From Tears to Understanding: How GYGO Helped Us Avoid a Full-Blown Family Meltdown

A real family story with two neurodivergent young adults, not teens

Most people assume that life gets easier once your children turn eighteen. You are told that they will grow out of certain behaviours, settle down, mature, and naturally become calmer versions of themselves. But the truth is that none of us outgrow our brains, our wiring, our emotional patterns, or our GYGO profile. My daughters are twenty three and twenty five, both neurodivergent and both completely different profiling shapes, and last night reminded me in the clearest way that understanding these profiles remains just as important in adult family life as it ever was when they were teenagers.

We are moving house in two weeks, and Amy and I were talking about who would have which bedroom. There are four bedrooms, two big and two small. Amy, my younger daughter who has ADHD and a Diamond Heart profile, took the two smaller rooms because she wanted Molly to have the bigger space. We made that decision together, fuelled by excitement and the emotional momentum Diamonds can fall into when planning something new.

Molly, who is a Square with an autistic profile, was not there when this decision was made, and that is where everything began. When she realised the two smaller rooms combined were roughly the size of her own, she did not just see a space issue; she felt excluded, overlooked, and undervalued. For a Square, not being involved in a decision is one of the quickest ways to trigger overwhelm because they need fairness, clarity, involvement, and time to plan.

Amy genuinely believed she was being thoughtful by taking the less desirable rooms, wanting to keep the peace and make everything feel calm and positive. She offered quick suggestions like vacuum packing coats, thinking she was helping, but to Molly it sounded as though her concerns were being dismissed rather than understood. Molly shut down, Amy cried, and this was the emotional landscape I stepped into after a long, exhausting day at work.

The moment I saw Amy in tears and Molly frozen, my Circle profiling kicked straight in. Circles under stress are not emotional processors; we are problem solvers. We want things fixed quickly, clearly, and without fuss. It comes out fast, blunt, and with no space for confusion, driven by urgency rather than unkindness. Instead of pausing, I reacted. I pointed out that I am the one paying for the house and shut the conversation down. I marched around the kitchen trying to regain order and efficiency, which of course only intensified the emotional shutdown happening around me.

A few years ago, this would have been the point where the night derailed completely, and the atmosphere would have stayed strained and unbearable for days. But something shifted. Amy came downstairs, still visibly upset but brave enough to speak. She told me that I teach people how to communicate but was not doing it myself, and she was right. She explained that Molly was overwhelmed because she is a Square, that she herself was trying not to fall back into people pleasing, and that my reaction had shut both of them down.

I was fuming that she had called me out, but that was the moment I stopped and saw the situation clearly. I was reacting, not relating. So, I did what I would tell any family I work with to do.

I began with Molly because Squares need validation, fairness, clear language, time to process, and to be treated with adult level respect. I sat with her and acknowledged that she was right, that I had handled things poorly, and that it made complete sense for her to feel overwhelmed considering the size of the move and her need for structure. I told her that if her belongings did not fit into the room comfortably, she could have mine. The change was immediate. Her body softened and she looked at me properly and said she did not want my room. Within minutes she was regulated enough to offer to pay for an expensive satellite internet system for the new house so I can work easily from home. That is the generosity you get from a Square the moment they feel safe again. She even hugged me which, coming from a Square, felt like I had just won a gold medal at the Olympics.

After I had sat with Molly, I went to find Amy because Diamonds need softness, warmth, reassurance, presence, a calm tone, and absolutely no fixing. I sat beside her, put my arms around her, and simply listened. I did not try to solve anything or jump in with logic. I allowed her to relax, and she eventually fell asleep feeling held rather than responsible for everyone else’s emotions.

By the end of the night, the entire house felt different. The arguing had stopped, everyone was calmer, and no one went to bed with resentment or hurt lingering in the background. Molly was settled and genuinely helpful, Amy felt understood and valued, and I felt proud that I had stepped out of my usual reactive pattern and chosen emotional connection over control. We ended the evening watching TV together, and the next morning we all woke up lighter and far more aligned.

And here is the real lesson at the heart of it. People do not grow out of anxiety, ADHD, autism, overwhelm, emotional intensity, or the core traits of their GYGO shape, and they certainly do not grow out of the way they communicate and interpret the world. You do not age out of your wiring. You either learn to understand it, or you continue carrying the same misunderstandings and triggers from home to home and relationship to relationship. That is why this work matters, and it is why I will keep speaking about it. Last night GYGO did more than prevent an argument; it interrupted an old pattern and allowed us to navigate a moment that would once have overwhelmed all of us. It showed me again that our new house has the potential to be a genuinely connected GYGO home, and I will be documenting the journey because if this can support my neurodivergent grown daughters and a stressed Circle Diamond mum, it can support any family.