This week we unpack the “help action”—both as a human skill and in tabletop RPGs—and use a recent road-trip disaster of AK's as a real-life example of how to win your encounters with this oft-ignored mechanic. With ADHD, asking for help can feel impossible despite being eager to help others, mostly due to the usual culprits: rejection sensitivity dysphoria, executive dysfunction, time blindness, and task paralysis. But as always, TTRPGs come to the rescue in showing us that every game has some variation on the help action: D&D has a costly one, but games like DC20 and Daggerheart usher in a new era that puts a focus on helping your fellow players.

Help us to help you learn more about the help action!

🙃 Use your Help Action on us: https://www.patreon.com/tabletopsyturvy
💬 Help Action Heroes! Assemble in our Discord: http://discord.gg/B2NFAhYDbA
#ADHD #Neurodivergent #TTRPG #Daggerheart #DungeonsAndDragons

You finally found the thread. The document is open, the brain is online, the thought train has left the station.

And then: a “got a sec?” DM. A mysterious knock at the door. The window cleaning crew arrives. A mysterious foot crashes through the ceiling. (True story!)

For our brains, getting derailed feels especially day-ending, thanks to our fragile executive function, our sticky attention residue (as always: ew) and good ol' emotional whiplash. But it's 2026, and they're just a part of modern life. AK and Matt suggest some ways we can keep interruptions from destroying our productivity, both in and out of game.

No promises we stay on track. In fact, this episode gets derailed in real time.

But we do make it back.

💬 Come get derailed with us in Discord: http://discord.gg/B2NFAhYDbA

Hey y’all, it’s AK, choosing to speak to you directly instead of doing the usual podcast-description thing where I pretend I’m not the one writing this.

It started with one small decision: not following my usual pattern on the way to therapy. Then I began to wonder about how many habits have I been clinging to long after forgetting why I formed them in the first place.

Which gets us here, for an honest talk about my journey so far on a GLP-1, losing the food noise, and realizing just how much my relationship with my body and brain has been built around habit, ritual, shame, and survival.

And because this is still ADHd20, we’re also talking about the surprising bonus actions this medication has unlocked for my ADHD, the patterns we coulda woulda shoulda noticed sooner, and a few of the demons and pitfalls that have haunted us along the way.

Cue the intensely pensive music: this very special episode is tender, funny, personal, and very much not medical advice.

💬 Come share your thoughts about this episode or anything else: https://discord.gg/B2NFAhYDbA

Why can we genuinely want to prep a game, level up a character, tackle a project, or keep up with a hobby—then feel that desire evaporate the second it becomes an obligation?

Turns out, there's a name for that feeling: demand avoidance. What happens when a want to becomes a have to? How can we meet that resistance instead of letting it spiral into shame and shutdown?

We’d tell you what to do about it, but that sounds suspiciously like a demand.

💬 Bring your “but I WANTED to do it” grievances to Discord: https://discord.gg/B2NFAhYDbA

When the Big Light in AK’s new apartment becomes the Big Bad, AK and Matt become hypervigilantes trying to save their own brains from overstimulation.

What do you do when the lights are too bright, the room is too loud, your socks are committing crimes, seven people are talking at once, and your brain is simply doing its best under hostile sensory conditions?

This week, we’re investigating hyperactivity vs. hyperreactivity, what overstimulation actually feels like, and what to do around the tabletop and IRL when everything becomes Too Much.

💬 Bring your Big Light grievances to our Discord!

Starting a new campaign? Delicious. Finishing one? Now that feels like homework. Let’s talk new campaign dopamine, the dreaded messy middle, scheduling doom, guilt spirals, and why sometimes the kindest thing you can do is end the arc on purpose. Plus! A spirited discussion of our current vocal stims. Comment with yours!

Help us keep making weird little things: https://www.patreon.com/tabletopsyturvy
Bring your vocal stims, campaign ghosts, and scheduling woes to Discord: http://discord.gg/B2NFAhYDbA

We’re back, baby! ADHd20 has returned for season five, and we’re kicking things off on our new tabletopsyturvy channel by asking one very inconvenient question:

What if ease isn’t laziness?

Inspired by nature, mycelium networks, our cave-dwelling ancestors, AI assistants, and the deeply radical idea that maybe we don’t have to make everything harder for ourselves, we’re talking about ADHD, TTRPGs, and the path of least resistance.

🔔 Subscribe for ADHD-friendly TTRPG conversations, neurodivergent-first GM tools, Daggerheart tips, and unserious-but-sincere tabletop nonsense.

🙃 Want to build, chat, and play alongside us? Join our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/tabletopsyturvy

💬 Come hang out in our crescent fresh Discord: http://discord.gg/B2NFAhYDbA

🎹 Beeyootiful music by Mr. Michael Bellar

An admittedly too-short Season 4 wraps with a little reflection, a little mischief, and a big look at what’s coming next.

We look back on 2025’s theme of Mastery, the unexpected places it led (including GMing at Gen Con), and the ideas that have been lighting our brains on fire lately. Also revealed? The theme guiding 2026 — and where this strange, wonderful adventure might take us next.

Thanks for spending another season of ADHd20 with us.

💬 Join our party at The Pocket Dimension Discord: http://discord.gg/B2NFAhYDbA

🌀 Help us keep making this podcast and play games with us via our all-new Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/tabletopsyturvy

🎹 Theme music by Michael Bellar: https://www.michaelbellar.com/