Danielle RalstonFounder, How Capacity Works · Founder of ND Hive | Building the productivity hub where work actually gets done | Execution spaces, body doubling & community accountability

I was seconds away from a meltdown.Then I connected with people who got it. No judgment.

4 Aug 2025 · 1 min

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Danielle Ralston describes being seconds from an autistic meltdown as a boss, and how ten minutes of nonjudgmental connection with someone who understood prevented it. The conversation explores how co-regulation and shared support matter for neurodivergent people managing alone.

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I was feeling like about 2 seconds from tears and complete and total autistic meltdown today. And for any adult that understands what that means, it's horrible. And especially if you are— The boss and in charge. It's horrible to feel like you're in that place. And I was 2 seconds from that. And that's how I felt coming into the call this morning. And within 10 minutes, 10 minutes of social connection with people who understood what I was saying, Didn't criticize me. This is what social connection does for when you're neurodivergent and struggling, or heck, even if you're not struggling. Yeah. And, and you just come in and you want to hang out with people, it helps.
But it's so hard to do that for ourselves. And that's like, again, circling back to what we were talking about in the beginning, middle, whatever. It's, it's really, really hard to do things alone and to do them without someone else being there with you, someone else co-regulating with you, asking you questions, someone else also just going through it. It makes such a difference.