinking around what does this mean to be sort of newly diagnosed autistic when so much of my identity has been around being just adhd. So it's. Yeah, it's. We all are, we're, we're works in progress and the more we discover, the more we realize we have more to discover. So that's kind of my update. I am joined right now with my ADHD rewired coach Brian Antler who maybe have to cut out a little early but I just wanted to say hello Brian. I wanted to ask if you wanted to share any updates.
Brian Antler
Hello Eric. I see. Well, I was also at the conference. I had a fabulous time. It was a kind of a shot in the arm because I feel like I have not been as integrated into that world as I would like to have been for the last six months or so. But that's okay. I've been doing some kind of like personal growth work and focusing on other areas of my life. But I feel like I, I miss it a lot. And as we and I, and we have all learned in the, in the process of doing the art coaching program, that community is the bomb that kind of really helps us neurodiverse folks function better in the world. So that was really great. I am also, I am at this point my, I am in the process, I kind of temporarily halted the process of seeking my formal evaluation for autism. But I mean officially, I've been officially diagnosed ADHD a long time but I am, I'm considering myself self diagnosed right now and cause I mean every time I read something I just find more and more. I'm sure you had that experience like more and more evidence every time I see it. But just with insurance and stuff it became somewhat cumbersome. But I'm trying to get that early the next part of next year. But I'm. I would be shocked if that wasn't the outcome. But, but I, I relate too much to it. So I'm also Exploring that and like reimagining my concept of myself. Oh wow. I made all these great leaps and bounds about how to accept myself as an adhd. I'm like, oh wait, there's a whole other dimension to it. And specifically around burnout. And for the first time, like seeing the pattern of burnout in my life and the way it shaped some of the decisions I've made and relationships that I've had and you know, releasing some of the angst and coming to terms with releasing some of this angst and shame about that. It is a process.
Eric Tivers
Absolutely. You know, when I was actually working on the presentation, I was also going through. Cause I seem to do the cycle every two years where I need all my continuing education stuff. And I put it off until like the last two months and then I'm like deep into doing these intensive trainings. And so I was doing, I did a training on like a 30 hour thing on autism. And so I'm kind of working through some of my presentation while watching these other presentations. And there was this part about looking at specifically the Audi HD cycle of burnout, not just autistic burnout. And it was, it was something that was, it was like exactly what I needed to hear and like learn in that very moment. Because one of the things that they were saying is that RDHDs have a almost like higher risk profile for burnout because like, as soon as we start to feel it, we get a little bit of energy back, we tend to go then full throttle again. And as soon as I sort of heard that, I was like, I was literally doing that while learning that. And it helped me kind of, you know, pump the brakes a bit for kind of what I was doing. And that was part of why my presentation I finished so late because I wasn't allowing myself to do late nights with it. I wasn't really allowing myself to, you know, spend like the weekends working on it. And I was just, you know, kind of hoping for, hoping for the best with it, with refusing to allow myself to, to, you know, do the things that really led to that burnout. So that was a kind of a really big aha for my own sort of burnout process and, and recovery. But yeah, it's, it's, it's hard. It's hard, you know, especially when we know the things that we want to be doing and our nervous system is like, yeah, but you've used me too much and I'm going to make you kind of slow down because that's kind of where I've Been. Did you have any. Brian, did you have any like big takeaways from the chat conference?
Brian Antler
Just my, My big takeaway was the reminder of something I reha. Relearning. What I already knew is that I need to be. I need to keep myself immersed in that community and because like the, the power of community cannot be underestimated. And I know that's not a new thing, but it's something I had to. Something I had to relearn.
Eric Tivers
That is definitely a. Something that it's been. I've had a lot of. A lot of rehaus around that. Especially over the last couple years when I've been sort of intentionally hanging out with more Audi HDRs at the chatter conference and then, you know, meeting other people just in my, my community here. It's just been really nice to be able to see these other parts of me that I didn't fully realize. You know, just the deepening of that self understanding, I think can be such a. A rich experience, even though it can be extremely challenging emotionally. I have. I've yet to find where increased self awareness was ever like a bad thing. Even if the, the, you know, learning something new about yourself is. Is challenging, you know, and something that I, That I've been reading a lot about too and have been experiencing and I just find it really, really interesting and I'm still kind of trying to wrap my head around it. This idea of once you sort of get that, that diagnosis, how the, the. The mask that you may have been wearing, even if you don't realize you were wearing comes off. And this is refusal to kind of put it back on. And so this is this phenomena that once you get an autism diagnosis that people say that you're seeming more autistic. And when I first read about that, I was, huh. It's kind of an interesting thing. And really what it is, it's that once you sort of have that realization, there's this new realization of how much masking has actually been going on. I mean over the last, I think like two months, like I actually I had like three. I would just call them just like significant meltdowns in ways that I've never had before, which is. I don't know, I find it interesting, you know, is. Is trying to sort of observe and understand and be curious about, you know, the things that sort of occur. It was just. It's been kind of wild that, that on one hand I feel I'm listening more to. To my nervous system and other times I feel my nervous system is. Is kind of yelling at me because I wasn't listening to it for so long. So I don't know if you've had any similar experiences, Brian.
Brian Antler
Yeah, the unmasking process is complicated. I think it's one thing to understand it intellectually and it's on, like, read it on paper and take a course about it. And when that training you talked about sounded fabulous, I would love to read about that Audi HD specifically, because figuring out what Audi HD actually means is something that is I'm working on right now. But I think coming into. When I first started, like, having these inklings like a year or two ago, and then started, like, leaning into them more, I thought, oh, well, unmasking means, you know, coming out of the closet about it, telling people like, oh, yeah, I'm autistic. And I found out that's only the surface level. The, the real unmasking comes when is you allow yourself and your traits to be perceived, when you allow yourself to take up space without apologies. I mean, but asking for accommodations, but, like, being like, oh, I'm going to approach this, like, yeah, I am. I have differences that will impact the people around me and the situations around me, but I'm not, I'm not apologizing for it. I mean, I may explain, but I'm allowing myself to feel okay with taking up space, taking the shame out of the equation if I need to take. If I have to manage my energy differently than somebody else being. Allowing people to see that and allowing people to see my. To see my needs, like, when I'm having a meltdown and letting them know, like, that's what's happening and this is what my needs are and I'm gonna have to handle this differently. Somebody, like, actually letting yourself be seen. And that is the really vulnerable part. That is the difficult part.
Eric Tivers
Yeah. And it's like, you know, I don't want to say unapologetically, but, like, unapologetically adjacent or it's because, you know, the things that we do may affect people, right. And the people that we care about. And so I don't want to disregard if there's something that, you know, because of the way, you know, I'm. I'm doing it in the moment if it's, if it is having a negative impact on someone in my life and I want to acknowledge their feelings, but I'm also not changing what I'm doing because of that. And I, I. Very recently, my, My partner and I, we had a pretty tough conversation because I was. I go through these periods where Like I sort of like retreat into myself and I get kind of like semi non communicative and. And she wants me to be able to let her know when this is happening. And I'm just. When it's happening that's part of the function. I can't really. I. If I could, I would. So it's trying to find this balance of honoring that it's hard for her. But also say I basically said I don't. Yes. I'm trying to figure out how to communicate this kind of stuff when this is happening. But you also gotta be aware that this may. Is something that I'm not able to do. Right. And this may be a pattern that happens because she's. This happens a couple times a year and it's very possibly might continue to happen a couple times a year. Not saying that I'm. That there's no solutions for it. I'm always looking for. For stuff to help myself. But yeah, it's. I think that. That realization that sometimes. And I think writing this too. Like I know that when we were working closer together I'm sure there was times where it was frustrating when I wasn't communicating the things that I needed to communicate. And that's one of the things I realized is it's sometimes hard for me communicate in a consistent way what's kind of going on in my mind. It sometimes it's almost the dishes where sometimes I can do them and it's not a problem at all. Other times I look at the dishes in the sink and I'm. I don't know how to do that and just walk away from it. So it's just kind of in this interesting realization about how my sort of. My nervous system really impacts how my. My sort of ability to communicate consistently.
Brian Antler
Yeah, I hear that. That's something I've been working on with something that's been developing between me and my partner. And so why my key is I'd kicking you know, page from Art in the times when we do have the energy, it's having the. It's having the conversations proactively. Not waiting until it happens when we are not able or as able to and we have a conversation and kind of reflecting back on. Because I've had a few meltdowns that were somewhat confusing and alarming to my. My partners. Oh, why did you go quiet? Why did you shut down? And I have to. Well, this is what I think it was. I think it was kind of a shutdown is when my. My energy need. I just can't keep up with the energy needs at that time and kind of working out some code words like kind of code phrases where I can't have a. I don't have the awareness even in that moment to have a full fledged conversation about it because I'm too up in it. But I can usually say a sentence or I can set this up with okay, when you observe this, if you observe me behaving this way, ask me a question, okay, are you shut down right now? What do you need right now? Are you having a meltdown right now? And I can usually say yes, I'm usually aware enough to be yes, acknowledge the situation but I don't have the processing ability at that moment to have a full fledged heart to heart about it. And knowing that yeah, I'm be shut down for a while and then I'll be back. But I need some extra attention, I need some extra space or something like that. So it's having those conversations now that you've one after one becomes aware of the patterns communicating that to around so you people know what to people around, you know what to expect and you can have a much simpler conversation in the moment.
Eric Tivers
And I've been finding too that sort of that window between realizing it's happening and actually being able to communicate that it's happening is so small sometimes that is just despite best intentions of wanting to be able to communicate that that's happening. For me, I have not yet really been able to do that in any kind of meaningful or successful way yet.
Brian Antler
Oh yeah. That's why I advocate for the idea of communicate the ideas ahead of time when, when the EF is there and the awareness is there because sometimes it's more more. My experience of having my shutdowns or my meltdowns is when I'm not aware that's happening. When it's happening, it's more a mile away. Where have I been for the last week? Where have I been for the last few days? Where have I while this kind of pervasive bad mood that is easily mistaken for clinical depression in my case not all cases or, or just, or kind of willful, obstinate, I'm not aware of it when it's happening. It's more oh, I wake up, I come back. When I kind of come back to my awareness and realize oh, it's been happening, I just just kind of too checked out to even see myself doing it. And that's more my perspective. So if the conversations happen ahead of time, when you do have the of having those proactive conversations, it's much easier to communicate in the moment because the idea has already been conveyed.
Eric Tivers
Yeah. I mean, the other challenge for me, too, is the. The recognition and realization that I also have alexithymia, which to me is still. Still kind of boggles my mind because I still view myself as a fairly emotionally intelligent person, and I'm good at reading other people. Whatever. What I've realized is I'm not great at knowing what I'm feeling. And that's just been this very almost shocking realization. Brian's audio just cut off for just a second, and he said something about getting an emotion wheel that. Oh, you got it. You got an emotion wheel. You know what? It's funny. I have. I think I have, like, three of those in various online carts that he's. Including a big carpet one that I've seen that I'm. I should get that. I like that.
Brian Antler
That would be amazing. A four rug?
Eric Tivers
Yeah.
Brian Antler
Oh, that's a good idea. Oh, now we're getting holiday gift ideas for December.
Eric Tivers
There you go.
David
There you go.
Brian Antler
That this is something that personal growth work I'm doing is realizing that, yeah, I. I have the same experience. I'm very good at reading other people. And I try Redisto the quality of hyper vigilance that many autistic people have, because many autistic people experience and ADHD people develop hyper vigilance because they feel so out of place in normal situations. We're studying the room. We've come accustomed to studying the room to try to learn how to adapt to this situation that doesn't necessarily fit us. So hyper vigilance. And we are very attuned to other people's emotions, but our own emotions, I think I know, but not always accurate.
Eric Tivers
All right, so I do see a couple questions that we have here. Carrie asks, what do you wish you would have known before you were diagnosed with autism? That I had autism. I mean, and part of it, too. And I've talked about this before on the podcast that it's. It's wild to me that I, like, clinically had. Was specializing in autism for years and years and have. And part of why I stepped away from working with autism was because my son was diagnosed with autism. And after having a client session where I was sharing with this family that my son was diagnosed and started, and I got really emotional, which I didn't expect because I, you know, regularly share my own stuff, I realized, oh, this is too close to home now. And so I kind of stepped away from it. And now that I've kind of Come back to it. It's just been, which has been really interesting because it's been more than 10 years since I kind of stepped away from it. Now I'm coming back to it. And as far as even just understanding of about what this sort of high masking version of autism really looks like, you know, because it's. You would, you know, you can, you can meet me and not. I'm not clearly autistic. Right. I don't have that, that, you know, I'm not having big body emotions or, or doing things verbally or vocally that would say, oh, that that person has high levels of impairment. You wouldn't see that. But it's. I also think that people who have, are high maskers have a lot of mental health challenges. And I think that's something that I've, you know, part of why my burnout has been so just stubborn and sticky was because I, you know, is really trying to, I don't want to say masquerading as I had my together for so long, but like the sort of the, the compounding effect of having success here after you're in my business, really, it was almost similar to the birth of my anxiety after getting diagnosed with ADHD that first semester when I actually did really well in school for the first time ever. It, you know, it raised the bar. I'm okay, I can do this. And then that's what my expectation for myself was, you know, year after year after year. And I feel that's how I've done in my business as well. And so it's been, it's been, you know, challenging, sitting with a lot of uncertainty, knowing that I'm taking a step back in a lot of ways with my business not being super clear on what the future kind of looks like, because I, you know, it's a. I need to listen to my, myself and my body. So I guess to answer that question, what do I wish I would have known? I guess just I wish I would have known more about high masking, autism, and how much that actually impacts me. Okay, another question here. What were some of the main themes of your presentation at the chat conference? So I did talk a lot about the importance of understanding masking and a lot of the things that are now the less obvious things, but that are sort of patterns, types of behaviors. So I, I do, I'm, I'm hoping it is my intention, but I don't have a concrete plan for it yet to actually do the presentation as a webinar a couple times in the upcoming Beginning of next year. Oh, here's a. Here is a question that's not a light one, but I'm going to answer it. Can you please share how the grief of losing your dad has impacted your nervous system and burnout? Well, it certainly hasn't helped, although I don't know that was my immediate answer. Now that I'm thinking about it, I think that. And I don't know if this is just part of my own growth process or healing journey or part of doing emdr, but I allowed myself to really grieve. And I think that I was not at all trying to push myself to come to. All right, I gotta get back with the program here. You know, I've had this, you know, of weeks of grief, and because that was one of the challenges with my presentation was I had actually had time block to start working on the presentation the week that my dad went to hospice. So obviously I didn't start the presentation that week. And then he. He passed away later that week. And, you know, and I was not thinking about presentations, you know, for several weeks. And so I got, you know, a four or five week delay on even starting on it because I was allowing myself to feel the feels, which is not something that I've done in the past. So that's been, I think, one part of it. And, you know, my. I was just thinking about this over the last couple of weeks, too, as we've been doing some yearly planning. You know, I didn't just lose my dad this year, I lost my grandmother this year, too. And, you know, and also kind of highlighted a lot of the dysfunctions in my family of origin as well, because, you know, these kinds of things really bring out what your family and how it functions. And it. And that was. That was challenging. But I think as far as how it impacted my nervous system, I think it kind of reminded and reinforced that I still have a lot of work to do. It's probably my most honest answer to that question. It's, you know, I think that for a while I was saying, you know, I feel the burnout is behind me, but it's literally the car behind me and it's close to my bumper hitting me, right? And I realized, you know, I think that that may have been more of an optimistic assessment than I maybe was ready to acknowledge at that time. I'm not as deep in it as I once was for sure, but I'm definitely not out of it. So that's a. That's a hard hitting question, Carrie. Thank you for that.
Brian Antler
Grief works on its own timetable.
Eric Tivers
Yes, yes. And it, you know, and kind of, it'll pop up out of nowhere. I'll be, you know, I'll be. Find one moment and all of a sudden I'll just be like, oh, my dad's gone. And it just, it, it can be really overwhelming.
Brian Antler
Yeah, my, my mother passed away quite a while ago we. Over 12 years ago and. But I still, from time to time, be like, it will come when it comes because it's part of your. And I don't know if it ever really, really stops. But it changes. Your relationship changes.
Eric Tivers
Yeah, I, you know, when I was in my early 20s, I. I lost my best friend. He died of an overdose. And you know, I remember hearing this idea that you really don't ever get over it. You just get used to it. I do think that's true. Okay, I'm gonna move to another topic right now. So what does burnout look like for you? So Carrie just wanted to come in and, you know, have all the questions, make sure they hit me right in the gut. Burnout for me looks like art apathy, Art. Feeling rudderless, knowing I have these things that I want, I need to do and just kind of being like. Or it's the anxiety that can sometimes activate, you know, that our most productive time, the last minute, even that is not activated in my brain. And it's having a considerable more need for downtime and recovery time. Like considerable more need. It. You know, I think in some ways there's some skill regression which is common in autistic burnout. Yeah, it's just sort of this feeling of I'm not operating at the level that I once was in many areas of life. And I'm still optimistic I'm gonna figure it out and come out of it. And I'm just, have been more accepting, I think lately that it's just, it's just gonna take as long as it takes. It's annoying, it's frustrating. I wish, you know, like all things kind of ADHD related, we want progress yesterday and I actually took a break right before my dad died. I took a break from therapy. And I'm, I'm ready to go back to it because it's, I know I, I, I need to, I need to keep working on some stuff between everything that's been happening in, in my personal life to, to the world. It's, it's hard and you know, and I think that it's important that we share these kinds of things with, with each other so. Because I think there's a lot of people struggling that don't know kind of where to turn or how to even communicate about what they're experiencing, you know, because if, especially if you, if you, if you're not, you know, in this field, it's can be really confusing when you're experiencing something like this and you're not really sure what it is. So, yeah, burn. It also looks to me like only sending out one email the day before for a live Q and A, which then only has a few people show up for it. Or it looks like I actually, and I haven't, I've fallen off my pickleball routine, which I have not fallen out of an exercise routine in quite some time. So, you know, the things that I know are helpful, I've just been struggling with. I think the best thing I could say right now is that I feel I've stopped digging deeper into the burnout. But my, right now, as we do our themes for the year right now, my working sort of idea around my theme for the year has to do with attunement. Attunement into myself, connecting with myself, listening more to myself and my nervous system. In the past, when people would ask me what's, you know, what are my biggest strengths or what's, what do I think my, my superpower is? I would say being a lemonade maker, being resilient. I can turn lemons into lemonade. And I think I've done that sort of on the back of my nervous system where I've kind of was, was doing that and, and it cost me just a lot of well being and that it just took me a considerable amount of time for that to really register to understand what was happening. We have any other questions?
Podcast Host / Moderator
Kathleen, Jacqueline and Carrie.
Eric Tivers
What I guess I'll do right now is I'm going to take a quick break for the podcast and I'll give y' all an opportunity to come up with some more questions and then we'll be right back.
Podcast Host / Moderator
If you're listening to this and thinking, yeah, this is hitting pretty close to home, especially around our discussions around burnout and motivation or knowing what helps but struggling to actually do it or falling off a routine and struggling to get back to it, you are not alone. One of the things that comes up over and over again in our coaching and accountability groups, it's that moment of realizing, oh, it's not just me. I want you to hear directly from the people who just went through this group last season.
Group Member 1
I joined because, because I was messing up with my time big time. And I almost got fired from my Pilates job and it was just the last straw. And I'd thought about coming to this group previously and called Eric a few times to talk about that. I realized that I'm not bad, I'm not wrong, I'm not defective, and that I just have a condition with my brain that I can learn to work with. Something I didn't expect was that it was going to work for me. Like I thought, I'm always the one who doesn't follow through, didn't do the homework, doesn't get it, won't listen, all the things and hey, I did it, I'm doing it and continuing to do it.
Podcast Host / Moderator
What these groups offer isn't motivation or hype. They offer structure, accountability and support that actually works with our nervous system. They're high support, high structure and intentionally intensive. Not to push you harder, but so you're not trying to carry everything all on your own.
Group Member 2
Moments that were most meaningful were the moments that I felt belonging. I learned that I'm not alone and I'm right about needing others. I need structure and I need accountability and I need understanding. I've been enjoying a very regulated time for my adhd. This has been good for me and I've been using my planner and not as stressed out and feeling a lot of focus. The secret special sauce is accountability, attention, structure, intention and this program provides all of that. It's working and it feels good.
Podcast Host / Moderator
In this program you'll meet three times a week. You are part of a small accountability team. You're not just talking about what you're doing, you're checking in, you're planning, you're experimenting and adjusting all with people who actually get it. And for a lot of people the structure doesn't make things heavier, it actually makes things lighter.
David
Success really looks like to me, like showing up when it's fucking hard. As somebody who has co occurring ADHD and OCD a lot of times there's so much rigidity that success to me when I first started this group continued to look like there being a concrete outcome and a concrete achievement or a concrete check on my to do list. Whereas now I'm like, success looks like sitting with tension and big emotions and still showing up. I recognize that it is really hard when your brain is telling you to do 500 other things and you continue to show up anyway and learn how to tolerate a lot of feelings and doing it in a community that was really accepting. I decided to join the group because I was like, I can't keep Living the way that I've been living with all your encouragement to prioritize more hours of sleep and it's just amazing how much your executive functioning naturally improves by not being sleep deprived. It's still a work in progress, but through the past eight weeks I've probably gotten more hours of sleep than I had in the past eight years.
Podcast Host / Moderator
Another thing we hear all the time is that people stop numbing and start actually reclaiming their time not perfectly, but more consistently.
Group Member 3
This is actually my second time joining the group. It was very helpful the first time around but since then a lot of life stuff happened including a a lot of health issues that really changed my ability to manage my ADHD and just my approach to how I get things done. Before this group I probably two to three days a week wasted hours binge watching TV to avoid thinking about things that stress me out. And now I do not use TV to wait anymore. I have only a couple times binge watched during this group and when I have my A team was there to pick me up and help me understand why it happened and give me grace and help me see the progress in it. So that's given me so many hours.
Eric Tivers
Back in my day and this isn't.
Podcast Host / Moderator
About perfection, it's about progress, building self trust and finally moving forward sometimes in really big ways.
Group Member 4
This has been awesome. I've been struggling, I've had ideas and I've been struggling to just make a move on additional incomes. And so that day after Groove I basically sat down, I put together a website for a new business, I secured a URL, I picked a name and got an Etsy shop set up, got a Poshmark store set up and I put together a whole inventory tracking system going into the new year with the direction and I'm excited about it because I was just so inspired. So thank you. And that was just one moment that.
Group Member 3
Just really jumped out that really warms my heart. David, thank you for. I'm glad I called you out and I didn't even know you're going to say something nice about me, but that means a lot for you to say that and I'm so excited.
Group Member 4
Oh, that's what this group has been about. Just being together with people who get it and just everybody's so inspiring. That's really one of the reasons I decided to join group is because I've just been lolling in my head for a year about what am I going to do, what's the next chapter?
Podcast Host / Moderator
Our upcoming winter coaching groups start the first week of February and By popular demand, we are offering both early morning options and evening options. This season we are keeping the investment at 999 with three and six month payment plans available to make this level of support more accessible to more people. If you've been trying to do this alone and it's just not working, the next step is fairly simple. Go to coachingrewired.com and I want to encourage you to join the interest list and there you'll see the instructions about completing preparation pre registration. From there you'll attend one of our upcoming registration events so we can make sure you're a good fit for the group and you can make sure that we're a good fit for you. That website again is coaching Rewired.com that's coaching Rewired.com all right, let's get back to the conversation and answer more questions.
Eric Tivers
All right, we are back. All right, next question here is what are my favorite AI tools right now? I'm I still use Chat GPT for, for a lot of stuff. Yeah, I mean that's, that still continues to be a tool that I use for, for a lot of different things from kind of organizing thoughts and ideas. I was using it to help me come up with themes for the year because it's nice because it has that sort of memory of all the things that, that I've inputted into it over the last year. You know, I think one of my, my prompts when I was trying to figure out my themes for the year was something, you know, based on everything that we've talked about over the last year. What, what do you think would be some helpful themes to help me guide the things I want to be doing as well as the things I don't want to be doing. And it, it really just knows me. I think sometimes it now knows me more than I know me. Brian. I don't know if you feel that way. Brian.
Brian Antler
Well, I am coming up on a learning curve. I started adopting AI and ChatGPT later, but I've been using it more and more and it's helping me formulate a lot of thoughts. I'm wary of trying to rely on it too much. I use it for a lot of my, my personal development work and it's kind of like, and, and for other things I'm working on and for ADHD management tools. But I'm in. Yeah, I continue to be impressed. What strikes me is I'll start a new new chat on a different topic and I'll be going through it and it'll be Pulling stuff from other stuff that was not even part of that conversation at all.
Podcast Host / Moderator
Yeah.
Brian Antler
Oh, how does this relate to them? Oh, I didn't even. It's connecting dots from stuff that I didn't even connect from various.
Eric Tivers
Yeah, yeah, I've had that experience too, which is really fascinating to me. I often use it for stuff in the kitchen. I don't even look up recipes anymore. I'll just tell it what ingredients I have or what I'm trying to do, and it will help me figure out certain ways to make a recipe for or. I ran out of my K cups for my Keurig, and then when I went online to go order more and I was, oh, my God, coffee's gotten so expensive. I might need to change how I drink coffee. I found that I had in my. My pantry these instant Starbucks, instant coffee, little things. And it was from 2023. So I asked ChatGPT, is it okay to drink instant coffee that says best by 2023? And they let me know that it was okay. Same thing. I had some tortillas that I wanted to use and it said Best Buy. It was end of September or something. And it told me that flour tortillas are the cockroaches of the carb family or something. Something like about as long as it's sealed and refrigerated, it will last a long time.
Podcast Host / Moderator
So.
Eric Tivers
Okay, that was good to know. Those are kind of the AI tools that I've been. I've been using. Any other ones, Brian?
Brian Antler
Well, I've been using them different ways. I've been using Chat GPT in different ways. I do a lot of research where I want to look at 10 different ADHD coaches, a pool list of 10 different AD coaches that specialize in this area. But what I realized, oh, but then compile those into a spreadsheet with names and the links and then a summary of what they're doing and downloadable spreadsheet. I'm like, oh, I only recently I learned about that on a webinar and I was, wait, I didn't know it could just generate documents for you. And one recent thing is, this is so random, but I have a. Where I live right now during these cold winter months, I sometimes have a kind of a mold mildew problem in the closets. I think it's just because it's cooler than normal and I live in an old Victorian building and the moisture can. Slight humidity gets trapped in a sealed closet. And I was looking at some clothes and I took a picture of some suspicious stuff. I saw on the cuff of a jacket in my closet and I uploaded a chatgpt. Can you tell me what this is? And in some days, yeah, this follows the growth pattern. It analyzed the photograph.
Eric Tivers
Wow.
Brian Antler
And told me whether or not it found it. Yes. This follows the patterns of mildew. And this is how you remediated and you know, and I was like, okay, so we can analyze photos. Which I found amazing.
Eric Tivers
Yeah.
Brian Antler
My question for you, Eric, is have you, have you done anything with building an AI agent as opposed to just doing prompts?
Eric Tivers
I have half started that with three different agents and have not completed any of them. But I know, I know that you can't. I started doing one a while ago where I was trying to feed all of my past podcast ads into the agents to help me generate new, you know, new content. But the process was so cumbersome that I was just, oh my God. With the non stop copy and paste I'm like, can you just take full access of my Google Drive and then identify what are my, my copywritten ads? And to go through hundreds of ads to copy and paste was. I was getting frustrated with that. So I didn't do that. But I know you can also have these agents that will do things sort of in the background for you. And I have not yet cotton into that, but it's definitely something I've been interested in. The other actually AI tool that was just kind of interesting and is this. It's actually a music app called Suno S U N O. You can literally tell it the. You can either upload your own lyrics or give it the concept of a song and then tell it what kind of style and it legit creates. It sounds a professionally produced song. It's wild to me. So it's just kind of interesting to see where, you know, as a, as a musician, you know, it's, it's interesting because it can help help you formulate ideas. But I think it's also, you know, and I know a lot of visual artists who are. Have a lot of concerns about AI because it can create this artwork that is not created by anyone. Right. It's, it's, it's basically taking samples and then using that to generate new artwork. So yeah, it's still a very exploding but interesting front and hopefully we're going to figure out soon how to continue doing this in a more eco friendly way. Because I do know that's one of the big things I hear more and more about is just how bad AI stuff is for the environment because of how much power, energy it needs. All right, Kerry. Thank you, Gary. I see. What's the smallest task I can take to get back into playing pickleball? There is a club that's near me that I want to sign up for. I just haven't, I haven't done it yet because it's kind of expensive. But I did cancel my gym membership because I wasn't, I wasn't going there. Yeah, it's a great question, Carrie. I wish I had a better answer for you now because that's probably why I haven't taken that first step, because maybe I don't recognize the first step. I would have some accountability for that. I'm not going to say no to that one, Carrie. Damn it. Thank you. Jacqueline has a question. I'm in Chicago. Where would be a good place to go to get an autistic diagnosis? I know I have some traits but have no official diagnosis. So I did my evaluation. It was actually, it was online through a company called ProsperHealth IO. Now I have talked to other people who've done online assessments and they don't. They said it wasn't that great. But I actually found the experience to be really validating and affirming. And I thought that it was a really good process, but that was my experience. But the other, the other thing that I would mention about Prosper Health IO, at least with my insurance, the whole thing cost me 150 bucks with my co pays. It was, you know, I think for a while I didn't even consider getting one because I was. Yeah, I know I'm probably artistic. I don't need to spend thousands of dollars for that confirmation. But when I found out this is a place I can do it and it would only be 150 bucks, I was like, why not? I also know in Chicago.
Brian Antler
I wish.
Eric Tivers
I remembered if they actually did evaluations. But I know that Devin Price, who is a clinician and has written a bunch of books on neurodiversity and shame. Like I highly, highly recommend his books. They're in Chicago and. But I'm not exactly sure if they do the evaluation process or not, but maybe connect with them and see if they have any recommendations or referrals. I'm getting more accountability questions about Pickleball here. So how will. Carrie wants to know how that, how she's going to know When I've called the pickleball center, I keep thinking about driving by there to go because I've been there before, but I actually don't think I've considered calling them huh? You'll give me something to think about there, Carrie. I don't know the phone number right now, Carrie, but I have a feeling you're going to ask me what's the next step I can do to find the phone number out? Because that's probably the question that I would ask, which I could do right now. Gold ball for all. Okay, I'm leaving this up and I will call today. I'll probably call, actually call after I'm done here. Thank you. It feels I'm getting closer to real, to going back to playing pickleball. And I'm going to probably surprise myself with how out of shape I already am again, which is a bummer. But pickleball is like therapy for me. I got to get back to it. All right, do we have any other questions? Check outside. Call right now. Oh, oh, but I would need to probably give a credit card number over the phone or they might just tell me to come in. So I don't really want to get my credit card number on. You know, if I'm recording, which I think you could probably understand, you could.
Brian Antler
Mute for a moment.
Eric Tivers
That was Brian unmuting for a moment. Oh, I see. What, you're teaming up now, huh? Okay, man, I just put myself in the hot seat here. So Brian's gonna take over then. And are you able to for a few minutes?
Brian Antler
I cannot at the moment.
Eric Tivers
Oh, that's such a shame. I was totally gonna do it. Carrie, do you have your. Do you want to dust off that podcasting mic? I don't know. You said it's been a while since you've done a podcast. Well, here, I'm going to do this. I'm going to end the podcast here, but I'm not going to actually end the meeting here. So for those of you who want to stick around while I start to make that call, you certainly can. But once I'm on the phone, I'll end the thing. I just want to thank you all for. For coming here.
Podcast Host / Moderator
Here.
Eric Tivers
Well, we'll even do this for a little bit of, I don't know, audio magic. Let's see. Oh, I had to hit the sound. Okay, here, let's see. Is that coming through at all? Okay, that's me dialing. No, I'm seriously going to call. I'm going to end it here, though. Thank you, Carrie. Thank you for your. Your hard hitting questions. I actually really appreciate that. Jacqueline and Kathleen, thank you for being here and thanks, everyone. We'll get you next time. Okay, wait, before. Before I go, I was challenged to actually do the thing. And I did the thing. I went online and I. And I officially became a member. So I did it. And, man, that was a hot, hot seat. And thank you. All right, we'll see you soon. Wait. One more update. It's been a few weeks since the Q and A as I'm editing this and recording this right now. But not only did I sign up, I've been going three to four times a week. And happy to report that I actually just got back from playing pickleball. And the first couple of weeks, I was kind of rusty, but I feel back in my groove. So, yep, that's. That happened. Our next Q and a is March 10th at 12:30pM Central Time.
ADHD & AuDHD Burnout: Why Community & Accountability Still Matter
Host: Eric Tivers (with guest ADHD reWired Coach Brian Antler)
Release Date: January 14, 2026
In this Q&A episode, Eric Tivers and coach Brian Antler discuss personal updates, the experience of ADHD and Autism burnout, the importance of community, unmasking, self-understanding, and the ongoing journey to recovery. Listeners’ questions guide the conversation, touching on grief, emotional regulation, productivity, accountability, and practical strategies to navigate life with ADHD and AuDHD (Autistic + ADHD). The episode highlights the value of structure and support, vulnerability in relationships, and adapting to new self-realizations—plus a little accountability for Eric’s pickleball routine.
[03:05 – 07:36]
Eric Reflects on Burnout & Diagnosis:
Presentation on AudHD:
[05:51 – 09:21]
Brian Antler’s Take:
The Power of Shared Experience:
[07:36 – 09:40]
[09:40 – 15:24]
Unmasking After Diagnosis:
Brian on Vulnerability:
Relationship Challenges:
[18:29 – 19:56]
Eric on Alexithymia:
Brian on Hypervigilance:
[19:56 – 35:14; resumes at 36:33]
[22:08 – 26:04]
[26:04 – 29:35]
[30:25 – 35:34]
[36:33 – 44:29]
Tools in Use:
Practical Examples:
Concerns & Future:
[44:29 – End]
Listener-Led Accountability:
Listener Q: Where to get an autism assessment in Chicago?
Outro Update:
Eric Tivers:
Brian Antler:
Group Member (on success):
This episode is a lived-in, honest exploration of what it means to navigate ADHD, AuDHD, and burnout—emphasizing the slow, non-linear nature of recovery and the absolute necessity of community and accountability. It also demonstrates, in real time, how support, structure, and even some gentle public nudging can move us forward on the smallest—and most important—steps.
Next live Q&A: March 10th, 12:30 PM Central.