Dirty Laundry, Part Two: Two More Things That Have Stayed With Me

Mary Rawson Foreman, PhD

When I wrote my first post about Dirty Laundry by Richard Pink and Roxanne Emery, I focused on shame, emotional regulation, and the messy home. But I have kept coming back to this book. There are two concepts that stuck with me even weeks after my one-day hyper focus on it and I think they are worth talking about.

When Anxiety Moves In, ADHD Gets Louder

Roxanne writes about panic in a way that stopped me mid-page. What happens to her when anxiety rises and her nervous system tips into threat mode. And what she describes is something I see in my office all the time, something that does not get nearly enough airtime in the broader ADHD conversation.

When anxiety goes up, ADHD symptoms get worse. Often dramatically worse.

The prefrontal cortex is highly sensitive to stress. When the body shifts into panic or high anxiety, resources get redirected and the capacities that ADHD already makes harder become even less available. She can't find her keys. She loses the thread of a conversation. She walks into a room and has absolutely no idea why.

And because most adults with ADHD have years of criticism already built up around exactly these moments, the anxiety doesn't just make things harder functionally. It piles shame onto an already difficult day.

I was grateful Roxanne named this so plainly. If your ADHD feels worse when life gets hard, that is not evidence that you are getting worse. Regulating your nervous system is not a detour from managing ADHD. For a lot of my clients it turns out to be the most direct route.

What Richard Figured Out About Letting Her Be Excited

The other concept that has stayed with me is something Richard works through slowly over the course of the book.

He is the non-ADHD partner. Organized, forward thinking, and if I am being honest probably someone I would have found very reassuring to be in a relationship with before I understood what that dynamic can quietly do to a person. He has watched Roxanne's patterns long enough to know that not every idea she gets swept up in is going to pan out. He cares about her. He does not want to watch her crash into another disappointment.

So he would pump the brakes. Gently, carefully, with good intentions.

What he eventually had to reckon with is that it wasn't landing as care. When Roxanne brought him something she was excited about and he immediately started managing it, what she felt was that her excitement itself was the problem. That she needed to be redirected. For someone who had spent most of her life being told she was too much in one way or another, that message did not arrive neutrally.

What shifted for Richard was learning to just be there with her when she was lit up about something. Not to assess it immediately. Not to start thinking about logistics while she was still talking. She is, it turns out, quite capable of figuring out what works and what doesn't on her own timeline. What she needed was for him to not go somewhere else in his head the moment she got excited. Reflecting and living in the excitement of that moment with her was a way to intensify their connection, celebrating her capacity and not stifiling it.

I don't think this is easy. It is one of the hardest things to ask of the non ADHD partner, especially one who has been burned by the fallout of impulsive decisions before. But there is a cost to always being the sensible one in the room and Roxanne and Richard are pretty unflinching about what that cost turned out to be for there relationship.

If any of this resonates and you're curious about ADHD therapy or evaluation, I'd love to connect. Free 20-minute consultation, no pressure.

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