412 - Neurodivergence, Addiction, & Healing w/ Jenna Riemersma

Foreign. Hello there, good listener. I am Nick Stumbo and you are listening to the Pure Desire podcast, your biblically based and clinically informed approach to healing from betrayal and breaking free from compulsive sexual behaviors. Today is episode 412 and here joining me as my co host throughout the series is Mrs. Heather Cole. Heather. Heather. Welcome back to the podcast.

Thank you. I'm excited to be here.

Yes, it's a good day. Things going well in your life?

Yes, things are good. I think the sun was out a little bit today, which is always wonderful.

And a rare occurrence lately in the Pacific Northwest. I also know lately that you have mentioned you have another grandchild on the way.

Yes.

I feel like every time I see you lately we're having another grandchild. I don't know how many you have. It's like 14 actually. I think this would be number four. Is that right?

Yes, yes.

My boys have been busy.

Yes. Well, it's that season of life and you and your husband get to enjoy the fruits of their labor.

Yes, very much so.

Well, exciting. Today's episode. This is episode 4 of 4 in this series we've been doing this month. May is mental health month. And so all month we've been looking at connections between mental and emotional health and addiction, healing and recovery. And I think today's conversation is probably going to be a new one for a lot of people. But as we talked about could be incredibly eye opening as we talked with our guest, Jenna Reimersma about neurodivergence. So talk a little bit about today's conversation.

So I was super excited to be involved in this conversation just because I think that this is one of those topics that people maybe have heard the term maybe not so much, maybe don't even know exactly what we're talking about when we say neurodivergent. And even understanding that our world that we live in a neurotypical world that most of us think that everybody thinks like me. And so being able to recognize that there are a lot of people out there that we don't think alike, we don't think like everybody else, which puts us into more of a neuro different field or a category of the way we process our world. And so just listening to Jenna describe some of this and even looking at the behavioral aspects of it, I think is going to be really enlightening for people.

Yeah, there may be listeners like me that when I first heard about this topic maybe six months ago, my initial reaction was, well, why do we need that? Again, I was thinking about very extreme forms of neurodivergence and thought. Well, that doesn't impact many of us. But as you'll hear in today's conversation, when you start to unpack the neurodivergence and things like autism and some of the behaviors, it's far more typical or common than we might think. And I know a number of our listeners are going to feel like, oh, that is helping me understand a group member in a new way or my own struggle in a new way or my spouse. And we think those aha moments really could be a key to a whole new, a whole new level of recovery, really. And so if you're skeptical of like, ah, this is maybe you've even gotten to this far and you're like, maybe I'll skip this one. I want to tell you, I think this is one of the best conversations we've had. I don't think it's a topic we've covered much, if at all on the pod. I mean, it's crazy to say in 411 episodes we're now touching on this topic. It's worth a listen. And if you don't have an aha moment, then you can blame me for this 45 minutes of your life. But I think you're gonna love it. And Jenna Reimersma is just awesome. He's great. Let me tell you a little bit about her. Jenna is a number one best selling IFS author, which IFS means internal family systems. She is a speaker and clinical director and was personally trained by Dr. Richard Swartz and who is the founder of the IFS model. Jenna has been a certified sex addiction therapist supervisor and a certified multi addiction therapist supervisor for over a decade and is teaching faculty for the International Institute for Trauma and Addiction Professionals or more commonly known around here as itap. She is the author of the book Altogether your, which we highly recommend and you can find at the Pure Desire store and also a new book altogether integrating the IFS model with key modalities, communities and trends. So with no further ado, here is today's conversation with Jenna Reimersma on neurodivergence, addiction and healing. Jenna Reimersma, welcome back to the program. It is so good to have you again.

Thank you so much for having me back. It's always a pleasure to be with you both.

You know, you are one of and I don't say this to everybody, but you are truly one of our favorite guests. So I always look forward to having you back on the program.

Thank you so much. I love being with you guys, and.

I know from our listeners feedback that many of them feel the same way. So we're excited to dive into a topic that for maybe a lot of our listeners, is a little unique. They've even as they heard the title of this one, they're like, oh, what's that mean? But I think as we go along, people are going to understand how significant this is in the recovery community. And so let's dive in and begin this conversation on neurodivergence by just asking the question, like, would you define what we mean when we say neurodivergent and why is this topic maybe so important important or something very personal for you?

Yeah, this is such an important topic. And really, over the last couple of years, as my eyes have been opened to how prevalent this is in the recovery community, I have become very passionate about being an advocate for increased awareness so we can help people in their healing journeys. But I have become aware that there is a lot more neurodiversity that is overlapping in our addiction recovery communities than I ever realized. And I'm seeing in our clinical caseloads how many people are undiagnosed or misdiagnosed, and it's having a very negative effect on their ability to stay sober, their personal recovery, as well as the coupleship healing, because it has very specific impacts on all three of those areas. But more personally, this hits home for me because some people in my own circle, people that I've known for years and years, have just recently been diagnosed as autistic level one. And I had missed it. And I'm a clinician that specializes in teaching other clinicians how to be clinicians. And I hadn't seen it, and they're very excellent therapists. Had not seen it either. And so I think it's really important that we offer people a broad understanding of how widespread this is, because I think it can really help a lot of folks in their recovery journey.

Yeah. So how, just to put it kind of simply, how would you define neurodivergence? What all are we talking about when we use that word? Because like I said, I think for some listeners, they're probably even going, what do they mean here when they say that?

Yeah, great question. So neurodivergence is a term or neurodiversity that was coined in the 1990s, and it is an effort to offer a non pathologizing way of understanding the normal biodiversity of human presentation. It's an umbrella term that refers to a variety of diagnoses such as adhd, autism, Learning differences, sensory processing differences, and even some neurologically and brain based mental health diagnoses such as bipolar and OCD that are all characterized by nervous system and brain based differences in experiencing the world than what is traditionally thought of as neurotypical. And this is in contrast to the medical model which pathologizes those conditions and refers to them as disorders or disabilities and sees them as something that needs to be fixed or changed. And it's almost akin to how we used to see left handedness in our culture. So left handedness, just like neurodiversity, is a naturally occurring biodiverse experience. And people who are left handed used to be seen by the culture as pathological. And they were subject to all manner of interventions to try to force them to become right handed or neurotypical. And so they would have their hand, their left hand tied behind their backs or made fun of, or just a variety of interventions that were everything from uncomfortable to outright abusive to try to force them to override their natural state and become what is more typical. And that created a lot of suffering and a lot of extra effort on the part of the people who were born left handed. What happened is the culture shifted and the culture no longer, for the most part, hopefully sees people that are left handed as pathological. And as a result their suffering has been remediated. And so the issue was not being born left handed. The issue was the cultural expectation of right handed dominance. And the argument of neurodiversity is that the issue is not that we have differences in brain based presentations. The issue is that our culture is very demanding of neurotypical behavior. And as a result, people who have some of the sequelae of symptoms that neurodiversity suggests are under a lot of pressure to conform to a neurotypical standard. And that creates a lot of suffering on their part.

Yeah, I think when you describe it that way, Jenna, it's tremendously helpful because there are many, many people in group, in recovery that have gone to counseling that feel like my brain functions a little differently or the way I'm processing the questions or the tasks being asked of me, I don't feel like fit or working the way they seem to be for others. And that can lead many group members to feel like, well, there's something uniquely wrong with me, or how come I can't get it when others are. When there may be a reality of some underlying just ways the brain functions, issues in how they process life or information or feelings that if understood and put in the right context rather than Being a hindrance to recovery, I think could be utilized as part of how they see and understand recovery. And I think it'll be helpful also for us to think about those of us that are leading groups or in groups or have that hand in helping others, that when someone is maybe battling in their recovery as we see it, and for us to not just assume that, oh, well, they're just not committed enough or they're not. They don't get the tools like they should, that we could start to question, is there maybe more going on here? Are there other layers of recovery that we might be able to point them to, tools or resources that then could support them in recovery? And. Yeah. So I'm just excited for people to dive into this.

Yeah. Our good friend Adrian Hickman, Dr. Hickman, likes to say, what makes this make sense? And if we're dealing with repeated relapse or difficulty building, quote, empathy or with sexual reintegration, we can ask ourselves, what makes this make sense? And many more times than we ever thought was the case. Neurodiversity is what makes that make sense. And we can offer some easy tools to make that much more effective.

Yeah. Which is so helpful. So, in your experience, how do neurodivergent individuals face unique challenges when it comes to addiction and recovery?

This is such a great question. What I'd like to focus on, because many people are more familiar with some of the other neurodifferent presentations, like, let's say, ADHD or ocd. But where I think we have a lot of misunderstanding is specifically around one area of neurodifference that is autism level one. If I can just speak to that really quickly, and also to help folks understand what I'm referring to when I say level one autism, we used to say things like Asperger's or developmental or autism. What we say now, what we look at now from a diagnostic perspective, is the autism spectrum. And it's divided up into level one, level two, and level three. Those levels indicate the amount of support that is needed for an individual in their daily life. Someone who is autistic, level one needs a large amount of support. And those folks often have very clear sort of behavioral evidences and often are diagnosed in childhood. Level two would be less than that. But it's the level one folks that I think we're seeing a lot in our addiction recovery communities. Because one of the ways that people who are level one autistic can cope with the neuro differences that they're experiencing in a neurotypical world is through addictive processes. And this kind of autism spectrum is very commonly missed because we have a lot of misconceptions about it. So 40 years ago, if someone would have said autism to most of us, we kind of respond with a blank face. We may not know what they were talking about. Thirty years ago, if you're like me and someone said the word autism, you might have thought of Dustin Hoffman's presentation in Rain man, which is kind of autistic savant. Maybe 20 years ago you might have thought of the sort of quirky character Sheldon on the Big Bang Theory. And largely these very stereotypical kind of white male, behaviorally more significant presentations of autism are what most people call to mind when they think of autism. But the reality is autism is a much more diverse and broad experience than that. Not only is it experienced in people who identify male and female and otherwise, but it also is an experience that people have who have very successful careers, who have a family family and have a long term relationship, who make really good eye contact, who may be very social. There's a lot of kind of stereotypes that we have that when we look further, we can see that it, it's very diverse. And there's a phrase in the community that if you've met one autistic person, you've met one autistic person because unlike depression, which if, if you're dealing with depression, you have a certain sequelae of symptoms that all kind of look the same, One depressed person kind of looks like another depressed person with autism. People can look incredibly different but still qualify. So for example, one person might qualify for the diagnostic category of the social reciprocity by being hypersocial and desiring connection, but over talking and not engaging in reciprocity. And another person might meet the same criteria by really not having a felt sense or need of social connection and being much more withdrawn. So that's just one small example of how two people can look very, very different and still meet the diagnostic criteria. So there's a lot of diversity in the presentation. And that could be why many people are misdiagnosed who are actually autistic. And the most common misdiagnoses we see all over the place in our recovery communities. Narcissistic personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, bipolar ADHD and anxiety or mood disorders. Now it's for sure the case that you can have both. You can have anxiety and be autistic, you can have ADHD and be autistic. And many do. But many people get the lesser diagnosis, the one that's more familiar they get the ADHD diagnosis, and the clinician never goes beyond that. And so they miss the underlying sort of neurological differences that are present. And that's really important. But when we look at how do we know if there may be autism Level one present, we can think of two clumps of characteristics. Two main groups to simplify it. The first is social and communication differences. This would be things like understanding typical reciprocity, nonverbal comprehension, both in the communicating of nonverbals and. And in the accurate reading of other people's nonverbals. Differences in relationship management, and a really direct communication style that can border on blunt or appearing rude to a neurotypical person. Then the second kind of clump of characteristics is restrictive and repetitive behaviors. And so these can be things like bouncing of the leg or flipping the keys or biting the inside of the lip or kind of clicking the teeth. These can be things like saying a similar phrase or word kind of regularly. Difficulty with flexibility. A lot of kind of concrete or very black and white thinking. Sensory difficulty or, excuse me, sensory differences. And also restricted interest. So someone who is autistic is likely to have a really deep interest in a specific subject. It could be football or sports. It could be boating or F1 car racing. Or it could be a very specific genre of pornography. And they might have an extensive library of this particular genre of pornography. But usually there will be a deep, deep special interest that's restricted in focus and about which the person can spend lots and lots of time. And there's real obvious ways in which that can overlap with sexual addiction, of course. Yeah. So in terms of challenges, your question about challenges and recovery, There are numerous, but there's also strengths. And so we can kind of be curious about both of those, I think, of course, the primary challenge is being misdiagnosed or undiagnosed, because then the recovery can only go so deep because we're not kind of working with the whole picture. Some key areas where this can really impact individuals in recovery is some of the nonverbal communicating. Understanding what a partner's nonverbals may be indicating and not able to interpret that, or having more of a flat affect when a more animated or sympathetic affect would be appropriate. And this can be really painful for a lot of partners. The issue of empathy can really come up in a lot of recovery circles. What we're unaware of is that a neurotypical person tends to think of cognitive empathy as the desired empathy. Cognitive empathy is often a struggle for folks who are neurodifferent. Cognitive empathy is the ability to perspective switch and to understand why the other person is hurt. Whereas neurodifferent people and autistic people can really have a lot of affective empathy or somatic empathy, but are unable to communicate that in a way that feels like empathy to a neurotypical partner. What can happen is a neurotypical partner can be waiting and waiting. How far down the recovery pathway do we have to get before you understand how much you have hurt me? When we understand that there's a neurodifference present, we can begin to shift some expectations from the cognitive empathy to understanding the emotional, the affective and the somatic empathy that the autistic partner may be having where they feel it intensely in their body, but they're not able to cognitively perspective switch. And it's not because they don't want to or they're not far enough along in recovery or they're narcissistic. It's because that brain capacity is different. So that can be one. Alexithymia is a common experience for people who are neurodifferent and that is difficulty identifying and describing emotions. So that's a key piece of a lot of recovery programs. And people who are autistic or neurodifferent are really going to need that feelings wheel like all the time. And they're going to often have this challenge in understanding, oh, I'm feeling anger or I'm feeling lonely or I'm feeling sad because the elixithymia is part of the presenting condition. It's not being out of touch with themselves or being inadequate in some way. A huge thing that affects recovery is the sensory issues. And I really encourage people, if they think there is a neurodifference kind of underlying their recovery, to find out about their sensory profile. And I'm going to share some ways that we can do that that we can add in the show links. Sarah Bergenfeld, who's an incredible adult diagnosed autistic IFS level 3 practitioner, has on her website a free resource where you can click and fill out and understand your own sensory profile. But people who are autistic often have very specific sensory needs. They may need very, very firm touch and any other type of touch may be aversive or they may be overwhelmed by super bright lights or too much sound or a lot of emotional expectation or people interaction that can start to feel overwhelming to their system. And it can lead to three different things. Autistic meltdown, autistic shutdown, or autistic burnout. Autistic meltdown is where there's been so much sensory overload. Too many bright lights, too many people needing things at work. You come home and there's bright lights at home and too much noise, and there's this explosion. And to a neurotypical person that looks like bad behavior, anger management issues rage. But for an autistic system, what it is, is it's a nervous system overload that erupts in an explosion. It's called an autistic meltdown. An autistic shutdown is when the nervous system has had so much overwhelm with the sensory profile that it's like it just turns off the light and the person looks like they just go into a dissociative shutdown state. But it's literally the nervous system downregulating in an attempt to deal with the sensory overwhelm. Autistic burnout occurs when this has been happening for a long period of time. And an autistic nervous system gets into a state of kind of giving up. And this can be the end of some marriages for an unnecessary reason. And when we understand this simple kind of issue of sensory profile, we can do a huge amount to prevent relapse, to prevent overwhelm, shutdown, and burnout by providing sensory deprivation. For example, for a lot of people, if they've been in a stimulating area, they need to come and have 15 minutes in a sensory deprivation area, a dark room with a weighted blanket, noise canceling headphones and petting a dog to re regulate the nervous system. And that can be critical in preventing relapse. Because the sensory overwhelm is a primary trigger for relapse. And of course, sensory issues can have a huge impact on sexual reintegration and a coupleship, because frequently certain textures, smells, sounds, touches. Obviously, sexual intimacy is a highly sensory experience. And if we don't know what our sensory profile is, that can be really activating and aversive. If some of those sensory issues are tapped into and then the partner feels rejected and the person dealing with the sensory issues feels a lot of shame unnecessarily. And in addition, a person who's autistic attempting sexual reintegration is going to tend to be very formulaic. First we do this, then we do this. Next we do this because an autistic brain is very concrete and very linear. And it might be extremely difficult if a therapist or a recovery buddy or whomever suggests that we get creative in the bedroom and kind of become more playful. To an autistic person, that could be extremely aversive because the lack of structure and concrete approach can be very dysregulating. So there are so many ways in which this can impact recovery in some challenging ways. But also there are some real positives. Again, the affective and somatic empathy. Very often autistic folks feel a tremendous amount of empathy for their partner and for the betrayal trauma, but the ability to connect into that and express it is going to look very different. Preference for routine and structure can really be an advantage in highly structured programs like 12 Step, where you. You know exactly how the meeting is going to progress. You know how you introduce yourself, you know, how you share the meeting after the meeting may feel very uncomfortable, or calling your sponsor because there's no specific understanding of how are we supposed to. What are, you know, what does this look like? And people who are autistic, finally, they do really well with a script. So Carol Jurgensen sheets in her Help Her Heal Work, gives a script when your partner is triggered and you haven't acted out. Here's what you say. Doctors Bill and Ginger Bearcat in their book Couples Guide to Intimacy, which is a guide to sexual reintegration. It's very scripted. They can do really, really well. People who are neurodiverse with those scripts because it gives them a clear approach and an understanding of how to navigate that nuanced interaction.

Yeah. You know, as you share all that, Jenna, it makes me think of how important it is in this whole arena that when there's something happening that we don't understand, that we're willing to go deeper. I think even just the field of addiction that we work in, that in the classic Christian approach, if someone's dealing with lust and acting out pornography, that's the stop of, well, just don't do that. And morally, that's wrong. And if you knew it was wrong, you'd stop doing it.

It.

But then we're able to dive into the patterns that have been formed in the brain and the actual structures of the brain that have been changed by it, and how that behavior is driven so often by trauma from our past or things done to us or repeating experiences we had before the brain was fully formed. And now we're just reenacting them. And as you uncover all that, there's so many of these aha moments that we realize, oh, there's a lot more to what's going on here. And when we are aware of it, we can begin to address it and in a helpful way, start to change it. And I'm thinking about in how many ways for neurodiversity and autism, that that can be the same case. If we just see someone presenting a certain behavior that seems atypical to us, we're like, well, just don't do that. Like, stop acting that way. Just do it like the rest of us. We may be reinforcing a stereotype or a pattern that is not helpful. When, if we're willing to go deeper, we're willing to ask some more questions, we're willing to engage in conversations like this and expand our awareness. There may be some really helpful tools. We realize, oh, this could be very helpful for you, and it may be a little different than what's expected or been done in other places, but it actually will take you to the same place that we're all trying to get. And so I think even of the common group experience that many of us have had, if someone is trying to walk through their faster scale and that emotional inventory, they're saying, how do you feel? I don't know. And sometimes we might assume like, well, you just haven't done the work or you're avoiding what you feel. And in some cases that may be true because I've definitely seen that. But I think there are other cases where we could have a greater level of compassion and understanding to say, oh, that's okay if you don't understand. Let's talk about some tools that might help you identify or put words and language to something that you know is happening but you've never known how to describe. Rather than just pressing in like, what do you mean you don't know? Just tell us. And the way that creates someone just retreating even further of like, I can't tell you what I don't know. So yeah, just to say to all of that, I think the awareness that you're creating as you talk through this is going to be tremendously helpful to so many of us, whether in our marriages and families or in group settings.

I find it so encouraging because a lot of what you described are things that we would really think that those are addict behaviors. You know, black and white thinking and being compulsive or hyper focused or feeling overwhelmed by your environment. And now I need to go isolate. You know, all of those things happen with addiction. And so I would think that it would be kind of encouraging for people, maybe those people who have been in recovery for a long time and haven't been able to figure out why they continue to relapse or why they're, they keep going around the same mountain, but yet to be able to say you know what? There's some pieces missing to my story, and I need to figure this out, because this might be exactly what I need to know in order to find, you know, make progress in my healing.

Yeah. And that's such a beautiful point. For a neurotypical person in recovery, when they're feeling overwhelmed, you know, the quote, right thing to do is probably to reach out for social connection, and they hear that message a lot. And for a neurodiverse person, where they're at the edge of their overwhelm, to push for more social connection than their autonomic nervous system can handle in that moment would actually be moving them toward relapse rather than away from it. And so without that nuanced understanding of their hardwiring, we can't kind of offer the guidance that's appropriate for their particular context. So I love that you mentioned that. Yeah.

So, Jenna, as we have this conversation, for some people, there may be. They feel a reaction to words like the spectrum or autism or a diagnosis, like, because there can be a lot of stigma around those words. And just like addiction, to think that, well, maybe I have a neurodivergence, we just don't want to go there. So talk a little bit about some of the stigma that might exist for people around mental health and things like autism and the relationship that can have to addictive behaviors or maybe a lack of ability to face them and move towards recovery.

Yes. I love that you're drawing that parallel, because so many people have that experience when they kind of finally come to the conclusion I am dealing with addiction. And that can be both a relief and an aha moment, as well as can feel very pathologizing and stigmatized.

Shameful.

Yeah. And I think the exact same situation happens for people when they begin to become curious about whether they are neurotypical or neurodivergent. And there can be some, aha. Oh, my goodness, this makes everything make sense. Of course. And there can also be a real grief process or avoidance. And in my experience, both of those can happen. Some people are exclusively on one side or the other, and most people kind of cycle through both of those until they come to that place of kind of salience of identity. And exploring whether or not there's some neurodifference in your neurologic system doesn't mean that you have to take on a label, and it doesn't mean that you have to share that with anyone if you don't choose to. What it does allow us to do is have a full awareness of what is driving our behavior and how our own unique systems work, and to be able to shift and adapt the way that we are working our recovery program to meet our needs more effectively. So I just want to honor for people for whom this kind of language conjures up images of a Rain Man. I get it, because honestly, that was probably where a lot of us were 10 years ago. And many people in the clinical community are unaware of a lot of this information. But what's interesting is there's a groundswell of support and self advocacy among the neurodiverse community now. And you'll see that on social media in particular, there is a lot of advocacy that is happening. A groundswell. And there are huge communities of people who are connecting around their shared neurodiversity. And really that social paradigm is shifting and it's so encouraging.

Yeah, I appreciate the encouragement that it doesn't mean this is a new label that you have to wear. You don't have to start every conversation with, you know, I'm Nick and I'm neurodivergent. Did you know I'm autistic or I'm autism. One that. That doesn't have to become this public thing. But at the same time, if we're dealing with something that has been undiagnosed, like if we had a physical illness or a type of sickness, we need to get to a doctor that can prescribe the right medicine that will actually get into our bodies and fight that disease or that sickness off and heal us. And we can get that prescription privately and take it and be getting better. But until we're able to diagnose it, we might be battling symptoms over and over and over because we're not willing to really get into what it is. And I think that may be the encouragement of if we're facing some stigma around this in the society or family of origin or church community or whatever that we grew up in. It's that willingness to say, man, if this is a part of what's contributing to our issue as a couple, my struggle in recovery, I want to understand it and I want to know if that's present. Because if it is, then I could actually maybe begin to employ some tools that would begin to work for me in ways that maybe others haven't.

Yeah, exactly Right.

Because you can't properly treat something that isn't properly diagnosed. Not that you have to have that label, but yet if this is something that is underlying a person not making traction in recovery, then it's definitely worth exploring and understanding. Just so that they can get the right plan that's going to work for them.

It does make me think of what a pastor mentor of mine talked about. When it comes to, you know, someone that is dealing with some, whether a mental health or a physical issue. He say, when it, when it came to recovery, I would always encourage them just shoot in all directions, like pray against any enemy interference and pray for freedom and deliverance and go see a doctor and, you know, read this book. And he's like, just, just keep trying and what works, works. And if you're not willing to try it, you might not even know. And so I think that encouragement I would give too. To anyone listening, if you're not sure, check out some of these resources that we'll put in the show notes. Go talk to a therapist that has specialized training in neurodivergence or autism. Find some of these communities that would help you understand. And if you lean in and it's not helpful or it doesn't apply to you, then you go, well, great. Now I know, but you might take some steps into that kind of community or support and realize, oh, wow, there is a whole vast amount of understanding here that I've been missing and what a great moment that could be to see there's more help available than you thought.

Yeah, exactly. And I think this raises the really significant question of getting an appropriate diagnosis because that's not an easy thing to do. Oh, sure, there's a couple. Because like I said, our clinical community is really not as well versed in this issue, I'm ashamed to say, as we should be. And that's changing, but it's changing slowly. And many clinicians have a lot of stereotyped beliefs about what autism looks like or what neurodiversity looks like and, and therefore either miss it or misdiagnose it. And I see that all the time in our addiction recovery communities. But if there's sort of two different ways, if you're curious about exploring this, there's two different routes to go, both equally valid. If you want to go the clinical route, that's the more expensive, more difficult and more time consuming. But also more officially, you need to search for a clinical psychologist who does diagnoses and specializes not just in autism, but an adult diagnosed autism. Most people who specialize in autism specialize in diagnosing children. Like we said, a lot of that is autism level three, autism level two. But people who have been masking or presenting as neurotypical well into their 40s, 50s, and 60s and are now going oh, wait, some of this really sounds like me. I do tap my fingers in a rhythmic way or I do jiggle my leg, or I do have these special interests. Like I am kind of blunt. You are going to want to find someone who specializes in adult diagnosis, and that's going to be expensive. A couple thousand dollars usually. And you do come out with, with a diagnosis and a report. And that can be helpful if you really are looking for that comfort and reassurance of knowing a specialist has done.

You want to know that you know, right?

Yeah. Or if you're looking to get potentially, what's the word I'm looking for, potentially accommodations that can be very helpful. But for many people, for a variety of reasons, that's either out of reach or it feels unnecessary. And what we're seeing now is that there are so many, so many ways to connect to information and assessments online that people can really self diagnose with a reasonable degree of accuracy. And there's a big kind of debate in the community of is it necessary to kind of go through the full formal evaluation or is it enough to look at the diagnostic criteria, do these assessments and say, yeah, this resonates for me. I'm choosing to identify in this way. And I've got a link where people can do that. It is@the embraceautism.com website. Under their autism test, there's a number of extensive, really good tests that people can just take online anonymously and get their results. And they're pretty accurate, free and fast. And so a lot of people choose to take that option, and a lot of people choose to take the option of the clinical route. But I just would encourage you, if you go the clinical route, be sure that you're working with someone where this is their specific area of expertise. And of course, many people come into this diagnosis backwards. And what I mean by that is their child gets diagnosed with ADHD and then they realize, oh, activating hd or their child is diagnosed with autism and they realize, hey, I resonate with that. And then as we look back up the family line, because this is a brain based genetic experience, we will begin to connect the dots. Oh, wait, my dad had these repetitive, oh wait, my brother, oh, my grandpa. And we'll start to see the family lineage of the neurodiversity. And so however we come into the awareness, the awareness itself is important and valid and it can come with relief and also grief. And all of that is okay.

So Jenna, could you explain the concept of self regulation in neurodivergence and how it might relate to addiction or addictive behaviors.

Yes, well, particularly in our sexually addicted community, this is of critical importance to understand because there are really, let's say, three primary ways that people who are neurodiverse self regulate. One is through stimming, one is through special interest, and one can be through sensory. So obviously masturbatory pornography seeking would hit all three of those. And if masturbation is a form of stimming that has become autoregulatory, if pornography or sexual acting out has become a special interest, those types of things need to be replaced. So we're not just saying this is a thing we're going to stop, but we need to substitute other stimming behavior. We need to substitute other special interests because those are the ways that the neurodifferent autonomic nervous system self regulates. And so the leg shaking or the finger tapping or the, you know, whatever the stimming behavior might be, maybe it's using a stim toy has got to be built into the recovery plan. An alternative special interest. Maybe it's fishing, maybe it's cars, maybe it's cooking, maybe it's whatever it might be. Woodworking is a really common one because those repetitive behaviors of like sanding or that type of thing and woodworking are very soothing to a neurodifferent nervous system. So we need to be aware and mindful of the regulatory capacities and tendencies of the neurodifferent nervous system. The sensory piece as well is critical. So for many people who are neurodifferent, weighted blankets are very important. Many neurodivergent people have a very special affinity with animals. Dogs, cats, they have a very deep connection to animals. And so with my neuro different clients, I will often build in a sensory time with a pet. So being under a weighted blanket, petting the dog, petting the cat, is very soothing to the nervous system. Yeah.

I appreciate the ways, again, Jenna, that this connects to recovery. I think in general, because so much of our message, whether in ifs studies, the kind of work we do in pure desire groups, is to help someone understand the fact that you need to self regulate or have coping behaviors. It does not make you bad. That makes you human. That means you have a brain and a brain that gets to certain places that then starts to look for what will calm me, comfort me, soothe me, provide excitement or pleasure. And those are normal brain activities that God designed our brain to look for. And rather than just saying, no, don't do that, stop that. Really empowering a person to have the ability and support to make different choices that are comforting or soothing. And so I think highlighting that someone who's neurodivergent or on the, you know, having that is an autism diagnosis, there are going to be maybe heightened needs for some of that, especially in the sensory area. And if we're not aware of that, if it's our own struggle or someone we're trying to support, we may be guilty of trying to, you know, guide them away from those things. And for sure, we want to guide them away from unhealthy habits or addictive behaviors. But we might miss the other alternatives of simple things, like not simple, but maybe things that we would undervalue in traditional recovery of other ways that you might stem or that you might experience stimulation and sensory in a way that is non addictive, non, you know, habit for me doesn't take me into that pattern I'm trying to break, but still creates some of that feel, that sensation that my brain is looking for. And to give a person validation, say that's a good thing, that's okay, you're not weak or different. If you have a toy that you play with or a pet that you, when you sit with them, it just, it's a part of your recovery. Like that would be good. And I think the more space we have to say that in group or in a relationship with someone, it just would enable us to support recovery better for that person.

A hundred percent, the sensory needs can look neurotypical, although for neurotypical it would be more of a preference. But a neurodifferent person, often even just pressure is a really critical part of the autonomic regulating experience. And so things like putting pressure on a pedal, so pedaling a bicycle or riding a motorcycle and the proprioceptive experience of that sort of movement of the body in space is very, very regulating. Whereas if a neurotypical person said, I think riding my motorcycle is going to be part of my recovery plan, the spouse might be like, sounds like a.

Convenient excuse to ride your motorcycle to.

Go get your Harley dav. But actually those very things, gum chewing is a stim. Those types of things can be very important substitutes. And the proprioceptive challenges that neurodifferent people often have of mindfulness of body in space is often a little bit different. So there may be a bit of a clumsiness or a dropping or tripping or bumping into things. And so the movement of body through space is something most of us in the neurotypical world wouldn't necessarily think to incorporate into A relapse prevention plan, but it's very important for a neurodiverse person.

Jenna I think this conversation is so eye opening, so needed for so many of us. So as we look to wrap up today, talk a little bit about how important it is for the addiction recovery community, which so many of us are in. And so many are listening because they're kind of entering into that community, whether for themselves or as a spouse or as a group leader, to support others. How important is it that we have an understanding of neurodiversity and include some of that training or education in the work that we do?

I think it's really critical. It can eliminate so much unnecessary suffering on the part of the partner. It's very much like the experience of coming to grips with the idea of addiction. An understanding is not an excuse. Understanding the absence of cognitive empathy is not an excuse that you don't get to receive empathy the way that your neurotypical system would really like to receive it. But it does prevent a lot of unnecessary suffering, of wondering, like, when am I ever going to get there? When am I going to receive this empathy that I need? It can really save a lot of rejection and shame around sexual reintegration if we can just know what the sensory profile is and avoid things that are aversive and emphasize things that are reinforcing. So just in so many ways for the partner. This is important, obviously, for anyone who may have some neurodiversity and be unaware of it, getting some type of clarity around that, whether it's self identifying, self diagnosis with online screening tests or by visiting with a professional. There's a book that I absolutely love. The public resources are much better than they were five or 10 years ago. Is this Autism? By Henderson and Weyland is a fabulous book. There's a companion book that's a diagnostic guide for clinicians. But if you are not sure and you read this book, you will have a really clear sense of a lot of the nuances that you may go, aha. I hadn't thought about that. Is that why I do this? There's a wonderful podcast that can be supportive in our recovery communities. It's about. It's not about addiction per se, but Dr. Teresa Reagan's podcast is called Autism in the Adult. It's very, very helpful. I highly recommend it. Aane, which is the Autism association and Neurodiverse experts, something like that. Aane.org is a wonderful resource for partners, for individuals, for family members. There's groups, there's all kinds of Things, workshops, lots of resources for support. So I think that bringing some of these sort of in the public domain supports into our recovery communities can be really, really helpful in just giving neurodiverse folks in recovery permission to use scripts, permission to replace stems and special interests, permission to ask and set up procedures to get explicit communication around non verbals to avoid kind of missing communication, doing structured check ins, finding out about a sensory profile and incorporating that. All of these things are so critical. And the more we know about neurodiversity, the more holistic our approach to addiction recovery can be and the more people can be spared unnecessary suffering and shame as a result.

Yeah. And for listeners that are like driving or on a treadmill and they're figuring out how do I write down all these things she just said we will do our very best to get all of those in the show notes. So, Connor, you have your work cut out for you this week. Our producer to get all those links written down. And if we need to, we'll get any of those from you, Jenna. But yeah, I think just making people aware of what's out there is so key and that we're supportive of people really moving into that. Heather, thoughts from you as we wrap up today.

Well, I could see this being so helpful for a lot of partners out there because we get emails all the time that say my husband's been in recovery for this many years and he's continuing to relapse or and they describe all of these behaviors and much of it is what we've talked about today. So I'm just thinking that this might be one of those episodes that trigger this light bulb moment that just really encourages couples to like, keep digging in, keep doing the work, find what's going to work best for you, to figure out what it looks like for both of you. And I just find it's really encouraging.

Yeah. So listener, if someone shared this with you, it's because they love you, they care about you, they think they heard something here that might connect dots and if it does and it leads to new understanding, we are so grateful for that. And if you've listened and thought, I don't think this is me, that's great too. But we're, I think, trying to support one another in recovery. I think of in my own story, you know, the day that I met with a therapist and came to grips with the idea that I've had an addiction because I don't like to say I'm an addict because I don't like the way that becomes an identity or I'm an addict. But even to just acknowledge to myself as someone that grew up in a Christian home and was a pastor, I have an addiction, was both a horrible moment and a beautifully freeing moment, because like you said, it didn't make an excuse like, oh, I have an addiction. I can't help it. Now I've got this great excuse. What it did for me is it defined the work that I was going to need to do in an entirely new way. Because up to that moment, I just thought, like so many do, that I was making poor moral choices. And if I just had better fortitude or willpower or whatever to make better moral choices, I would be okay. But to say I've had an addiction defined, I was going to need to understand what was going on in my brain and the patterns that had created it and the pain I was avoiding and the wounds. There was just a whole lot of work I didn't even know that could be done to move towards healing. And I think for many people, that could be today's episode that to say I have neurodivergent brain issues or I have autism, or I'm a part of that spectrum, maybe both. A horrible moment to feel the weight and gravity of that, but also a beautifully freeing moment to say, there may be a whole lot more resources here than I ever realized. Much deeper understanding people that get me in ways that maybe because I'm thinking of some group members I've worked with, that their heartache has kind of been that I don't feel like the group gets me. And that may have been true because we didn't recognize some of what they were facing in their recovery. But this moment of clarity could put someone down a whole new pathway of recovery. And so, Jenna, I'm so thankful for you. The work you're doing, the way in which you've incorporated this is, I think, part of your message. I mean, you're known so much for the internal family systems work, but to include this, to be a voice saying, hey, this is a part of recovery for so many people is so, so valuable. So thank you for coming on, for educating us, me and our audience about a topic that we're probably new on and just leading the way and saying, man, we can help a whole lot more people if we all could understand a little bit more about neurodivergence and autism. It's been a great conversation. So thank you, Jenna.

Thank you both so much for the work that you do and for having me on to have this important discussion and I'm just always so delighted and so grateful to be with you.

Awesome. And remind us again, I know we'll put all the links for resources on neurodivergence and autism. But if people want to connect with you, Jenna, or hear more from you or get your content, where can they go to keep up with you?

Yeah, people are welcome to come. Check me out@jennarimersma.com or if you can't spell that, which most people can't, you can come to movetoward.com it'll get you to the same spot.

So jennarimersma.com movetoward.com is it towards singular or plural? Let's make sure we're clear. Move toward singular, move toward singular. No S. We get that with Pure Desire because we have a lot of people that want to make us Pure Desire. Like no, we're just it's one singular pure desire for the Lord and for freedom. So movetoward.com thank you Jenna. And if you are a fan of today's content, if this show has been helpful to you, please subscribe, share it with somebody, Write us a review, leave a comment. All of those are ways that other people can find these valuable life giving conversations. And if you'd like more information about Pure Desire, groups, resources or counseling, you can visit us at Pure desire nos puredesire.org Journey on my friends, you are not alone.