Christine: Have you ever understood perfectly well why something is difficult for you and still judged yourself for finding it difficult? Because I know socializing costs me energy. I know sensory overload is real. I know I need more recovery time. And yet I still catch myself thinking, why can't I cope with this? Why are you tired again? Why is this such a big deal? So you understand your neurodivergence, but you're still measuring yourself against the same standards you always did. Exactly. A need appears, judgment follows immediately behind it. And I think that's what internalized ableism can sound like. Not disabled people should be able to do more, but I should be able to do more. Welcome to Between Us Neurodivergent Conversations, a podcast about autism, ADHD, or DHD, and the female experiences that often go unseen behind the mask. This podcast exists because we couldn't find conversations that reflected our own experiences as lay-diagnosed and discovered neurodivergent women and mothers in our forties. We're parenting neurodivergent children while also learning to better understand ourselves. And create a life that allows our nervous systems to thrive, not just survive.
Mareike: To sharing authentic conversations, lived experiences, and everyday challenges, we hope to create a space where women feel seen, understood, and a little less alone. You might just recognize yourself in our stories and realize you're neurodivergent as well or someone you know. We'd like to gently remind you that everything shared in this podcast is based on our personal experiences, reflections, and research. It is not intended as medical, psychological, or diagnostic advice. Welcome back to Between Us Neo Divergent Conversations. In our last episode, we talked about some of the strengths of ADHD, autism, and Aud that can get overlooked when so much of the conversation focuses on what is difficult. We talked about recognizing that there can be completely different ways of thinking, experiencing, and navigating the world. But there's another side to that conversation that we really wanted to explore. Because understanding your neurodivergence intellectually doesn't necessarily mean you suddenly stop judging yourself according to all the standards you grow up with. You can understand why something is difficult for you and still think you should be able to do it. You can understand that your brain works differently and still call yourself lazy, difficult, too sensitive, too much, or not good enough when you struggle. So today we're talking about internalized ableism. And particularly on What happens when it doesn't sound like some horrible judgment coming from somebody else? It sounds like your own voice. Hi Christina. I know this is a topic you've been thinking about quite a lot lately.
Christine: I have. And actually I find it really frustrating. Because
Mareike: Mm.
Christine: intellectually I know so much more now. I know socializing costs me a lot of energy. I know sensory overload is real. My executive functioning changes enormously depending on stress or capacity. I know I need more recovery time. I can technically be capable of something and still pay a very significant price for doing it. I know all of that. And yet I still catch myself thinking. Why can't I cope with this? Why are you tired again? Why is this such a big deal? And sometimes I generally have to stop and think, Christine, have you listened to a single episode of your own podcast?
Mareike: Apparently not.
Christine: No, apparently not. Because I can understand something perfectly well when we're talking about it here. I can understand it in another person. I can advocate for it in my children. And then when it applies to me, apparently all the rules change.
Mareike: Yes, because you can say to me, Of course you're exhausted, Maraika. Look at what you've been carrying. You would never look at another autistic or ADHD woman who is exhausted and say, Well, that's ridiculous, trahada. But you can say something very similar to yourself.
Christine: Exactly. And I think that's where this conversation about internalized ableism gets really interesting because it doesn't always sound like disabled people should be able to do more. Sometimes it sounds like I should be able to do more.
Mareike: And maybe before we go any further we should explain what we
Christine: Mm.
Mareike: mean because internalized ableism can sound quite academic. And when you first suggested this topic, Christina, I actually had to go and read about what it meant.
Christine: Yes. And I'm not trying to give the perfect academic definition here, but the way I'm beginning to understand it is this. We grow up with ideas about what a capable, productive, independent person is supposed to look like. How much they should work, how much they should cope with, how much help they should need, how tired they're allowed to be, how social they should be. And then we absorb those standards and we turn them against ourselves. So it can sound like I shouldn't need help or I shouldn't need this much rest. Other people manage this. I should be much more resilient. And I just need to get organized. I just can't keep on taking the easy option.
Mareike: Yeah. everyone else has children and a job. Everyone gets tired. Everyone finds things stressful.
Christine: Yes. And then the conclusion becomes, so what's wrong with me? And I think I reached that conclusion thousands of times without ever questioning whether the standard itself made sense for me. I assumed the standard was correct. Therefore I
Mareike: Yeah.
Christine: must be the problem.
Mareike: Yeah. And some of those thoughts don't even sound particularly cruel, you know, they sound sensible.
Christine: That's exactly what makes them so difficult to spot. I just need to get organized. Sounds perfectly reasonable, but sometimes underneath it, the problem is always that I'm not trying hard enough. Instead of asking, is there something about the expectation that needs changing?
Mareike: Mm, can you think of a recent example? Not something from years ago, but something now when you caught yourself doing it.
Christine: Yeah, something that's been coming up for me a lot recently is fatigue. I've been struggling with it since 2018. I've had blood tests, looked at different causes, and earlier this year I was diagnosed with an iron deficiency. I've worked on nutrition, on sleep, on exercise too. But underneath all of that has been this assumption that I can just find the thing that's wrong and I can fix it. Eventually I will have the energy that I think I'm supposed to have. And recently I started wondering what if part of this is this is simply the cost of how I've lived in the past. I sometimes think maybe I spend a lifetime's worth of energy in my very first 40 years. I didn't
Mareike: Yes.
Christine: know I was autistic. I didn't know I had ADHD. I didn't understand sensory overload, masking, or why ordinary things seemed to require so much energy of me. I just kept pushing. So I started asking. Where am I still holding myself to the standard of somebody whose circumstances are completely different from mine? And I realized I'm doing it everywhere. With my exercise, with homeschooling, this podcast, and the business we're building, I've changed my understanding of myself, but I haven't necessarily changed the standard. I'm still measuring myself up against. Maybe the question isn't only. How do I get rid of this fatigue so I can finally do everything I think I should be able to do? Maybe it's what if this is my capacity right now? What would change if I stopped designing my life around the energy energy I think I should have and started designing it around the energy that I actually have? That's where internalized ableism has been showing up for me. I understand that I'm autistic and I have ADHD, but I'm still expecting myself to function as though I'm not. And what struck me was that my first question wasn't what does my body need? It was what's wrong with me?
Mareike: Yeah, so the judgment arrived before the curiosity, you know?
Christine: Yeah, yeah, totally. And and I think that sentence sums up so much of what I'm trying to notice now. A need appears and judgment follows immediately behind it. One of the biggest things I've been I've had to rethink is using ability as the only measure. Because for most of my life the question was, can I physically make myself do it? If yes, then obviously I can do it. But now I'm trying to ask a completely different question. What does doing it actually cost me? And we've already talked about this question in in of cost in two of our previous episodes in episodes twelve and thirteen. So we don't need to repeat everything in here. But I think the idea of cost is something we can't mention often enough because it's so easy to overlook. Just because I can do something doesn't mean it's actually sustainable for me. And sometimes asking, what is this costing me is one of the most important questions we can ask ourselves. Because I might technically be able to do something, but what happens afterwards? That is information too, and critical information.
Mareike: Yeah, absolutely. And from the outside, if you did the thing, it looks successful. So maybe success isn't only did I get through it, maybe it's also was the way I got through it sustainable.
Christine: Yeah, of course. My brain still loves producing evidence, you know, but you did it before. And yes,
Mareike: Mm. Yeah.
Christine: I did. But I was using anxiety, perfectionism, adrenaline, or over preparing to get there. And then I was calling that functioning.
Mareike: Because you completed the task, you know?
Christine: Yes. And nobody was measuring what it cost me afterwards. Not even me. And I think one of the most painful forms of this isn't comparing myself with other people. It's comparing myself with the person that I used to be. I used to work full time. I used to handle enormous workloads. I used to be incredibly productive. So surely the aim is to get back there.
Mareike: Even though you know and now understand what that level of functioning was costing you.
Christine: Yeah, int intellectually I know. I know that. Emotionally, I can still use the old me as the benchmark. And I've started asking, why is the version of me who could override every single from her body automatically considered the healthiest version of me? Maybe the goal isn't get getting back to that version of myself who could override everything and push through. Maybe the goal is learning not to need the level of override anymore. But there's a lot of grief in that too. There are things that the old about the old me that I really miss, you know. She earned money, she achieved things, she was independent, people respected her. So saying that wasn't sustainable doesn't magically make losing that capacity easy.
Mareike: Yeah, I can understand. And and sometimes grief can turn into a project. How quickly can I fix myself and get back to that old me that I miss so much, you know?
Christine: Yeah. I I can see this really clearly in my experience with ADHD medication. That's a really good example because
Mareike: Yeah.
Christine: when I first started medication, a part of me hoped that it would help me get back to my old level of performance. Now for for yeah, for for a while I could do more, I could push harder.
Mareike: Hm, I remember that, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Christine: But my anxiety went through the roof and ultimately I I became even more burnt out than I was before. It took me months to realise that the problem wasn't necessarily that I hadn't found the right way to get back to my old level of functioning. The problem was that I was still treating the old level as the goal. So now I'm I'm trying to ask, how do I live according to the actual capacity I have right now? And how do I adjust my standards for myself? Because I've done a lot of work separating my worth from my job title, but I realize as a measure of worth that hadn't really disappeared, you know. It had just moved. It showed up in my parenting and homeschooling, exercise, and how much I expected myself to accomplish. Even this podcast. I had stopped measuring myself by a job title, but I was still measuring myself by how much I could do. And maybe that's another layer of internalized ableism, Not whether I accept that I'm autistic or I have ADHD. But whether I genuinely allow that understanding to change, what I truly expect from myself.
Mareike: Yeah. So so even when you stop measuring yourself by how much you could do at work, you were still measuring yourself by how much you could do elsewhere. And I think a lot of women can relate to that. There can be this constant pressure to keep performing, to be a good parent, keep the household running, stay active, be productive, keep everything together, regardless of how much capacity you actually have. And at some point you have to ask, where do you stop? What are you allowed to let go of? And why does it often feel like you're only allowed to rest once you've completely run out of capacity?
Christine: Yeah. Yeah. I think that's where rest becomes really interesting. Because if your sense of worth is still connected to what you produce, you accomplish or or able to manage, then rest can feel like doing nothing or even worse, like failing.
Mareike: yeah. So does that show up around rest for you, I guess? Yeah.
Christine: Constantly. Yeah, constantly. I've mentioned before on the podcast that I find it really difficult to just rest. And I think a lot of that comes from how I was brought up. You know, rest was something you earned. You did
Mareike: Yes.
Christine: all the things you had to do first. You did your schoolwork, your studying, your chores around the house, whatever responsibilities you had. And then when everything was finished, then you could rest. But not any sooner. When I was younger, that system actually worked reasonably well for me because The list was finite. You know, you could I could work my way through the things I had to do and eventually reach a point where I could think, okay, everything's done. Now I've earned my rest. And because I had earned it, I could actually rest without feeling guilty. But then you become an adult. And now the list grows so much, it never ends, you know. There's always another load of washing. Something needs organizing. There's something for the children and homeschooling and appointments and live admin and there's work on the podcast and the business. So if the rule is still I can rest once everything is done, I will literally never qualify for rest.
Mareike: Never.
Christine: And I think that's what happened to me for quite a long time. You know, there have been really long periods where I haven't rested properly because I could never reach that point where I felt like I had earned it. And even when I did, there was often guild attached to it because somewhere in my head there was still this list of all the things I should be doing instead. So we we've actually had to develop some strategies around this as a family. One thing that helps us is being much clearer about expectations, particularly on weekends. Maybe on a Friday evening, my husband and I will talk about Saturday and Sunday and say, okay, what actually needs to happen this weekend? What needs doing? But also What fun things do we want to do? Where's the downtime? So rather than having this endless, undefined expectation that the weekend should be productive, we might decide, okay, we'll spend a couple of hours doing this, then we'll go and grab a coffee together, then we'll come home and we'll do these other things. And maybe in the evening there's a show I want to watch, or and I know that's what I'm going to do. It sounds like a really small thing, but that structure makes rest much easier for me because the rest has actually been included in the plan. It's not something I'm sneaking in, yeah, or feeling guilty about, you know. Exactly.
Mareike: Yeah, that's a really good idea. Yeah, yeah. To plan the rest. Yeah. Yeah.
Christine: And yeah, and this it also means my husband and I have talked about our expectations. He isn't imagining that we're going to have this huge productive day while I'm desperate trying, hoping that I'm going to get some rest. We've actually
Mareike: Mm.
Christine: said what each of us needs and what realistically needs to get done. And even with that structure, I still find it difficult sometimes to rest. But I'm beginning to understand that if I wait until I've completed every obligation before I allow myself to rest, it will never happen. And particularly when I'm already dealing with burnout and limited capacity, that rule makes absolutely no sense. Rest
Mareike: No.
Christine: no, it can't be it can't be a re reward, you know, at the end of productivity. Sometimes rest has to be the thing on the list. You know, one of those. And I think that's another place where I'm having to unlearn a rule that I've carried for most of my life. That rest is something I have to earn rather than something my body and brain actually need.
Mareike: Yeah, so what would count as enough before you were allowed to rest?
Christine: That's the problem, The finish line keeps moving and I realized something recently, you know,
Mareike: Christina.
Christine: I I find rest much easier to justify after I've completely exhausted myself.
Mareike: because then you have evidence? no. Hmm.
Christine: Exactly. You know, I've got the migraine, rest authorized. Completely burnt out. Yep. Rest has been approved. Can't physically get off the sofa. Fine. Yeah, you you have submitted sufficient supporting documentation. Rest has
Mareike: Mm.
Christine: now been approved. It has, it has,
Mareike: The application has been approved, right?
Christine: yeah. But I can feel myself becoming overloaded and I'd quite like to prevent the crash. Still feels strangely difficult to justify. Which is ridiculous when you say it out loud, you know. Prevention would be the sensible option, but some part of me still thinks rest should be earned by suffering first.
Mareike: And perhaps that's one of the places where these beliefs run very deep, you know, work before play, finish everything first, don't be lazy, push through and also you wouldn't apply that to your children or other women.
Christine: Never, never. And if one of my daughters tells me she's overwhelmed, I'm not saying, Well, technically, you managed this last Tuesday. Therefore your current experience is invalid, you know? I'd be asking, did she have a bad night's sleep? Or has the week been too demanding? Is there too much sensory import? Could she just simply be hungry? Is there something uncertain or is a break needed? But when it's me, apparently none of those variables exist. Perhaps So one of the easiest ways I'm beginning to hear internalized ableism now is through the word should. I should be working, I should be more social, I should be able to cope with visitors, I should keep up with the house, I should be able to go to an appointment and still function afterwards. I shouldn't need a day to recover.
Mareike: And and then the obvious question I would like to ask is according to whom, Costino.
Christine: Yes. Yes. That's big becoming such a useful question because I don't remember sitting down one day and deciding this is the correct number of social engagements that an adult woman sh should be able to tolerate. And yet the rule feels very absolute. So I'm starting to ask, who wrote this rule? Where did it come from? Is it actually mine? Is it even meant for neurodivergent women?
Mareike: Yeah, and think that opens up the family piece too. what did capable mean in your family growing up? Because I think everything you talked about before as well, you know, there can be a cultural component to this as well. I'm not sure so sure and I don't want to speak for other countries here, but growing up in Germany, there was quite a strong emphasis on working hard, performing well and being able to cope. You didn't really stop because you were tired, you pushed through. There was this idea of first work, then pleasure. You do what needs to be done, and then you can relax. Taking a break could easily feel like being lazy, and needing help could feel like not being capable enough. We mentioned punctuality in previous episodes as well as being prepared and organized. So I know from living in other countries that they are a bit more relaxed, and I realized how much pressure to perform we have in us, and I think a lot of us internalize that without even questioning it. I guess you can relate to this, Christina. Yeah.
Christine: Yes, absolutely. I can I can totally relate. when I think back to the women I grew up around, particularly my mum, my memory is of women who were incredibly capable. My mum just did everything and I don't really remember her asking for help, you know. Actually,
Mareike: Yeah, so did mine. Yeah. No.
Christine: when I think about it, I don't have any memories of any of the women around me saying, I can't manage this or I need some help. They were capable and they got things done. And
Mareike: Yeah, absolutely, yeah. Mm-hmm.
Christine: I suppose when That's what you grow up seeing. That becomes your model for what being an adult woman looks like. So that's exactly what I did. I grew up, I became a mum, and gradually more and more responsibilities were added. There was work, there was the household, there were little children, there were appointments and live admin, all the things that needed doing. And on top of that, I wanted to do all of those things to quite a high standard. And somewhere underneath all of that was the unwritten script. You need to be independent. You need to be capable. You should be able to handle this. You don't ask for help. Nobody necessarily had to say those words to me. It was just running quietly in the background. And burnout really forced me to confront that. Because there were periods where I simply couldn't do it anymore. There were times where I was basically in bed. I wasn't functioning. I couldn't just push through and keep everything going. My husband had to take on a lot more and he really did step up. But then as I've gradually recovered, there's been another challenge because when you're physically incapable of doing something, in some ways the decision is made for you. What's much harder for me is recognizing a limit before I reach complete incapacity and actually saying I could probably force myself to do this, but I shouldn't. I need help. And that's something that I'm still learning. I've started with asking my husband for help. I've started asking my children for help. I'm getting better at recognizing that I don't necessarily have to be the person who does everything just because technically I could do it. But I can see that this is going to be an ongoing project for me for a very long time.
Mareike: Yeah.
Christine: Because that independence is so deeply ingrained. My autopilot is still, I can do it. If I can do it, I will do it. And if it's difficult, I'll push through. So I'm having to learn that being capable or forcing myself through something doesn't necessarily mean that doing it myself is the right choice. And maybe asking for help isn't evidence that I'm less capable. Maybe part of understanding my neurodivergence and understanding the capacity that I actually have is recognizing that independence shouldn't have to mean doing everything alone. For me, that's another part of internalized ableism. I'm still trying to make visible because if my definition of being a capable person requires me to never need support, then I'm holding myself to a standard that doesn't leave any room for the reality of being disabled, being burnt out, or simply being human. And I think that's fascinating because the voice in my head sounds like me, but I didn't necessarily write that rule.
Mareike: Yes, so even when we when support would make life substantially easier, the old rule can still say that needing it means you're less capable.
Christine: Yes. And that's the rule I'm trying to question. And
Mareike: Mm.
Christine: what about you? Because I think this could look quite different for you. Where do you notice that internal rule in yourself?
Mareike: Mm, I think one of the biggest ones for me is my sensitivity. I know that certain things overwhelm me, you know, too much social interaction, noise, changes in plants, too many people, too much stimulation, and I can understand why. But there's still this voice in my head saying, Why are you so sensitive? Other people can handle this, you're making too much of it. You should be able to cope. So even when I know that something is generally difficult for my nervous system, I still judge myself for finding it difficult. And I think that's the part I'm slowly having to unlearn that being sensitive means being weak or that needing something to be different means I'm being difficult.
Christine: Mm-hmm. I see. What do you think it would mean about you if you admitted, yes, I actually need this?
Mareike: I think for a long time admitting that I actually need something, felt like admitting that there was something wrong with me. if I say I need less noise or I need some time alone or I I need you to give me some notice before plans change, then part of me still thinks, Why can't you just handle this like everyone else? And I think that's the difficult part because needing something can still feel like weakness to me. Like I'm less capable, less resilient, or somehow more difficult than other people because I always needed a lot of help. so even when I know intellectually that my needs are valid, emotionally I can still feel embarrassed by them. That's a big feeling because sometimes when I express a sensitivity or ask for something I need, the reaction I get is a weird look, a snappy comment, or simply not being understood. And I think I'm slowly learning that needing something doesn't mean I'm weak. It just means I've learned what helps me function.
Christine: Because I think that's often where we find the belief underneath the behaviour. You know, it's not I don't want to ask for help. It might be if I ask for help, I'm weak, or if I need more solitude, I'm antisocial. If I'm affected by this, I'm too sensitive. That's that underlying sentence is probably where the interesting part is. And then when I try to respond more compassionately to myself, another voice can arrive and say, careful, you're making excuses now.
Mareike: Yeah, that that's a big one.
Christine: Because apparently there are only two options. You know, we can incredibly
Mareike: Yeah.
Christine: being incredibly hard on yourself or completely giving up. nothing in between. But understanding why something is difficult isn't the same as saying, therefore I never have to do anything difficult again. I still want to grow, I still want to challenge myself, and I want to do things that matter to me. Sometimes I will knowingly choose something that costs me energy because it matters enough. The difference is I want it to be an informed choice, not this automatic assumption that suffering is a proof of character.
Mareike: Yeah, that's that's good. do you ever worry that if you accommodate yourself too much you'll become less resilient? Yeah.
Christine: And definitely. There's still a fear that if I start listening to every need, my world will shrink. I'll stop doing difficult things and I'll become too soft. And I don't actually think those are silly questions. I think they're worth exploring. Because sometimes I need encouragement. Sometimes anxiety says, Don't do this. And doing it turns out to be really good for me. Sometimes my body says no because I'm genuinely beyond my capacity. And unfortunately diagnosis doesn't come with a little dashboard telling you which one it is. Extremely, extremely
Mareike: I'm very inconsiderate.
Christine: so I don't always know. But instead of automatically pushing, I'm trying to ask better questions. You know, what happened last time? What does my body feel like right now? How much capacity do I actually have? What is this what is the likely cost of this? Or is there a smaller version of this that I can trying? give myself permission to stop. For a really long time, I was incredibly proud of my ability to persist through difficult things. I did it at school, at uni, and at work. If something was difficult, I kept going. If I was struggling, I pushed through. And even when I experienced real difficult situations in the workplace, include including workplace bullying, I persisted. I generally saw that as one of my strengths. I thought
Mareike: Mm.
Christine: I'm resilient, I don't give up, I can handle difficult things, I just keep on going. And for a long time I thought resilience meant being able to withstand more. But after what happened to me through the workplace bullying, and particularly what happened to my health afterwards, I've had to completely rethink that. Because sometimes continuing isn't resilience at all. Sometimes resilience is saying, No, this isn't okay anymore. This is harming me. You know, I need to step away. I need to reassess the situation. I need to find another path. And I've realized that for me, that can actually be much scarier than continuing, because continuing is familiar to me. I know how to push through. I know how
Mareike: Of course.
Christine: to put my head down and work harder. But what has been much harder is saying this isn't working and something needs to change, and then actually allowing myself to change direction. When I look back now, I can see that there have probably been situations where I've spent far too long persisting with something I already knew wasn't working. Not because there was necessarily a good reason to continue, but because stopping felt like giving up. And giving up isn't, you know, what I do. I was resilient, I pushed through, I finished things and but now I'm starting to see resilience differently. Maybe resilience isn't about proving how much discomfort I can tolerate. Maybe it's also been able to recognize when something is unhealthy, trust what my body and brain are telling me, and have the courage to do something differently. Because there are times when staying and enduring is actually the easy option. Changing direction can require much more courage. And I think that's another why internalized ableism has shown up for me. This idea that strength means being able to tolerate the environment rather than questioning whether environment is something. I should be tolerating at all. I'm
Mareike: Yeah.
Christine: yeah. I'm learning that I don't have to wait until something completely breaks me before I'm allowed to say, This isn't working for me anymore. Another pattern I've noticed is that I tend to believe my needs once they become enormous.
Mareike: So I'm a little bit overloaded. Doesn't count.
Christine: No. But I'm crying in the bathroom and can't tolerate anybody speaking to me. That that qualifies. And I'm trying to recognise things much earlier. You know, maybe I'm become irritable, noise is getting harder to tolerate, I'm losing words, I'm struggling to make decisions, I'm getting tense. Or I desperately want silence. Those things are already information. I don't have to wait until the needs becomes undeniable.
Mareike: And have you had an example where you actually listened earlier and it helped?
Christine: a recent example has probably been around plans with friends. You know, my my daughter and I are both very burnt out at the moment and we had plans coming up where we were going to have friends over to our house. And when we actually stopped and looked at our capacity, we realized we can't do this right now. In the past, I think I would have probably pushed through, I would have cleaned the house and prepared everything and hosted and made sure everyone was comfortable and then dealt with the exhaustion afterwards. But instead, this time we listened to what we were already noticing. We still
Mareike: That's good.
Christine: we still wanted to see those friends. So rather than canceling the connection altogether, we suggested meeting somewhere else and Having a shorter catch-up and that was really helpful. It's not necessarily about saying no to everything, it's asking what version of this actually fits the capacity that I truly have right now. And I'm trying to apply the same thing to exercise. Normally I'm very structured and quite rigid with my exercise routine and having routines around walking and sleep and strength training is is genuinely really important for my mental health. But there's another side to that structure for me that That is when I become very focused on progression, you know, progressive overload, getting stronger and improving, doing what the program says I'm supposed to do that day. And historically, I've been very good at pushing through. But right now, my fatigue has been increasing and I've also been recently quite unwell. So I'm trying something that actually feels quite uncomfortable for me. I'm lowering my standard. Instead of thinking, how do I keep progressing? I'm asking. What if we're just maintaining right now? Maybe this isn't the season for massive improvements. Maybe right now the goal is simply to maintain the muscle we already have. Maybe success is showing up three times a week and working with whatever capacity I have on that particular day. That might mean changing the weights, it might mean changing the exercises, or even doing less rather than looking at the schedule and thinking that's what's on the plan for today. That's what we have to push through. I'm trying to look at my body first and then decide what today's workout needs to be. And that's actually quite a big learning for me. Yeah. Yeah.
Mareike: I guess so yeah. Knowing your story, that must be hard, yeah.
Christine: Because I'm really starting to understand that adjusting isn't the same as giving up. You know, maintenance isn't failure. Doing less isn't necessarily going backwards. And listening to my body before it is screaming at me to stop is Probably something I need to get much better at. And I think that's one of the practical ways that I'm trying to challenge some of this internalized ableism in my everyday life.
Mareike: Yeah, that sounds so good and helpful and you you come so far already and it's you know little steps that bring you where you really need to be and it's it's a lot of things you need to unlearn from decades, you know.
Christine: Yeah, definitely. Definitely.
Mareike: And do you think fear of being a burden sits underneath some of this as well sometimes?
Christine: Definitely, yeah. Because my needs sometimes affect other people. if I if plans
Mareike: Mm.
Christine: need to be changed, or if I need quiet, if I can't attend, or if I need help and the people pleasing part of me immediately goes, you know, your needs are inconveniencing somebody else, therefore you shouldn't have the need. But that's impossible in relationships. Everybody's needs affect everybody else's sometimes.
Mareike: Yeah, and there's a difference between having a need and demanding that everybody else organize their life around it.
Christine: Yeah, that that distinction actually has really helped me. You know, having a need doesn't mean everybody is obligated to meet it exactly how I want. It means the need gets to be part of the conversation. And pretending I don't need quiet help or change of plan doesn't make the need disappear. It just makes me invisible again.
Mareike: Yeah, and perhaps that connects to being difficult.
Christine: It does. I think I absorb this idea. an easy person equals a good person. Difficult
Mareike: Mm.
Christine: person equals somebody with too many needs. So when you've spent decades making yourself easy to accommodate, becoming more honest about your needs can feel really difficult.
Mareike: Yeah. So when actually you may just be more visible.
Christine: Yeah, I love that. Maybe I'm not becoming more difficult. Maybe I'm becoming more visible.
Mareike: Absolutely. And you know, if so much of this is automatic, how do we actually begin noticing it?
Christine: I definitely haven't stopped doing it, not even close, but I'm getting better at hearing certain phrases. You know, things like I should, I shouldn't, everyone else can, this is ridiculous, I'm being lazy, dramatic, or difficult. I could do it if I really tried. Those phrases have become little flags. Not proof that the thought is always wrong. Just pause. Something is happening here.
Mareike: And what do you do with the paws?
Christine: I try to move from judgment to information instead of why are you exhausted again? Maybe you're exhausted. What happened? Why can't you cope with this? Which part of it is hard? Instead of you shouldn't need help, maybe help would reduce the cost. The experience doesn't need to pass a moral test before I'm allowed to investigate it.
Mareike: Yeah, and again I would like to repeat this question, according to whom?
Christine: Yes. I should be able to work full time, according to whom. I should be able
Mareike: Yes.
Christine: to host people at my house, according to whom. I shouldn't need recovery after an appointment. Who established that incredibly specific role? Sometimes I might discover actually this genuinely matters to me. Fine, but sometimes I'll realize I don't even know whose standards I'm trying to meet.
Mareike: Yeah, that's so important.
Christine: So rather than turning this episode into another small improvement project, maybe there's one very small thing we can notice this week. Notice one moment where a need appears and judgment immediately follows. It might be I need quiet and then I shouldn't be this sensitive. Or I need rest. But then there's I haven't done enough. Or I don't have the capacity for that social event. I'm becoming antisocial. Just notice both sentences. The need and the judgment. You don't have to fix the judgment. You don't have to convince yourself that you completely deserve everything you need. Just see it and maybe ask, if I believe the need for five minutes, what would I do differently? That's it.
Mareike: Yeah, because perhaps making internalized ableism visible starts before changing it.
Christine: Absolutely. You can't really question a rule you haven't noticed your following.
Mareike: Yeah, and I do think it's important to say that noticing internalized ableism doesn't mean every uncomfortable thought is ableism.
Christine: No, sometimes we need to take responsibility. Sometimes we need to challenge ourselves. Sometimes something matters even though it's hard. Sometimes somebody else's need generally has to come first for a while. This isn't an excuse. I'm neurodiversion and therefore I never do anything uncomfortable. For me, the question is much simpler. Can I stop automatically treating my needs as evidence of a character flaw? That's very different.
Mareike: Hm. So the goal probably isn't I have completely eliminated internalized stabilism.
Christine: Absolutely not. Because when I then I would turn that into another performance metric, you know.
Mareike: I had three ableist thoughts today. Terrible results.
Christine: Yeah. Maybe success is much smaller, you know, I notice it sooner, I believe the judgment slightly less. I occasionally use the accommodation anyway. I rest before complete collapse once in a while. I ask for help one step earlier. Maybe I don't apologize quite as much. That feels much more realistic.
Mareike: Yes, and if you were trying to become somebody with no needs, what do you think would change?
Christine: I think that might actually be the bigger question underneath this entire episode. Not how
Mareike: Mm.
Christine: do I become better at tolerating everything? But what would my life look like if I stopped treating my own nervous system as an obstacle I had to defeat? I don't know the full answer. But probably more space, fewer things done purely because I think I should, more deliberate choices, more support. more honesty and hopefully a whole less recovery from pretending I have the capacity that I don't actually have.
Mareike: Yes. So if you've recognized yourself in this conversation, you don't need to leave determined to eliminate every internally ableist thought you ever have. No.
Christine: Please don't. That will probably just become another standard to fail it.
Mareike: Yeah, so maybe the first step is noticing when a need appears and a judgment arrives immediately behind it.
Christine: Tiredness, the overwhelm, the need for quiet, the boundary, the request for help, and then that voice, you shouldn't need this. Maybe that's the moment to get curious. Not what's wrong with me, but what is this telling me?
Mareike: And maybe would I expect somebody I love to earn the right to have this need?
Christine: Because perhaps this work is really about noticing where we still ask ourselves to prove that our needs are real, where we confuse suffering with legitimacy, productivity with worth, independence with success, pushing through with resilience. I don't think decades of come on, you should be able to do this, disappear because somebody hands you an autism or ADHD report. Understanding yourself is one part. actually giving yourself permission to live according to that understanding is another. And I think that's where I am every time I listen a little earlier, use the support, rest before the crash, ask for help, or choose the easier way without making myself prove why I'm losing one of those old rules. Not perfectly, just gradually. And maybe that's enough.
Mareike: Thank you for being here and sharing this space with us. We hope this episode has given you something to reflect on, especially if you've ever wondered why understanding your ADHD or autism hasn't automatically made it easier to be kinder to yourself. If you'd like to revisit today's topic, you'll find our Beyond Between Us conversation notes in the show notes below.
Christine: And if something in today's conversation resonated with you, we'd love to hear from you. Your stories and experiences are part of what makes this community what it is. Thank you for helping us reach more women who might still be asking themselves, why can't I just function like everyone else? Maybe the more important question is, what would change if I stopped expecting myself to? Until next time, keep finding your way back to yourself. Thank you for being part of Between Us.
Mareike: To sharing authentic conversations, lived experiences, and everyday challenges, we hope to create a space where women feel seen, understood, and a little less alone. You might just recognize yourself in our stories and realize you're neurodivergent as well or someone you know. We'd like to gently remind you that everything shared in this podcast is based on our personal experiences, reflections, and research. It is not intended as medical, psychological, or diagnostic advice. Welcome back to Between Us Neo Divergent Conversations. In our last episode, we talked about some of the strengths of ADHD, autism, and Aud that can get overlooked when so much of the conversation focuses on what is difficult. We talked about recognizing that there can be completely different ways of thinking, experiencing, and navigating the world. But there's another side to that conversation that we really wanted to explore. Because understanding your neurodivergence intellectually doesn't necessarily mean you suddenly stop judging yourself according to all the standards you grow up with. You can understand why something is difficult for you and still think you should be able to do it. You can understand that your brain works differently and still call yourself lazy, difficult, too sensitive, too much, or not good enough when you struggle. So today we're talking about internalized ableism. And particularly on What happens when it doesn't sound like some horrible judgment coming from somebody else? It sounds like your own voice. Hi Christina. I know this is a topic you've been thinking about quite a lot lately.
Christine: I have. And actually I find it really frustrating. Because
Mareike: Mm.
Christine: intellectually I know so much more now. I know socializing costs me a lot of energy. I know sensory overload is real. My executive functioning changes enormously depending on stress or capacity. I know I need more recovery time. I can technically be capable of something and still pay a very significant price for doing it. I know all of that. And yet I still catch myself thinking. Why can't I cope with this? Why are you tired again? Why is this such a big deal? And sometimes I generally have to stop and think, Christine, have you listened to a single episode of your own podcast?
Mareike: Apparently not.
Christine: No, apparently not. Because I can understand something perfectly well when we're talking about it here. I can understand it in another person. I can advocate for it in my children. And then when it applies to me, apparently all the rules change.
Mareike: Yes, because you can say to me, Of course you're exhausted, Maraika. Look at what you've been carrying. You would never look at another autistic or ADHD woman who is exhausted and say, Well, that's ridiculous, trahada. But you can say something very similar to yourself.
Christine: Exactly. And I think that's where this conversation about internalized ableism gets really interesting because it doesn't always sound like disabled people should be able to do more. Sometimes it sounds like I should be able to do more.
Mareike: And maybe before we go any further we should explain what we
Christine: Mm.
Mareike: mean because internalized ableism can sound quite academic. And when you first suggested this topic, Christina, I actually had to go and read about what it meant.
Christine: Yes. And I'm not trying to give the perfect academic definition here, but the way I'm beginning to understand it is this. We grow up with ideas about what a capable, productive, independent person is supposed to look like. How much they should work, how much they should cope with, how much help they should need, how tired they're allowed to be, how social they should be. And then we absorb those standards and we turn them against ourselves. So it can sound like I shouldn't need help or I shouldn't need this much rest. Other people manage this. I should be much more resilient. And I just need to get organized. I just can't keep on taking the easy option.
Mareike: Yeah. everyone else has children and a job. Everyone gets tired. Everyone finds things stressful.
Christine: Yes. And then the conclusion becomes, so what's wrong with me? And I think I reached that conclusion thousands of times without ever questioning whether the standard itself made sense for me. I assumed the standard was correct. Therefore I
Mareike: Yeah.
Christine: must be the problem.
Mareike: Yeah. And some of those thoughts don't even sound particularly cruel, you know, they sound sensible.
Christine: That's exactly what makes them so difficult to spot. I just need to get organized. Sounds perfectly reasonable, but sometimes underneath it, the problem is always that I'm not trying hard enough. Instead of asking, is there something about the expectation that needs changing?
Mareike: Mm, can you think of a recent example? Not something from years ago, but something now when you caught yourself doing it.
Christine: Yeah, something that's been coming up for me a lot recently is fatigue. I've been struggling with it since 2018. I've had blood tests, looked at different causes, and earlier this year I was diagnosed with an iron deficiency. I've worked on nutrition, on sleep, on exercise too. But underneath all of that has been this assumption that I can just find the thing that's wrong and I can fix it. Eventually I will have the energy that I think I'm supposed to have. And recently I started wondering what if part of this is this is simply the cost of how I've lived in the past. I sometimes think maybe I spend a lifetime's worth of energy in my very first 40 years. I didn't
Mareike: Yes.
Christine: know I was autistic. I didn't know I had ADHD. I didn't understand sensory overload, masking, or why ordinary things seemed to require so much energy of me. I just kept pushing. So I started asking. Where am I still holding myself to the standard of somebody whose circumstances are completely different from mine? And I realized I'm doing it everywhere. With my exercise, with homeschooling, this podcast, and the business we're building, I've changed my understanding of myself, but I haven't necessarily changed the standard. I'm still measuring myself up against. Maybe the question isn't only. How do I get rid of this fatigue so I can finally do everything I think I should be able to do? Maybe it's what if this is my capacity right now? What would change if I stopped designing my life around the energy energy I think I should have and started designing it around the energy that I actually have? That's where internalized ableism has been showing up for me. I understand that I'm autistic and I have ADHD, but I'm still expecting myself to function as though I'm not. And what struck me was that my first question wasn't what does my body need? It was what's wrong with me?
Mareike: Yeah, so the judgment arrived before the curiosity, you know?
Christine: Yeah, yeah, totally. And and I think that sentence sums up so much of what I'm trying to notice now. A need appears and judgment follows immediately behind it. One of the biggest things I've been I've had to rethink is using ability as the only measure. Because for most of my life the question was, can I physically make myself do it? If yes, then obviously I can do it. But now I'm trying to ask a completely different question. What does doing it actually cost me? And we've already talked about this question in in of cost in two of our previous episodes in episodes twelve and thirteen. So we don't need to repeat everything in here. But I think the idea of cost is something we can't mention often enough because it's so easy to overlook. Just because I can do something doesn't mean it's actually sustainable for me. And sometimes asking, what is this costing me is one of the most important questions we can ask ourselves. Because I might technically be able to do something, but what happens afterwards? That is information too, and critical information.
Mareike: Yeah, absolutely. And from the outside, if you did the thing, it looks successful. So maybe success isn't only did I get through it, maybe it's also was the way I got through it sustainable.
Christine: Yeah, of course. My brain still loves producing evidence, you know, but you did it before. And yes,
Mareike: Mm. Yeah.
Christine: I did. But I was using anxiety, perfectionism, adrenaline, or over preparing to get there. And then I was calling that functioning.
Mareike: Because you completed the task, you know?
Christine: Yes. And nobody was measuring what it cost me afterwards. Not even me. And I think one of the most painful forms of this isn't comparing myself with other people. It's comparing myself with the person that I used to be. I used to work full time. I used to handle enormous workloads. I used to be incredibly productive. So surely the aim is to get back there.
Mareike: Even though you know and now understand what that level of functioning was costing you.
Christine: Yeah, int intellectually I know. I know that. Emotionally, I can still use the old me as the benchmark. And I've started asking, why is the version of me who could override every single from her body automatically considered the healthiest version of me? Maybe the goal isn't get getting back to that version of myself who could override everything and push through. Maybe the goal is learning not to need the level of override anymore. But there's a lot of grief in that too. There are things that the old about the old me that I really miss, you know. She earned money, she achieved things, she was independent, people respected her. So saying that wasn't sustainable doesn't magically make losing that capacity easy.
Mareike: Yeah, I can understand. And and sometimes grief can turn into a project. How quickly can I fix myself and get back to that old me that I miss so much, you know?
Christine: Yeah. I I can see this really clearly in my experience with ADHD medication. That's a really good example because
Mareike: Yeah.
Christine: when I first started medication, a part of me hoped that it would help me get back to my old level of performance. Now for for yeah, for for a while I could do more, I could push harder.
Mareike: Hm, I remember that, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Christine: But my anxiety went through the roof and ultimately I I became even more burnt out than I was before. It took me months to realise that the problem wasn't necessarily that I hadn't found the right way to get back to my old level of functioning. The problem was that I was still treating the old level as the goal. So now I'm I'm trying to ask, how do I live according to the actual capacity I have right now? And how do I adjust my standards for myself? Because I've done a lot of work separating my worth from my job title, but I realize as a measure of worth that hadn't really disappeared, you know. It had just moved. It showed up in my parenting and homeschooling, exercise, and how much I expected myself to accomplish. Even this podcast. I had stopped measuring myself by a job title, but I was still measuring myself by how much I could do. And maybe that's another layer of internalized ableism, Not whether I accept that I'm autistic or I have ADHD. But whether I genuinely allow that understanding to change, what I truly expect from myself.
Mareike: Yeah. So so even when you stop measuring yourself by how much you could do at work, you were still measuring yourself by how much you could do elsewhere. And I think a lot of women can relate to that. There can be this constant pressure to keep performing, to be a good parent, keep the household running, stay active, be productive, keep everything together, regardless of how much capacity you actually have. And at some point you have to ask, where do you stop? What are you allowed to let go of? And why does it often feel like you're only allowed to rest once you've completely run out of capacity?
Christine: Yeah. Yeah. I think that's where rest becomes really interesting. Because if your sense of worth is still connected to what you produce, you accomplish or or able to manage, then rest can feel like doing nothing or even worse, like failing.
Mareike: yeah. So does that show up around rest for you, I guess? Yeah.
Christine: Constantly. Yeah, constantly. I've mentioned before on the podcast that I find it really difficult to just rest. And I think a lot of that comes from how I was brought up. You know, rest was something you earned. You did
Mareike: Yes.
Christine: all the things you had to do first. You did your schoolwork, your studying, your chores around the house, whatever responsibilities you had. And then when everything was finished, then you could rest. But not any sooner. When I was younger, that system actually worked reasonably well for me because The list was finite. You know, you could I could work my way through the things I had to do and eventually reach a point where I could think, okay, everything's done. Now I've earned my rest. And because I had earned it, I could actually rest without feeling guilty. But then you become an adult. And now the list grows so much, it never ends, you know. There's always another load of washing. Something needs organizing. There's something for the children and homeschooling and appointments and live admin and there's work on the podcast and the business. So if the rule is still I can rest once everything is done, I will literally never qualify for rest.
Mareike: Never.
Christine: And I think that's what happened to me for quite a long time. You know, there have been really long periods where I haven't rested properly because I could never reach that point where I felt like I had earned it. And even when I did, there was often guild attached to it because somewhere in my head there was still this list of all the things I should be doing instead. So we we've actually had to develop some strategies around this as a family. One thing that helps us is being much clearer about expectations, particularly on weekends. Maybe on a Friday evening, my husband and I will talk about Saturday and Sunday and say, okay, what actually needs to happen this weekend? What needs doing? But also What fun things do we want to do? Where's the downtime? So rather than having this endless, undefined expectation that the weekend should be productive, we might decide, okay, we'll spend a couple of hours doing this, then we'll go and grab a coffee together, then we'll come home and we'll do these other things. And maybe in the evening there's a show I want to watch, or and I know that's what I'm going to do. It sounds like a really small thing, but that structure makes rest much easier for me because the rest has actually been included in the plan. It's not something I'm sneaking in, yeah, or feeling guilty about, you know. Exactly.
Mareike: Yeah, that's a really good idea. Yeah, yeah. To plan the rest. Yeah. Yeah.
Christine: And yeah, and this it also means my husband and I have talked about our expectations. He isn't imagining that we're going to have this huge productive day while I'm desperate trying, hoping that I'm going to get some rest. We've actually
Mareike: Mm.
Christine: said what each of us needs and what realistically needs to get done. And even with that structure, I still find it difficult sometimes to rest. But I'm beginning to understand that if I wait until I've completed every obligation before I allow myself to rest, it will never happen. And particularly when I'm already dealing with burnout and limited capacity, that rule makes absolutely no sense. Rest
Mareike: No.
Christine: no, it can't be it can't be a re reward, you know, at the end of productivity. Sometimes rest has to be the thing on the list. You know, one of those. And I think that's another place where I'm having to unlearn a rule that I've carried for most of my life. That rest is something I have to earn rather than something my body and brain actually need.
Mareike: Yeah, so what would count as enough before you were allowed to rest?
Christine: That's the problem, The finish line keeps moving and I realized something recently, you know,
Mareike: Christina.
Christine: I I find rest much easier to justify after I've completely exhausted myself.
Mareike: because then you have evidence? no. Hmm.
Christine: Exactly. You know, I've got the migraine, rest authorized. Completely burnt out. Yep. Rest has been approved. Can't physically get off the sofa. Fine. Yeah, you you have submitted sufficient supporting documentation. Rest has
Mareike: Mm.
Christine: now been approved. It has, it has,
Mareike: The application has been approved, right?
Christine: yeah. But I can feel myself becoming overloaded and I'd quite like to prevent the crash. Still feels strangely difficult to justify. Which is ridiculous when you say it out loud, you know. Prevention would be the sensible option, but some part of me still thinks rest should be earned by suffering first.
Mareike: And perhaps that's one of the places where these beliefs run very deep, you know, work before play, finish everything first, don't be lazy, push through and also you wouldn't apply that to your children or other women.
Christine: Never, never. And if one of my daughters tells me she's overwhelmed, I'm not saying, Well, technically, you managed this last Tuesday. Therefore your current experience is invalid, you know? I'd be asking, did she have a bad night's sleep? Or has the week been too demanding? Is there too much sensory import? Could she just simply be hungry? Is there something uncertain or is a break needed? But when it's me, apparently none of those variables exist. Perhaps So one of the easiest ways I'm beginning to hear internalized ableism now is through the word should. I should be working, I should be more social, I should be able to cope with visitors, I should keep up with the house, I should be able to go to an appointment and still function afterwards. I shouldn't need a day to recover.
Mareike: And and then the obvious question I would like to ask is according to whom, Costino.
Christine: Yes. Yes. That's big becoming such a useful question because I don't remember sitting down one day and deciding this is the correct number of social engagements that an adult woman sh should be able to tolerate. And yet the rule feels very absolute. So I'm starting to ask, who wrote this rule? Where did it come from? Is it actually mine? Is it even meant for neurodivergent women?
Mareike: Yeah, and think that opens up the family piece too. what did capable mean in your family growing up? Because I think everything you talked about before as well, you know, there can be a cultural component to this as well. I'm not sure so sure and I don't want to speak for other countries here, but growing up in Germany, there was quite a strong emphasis on working hard, performing well and being able to cope. You didn't really stop because you were tired, you pushed through. There was this idea of first work, then pleasure. You do what needs to be done, and then you can relax. Taking a break could easily feel like being lazy, and needing help could feel like not being capable enough. We mentioned punctuality in previous episodes as well as being prepared and organized. So I know from living in other countries that they are a bit more relaxed, and I realized how much pressure to perform we have in us, and I think a lot of us internalize that without even questioning it. I guess you can relate to this, Christina. Yeah.
Christine: Yes, absolutely. I can I can totally relate. when I think back to the women I grew up around, particularly my mum, my memory is of women who were incredibly capable. My mum just did everything and I don't really remember her asking for help, you know. Actually,
Mareike: Yeah, so did mine. Yeah. No.
Christine: when I think about it, I don't have any memories of any of the women around me saying, I can't manage this or I need some help. They were capable and they got things done. And
Mareike: Yeah, absolutely, yeah. Mm-hmm.
Christine: I suppose when That's what you grow up seeing. That becomes your model for what being an adult woman looks like. So that's exactly what I did. I grew up, I became a mum, and gradually more and more responsibilities were added. There was work, there was the household, there were little children, there were appointments and live admin, all the things that needed doing. And on top of that, I wanted to do all of those things to quite a high standard. And somewhere underneath all of that was the unwritten script. You need to be independent. You need to be capable. You should be able to handle this. You don't ask for help. Nobody necessarily had to say those words to me. It was just running quietly in the background. And burnout really forced me to confront that. Because there were periods where I simply couldn't do it anymore. There were times where I was basically in bed. I wasn't functioning. I couldn't just push through and keep everything going. My husband had to take on a lot more and he really did step up. But then as I've gradually recovered, there's been another challenge because when you're physically incapable of doing something, in some ways the decision is made for you. What's much harder for me is recognizing a limit before I reach complete incapacity and actually saying I could probably force myself to do this, but I shouldn't. I need help. And that's something that I'm still learning. I've started with asking my husband for help. I've started asking my children for help. I'm getting better at recognizing that I don't necessarily have to be the person who does everything just because technically I could do it. But I can see that this is going to be an ongoing project for me for a very long time.
Mareike: Yeah.
Christine: Because that independence is so deeply ingrained. My autopilot is still, I can do it. If I can do it, I will do it. And if it's difficult, I'll push through. So I'm having to learn that being capable or forcing myself through something doesn't necessarily mean that doing it myself is the right choice. And maybe asking for help isn't evidence that I'm less capable. Maybe part of understanding my neurodivergence and understanding the capacity that I actually have is recognizing that independence shouldn't have to mean doing everything alone. For me, that's another part of internalized ableism. I'm still trying to make visible because if my definition of being a capable person requires me to never need support, then I'm holding myself to a standard that doesn't leave any room for the reality of being disabled, being burnt out, or simply being human. And I think that's fascinating because the voice in my head sounds like me, but I didn't necessarily write that rule.
Mareike: Yes, so even when we when support would make life substantially easier, the old rule can still say that needing it means you're less capable.
Christine: Yes. And that's the rule I'm trying to question. And
Mareike: Mm.
Christine: what about you? Because I think this could look quite different for you. Where do you notice that internal rule in yourself?
Mareike: Mm, I think one of the biggest ones for me is my sensitivity. I know that certain things overwhelm me, you know, too much social interaction, noise, changes in plants, too many people, too much stimulation, and I can understand why. But there's still this voice in my head saying, Why are you so sensitive? Other people can handle this, you're making too much of it. You should be able to cope. So even when I know that something is generally difficult for my nervous system, I still judge myself for finding it difficult. And I think that's the part I'm slowly having to unlearn that being sensitive means being weak or that needing something to be different means I'm being difficult.
Christine: Mm-hmm. I see. What do you think it would mean about you if you admitted, yes, I actually need this?
Mareike: I think for a long time admitting that I actually need something, felt like admitting that there was something wrong with me. if I say I need less noise or I need some time alone or I I need you to give me some notice before plans change, then part of me still thinks, Why can't you just handle this like everyone else? And I think that's the difficult part because needing something can still feel like weakness to me. Like I'm less capable, less resilient, or somehow more difficult than other people because I always needed a lot of help. so even when I know intellectually that my needs are valid, emotionally I can still feel embarrassed by them. That's a big feeling because sometimes when I express a sensitivity or ask for something I need, the reaction I get is a weird look, a snappy comment, or simply not being understood. And I think I'm slowly learning that needing something doesn't mean I'm weak. It just means I've learned what helps me function.
Christine: Because I think that's often where we find the belief underneath the behaviour. You know, it's not I don't want to ask for help. It might be if I ask for help, I'm weak, or if I need more solitude, I'm antisocial. If I'm affected by this, I'm too sensitive. That's that underlying sentence is probably where the interesting part is. And then when I try to respond more compassionately to myself, another voice can arrive and say, careful, you're making excuses now.
Mareike: Yeah, that that's a big one.
Christine: Because apparently there are only two options. You know, we can incredibly
Mareike: Yeah.
Christine: being incredibly hard on yourself or completely giving up. nothing in between. But understanding why something is difficult isn't the same as saying, therefore I never have to do anything difficult again. I still want to grow, I still want to challenge myself, and I want to do things that matter to me. Sometimes I will knowingly choose something that costs me energy because it matters enough. The difference is I want it to be an informed choice, not this automatic assumption that suffering is a proof of character.
Mareike: Yeah, that's that's good. do you ever worry that if you accommodate yourself too much you'll become less resilient? Yeah.
Christine: And definitely. There's still a fear that if I start listening to every need, my world will shrink. I'll stop doing difficult things and I'll become too soft. And I don't actually think those are silly questions. I think they're worth exploring. Because sometimes I need encouragement. Sometimes anxiety says, Don't do this. And doing it turns out to be really good for me. Sometimes my body says no because I'm genuinely beyond my capacity. And unfortunately diagnosis doesn't come with a little dashboard telling you which one it is. Extremely, extremely
Mareike: I'm very inconsiderate.
Christine: so I don't always know. But instead of automatically pushing, I'm trying to ask better questions. You know, what happened last time? What does my body feel like right now? How much capacity do I actually have? What is this what is the likely cost of this? Or is there a smaller version of this that I can trying? give myself permission to stop. For a really long time, I was incredibly proud of my ability to persist through difficult things. I did it at school, at uni, and at work. If something was difficult, I kept going. If I was struggling, I pushed through. And even when I experienced real difficult situations in the workplace, include including workplace bullying, I persisted. I generally saw that as one of my strengths. I thought
Mareike: Mm.
Christine: I'm resilient, I don't give up, I can handle difficult things, I just keep on going. And for a long time I thought resilience meant being able to withstand more. But after what happened to me through the workplace bullying, and particularly what happened to my health afterwards, I've had to completely rethink that. Because sometimes continuing isn't resilience at all. Sometimes resilience is saying, No, this isn't okay anymore. This is harming me. You know, I need to step away. I need to reassess the situation. I need to find another path. And I've realized that for me, that can actually be much scarier than continuing, because continuing is familiar to me. I know how to push through. I know how
Mareike: Of course.
Christine: to put my head down and work harder. But what has been much harder is saying this isn't working and something needs to change, and then actually allowing myself to change direction. When I look back now, I can see that there have probably been situations where I've spent far too long persisting with something I already knew wasn't working. Not because there was necessarily a good reason to continue, but because stopping felt like giving up. And giving up isn't, you know, what I do. I was resilient, I pushed through, I finished things and but now I'm starting to see resilience differently. Maybe resilience isn't about proving how much discomfort I can tolerate. Maybe it's also been able to recognize when something is unhealthy, trust what my body and brain are telling me, and have the courage to do something differently. Because there are times when staying and enduring is actually the easy option. Changing direction can require much more courage. And I think that's another why internalized ableism has shown up for me. This idea that strength means being able to tolerate the environment rather than questioning whether environment is something. I should be tolerating at all. I'm
Mareike: Yeah.
Christine: yeah. I'm learning that I don't have to wait until something completely breaks me before I'm allowed to say, This isn't working for me anymore. Another pattern I've noticed is that I tend to believe my needs once they become enormous.
Mareike: So I'm a little bit overloaded. Doesn't count.
Christine: No. But I'm crying in the bathroom and can't tolerate anybody speaking to me. That that qualifies. And I'm trying to recognise things much earlier. You know, maybe I'm become irritable, noise is getting harder to tolerate, I'm losing words, I'm struggling to make decisions, I'm getting tense. Or I desperately want silence. Those things are already information. I don't have to wait until the needs becomes undeniable.
Mareike: And have you had an example where you actually listened earlier and it helped?
Christine: a recent example has probably been around plans with friends. You know, my my daughter and I are both very burnt out at the moment and we had plans coming up where we were going to have friends over to our house. And when we actually stopped and looked at our capacity, we realized we can't do this right now. In the past, I think I would have probably pushed through, I would have cleaned the house and prepared everything and hosted and made sure everyone was comfortable and then dealt with the exhaustion afterwards. But instead, this time we listened to what we were already noticing. We still
Mareike: That's good.
Christine: we still wanted to see those friends. So rather than canceling the connection altogether, we suggested meeting somewhere else and Having a shorter catch-up and that was really helpful. It's not necessarily about saying no to everything, it's asking what version of this actually fits the capacity that I truly have right now. And I'm trying to apply the same thing to exercise. Normally I'm very structured and quite rigid with my exercise routine and having routines around walking and sleep and strength training is is genuinely really important for my mental health. But there's another side to that structure for me that That is when I become very focused on progression, you know, progressive overload, getting stronger and improving, doing what the program says I'm supposed to do that day. And historically, I've been very good at pushing through. But right now, my fatigue has been increasing and I've also been recently quite unwell. So I'm trying something that actually feels quite uncomfortable for me. I'm lowering my standard. Instead of thinking, how do I keep progressing? I'm asking. What if we're just maintaining right now? Maybe this isn't the season for massive improvements. Maybe right now the goal is simply to maintain the muscle we already have. Maybe success is showing up three times a week and working with whatever capacity I have on that particular day. That might mean changing the weights, it might mean changing the exercises, or even doing less rather than looking at the schedule and thinking that's what's on the plan for today. That's what we have to push through. I'm trying to look at my body first and then decide what today's workout needs to be. And that's actually quite a big learning for me. Yeah. Yeah.
Mareike: I guess so yeah. Knowing your story, that must be hard, yeah.
Christine: Because I'm really starting to understand that adjusting isn't the same as giving up. You know, maintenance isn't failure. Doing less isn't necessarily going backwards. And listening to my body before it is screaming at me to stop is Probably something I need to get much better at. And I think that's one of the practical ways that I'm trying to challenge some of this internalized ableism in my everyday life.
Mareike: Yeah, that sounds so good and helpful and you you come so far already and it's you know little steps that bring you where you really need to be and it's it's a lot of things you need to unlearn from decades, you know.
Christine: Yeah, definitely. Definitely.
Mareike: And do you think fear of being a burden sits underneath some of this as well sometimes?
Christine: Definitely, yeah. Because my needs sometimes affect other people. if I if plans
Mareike: Mm.
Christine: need to be changed, or if I need quiet, if I can't attend, or if I need help and the people pleasing part of me immediately goes, you know, your needs are inconveniencing somebody else, therefore you shouldn't have the need. But that's impossible in relationships. Everybody's needs affect everybody else's sometimes.
Mareike: Yeah, and there's a difference between having a need and demanding that everybody else organize their life around it.
Christine: Yeah, that that distinction actually has really helped me. You know, having a need doesn't mean everybody is obligated to meet it exactly how I want. It means the need gets to be part of the conversation. And pretending I don't need quiet help or change of plan doesn't make the need disappear. It just makes me invisible again.
Mareike: Yeah, and perhaps that connects to being difficult.
Christine: It does. I think I absorb this idea. an easy person equals a good person. Difficult
Mareike: Mm.
Christine: person equals somebody with too many needs. So when you've spent decades making yourself easy to accommodate, becoming more honest about your needs can feel really difficult.
Mareike: Yeah. So when actually you may just be more visible.
Christine: Yeah, I love that. Maybe I'm not becoming more difficult. Maybe I'm becoming more visible.
Mareike: Absolutely. And you know, if so much of this is automatic, how do we actually begin noticing it?
Christine: I definitely haven't stopped doing it, not even close, but I'm getting better at hearing certain phrases. You know, things like I should, I shouldn't, everyone else can, this is ridiculous, I'm being lazy, dramatic, or difficult. I could do it if I really tried. Those phrases have become little flags. Not proof that the thought is always wrong. Just pause. Something is happening here.
Mareike: And what do you do with the paws?
Christine: I try to move from judgment to information instead of why are you exhausted again? Maybe you're exhausted. What happened? Why can't you cope with this? Which part of it is hard? Instead of you shouldn't need help, maybe help would reduce the cost. The experience doesn't need to pass a moral test before I'm allowed to investigate it.
Mareike: Yeah, and again I would like to repeat this question, according to whom?
Christine: Yes. I should be able to work full time, according to whom. I should be able
Mareike: Yes.
Christine: to host people at my house, according to whom. I shouldn't need recovery after an appointment. Who established that incredibly specific role? Sometimes I might discover actually this genuinely matters to me. Fine, but sometimes I'll realize I don't even know whose standards I'm trying to meet.
Mareike: Yeah, that's so important.
Christine: So rather than turning this episode into another small improvement project, maybe there's one very small thing we can notice this week. Notice one moment where a need appears and judgment immediately follows. It might be I need quiet and then I shouldn't be this sensitive. Or I need rest. But then there's I haven't done enough. Or I don't have the capacity for that social event. I'm becoming antisocial. Just notice both sentences. The need and the judgment. You don't have to fix the judgment. You don't have to convince yourself that you completely deserve everything you need. Just see it and maybe ask, if I believe the need for five minutes, what would I do differently? That's it.
Mareike: Yeah, because perhaps making internalized ableism visible starts before changing it.
Christine: Absolutely. You can't really question a rule you haven't noticed your following.
Mareike: Yeah, and I do think it's important to say that noticing internalized ableism doesn't mean every uncomfortable thought is ableism.
Christine: No, sometimes we need to take responsibility. Sometimes we need to challenge ourselves. Sometimes something matters even though it's hard. Sometimes somebody else's need generally has to come first for a while. This isn't an excuse. I'm neurodiversion and therefore I never do anything uncomfortable. For me, the question is much simpler. Can I stop automatically treating my needs as evidence of a character flaw? That's very different.
Mareike: Hm. So the goal probably isn't I have completely eliminated internalized stabilism.
Christine: Absolutely not. Because when I then I would turn that into another performance metric, you know.
Mareike: I had three ableist thoughts today. Terrible results.
Christine: Yeah. Maybe success is much smaller, you know, I notice it sooner, I believe the judgment slightly less. I occasionally use the accommodation anyway. I rest before complete collapse once in a while. I ask for help one step earlier. Maybe I don't apologize quite as much. That feels much more realistic.
Mareike: Yes, and if you were trying to become somebody with no needs, what do you think would change?
Christine: I think that might actually be the bigger question underneath this entire episode. Not how
Mareike: Mm.
Christine: do I become better at tolerating everything? But what would my life look like if I stopped treating my own nervous system as an obstacle I had to defeat? I don't know the full answer. But probably more space, fewer things done purely because I think I should, more deliberate choices, more support. more honesty and hopefully a whole less recovery from pretending I have the capacity that I don't actually have.
Mareike: Yes. So if you've recognized yourself in this conversation, you don't need to leave determined to eliminate every internally ableist thought you ever have. No.
Christine: Please don't. That will probably just become another standard to fail it.
Mareike: Yeah, so maybe the first step is noticing when a need appears and a judgment arrives immediately behind it.
Christine: Tiredness, the overwhelm, the need for quiet, the boundary, the request for help, and then that voice, you shouldn't need this. Maybe that's the moment to get curious. Not what's wrong with me, but what is this telling me?
Mareike: And maybe would I expect somebody I love to earn the right to have this need?
Christine: Because perhaps this work is really about noticing where we still ask ourselves to prove that our needs are real, where we confuse suffering with legitimacy, productivity with worth, independence with success, pushing through with resilience. I don't think decades of come on, you should be able to do this, disappear because somebody hands you an autism or ADHD report. Understanding yourself is one part. actually giving yourself permission to live according to that understanding is another. And I think that's where I am every time I listen a little earlier, use the support, rest before the crash, ask for help, or choose the easier way without making myself prove why I'm losing one of those old rules. Not perfectly, just gradually. And maybe that's enough.
Mareike: Thank you for being here and sharing this space with us. We hope this episode has given you something to reflect on, especially if you've ever wondered why understanding your ADHD or autism hasn't automatically made it easier to be kinder to yourself. If you'd like to revisit today's topic, you'll find our Beyond Between Us conversation notes in the show notes below.
Christine: And if something in today's conversation resonated with you, we'd love to hear from you. Your stories and experiences are part of what makes this community what it is. Thank you for helping us reach more women who might still be asking themselves, why can't I just function like everyone else? Maybe the more important question is, what would change if I stopped expecting myself to? Until next time, keep finding your way back to yourself. Thank you for being part of Between Us.
