When I work with youth, adults or families, my primary coaching interventions relate to helping someone explore and find strengths in who they are. Sometimes the original goals revolve around wanting to navigate this world successfully because “something is off.”
When something is off, it tends to permeate all parts of a person’s life and story. Belonging to a misunderstood community(ies) can affect many or all parts of someone’s life. Whether it’s academics, social, emotional, work, relationship, physical wellness, or being stuck and not moving forward, our sense of self can affect all parts because these parts reflect who we are.
For those of us with marginalized and misunderstood parts and stories, we’ve been told to hide and deny ourselves authenticity to become chameleons to survive in a world that belongs to other people.
When we mask and hide ourselves, we are playing a perpetual game we cannot win. And that’s the truth for so many people. Whether “officially” diagnosed or self-diagnosed (or somehow we just know life is different for us) we see a bigger picture of how hard life is—simply because the systems in place deny us agency and chances to be who we’ve always been.
Who are “we”? We belong to twice exceptional, gifted, 2e gifted, neurodivergent, sensitive, creative, geeky, and disabled communities
Collectively, there are a lot of us. Historically and representation-wise, we have layers of being silenced, mocked, dismissed, and seen in parts. Our everyday struggles are erased when we have gifts, and our agency is dismissed when we are struggling. When attempting to speak up, it could be met with minimization, challenges, or toxic positivity. We seem to live in this perpetual space of not “disabled enough” to be believed, “too smart” to need help, and/or “needing too much support” where self-agency is denied.
Someone/Society: “I saw you successful once, or someone from your community successful once, so you shouldn’t have excuses for struggling. I saw someone else do it, you can too!” “Accommodations will just make you weak.”
Someone/Society: If you have so many (support) needs, you can’t be trusted to be independent in any area of life. Let us able-bodied and privileged people without an understanding of your whole person dictate how you should live your life!
The continual dismissals of our lived experiences could equate to being gaslit where we are uncertain of what reality actually is. It can be “crazy-making.”
It’s a potential space for feeling disempowered and voiceless. It can be a common reason why so many of us wear masks every day. We may become perceived as “defensive” and reactive when attempting to explain our inner experiences, and they could be met (again) with mockery and disbelief. It’s really difficult to explain what’s going on inside when you’ve had a lifetime of people saying you’re making it up.
Instead of trying to convince people our lives have hardships that others may not experience, we become silent and small. We’re not sure who to trust. We mask. We use all our reserves to survive in a world that asks the vulnerable and misunderstood to adapt. So we crash when we get home. We have meltdowns in our personal lives, or we freeze and limit interactions in spaces that are not safe for our whole, authentic selves to show up. And slowly, or very quickly, we become parts of who we used to be. We allow(ed) society and others to tell us what our worth is through external approval. Or it’s just easier to do it this way, and that comes at such a heavy cost of losing oneself.
Something isn’t right. Society shouldn’t be this way. People like me shouldn’t be treated like this. I’m seeing more people speak up about their experiences. I see very slow changes happening. I remember a part of myself that felt joy and authenticity. I want more of a connection with who I am. I want to figure out how to be ME (again), with compassion and curiosity.
Change Cycles - Awakening
After a while, or in cycles, you realize that something needs to change. The beautiful, confusing, frustrating, and liberating process of change can come in bits and pieces, or it can come together all at once.
We are in a constant process of becoming who we were before society told us to be someone we’re not.
And that’s the struggle and fight for your life. As you venture into initial cycles of awakening and change, it’s important to remember that you will repeat facing different monsters and battles. Lasting change involves going into battle, trying new tools and skills, coming back to rest, and reflecting on experiences. REST is essential.
Each time you go out to fight, gather information or explore, you are mapping out a new possibility of your world and who you are. Each time you try this possible identity and life, you are fighting the urge to go back to old habits, ways of thinking, and self-sabotage. This is the time to offer patience, grace, and compassion as we all have hiccups.
The natural process of change ebbs and flows with so many variables. We do not change and maintain change overnight. Even the best of us default to old ways when under extreme stress or uncontrollable situations. When this happens, because it will, it’s time to offer yourself additional kindness for being a human being with a past. Your default ways of coping served you well in times you needed to survive. Now that you are in a process of change, give yourself permission to see more of who you can be. In addition to a person who survived, you can be a person who is thriving and authentic in many ways.
And, whatever this authentic and thriving version of you looks like is also a process to explore. As you’ve spent a lifetime with this part(s) and version of you, consider this cycle of self-knowing where you are starting off as a baby, vulnerable and inexperienced in certain ways. This baby is depending on you for safety, knowledge, soothing, and nourishment. This is an opportunity to offer things you’ve needed from others by listening to yourself. Nurture your basic needs when others didn’t. Figure out what they are by taking these essential baby steps to listen to your body.
Protect this vulnerable part of you and give yourself time to grow and experiment safely.
This means identifying supportive and safe people to be vulnerable with. As someone who may be accustomed to being dismissed and misunderstood, you are now challenging this as truth. This is no longer the only truth in your life. You are empowering yourself by choosing with discretion who is allowed your energy, time, and access to your person.
Things about Change:
Sometimes it involves learning new things, unlearning things we no longer need.
Sometimes it involves applying new information to build new habits and ways of thinking.
Sometimes it involves challenging what you believe is true or how others saw you.
Sometimes it involves grief for your past self or things you lost.
Sometimes you change and grow really quickly. Sometimes it’s a snail’s pace.
Sometimes you will do nothing and that is a win towards maintaining change.
The entire time, it involves learning how to love yourself no matter what happens.
Rediscovering, (Re)Learning
So now you’re at this place where you know something needs to change.
But, where do you start?
When we lose ourselves from masking or hiding parts because the outside world isn’t safe to be authentic, we can forget who we are. We may get stuck in playing roles for other people.
We’ve probably all changed our mannerisms and personas in different environments. We don’t act like we do around certain family members and teachers or supervisors. Context matters. There’s also the added layer of never or rarely having safety to take these masks off until you’re alone. When you can finally take the masks off…
UNMASKING: IT. IS. EXHAUSTING.
So, let’s break it down to the most simple components of identity and exploration.
What brings you joy?
If you don’t know, what do you want to try?
How do you play?
What are your perceptions of play across the lifespan?
Do you have internalized negative messages about being a certain way?
If yes, forgive yourself for believing harmful things to survive in unsafe places.
What if other people were wrong about you?
What if they didn’t give a fair chance of seeing the world through your eyes?
What are some objects or activities that bring you comfort?
When you are ready, do more of these things around safe people to unmask.
Who are your favorite characters? Heroes, archetypes?
What do you admire most about them?
What are your favorite or most memorable stories about these characters?
What are your fandoms or special interests?
If you don’t know, what are you curious about?
What did you do before someone or society shamed you for doing it?
What are some cultural components of your life experiences that are not always understood?
Take your time going through these areas of exploration.
What are some of your hopes and wishes?
Who was that one person who offered kindness when you need it the most?
Where can you safely (re)discover the things that brought you joy as a kid?
Name some safe people and communities to explore who you are.
What do you believe about resting “too much” in this society?
We all need rest. This culture glorifies working yourself to death. It is inhuman to work without rest. We are allowed to enjoy ourselves while we are alive.
What did society tell you about being worthy only when you’re “productive” or make X amount of money?
The Social Model of Disability can help support transformation by seeing things systemically and affirmatively.
What things do you need help with at home?
What’s the ideal chore schedule, or lack of chore schedule for YOU?
What does your sensory profile look like?
What fills your sensory cups and what drains them, and when does it change?
Do you explain the way you process information and communicate to others?
When you learn about this part of you, it will help others better understand how to communicate with you, too.
Why are these things important?
We’ve spent a lifetime believing there was something wrong with how we processed information and experienced the world. We’ve spent a lifetime becoming smaller and silent where we are not always sure of who we are. Neurodivergent and disabled people are more likely to be abused and develop codependent traits where they seek approval and chase validation in relationships. This is mistaken as love and can be perpetual. Wanting love from someone who misunderstands you or denies your experiences can shape a person where they are unsure of how they feel or even what their identity is.
These questions and bullet points can help start a process of reclaiming who you are. It’s like building a house. Your interests and relationship with yourself are the foundation. How does your brain work? What’s the most effective way you communicate? Learning how to play again, and experience joy without shame can help build a strong home for you to thrive in.
When we chase others for validation, we are asking them to tell us when we are worthy. When we can firmly identify our interests and how our brains and bodies engage with this world, we are taking up space and seeing our worth just as we exist. We can learn that love is not conditional. We can learn that all our parts are worthy as they are.
Differentiation of Self
When you know yourself, what other people say will no longer make you feel small. It can still hurt, and you can set boundaries and state expectations. Their stuff doesn’t change your value as a person.
When we change, we do not change in a vacuum. One of the tests of change is to see (safely) if you can maintain a sense of self around other people. Each individual and group dynamic will change.
*Note: Some people are not safe and you do not need to prove anything to them. Please consider talking to a therapist or coach about which people are safe to be authentic around.
Some considerations:
Change in systems (relationships and groups of people) involves collective shifts in energy, perceptions, and roles. Since certain roles and expectations, and how people were treated existed for X amount of time, it takes time for systems of people to see the change as well as adjust.
Differentiation of Self:
In Bowen Family Systems, being able to maintain a sense of who you are without succumbing to the pressures, past pain, expectations, or anxiety of a system requires “going back into the system” or going back home (when safe). In general, the expectations of others will not affect you, even in close proximity. When there is stress to change, you are able to manage the stress more consistently. It doesn’t mean you are completely at peace or calm around influential people. It means you’ve developed stronger ways to cope and come back to yourself. Other people no longer control your sense of self and inner peace.
Cut-offs or Extreme independence:
When our original systems model chaos and unsafe places to work through discomfort and conflict, we may inherit or develop extreme independence or cut-offs from people. This can help alleviate anxiety and pain, but these patterns may persist into other relationships in life where you do not want to have cut-offs. It can be a default relationship pattern that needs to be acknowledged and slowly worked on.
Some people are safe to be around. Some people DO want to work through conflict with you where cut-offs are not necessary.
Dependence or Fusion:
Another extreme relationship pattern can be where one person is OVERLY attuned to someone else. Your problems become their problems. They want to know everything about your life and get upset when you’re not doing it how THEY think you should. It can become controlling and highly volatile where you feel like you have no space to breathe,—you are always being watched and judged.
Your identity gets misperceived as a part of theirs. They can be seeing your life experiences from the outside, so they think they know how to solve your problems because they are so invested. An added problem here is they do not know what is going on inside of you, and the battle you have weighing the pressure of other people and your inner wants and authenticity.
Interdependence:
We are social beings. The most influential people and systems in our lives create default relational patterns we have to identify and examine across the lifespan. Just because you spent a part of your life having one relational pattern with certain people doesn’t mean it has to stay this way. As we age, our roles change. As we grow, others can grow with us. If you want to change a relationship dynamic, it can move from one extreme to a unique balance of interdependence.
If you cut off certain people and want to grow closer (on your own terms), go for it. This takes time, practice, and adjustment for everyone involved. You get to define and express how close or distant you want to be with others.
It can be a fluid practice where people can experiment and see what works and doesn’t, or needs more practice to get used to. When it’s seen as an experiment, there is less pressure to get it right the first few times.
Homeostasis & Self-sabotage:
There is a power of systems to go back to default ways. When you go back home for the holidays, ever feel a shift in how you are away from home? That’s the power of systems. Scents remind us of old memories. Visual cues take us back to how we used to be. Even people can spark certain neural pathways and muscle memory of how things used to be. And that’s normal. And that’s okay. It happens.
There will be times when you lose yourself in the original systems you come from. There will be times when you default to old ways because it’s easier to mask or show a part of yourself against a system that powerfully wants to tell you to go back. When this happens, self-compassion. When this happens, acknowledgment and acceptance that you’re doing the work, AND it’s a slow process of moving forward, resting, backward, resting. It’s an organized mess. lol
Your change process is unknown, yet it can be fluid, with moments of rest. The same goes for athletes and working out. When you exercise, there must be rest days. There is emotional and physical tearing that’s happening. Give yourself time to rest and recover. It builds resiliency to come back for more work. IF there is self-sabotage, know that this also happens and is common. We do not run sprints constantly. Even if we run marathons, it takes months or years to build the stamina to do so. There’s no rush to get all the change in one go. We are undoing a lifetime of things. We build slowly and sprint when it feels right.
Self Advocacy & Empowerment
When systems and archetypal work create a foundation for self-understanding, there is this concurrent nudge for self-advocacy and personal empowerment.
When you know more of who you are, and can maintain this sense of self around influential people and spaces, you also develop a stronger voice. As sensitive, misunderstood people, we might have grown up feeling silenced, ignored, or having to scream for our validation/needs.
Self-advocacy and empowerment are a little different where you stand firmly in your truths and can communicate expectations and needs without feeling small. Defensiveness dissipates.
And sometimes when you’re speaking your truth, other sensitive, neurodivergent, or creative people may be watching. They’re taking mental notes of your authenticity and voice. It permeates their being and they start exploring who they are, too.
Safety in Community, Uplifting Others
A ripple effect can happen where your authenticity catalyzes authentic expression in others.
“Someone like me feels safe to be themselves, and they’re figuring it out in vulnerable ways. They’re falling apart at times, but also coming back with strength and more of who they are! They are taking up space!”
So an invisible army forms because we mirror one another. We see the truth in each other’s stories and honor the beauty of divergence. Because we decided to take leaps of faith to step into our power and take up space, others will, too. When we continue to take up space authentically, society will adjust. The misperceptions of difference will change.
Does this mean society changes now? No, but with enough of us, it will.
Reading Recommendations:
The Hero’s Journey of Neurodivergence Self-Acceptance - Katy Higgens Lee
Jean Shinoda Bolen (archetypes)
Caroline Myss (archetypes)
Unmasking Autism - Devon Price, PhD
Super Better - Jane McGonigal, PhD
We are Not Broken - Eric Garcia
The Neurodivergent Friendly Workbook of DBT Skills - Sonny Jane Wise
Interoception Awesomeness - Kelly Mahler, Occupational Therapist
