Inclusive Expat

Meraki moved from Maryland to Berlin at 15, in the middle of COVID, with their family. They are self-identified AuDHD — and it turned out Germany fit their brain better than the US ever did. This episode is about what happens when you grow up in a country that isn't yours, in a culture that finally makes sense, with a language that still won't cooperate.

Everyone talks about the before and after of moving abroad. Sam traveled on the actual move day with a wheelchair, two cats, a fear of flying, and his autistic partner, Theo, as co-pilot. This episode is about what that day really looked like, hour by hour.  If you're worried about the travel day as a neurodivergent, this episode is for you.

Katherine moved her teenager and two dogs from Seattle to Valencia by herself. No partner, no safety net, and a body dealing with chronic pain and autoimmune conditions. This episode is about what it looks like to do this alone, why she says it wasn't that hard, and the moment the layers finally started peeling off.

When people find out we moved to Spain, the first thing they say is, "At least Marcos speaks Spanish." What they don't know is that his relationship with Spanish is complicated, and being the one who speaks the language means he's first in line for every hard conversation, every phone call, and every bureaucratic nightmare—all with an ADHD brain and a deep sensitivity to getting things wrong. This...

Last week Lindsay told us how she missed her own ADHD for 43 years. This week she tells us what happened when she moved to Spain and her nervous system finally calmed down. This is the episode about the weight you don't know you're carrying until you take it off.

Lindsay spent fifteen years studying how brains work and helping other people understand theirs. Then perimenopause pulled back the curtain on ADHD she didn't know she had, her daughter got diagnosed, and everything she thought she knew about herself turned out to be incomplete.

When it was time to pack, everyone said "it's just stuff." But for Rhys, objects hold memory, and letting go of a thing meant letting go of the moment attached to it. This episode is about what packing looks like when you have OCD, ADHD, and a brain that connects everything you own to everything you've lived. If you've ever been called a hoarder when really you just remember differently, this one'...

When we started planning the move, Theo's brain couldn't picture it. Every question became a what-if, and every what-if branched into 800 more. This episode is about what happens when your brain needs everything concrete, and the whole plan is abstract, and how a recon trip made it real. If your brain needs to see it before it can believe it, this one's for you.

Before we get into the how, we wanted to introduce you to the who. Meet the family and hear how each of us describes the way our brains work, what late identification felt like for some of us, and what happens when one person's fidgeting is "touching someone else's neurodivergency." This is the episode to start with if you want to know who's talking in your ears.