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Description
We found out we’re both Autistic and ADHD. Finally, decades of our lives make sense.
But we’re still burning out. Still masking. Still watching “simple” tasks defeat us while everyone else seems fine.
Because the key we found didn’t unlock a fix. It unlocked a remembering.
This brain isn’t flawed—it’s ancestral. You don’t need to change yourself, you just need to change your world.
I’m Adria Sophia Melichar, an AuDHD coach who’s spent over a decade guiding hundreds who don’t fit the mold to find their own way forward.
This podcast weaves lived experience, practical ecosystem design and ancestral grounding. Wisdom for reshaping your home, your work, your relationships—and building the roots that steady the chaos.
24 Episodes
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You know that feeling when you walk into a space and can finally breathe? Or when you open a closet and feel overwhelmed before you even see what's there? In this episode, we’re talking minimalism…or how, for AuDHD nervous systems, there's a sweet spot with physical stuff. Too much drowns us. But too little leaves us scrambling for things that would make our lives easier. In this episode: Why having two kettles might be accommodation, not excess (and the ableism hiding in minimalism rules)The...
As an AuDHDer, it’s easy to feel trapped between two impossible choices: stay in one place and feel stagnant, or live the nomadic life and feel dysregulated. But what if there's a third option? This episode explores how to structure geographic flexibility that honors both your ADHD's need for novelty and your Autism's need for predictability—from extended annual stays to seasonal migration patterns to having a mobile option when you need to pop out. In this episode: Our five-year evolut...
I was sitting there staring at the numbers. A coaching practice that was actually healthy for my nervous system. Current rent prices and cost of living. The math didn't work. If I wanted to stay out of AuDHD burnout, I couldn't push my nervous system that hard again just to afford living alone. I needed breathing room to rebuild something sustainable. But I had no idea how. Then my partner said: "What if we just bought a house with your parents?" In this episode: Why the stigma ar...
I was in my late thirties, recovering from a major AuDHD burnout. And in the final reckoning with the question I'd labored over for a decade: Was I going to have kids? I didn't trust my capacity. I didn't know if someone with my sensory sensitivities and need for alone time could be a healthy, present parent. But what if being childfree isn't opting out? What if it’s not selfish or lazy or any other adjective? What if it's simply a different choice–one that claims another ancestra...
You make the perfect plan. Color-coded. Time-blocked. Beautiful. Then three days in, your whole system rebels. Or the opposite. You wake up with energy, ready to follow the spark, and suddenly you're overwhelmed because there's no structure and you don't know where to start. What if we're not flawed for needing routine AND spontaneity? What if the constant tug-of-war between structure and flow isn't a problem to solve—it's our actual design? In this episode: Why the boom-bust cycle keeps happ...
You're tracking what they're saying while also monitoring yourself. Did you interrupt again? Was that tangent too much? By the end, you're exhausted—not from the conversation, but from how you had to have it. What if your communication style—the weaving, the jumping in, the directness, the pauses—isn't flawed? What if it's how your brain was designed to connect? In this episode: How to navigate the unique communication paradox being both Autistic AND ADHD createsThe double layer of shame: abl...
You finally understand why everything felt so hard. You have language for it now. But you're still overloaded, still apologizing for needing things differently, still in boom/bust cycles. What if knowing you're AuDHD wasn't the end of the journey—but the beginning of remembering something much older? Your sensitivity, your pattern-seeing, your inability to "just be normal"—these aren't mistakes. They're ancestral. They run through a lineage of people who lived at the edges and held medicine t...
It’s our season 1 finale! Today’s episode is about taking everything you've learned about your brain and weaving it into an actual life that works. It brings together all 16 previous episodes into one complete picture: what does ecosystem design actually look like when you're building something that doesn't exist yet? No theory. Just concrete examples of how to become the architect when there's no blueprint. In this episode: The five principles for redesigning your life when no model existsRe...
Ever feel guilty for needing to lie on the couch for days? Like you should be doing yoga or taking walks instead of playing video games and rewatching the same comfort show for the third time? Real AuDHD rest doesn't look productive. It looks lazy. And that's exactly the problem. When you're pulling back from burnout, your nervous system needs something specific—the right level of stimulation without activation. It needs you to stop everything and just be. But internalized ableism says lying ...
You know you're headed for burnout. But what do you actually DO about it? This episode picks up where Episode 14 left off—you've recognized the warning signs, you're at the tipping point. Now what? This isn't about full burnout recovery. This is about strategic emergency management when you catch yourself before going over the edge—and how to tip things back in your favor. In this episode: The strategic pullback: what to drop when you need to "bail water from the boat"What a recovery day actu...
What if the warning signs you're ignoring right now could save you from months of burnout recovery? Most of us don't recognize we're headed for burnout until we're already there. But what if you could catch it at the tipping point—that moment where things could still go either way? This episode shares the early warning signs that show up before full burnout hits—and why recognizing them changes everything. In this episode: The burnout pattern most AuDHDers miss until it's too lateWhy your spe...
You get excited about international travel, new projects, spontaneous adventures. Then you're completely overwhelmed because you took on too much without the recovery time your nervous system needed. Sound familiar? Welcome to the Excitement Overwhelm Paradox. Your ADHD side spots something shiny and goes all-in. Your Autistic side needs predictability and time to recover. You end up bouncing between chasing impulses and emergency management mode. In this episode: Why international trav...
You walk into a space and immediately feel on edge. Or you’re in that doctor’s office waiting room, and you just CAN’T be there anymore. Or you’re lounging in your living room and, for some reason, it’s like you can’t truly relax. When you're AuDHD, spaces aren't backgrounds. They actively drain or restore you. That "I can't think clearly here" is your nervous system giving accurate data about environmental incompatibility. In this episode: How environments dysregulate AuDHers & identifyi...
Ever feel tired and in need of recovery after a vacation? Even if it was fun or restful, it’s like that “small” transition back home completely throws you off. Our Autistic side needs stability and predictability. And if we were purely Autistic maybe we could design around that. BUT our ADHD side craves the stimulation of changing things up. So, instead of avoiding transitions, we end up creating even more for ourselves to navigate. In this episode: Why transitions are...
You work toward something meaningful, finally achieve it — then it’s like it never happened. The moment passes and you keep moving without integrating what you accomplished. Sound familiar? When you’re AuDHD, it’s hard for abstract accomplishments to feel “real.” But when accomplishments stay invisible, they don’t get woven into your self-view. You undersell yourself, lack confidence in your abilities, and live in the paradox of meaningful work that feels meaningless. In this episode: The...
You're carrying something profound that feels invisible to everyone else. The kind of pain that doesn't fit society's automatic compassion categories - so you end up shouldering it completely alone. What if the problem isn't that your pain is less valid? What if it's that AuDHD experiences don't translate into the emotional performances others recognize as worthy of support? When your autistic brain processes internally while your ADHD brain craves connection, you're caught between competing ...
Someone asks you to work an event, attend a party, give feedback on something. You feel this pressure to decide right there - but your brain literally can't. Sound familiar? Welcome to the AuDHD processing paradox. Your ADHD side instantly reads their urgency. Your Autistic side needs time to process your own feelings. You're caught between their impatience and your genuine need for time. In this episode: Scripts for buying processing time without making it weirdThe tattoo consultation story ...
You stare at your computer tabs with a completely blank brain. The "simple" phone call feels impossible. (Everyone else just picks up the phone - what's wrong with you?) Nothing's wrong with you. Your brain is seeing all the hidden executive function steps that others don't even notice. You're not managing one neurodivergent brain - you're mediating between two operating systems that sometimes want different things. In this episode: The envelope that sat on my desk for months (and what it act...
You can spot when someone's uncomfortable from three tables away and immediately start problem-solving. But mention that the restaurant music is literally painful? Suddenly you're "being dramatic." Sound exhausting? Welcome to the AuDHD sensitivity paradox. Here's what nobody tells you: What if "too sensitive" was never about you being fragile? What if everyone else was just oblivious to the rejection sensitivity dysphoria and sensory data your nervous system was accurately detecting? In this...
You were labeled the "shy kid" growing up. Now you're wondering - was that really shyness, or was something else happening? If you've ever thought "I wasn't antisocial, I just needed different things" or felt confused about why you desperately wanted friends but found social situations so draining, this episode is for you. There's a specific pattern many AuDHD adults recognize when looking back at their "shy" childhood - and it's not what most people think shyness actually is. In this episode...
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