When Your Brain Works Differently: Neurodiversity and the Mental Load

What if your brain works differently from everyone else’s — and you’re still expected to carry the same invisible load for your family, work, and life? In this episode of MissPerceived, Professor Leah Ruppanner explores how neurodivergent folks (ADHD, OCD, bipolar, and beyond) experience the mental load in uniquely complex and often heavier ways. She breaks down the seven stages of the mental load, shows where things get especially hard when you’re prone to rumination, catastrophizing, or forgetting, and explains why social norms demanding perfection make all of this even more overwhelming.

Leah also shares what she’s learned from interviews and from living with a partner who has ADHD, and offers a gentler way forward: more compassion, more curiosity, shared systems, and dropping what doesn’t actually need your brain’s limited energy.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction — neurodiversity and the mental load

01:00 What the mental load really is (beyond a to‑do list)

02:41 When your brain works differently: distraction, rumination, worst‑case thinking

05:03 The seven stages of the mental load: identify, remember, strategize, decide, delegate, execute, monitor

07:24 How ADHD, OCD, and other neurodivergences change each stage

09:41 Social norms that demand perfection — especially from women

11:55 Why this becomes a recipe for disaster (and it’s not your fault)

13:00 Using the Mental Load Audit: what to drop, delegate, and reduce

14:22 Conversations that help: explaining how your brain works to your family