Understanding and expressing consent with ADHD

Consent is an agreement that people reach together. It can get a bit tricky with people-pleasing and black and white thinking — two things that can often come up with ADHD. The Wheel of Consent can help.

This week, host Cate Osborn welcomes Betty Martin to the show. Betty is the author of The Art of Receiving and Giving: The Wheel of Consent. Join Betty and Cate as they break down the Wheel of Consent and why it can be a great tool for ADHDers.

We love hearing from our listeners. Email us at sorryimissedthis@understood.org.

Related resources

• The Wheel of Consent diagram PDF

• How to play the 3-minute game

• Betty’s website, bettymartin.org

Timestamps

(00:00) Introduction to the Wheel of Consent

(03:08) What is consent? 

(08:25) What does the Wheel of Consent do? 

(10:25) Redefining “receiving” and “giving” 

(12:21) ADHD, and talking about consent

(17:34) How to figure out what you actually want

(23:14) The 3-minute game

(29:26) “Putting up with” touch

(31:26) The “shadow sides” of the Wheel of Consent

(35:17) Where you can find Betty and more Wheel of Consent resources

Episode transcript

(00:00) Introduction to the Wheel of Consent

Cate: Hi, everybody, and welcome back to "Sorry, I Missed This." I am so excited about this week's episode because this week we have Dr. Betty Martin on. So Dr. Martin is a lot of things, including a chiropractor and an intimacy coach. She wrote the incredible book "The Art of Receiving and Giving: The Wheel of Consent."

One story before we get into it. When I first started talking about having this podcast with Understood, Dr. Betty Martin was one of my dream guests and I was like, assuredly, there's no way she would say yes and talk to little old me. But not only did she kindly and generously say yes, but it also has become one of my favorite episodes that we've done. And "The Wheel of Consent," I cannot tell you enough, is one of the most meaningful books that I have encountered in my journey with late-ADHD diagnosis.

The Wheel of Consent is a tool that you can use to help understand the dynamics of giving and receiving in intimate relationships. With it, you can explore consent and boundaries and make sure that everyone involved in whatever action, whether it be getting them a glass of water, making a sandwich — I always use the example making a birthday cake, but whatever you're doing — up to and including intimate acts, everyone taking part understands what's happening and wants to be there.

There's going to be a link to the diagram of the Wheel of Consent in the show notes, but I thought it would also be useful to give you a little bit of a rundown before we jump into this awesome conversation. So, you can use the wheel when an action comes up between two people. When it does, there are two factors: Who is doing the action and who it's being done for, the giver and the receiver.

These two factors, giving and receiving, line up in four different ways. So, the Wheel of Consent is essentially a circle that is divided into four parts. The first part is serving, which is also known as giving or saying "Yes, I will do that. I would love to." The second section is taking or asking "May I?" The third one is allowing or saying, "Yes, you may. That would be wonderful." And accepting, which is also known as receiving or asking, "Will you?"

So, you can see how accepting "Will you do this thing?," and serving "Yes, I will" line up on the diagonal. But then you also have allowing and taking, so "May I? Yes, you may." So, those line up as well, right? The circle represents consent or your agreement for what's being done inside of the circle. There is a gift given and a gift received. Outside of the circle or without consent, the same action can become stealing or abuse, that kind of stuff.

And in fact, I think a lot of you will be really interested in what Betty has to say about things like people-pleasing and overcommitting. Because I know as a woman with ADHD, it is really, really easy for me to give and give and give, give, and give. But it turns out that like sometimes that might not be the best practice. So, without further ado, welcome to "Sorry, I Missed This" and here is my conversation with Dr. Betty Martin.

(03:08) What is consent?

Dr. Betty Martin, welcome to "Sorry, I Missed This." I'm a huge fan. I'm glad we got that out of the way.

Betty: Thank you.

Cate: The first thing I want to do with you, Betty, is build a sort of common language with our listeners today as we talk about these sort of big ideas. So, first, most importantly, what are we talking about when we say consent?

Betty: That is a great question because most people, when they think of consent, they think means permission. And so, we call that the gatekeeper model that, you know, I want to get to the gate, and would you let me through the gate and can I do this thing that I want to do? And that's not a bad place to start. It's way better than nothing. But it's not the whole picture.

I like to enlarge the idea of what we're talking about to consider "Well, this is what interests me. What interests you? Oh, want to try this? Yeah, try this. Well, I'm not too keen about that, but, yeah, I'm willing to try it." I'm interested in a conversation. You don't give consent or get consent. Something that you arrive at together. And I think really what we're looking for is an agreement.

Cate: Well, it's interesting that you brought up that idea of agreement, because one of the way, the reasons why I was so drawn to the Wheel of Consent was because I found that especially when we're talking about ADHD, especially when we're talking about neurodivergence, there is a commonality of black and white thinking where something is either a yes or a no. And if it's not an enthusiastic confetti cannon, you know, yes, then it's a no.

And so, I love that the Wheel of Consent kind of provides a different way of couching those conversations. So, like, I don't know, eating cake, you know, like I'm not super into eating cake all the time, but, you know, like, I'm willing to do it this weekend with you because I know that you enjoy it and, you know, whatever, whatever the thing might be.

And so, the Wheel of Consent sort of pushes back against that and breaks down consent more specifically into not only yeses and no's but willing's and wanting to's. Can you talk a little bit more about why those willing to's and wanting to's are so important when we talk about consent?

Betty: Oh yeah. Well, first of all, it's helpful to know that there's a difference.

Cate: Yeah. What is the difference between willing and wanting to?

Betty: The difference is there's things that I want to do for my own reasons. They're yummy to me for some reason, and they might or might not involve somebody else. So, I might want a sandwich. I might want to walk in the woods. I might want to put my hand up your shirt. That's "want to." There's also things that I wouldn't otherwise do for myself. But you want them, so that works for me. I can go with that. I'm not going to drive to the airport just for the fun of it. But if you needed ride to the airport, hell, yeah, I'll give you a ride to the airport.

Or you know, I'm not at this moment itching to put my hands up your shirt. But if you would like me to, I'd be happy to. You know, so it's helpful to notice the difference because it's going to change your answer. If I say, "Hey, you want a piece of cake?" And you say "No, I'm not really into cake right now." "Well, I'm disappointed." But it may be that "Well, I'm not so much into cake right now, but I see it looks like you are. So, I'm happy to sit down and have a piece of cake with you."

And it also helps to know that you don't have to be totally into everything that you do. You might be, "Well, yeah. I'm willing to give that a try." And that counts as a yes. The caveat is that don't take that to imply that, you just have to go along with a bunch of shit that you don't like. Like, that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about "Oh, yeah, sure. I'll do that if you want. Sounds good."

Cate: Yeah, that's exactly what I was going to say. The conversation that we're having is not one about coercion. It's not about convincing. It's not about asking so many times that your partner is exhausted and finally says yes when they actually mean no.

Betty: Yeah.

Cate: We're talking about the idea of, "Yeah, you know what? Like, cake might not be my favorite thing, but it's your birthday, so let's celebrate." You know, like that kind of thing.

Betty: Yeah.

Cate: The other thing that I really love about the Wheel of Consent is that it provides a model where we can get very easily and very respectfully, very communicatively, which I don't think is a word.

Betty: Close enough.

Cate: Specific, right? Because if I say, "Hey, do you want a piece of cake?" What kind of cake is it? Is it chocolate? Is it strawberry? Is it vanilla? Is it carrot cake? Because if not like, you know, like maybe that's not what I'm feeling. Or maybe that's my favorite type of cake, and I never get to try it. So, providing more information then again, sort of ties into that idea of willingness and wanting to and not putting yourself in positions where you are uncomfortable or like you like to say, a lot enduring.

Betty: Yeah.

(08:25) What does the Wheel of Consent do?

Cate: So, I think we should probably go back a little bit and have you talk us through the Wheel of Consent as you sort of built it, organized it, described it so that everybody can be on the same page. So, would you mind taking us through the Wheel of Consent 101...

Betty: Yeah.

Cate: Basic, welcome-to-class day one intro?

Betty: So, the Wheel of Consent, the piece of the picture that it brings, if I ask you, "Will you rub my back?" And you say "Yes? OK, cool." And then your hands are on my back and everybody's happy. But what if you ask me "Do you mind if I put my hands on your back and kind of feel you up a little bit?" That's going to still lead to your hands on my back, but it's going to be a very different dynamic.

So, what the Wheel of Consent notices is that who is doing is a different question than who it's for. So, I might have my hands on your back because you want them there and you want them done this way and you want this kind of thing. Or I might have my hands on your back because I want to get a good feel of you. And both of those modes are important and wonderful.

And knowing the difference between what you're doing is where it gets all the fun and all the juiciness happens. That's basically it. What's the difference between who's doing and who it's for? For most people, we have conflated "I'm doing, therefore it's for you." And that's not necessarily true.

Cate: Before we go any further, I do want to throw out a few more definitions. So, when we're talking about the Wheel of Consent, we have this idea of I am doing, I am giving you the back rub or, you know, someone else's. They are doing, they're giving the back rub. So, then you have the idea of giving and receiving. So, I am giving the back rub or I am receiving the back rub.

(10:25) Redefining "receiving" and "giving"

But you sort of divide these into four principles which are serve, take, allow, and accept. And can you kind of just run down each one of them and sort of just tell us like, what does serve mean in this context? What does take mean in this context?

Betty: Yeah, I think it's helpful to redefine, actually receive and give because one meaning of the word receive means something's coming towards me and it arrives. I can receive the package in the mail, I can receive a lovely back rub, I can receive a punch in the jaw, which I probably didn't want. So, that meaning of receive means it arrives. There's a different meaning of the same word, which is a gift that's something that I do want. The problem is, what if the gift that I want is the opportunity to do something to you?

So, maybe I want to feel up your back and you give me the gift of letting me do that. The actions going for me to you, but the gift is going from you to me. And so, serve is the quadrant in which I am doing to you what you have wanted. I'm in serve, I'm doing to you what you've wanted. And you are what most people would call receiving because you're getting the back rub and I'm giving you the back rub. And so, you're accepting.

Now, if I come along and I just want to get my hands on you because you feel nice to me, that's the taking quadrant. I say, "May I feel up your back?" And you say, "Well, it can be. Yeah, yeah, you can do that." And now I've got my hands on your back, but it's for my enjoyment. And that's what I call taking and you being allowing the Wheel of Consent points out to dynamics and sort of accept and the other ones take a while.

(12:21) ADHD, and talking about consent

Cate: The specificity, I think, is really powerful because especially like as we move the conversation more to ADHD, I think that it can be so easy to jump into that land of assuming like "My partner loves back rubs. Of course she always wants a back rub" or, you know, whatever it may be. And so, breaking those terms down and breaking those ideas down, what they do is they provide a sort of what is the word I want scaffolding that accounts for executive functioning differences.

It accounts for sensory issues, it accounts for all of these different things that people with ADHD tend to deal with on a daily basis, and allows each partner to feel safe and understood and respected. So, to go back to the back rub example — we're just really pounding this back rub example to death.

But that idea of, "Hey, can I give you a back rub?" Or like, "Hey, will you give me a back rub?" "OK, well, I'm really tired. I've had a long day. I know that back rubs are really important to you. I know that physical touch is really important to you. But I've got, like, ten minutes in me. Is ten minutes OK?" "Yes, absolutely. Ten minutes is fine. Thank you so much." "Great."

Betty: That's a great example of consent-making right there.

Cate: Thank you. Well, and I learned it at one of your classes. But one of the things that I really like is that it invites a little bit more investigation into not only "What am I looking for? I'm looking for back rub." And what else are the parameters? "Am I keeping my shirt on? Am I taking my shirt off? Am I willing for it to lead into a more intimate time? Or do I just honestly just want the back row because I had a long day at work?"

And why I think it's really important to talk about consent and ADHD is because I have seen both firsthand and just in the work that I've done with the community, how executive functioning differences can really impact our understanding of consent. Again, to lean into that back rub example, you know, "Hey, can I give you a back rub? Great." And then, you know, an hour and a half later and you're really sore and you're like, "Actually, I kind of want this back rub to stop. This is not really, I'm not really enjoying this anymore."

Then we're violating our own consent. We're saying, "Oh no, like I'm enduring, I'm, I'm putting up with because I don't want to hurt this other person's feelings." And so, I think it's really important to have those conversations.

Betty: I would say that that is not unique to neurodiversity.

Cate: Oh no. No.

Betty: That's like, that's just being humans. I'm going to go back to something and that is you said, "May I give you a back rub?" It was a pretty common question, but it is confusing because "May I?" means it's for me. But give means this for you. So, who's it for? So, if you say, "May I give you a back rub?" And I say, "Yes, sure, go ahead." Now you're going along and you want your hand to go this way. But I want your hand to go this way. So, which way is it going to go?

If this is really for me, then I want your hand to go this way. But you set it up as if it's for you, so you want your hand to go this way? So who's it actually for?

And so, if you're saying "May I give you blah blah," then that's confusing. And what I would encourage you to say is, "May I feel you up?" Because that's what you actually want. Let's get honest about what you want. You want to get your hands on me? You want to feel me up? Then just ask for that because it's a good thing to ask, to get to ask for. It's a great thing to do.

Cate: Another thing that I was so surprised to learn when I first started sort of learning about the Wheel of Consent. And this is this idea of taking. Taking as a selfish act, like I can't take something, that's bad. Like, you know, I don't want to take the last piece of cake. I don't want to, you know, like, I don't want to ask to feel you up. That's like, so rude.

Betty: Yes, so rude.

Cate: But that idea of the gift of asking, the giving of consent, the gift of saying, "Hey, here is what I specifically want: I specifically want you right now, tonight to do X, Y, and Z thing," whatever that may be dear listener in your world, and being really clear because then that way your partner isn't trying to mind read and intuit what you actually want. If you want the hand to go one way or the other.

Betty: Yeah.

Cate: You are being very clear in your communication and again, sort of working in that scaffolding of communication, executive functioning, all of that good stuff. But it's just everybody gets what they want so much more efficiently. If you aren't afraid of asking or, you know, like just being like, "Hey, I really want this specific thing, like this really filthy thing. I want it."

Betty: Yeah.

Cate: And I think that is, again, that's like a weirdly revolutionary concept. And I wonder, like if you can speak to that, like, why do you think that is? Why do you think we're so afraid of taking or asking for it directly?

Betty: I think it probably goes back to when we were toddlers because as a child, of course, we're reaching and grabbing and everything. It's like that's what we do. That's our job. And so I reach for this thing. I reach for this other thing, and I get my hand smacked. And so, I'm learning pretty quickly that taking action for my own enjoyment is a big no-no.

(17:34) How to figure out what you actually want

Cate: It's so funny that it just over and over again on this podcast, we keep coming back to this idea of "What do I actually want? What do I actually believe? And how do I empower and embrace those things in my own life? Which is honestly one of the reasons why I thought of you as a guest, because I was like, I know a person who is specifically doing work about what do I actually want?

So, when we talk about this idea of how do I even know what I want? How do I know, Hey, can I give you a back rub? What I actually want is to touch you. What I actually want is to feel connection. What I actually want is to feel like that super sexy part at the top of your neck where it goes into your shoulder, because I just think it's really hot. So, Dr. Betty Martin, author of "The Wheel of Consent", how do we figure out what we want?

Betty: Oh that is a... You got another hour?

Cate: It's like Season 2. Season 2.

Betty: Yeah, that's really good because that's another thing we don't learn as kids so well is how to ask for what we want and we get punished for it and shamed for it. And as you noted, even knowing what we want can be hard. And when I'm working with clients, mostly we just slow down. And, you know, I say, "How do you want me to touch you?" "Oh, I don't have any idea." I said, "That's OK. We got plenty of time." And generally, after a few moments, something will bubble up and it feels like forever. But it's usually, you know, ten, 20, 30s not very long.

And sometimes if people are really struggling with this question, again, we're working in the realm of touch. You could extrapolate to other situations. But sometimes it helps to give kind of a tree of options or multiple choice.

And so I'll say, "Well, let's see. You want below the waist or above the waist?" "Oh, above the waist." "OK. Do you want arms, torso, or head?" "Head." "OK, do you want face or hair scalp? "Oh hair." "Okay. Do you want to feel it? Do you want to braid it? You want to pull it?" Like..."Oh yeah. I just want to feel it." "OK. You wanna play with my hair?" "Yeah, that's what I want."

So, it can help to narrow down a little bit at a time what part you want and what way to touch it. It also helps to have a little bit of vocabulary of "Oh yeah. touch." There's scratch, poke, caress, tickle, rub, squeeze. Lots of different ways to touch. But if you are not used to thinking of those, you might have no idea. Like, I don't know. I just want to get my hand there. And what I recommend is starting with just feel around the thing. What does this arm feel like? You know, where's the joint? Where's the bone? What what does it feel like? Because that's an opportunity that we very rarely have.

Cate: It's also really powerful and I think really interesting. And this is a real pro tip, dear listener, wordhippo.com. I know that's going to sound like the most like out-of-right-field suggestion, but one thing that I realized is that I'm a person who really struggles to interpret my body's inner signals, right? Like, I struggle to define like what I'm feeling and when I'm feeling it. I'm like, I feel bad. I feel good. I feel just a vague sort of static, right?

And so, using like Betty was talking about, like, these ideas of like, poke or scratch or caress or whatever wordhippo.com, put in like, touch and then just, like, read your options.

Betty: Oh that sounds great.

Cate: And then you and your partner can, like, create a menu.

Betty: That sounds great!

Cate: It's so good. It's so good. But the other thing too, like, Betty, that I love about this is that like you don't have to be an expert in the Wheel of Consent to take some of these like tips and tricks away. Like the idea of offering your partner like a if then this or like A or B, A or B And so you really get like that is such a powerful practice for anybody, but especially for people, women with ADHD who might be struggling with like aphasia or interoception or any of those things like that's so powerful and it's really easy.

It's just that extra moment of care and attention and compassion towards your partner and saying, "OK, do you want a back rub or do you want a neck and shoulder rub? You know, like A or B?"

Betty: "Oh wait, that's an option? Oh, gee. Well, in that case."

Cate: Exactly.

Betty: Well, you said something really brilliant a minute ago, which is when someone asks you what you want, you might come up with an immediate impulse, like, "Oh I want to touch this or I want you to touch me." Or you might be more aware of how you want to feel. "I want to feel connected. I want to feel nurtured. I want to relax. I want to get sexy." You know, so it might be the action that comes up or it might be the feeling that you want. And then you can ask yourself, "Well, what's going to help me have that feeling?"

Your example of connection was great because if what I want is to feel connected, there's a lot of ways that that could happen. And some ways will work at this moment better than others. So, that's really brilliant.

Cate: Jessamine, dear editor, if you could clip that and just send that to me for reasons that be great. Thank you. Editing joke in the podcast now. All right.

Betty: OK.

(23:14) The 3-minute game

Cate: Speaking of that extra hour that it might take, I have it on very good authority that you can maybe actually teach us this in three minutes. Is this true?

Betty: Well, there is something called a three-minute game that may be what you're thinking of.

Cate: Segway. That was the most shoehorned segway in the history of segways. But I guess, Betty, what I do like for real, I want to do is I want to give our listeners some real takeaways, maybe like a couple of exercises that they can do tonight at home, some questions that they might be inspired to ask their partner the next time that they're looking for a back rub or cake or whatever metaphor we're going for. What do you got?

Betty: So, this is where the Wheel of Consent came from. This is the three-minute game. You take turns asking each other these two questions. "How do you want me to touch you for three minutes?" And then you have a little conversation about that. And when you come to an agreement, you set the timer for three minutes and you do that. And it's important when, so I'm asking you, "How do you want me to touch you for three minutes?" Take your bloody time, because the clock has not started yet, OK?

So, it might take you a few minutes to notice and drill down "OK, where do I, what do I want? What kind of touch do I want? Or maybe I don't want touch. Maybe I want something else." So, it's a wide-open question and slow down because there is no hurry in figuring out what the answer is. And then you say, "OK, will you rub my feet?" Now, you have asked me to rub your feet. Now I pause and notice "Wait a minute. Am I happy to do that? Am I willing to do that? Do I have any limits about it? Maybe. Yeah, but only with your socks on." Or "Yeah, but I don't want any oil. But I can't do it with oil. Are you OK without oil?"

So, then you have a little conversation about that and you always respect my limits of "Yeah, I'm willing to do it this way, but not this way, or I'm willing to do it for this long, but not this long." And so, that respecting of the givers limits is crucial to the whole thing.

So, then we set the timer, I rub your feet for three minutes, we're all happy. You say "Thank you." I say "You're welcome." And then it's your turn to ask me "How do you want me to touch you for three minutes?" And I say, "Well, will you X, Y, Z,?" you say, "Yeah, I'll do it this way, but not this way." Three minutes. Then I say, "Thank you." You say "You're welcome."

And then the next question is, "How do you want to touch me for three minutes?" And that's the one that, for most people, is kind of weird. And they're like, "What? I know what that means." It's an unusual question, but it's very simple. "Well, let's see. I would like, may I play with your hair? May I squeeze your calves? May I explore your hand and feel what your hand's like?"

So, then again, you get to notice "Well, yeah, I can do that if we sit this way, or I can do that. But I'm going to keep my shirt on." Or "I can do...yeah, I'm willing to try that. Let's make it up this way." A little conversation. Then we set our timer for three minutes, so we do the thing. And of course, you can change your mind any time because consent is not consent if you can't change your mind.

So, then we do that for three minutes. And now who says thank you? The person who was doing says thank you. I forgot where we were at the you or me. But if I was feeling up your feet, for example, I would say thank you. Even if it felt great for you, which you probably did, I'm the one saying thank you because I asked for the gift and you allowed me that gift. So, I say thank you.

And then we reverse that. So, the three-minute game, two people, two questions, take three-minute turns. But it's going to take you about half an hour because there's the getting comfy, there's the negotiating, there's the sharing your "ahas" if you want to.

Cate: If you take one thing away from this podcast, I am begging you, if you are a person who struggles for asking what you want, if you are a person who struggles with rejection sensitivity, if you are a person who struggles with people pleasing, I see you, you are valid. Please go home and do this exercise tonight. This one single exercise. Like I'm not even joking.

Betty: Yeah. Absolutely.

Cate: One of the reasons why I'm so freaked out right now was because, like Dr. Betty Martin, your work changed my life. Like as a woman with ADHD who has struggled my whole life with people-pleasing and rejection sensitivity. And while I don't want to say no, because what if they don't like me anymore, and this social chameleoning. And just the exhaustion of being a late diagnosed person, coming to the Wheel of Consent and being like, "Oh wait, I am allowed wholly and specifically to ask for what I want. Define it. Exactly. Spend as much time as my brain needs defining it."

And also that changeability, because that's the other thing is, one thing that I hear so often from women with ADHD is just that idea of like, "OK, my partner really wanted to have sex tonight. And it's really important to them, and I said yes, and I was ready to go, and now, like, we're just about to start and I have changed my mind." And there's that moment of like, "I'm a disappointment. I'm a letdown," whatever.

But I think integrating the Wheel of Consent and these ideas of "OK, well, actually, I've thought about it. I'm not really up for sex tonight, but how else can I touch you? How else can I meet you? How else can I find a way to connect with you that is, meeting both of our needs?" Like, it's beautiful. It's a beautiful model, and I just will yell about it for all eternity if people let me.

(29:26) "Putting up with" touch

When I was first learning about the Wheel of Consent, I remember I was like at the bookstore and I picked up the back of the book and the first sentence is like, "Why would most people endure unwanted touch that they don't even want?" And I was like, "Wait. It's not just me? It's not just me? There's a person who has written an entire book about why that might be?" So, I would love, Betty, for you to talk us a little bit through why might someone choose to endure or put up with? And how do we break out of that cycle?

Betty: Oh that's a really rich one. I give a lot of thought to that because it happens so often with clients and stuff. And I think what's true is that every one of us has been touched against our will in ways that we did not want, we did not like, and we were powerless to stop every one of us, even in the very best of circumstances. You can't get through childhood without having stuff happen that you don't want. It's just part of the way it is.

And so, you grow up learning, your body knows, "OK, touch. That's this thing that happens to me even if I don't want it." You get your teeth brushed whether you want it or not. You got your diapers changed whether you wanted it or not. You got picked up out of oncoming traffic, whether you want it or not. You got moved into the other room for hitting your little brother, whether you want it or not.

And so, you go through life feeling like when touch happens. My job is to figure out how to like it somehow. And that is backwards. That is so backwards. And some people come to me thinking, "Well, I don't like touch." And after we explore a little bit, they discover, "Oh, it's not that I don't like touch. It's that I don't like the kind that I don't like. When it's what I do want, I like it a lot."

(31:26) The "shadow sides" of the Wheel of Consent

Cate: So, what I want to talk about is that in the Wheel of Consent, there are also structures in place to sort of anti-people-please, to anti-mind-read, and anti to go above and beyond.

Betty: Yeah.

Cate: I would love it if you could talk a little bit about what you like to call the shadow sides of the quadrants.

Betty: Yeah. These dynamics can happen without consent. Maybe I walked by and reached over and grabbed your butt, but I didn't have permission for that. So, that's what I'm describing as the shadow. And again, you can see it on the diagram because it sometimes helps to understand the dynamic. If you can see, "Oh, this is where it goes off. This is where it goes too far." Or "This is where and how it happens without consent."

Cate: The one that absolutely blew my mind was this idea of serving without consent can ultimately lead to a lot of resentment. And I see this show up in so many of the ADHD ers that I have worked with, where some of us tend to want to go above and beyond. So, it's like, if I'm making you breakfast in the morning, I'm not just making you pancakes. I'm making you pancakes, and chocolate chip pancakes, and blueberry pancakes.

Betty: Oh, I'm coming over.

Cate: And I don't know, let's go crazy with it. Right? I know. I go hard on breakfast. It's an important meal. But the thing is, if nobody asks for five types of pancakes and you do all of this work and you're like, "Yes, I am the breakfast master. Oh my God," But then nobody acknowledges it. And they're like, "Oh thanks for making breakfast." And you're like, "But what about the five types of pancakes that I made? What about all this work I did serving you? What about all of this time that I put in?" And you start building up these resentments of "Well, they didn't even appreciate how hard I worked."

It's like nobody asked you to. That was outside of the Wheel of Consent. You decided to do that. And I've had to look at myself a lot and be like, "Did they ask for that or did you just decide that you were going to over-serve and over-give? And now you're getting mad about it. And I think that's really something that the Wheel of Consent help me unpack and start to like realize that was showing up a lot of my own life. So, dear listener, don't feel bad. Just work on it. Because sometimes you work too hard.

Betty: Yeah. And then we have to ask ourselves "Now, who's that really for? Was that really a gift for the breakfast eaters, or was that an attempt on my part to get some kudos?"

Cate: Yeah, exactly. It was about this secret validation the whole time.

Betty: Yeah, secret validation. One thing the practice of the three-minute game does is helps you start to normalize asking for what you want, and helps you start to normalize saying no or negotiating a little boundary. And this gives you a structure that's small and short and easy and contained so that you can start learning those skills which then become transferable to other places in your life.

Cate: I just want to acknowledge, like, it can be so scary to say no, especially...

Betty: Absolutely.

Cate: If you have been told your whole life that, you know, you are too much and all this stuff. And so, when I finally get that validation, it's "Oh well, I have to say yes." You don't.

Betty: Yeah. That's right.

Cate: And I love that the Wheel of Consent not only encourages and builds on the skill of saying no in a safe and comfortable container, but it also empowers us to sort of take those lessons and bring it out into the world and be like, "No, sir, at the bar, you may not touch me. Please go away," or whatever.

Betty: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Cate: It's just brilliant. You're so brilliant. You're so good and smart and good at stuff, Betty Martin. It's great.

Betty: I'm good at some things.

Cate: You're great at a lot of things.

Betty: I'm shit at other things.

(35:17) Where you can find Betty and more Wheel of Consent resources

Cate: The last thing I just want to ask you before we go is you have so much knowledge. You have written an incredible book. You have all of these incredible materials. Where can the people find you? Where can they learn more? How do they wheel of consentify their lives?

Betty: That's fun. Well, "The Wheel of Consent," there's a bunch of free videos on my website bettymartin.org and we have an Instagram just type in "the Wheel of Consent," you get a bunch of stuff. And theschoolofconsent.org is where we teach our classes. But yeah look it up on YouTube. There's many hours of it there.

Cate: And if you are a practitioner, if you are a therapist, if you are somebody who works with neurodivergent people and you would like to incorporate this Wheel of Consent work into your own practice, you also host teachings and workshops for educators and facilitate those around the country. I've been to a couple myself. They were incredible and life-changing. I cannot say enough good things about the Wheel of Consent, but Dr. Betty Martin, thank you genuinely from the bottom of my heart for being here today.

Betty: You are so welcome and thanks for telling me how impactful it's been for your life.

Cate: It really has. You changed my life, Dr. Martin, and I appreciate it. And I'm not going to crown my own podcast because that'd be silly.

Thank you for listening. Anything mentioned in the episode will be linked in the show notes with more resources. Have a question, comment, burning story you'd like to share? Email me at sorryimissedthis@understood.org.

This show is brought to you by Understood.org. Understood is a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering people with learning and thinking differences like ADHD and dyslexia. Learn more at Understood.org.

"Sorry, I Missed This" is produced and edited by Jessamine Molli and Margie DeSantis. Our theme music was written by Justin D. Wright, who also mixes the show. Ilana Millner is our supervising producer. Briana Berry is our production director. Neil Drumming is our editorial director.

For Understood.org, our executive directors are Laura Key, Scott Cocchiere, and Seth Melnick. I'm your host, Cate Osborn. Thank you so much for listening.

I just punched my microphone. But we're gonna keep going.