Ep 80. How ADHD Can Impact Your Body Image with Dani Bryant
Nov 05, 2025
In this episode of The Body Grievers Club, Bri sits down with therapist, drama therapist, and creative arts therapist Danny Bryant—a fat, neurospicy clinician from upstate New York and one of Bri’s dear friends. Together they unpack the messy, beautiful intersection of neurodivergence, ADHD, body image, and body liberation.
Bri and Danny talk about what it means to work with your brain instead of against it—how perfectionism, masking, and executive dysfunction show up in everything from laundry to therapy notes. They explore the grief that comes with realizing your brain (and body) may never operate like everyone else’s, and how to build systems, compassion, and community around that truth.
They also dig into the overlap between body liberation and neurodivergence, from shame and self-blame to the ways capitalism, ableism, and diet culture all demand conformity. Expect laughter, tangents, and a lot of “same, same” moments as they name what’s hard, hilarious, and healing about existing in a brain and body that don’t fit the mold.
If you’ve ever wondered whether you’re “just lazy” or living in a world not built for you, this conversation will remind you: you’re not broken. You’re living in a system that wasn’t designed with you in mind. And you deserve care that honors both your body and your brain.
TIMESTAMPS:
05:00 Interrupting, hyperfocus, and why voice memos help our brains
13:10 Pandemic clarity, fidgets, and “something’s off” → assessment
16:00 Bri’s “wait, do I have ADHD?” moment in real life
18:30 Executive dysfunction: notes, laundry, and tasks-within-tasks
22:10 Systems that fit you: redefining “done,” micro-steps, and dopamine
25:10 Burnout cycles, urgency mode, and freeze vs. rest
27:50 Missed diagnoses in women/AFAB folks + masking as survival
30:40 ADLs with compassion: showers, brushing teeth, and ritual > routine
33:10 Habit stacking, duplicates (chargers everywhere), and shame as the enemy
36:00 All-or-nothing thinking, internalized ableism, and seeing ADHD as disability
39:00 Curiosity > criticism: Finch, allowances, novelty, and changing what no longer works
41:50 Interoception, meds, intuitive eating adaptations, and sleep/circadian quirks
45:00 Energy rhythms, gray-scale phone, capacity planning, and Mondays vs. Fridays
47:30 Boundaries, FOMO parts, and letting people be disappointed (community = annoyance sometimes)
50:10 Assessing “stay home or go?”—facts, context, and momentum vs. depletion
52:00 Culture check: conformity pressures (thinness, ableism) and finding your people
54:00 GLP-1s vs. stimulants: safety, autonomy, and why changing size ≠ changing beliefs
56:00 Spectrum ≠ line: the “pie chart” view + how presentation varies widely
RESOURCES:
Mentioned in this episode:
Love Dani Donovan's art and writing on ADHD:
Comics: https://www.adhddd.com/comics/
The Anti-Planner: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/122842465-the-anti-planner
KC Davis's Strugglecare: https://www.strugglecare.com/resources
A Radical Guide for Women with ADHD:Embrace Neurodiversity, Live Boldly, and Break Through Barriers by Sari Solden and Michelle Frank:
www.newharbinger.com/9781684032617/a-radical-guide-for-women-with-adhd/ srsltid=AfmBOoqIlhzeA5jvKuvaBqnjZZcQUZeGo5LMRX1vThmBMYFM1pWa2Otn
Gifted kid with ADHD essay:
https://blackgirllostkeys.com/adhd/double-trouble-navigating-life-as-a-gifted-kid-with-adhd/
This person is writing about Neurocomplexity in a interesting way:
https://lindseymackereth.substack.com/
ADHD & Nutrition
@rds_for_neurodiversity
https://www.instagram.com/rds_for_neurodiversity/?igsh=MXI3N2thMGc5ZzR4ZQ%3D%3D
WANT MORE OF DANI BRYANT?
* Instagram: @danibtherapy
* Website: www.danibryant.com
WANT MORE OF BRI?
*Instagram: @bodyimagewithbri
*Website: https://bodyimagewithbri.com/
*Bri’s Free Resource: 7-Step Guide to Shift Body Grief to Radical Body Acceptance
TRANSCRIPT
Welcome to the Body Grievers club.
Hi friend, I am your host Bri Campos from Body Image with Bri. I am a fat positive body image coach, educator, and trained mental health counselor. My goal is to help you stop hating your body and learn how to move through unavoidable body grief.
This won't be your average body image advice. No affirmations, no fluff, no filter. I am prepared to say the quiet parts out loud and no matter how overwhelming or hopeless your body image feels, you belong here.
Welcome to the Body Grievers Club and welcome back to another episode of the Body Grievers Club. Today's guest is so special to me because not only are they a wonderful, amazing fat neurospicy therapist in the state of New York, they're also my personal friend.
So I'm going to let her introduce herself. Dani, welcome to the podcast.
Well, hello, It's so good to be here with you. I am Dani. I am Dani Bryant. I am a therapist. I'm a clinical mental health counselor and a drama therapist, a creative arts therapist under the umbrella, drama therapist, music therapist, art therapist, dance movement therapist, drama therapist as a fellow theatre kiddo.
A thing or two about that? I know a thing or two about theatre kids. And I work with folks, yeah. And you just sort of recovery, fat liberation, neuro complexity. So ADHD, autism, Audi, ADHD and a lot of creatives. I work with a lot of creative people.
I give so much credit to Dani in not only in being able to help me identify my own neurodivergence, but it has helped me help my clients with their own neurodivergence, not recognizing like, oh, I know what that is now. And so I'm so grateful to you. You're such a beacon of knowledge on so many things.
But today we're going to focus on neurodivergence, ADHD, how it intersects with body image, body liberation. We're going to get right into it. So Dani wanted to start with a fun little anecdotal story about how we're here today. Would you like to share with the class Dani?
Yeah, the first time this really happened was the last time we talked about doing a podcast, which then we forgot to do the podcast then. But during that time we were like, oh wait, didn't we do an ADHD podcast like a year and a half and then we.
It had to have been in like 2022 because I was in my this is the most efficient way to do shit era. Like you would come into my community. You had presented on body liberation and neurodivergence and I think I said, can you stay on the call and let's just bang out an episode.
I don't know where that is true ADHD. It's like the keys. It's like the wallet. Lose a podcast sometimes. I think we know far more than than we did back then. You why you forgot. There is an impact on our working memory.
And I think a great way to think about it is our brains are always moving so fast, so information, but then it's already moved to the back of the brain that something it has come in and so we've lost the thing. So when we forget things, that's what's happening. It's not that we are forgetful, but rather our brains are moving so fast that like old information is gone and new information has appeared.
I don't know if this is the same thing too, but it's not right in front of me, it's not there. The term for that is temporal myopia science. Another thing, the interrupting each other. Oh no, there we go again. I should say also my neurodivergent hyperfocus is things about ADHD, so it's like the interrupting is is 0.
I know something about that. I'll tell you about that. That's how I can relate to you. This is a tangent, no shock to anybody. I think this is one of the reasons I think I love voice memos with texting and messaging. Cause not only do I have ADHD, I probably have some sort of learning disability, but like texting, when I get long messages, I'm like, oh shit, I don't have time to read that.
But with the voice memo, it really forces me to sit and listen before responding. And it's a really good practice. Yeah. Can also do the two times speed that. Twice as fast. Yeah, we're going to get into a lot today.
There are so many things that I didn't realize was neurodivergence and ADHD and maybe like even a touch of the tism, things that I was unaware of until learning from Dani and then continuing my own research on my own. And so just as a sort of anecdotal thing as well, we will not lose this podcast episode.
And I know this because I know that in my own capability, my favorite part about podcasting is this. I love talking. I love talking and chatting with people. If it were up to me, the episode would sit and stay here and I might lose it, but I now have a team of people who will do everything else on the back end from editing, uploading it, coming up with show notes, finding the really good clips that we're going to be able to share on social media and repurpose at certain points.
All of that is I do not like those tasks. And yeah, it is a privilege to be able to do that. And I also know that I love talking with people and I think that people like to learn in a non risk way. And so my podcast is a non negotiable for me in my business. And so that is why you were listening to this episode right now.
Dani, why don't you tell us a little bit about how you've discovered your own neurodivergence?
Yeah, something that when I was in grad school, a professor noticed how I was operating, which is things would be late, there'd be a lot of chaos, but then it was usually pretty well done. Also my skill set of, of talking, of being comfortable doing presentations but really not wanting to write the papers right. Like the noticing this chasm between clearly I had a lot of passion and interest and skills, but then the things I found tedious and boring like I just wasn't doing and it was affecting my experience at the grad program.
So she's planted the seed, but I think she came at it, as she called it, like a high achieving perfectionist or something as a start. That was like her gateway. And then through that she was like any like perfectionism sometimes really has a crossover with ADHD of if I can't do it perfect, I might as well not do it at all.
Is that something you've ever thought about? But the brain was moving so fast that I definitely heard that, but then never did anything with it until the pandemic. And it was before we all went into quarantine five days a week. I was a drama therapist. I was running groups, I was on my feet doing individual sessions. I have a combined, sometimes leaning more hyperactive diagnosis. So it's that's why I'm a theater kid. I like channelled it there, even though we didn't know why at the time.
And so was it until we all were at home and I really was going crazy. I like had broken all the fidget toys in my house. I would do sessions like white knuckling, like tearing little pieces of paper and just talking about it out loud. That's around the time that the app started to deliver these things. I feel like I was a part of the first wave of lockdown. Something's wrong. I need more support. And I was of the people who was like, I roll on people with ADHD just like to blame their ADHD.
We had hung out when it was safe to be social distance hanging. And I remember we were driving around and you looked at me and you said, so how did you manage your ADHD? And I go I have ADHD. It was we were like doing something where I think you were driving.
It was one of the like classic things I found very relatable was like, where's my thing, move this thing, wait, I forgot, get up, go inside, come back, drop the thing on the ground. What was I saying? Oh, wait, it was just classic. And I think that's now something we both do as therapist. But also when you realize how many of your friends or community or the people are drawn to each other because we have a different way of talking, that it is something that now worked with enough folks that even before doing often, we can say there's something unique about how your brain works.
Do they know? Yeah. And so, OK, so there are things that people may know, OK, like maybe this is ADHD, but then there are things that people might not recognize. Oh, this is divergent. So we talked about the interrupting and our brains moving so quickly and being forgetful.
For me, the executive functioning piece as a therapist, I was a bad therapist, quote, UN quote. I like to call myself a bad therapist. I really struggled with notes. I really struggled with writing clinical notes. I lost out on a lot of money because I just didn't write the notes and then I didn't get paid for them.
I think other things that I didn't realize like, oh, doing laundry, laundry was the bane of my existence. I was like, I'm just lazy. I don't, I just don't want to do it. And it wasn't until I realized, no, the reason that laundry is hard for you is kind of like notes. It's there are so many tasks within a task and then the task isn't done.
So your brain doesn't get the dopamine hit that the task is complete. And so we avoid doing the task because it feels arduous. And I'm like, as long as I'm wearing clothes, laundry will never be complete until I change the goal. That the goal doesn't mean that there's no dirty clothes. It means that the clothes that I'm working with today, I have moved them into one step in the system, even if that's I'm gathering all of the clothes I did laundry today, I have dumped all of my clean clothes on my bed and they are still sitting there and I slept next to them last night.
The goal was not to fault them, it was to move it into the next step of the process. When it's fine, it's finding what works for you. I think that is when I'm working with folks, it's like the goal is actually not to be more productive. The goal is to work with your brain, not against it, to find systems and way of doing things that are unique to you that 'cause you less distress that make your life easier. It is like the delegation and the outsourcing of the podcast, right? It that to me is a prime example of you knowing yourself, understanding how your brain works and prioritizing this thing that's going to free up all of this other time so that you can focus on the things that that also sustain you and don't burn you out.
So I think that would be one of the things that I don't think people understand is classic ADHD is often I feel like people are coming to me in a state of burnout because what they've been working on or working through is they get stuff done through urgency and crisis and five alarm fire, right? It's like that pattern over years burns folks out where then there's like a complex trauma part and it presents more like people stuck in in freeze right or a hypo nervous system shut down.
So there is this big step that I think, yes, it's understanding how it presents, but then recognizing that often people are getting diagnosed because they're also anxious and depressed and burnt out in a way that if we track backwards, it is living with undiagnosed ADHD for 30 years of your life.
