It’s Neurodiversity Celebration Week, a worldwide initiative to positively challenge thinking about neurodiversity and focus on the strengths that neurodivergent individuals can bring to all areas of life. The event aims to move beyond raising awareness to focus on action.
Approximately 15-20% of the population has a neurological difference but neurodiversity is also an individual matter. It impacts each person in a unique way1 . The environment and systems in which they have developed will also contribute to how it presents.
For many neurodivergent people, it can take time and support to work through the emotional weight they feel and reach a place of self-acceptance. In my counselling practice, I see how this weight has built up slowly over the years. It can develop in classrooms, family homes and workplaces that weren’t designed with them in mind.
I’ve worked with people who have been diagnosed, during their diagnosis, and with others who have chosen not to be diagnosed. I witness how feelings of shame, frustration and difference can lead to anxiety, low mood, perfectionism, and low self-esteem.
The neurodivergence range is wider than you might think
It’s important to note that neurodivergence covers a wide spectrum – autism, ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia, Tourette’s and more. These conditions look different from the outside, but the emotional experience underneath can sit across them all.
This includes a sense of working harder than everyone else just to keep up, of always feeling slightly out of step, of needing to compensate for who they are. What I see in my practice is the reality of adaptation and the struggle for acceptance.
Many neurodivergent people haven’t experienced recognition or respect. Instead, they’ve experienced the need to adjust and pressure to adapt or hide to survive.
I see how clients have low self-esteem because they’ve always felt different, but have always desperately wanted to fit in. On the surface, they look successful – good education, great job, progressing in life – but inside they’re still the young person who was held back. Or perhaps, they’re still combatting the bullying they experienced at school, the challenges they battled in their family, or their need to always play down their difference.
Issues I typically support neurodivergent clients with include masking, perfectionism, fawning and family dynamics.
Why masking is the performance nobody sees
Masking is often most associated with autism, but it runs across neurodivergence more generally.
It impacts the dyslexic person who has developed elaborate systems to hide their difficulties. The person with dyspraxia who has learnt to hold themselves very still in social situations, so nobody notices. Or the person with ADHD who works extra hours behind the scenes to be able to show up at work with focus and a sense of order.
The cognitive load never disappears. It’s always running like a generator in the background, humming away but never feeling like it’s completely reliable. There are high incidents of impostor syndrome amongst maskers. The feeling of never being quite good enough, even when they’re in enviable jobs or situations.
And of course, a mask gives you something to hide behind and that may become self-fulfilling.
If your mask is working, your distress becomes invisible and, in turn, you may become invisible too.
The term ‘shape shifter’ is relevant here. It’s often a protective mechanism, a survival strategy. The outcome is an exhausting sense of needing to always flex to what you believe the situation requires. There is a continual level of self-monitoring and monitoring the reactions and mannerisms of others. It’s hard to remain upbeat and positive in these conditions when all your energy is being spent on staying on top of what you think is required of you.
These patterns aren’t about preference or choice. They’re often rooted in a need to feel safe in environments that haven’t always felt accommodating or understanding.
How perfection becomes a protective strategy
A thread I’ve seen consistently amongst neurodivergent clients, particularly those who appear to be coping well externally, is perfectionism. When people have been unable to feel confident in their ability to be heard or seen, or feel anxious about how they’ll come across, they may begin to compensate by trying to get things ‘right’ in other areas. Over time, perfectionism can become a form of armour, something that provides a sense of control and protection in situations that would otherwise feel uncertain or exposing.
This can take many forms.
A child who struggles with words on the page may become highly focused on presentation, because it is something they can control. Another may over-prepare for everything because they find spontaneous situations unpredictable and uncomfortable. For some, a fear of rejection can drive a relentless need to achieve, to stay one step ahead of criticism. Others may find themselves carefully planning what to say in social situations, and then replaying conversations afterwards, looking for mistakes.
Like masking, the toll of perfectionism can be exhausting. The paradox is that striving to be perfect in different areas often makes keeping up even harder. It can lead to a constant, underlying pressure, a sense that there is always more to do, or something that could have been done better. Switching off also becomes difficult when the inner critic is so persistent.
These patterns are often especially strong for those who were criticised, misunderstood, or repeatedly corrected growing up. Over time, this can contribute to experiences of anxiety, burnout, and shame.
Fawning, family dynamics and a role as the scapegoat
Perfectionism and masking often develop alongside another pattern I see frequently in neurodivergent clients – fawning. Where masking is about hiding who you are, fawning is about becoming whoever the situation seems to need. It’s an appeasement strategy, and like masking, it begins as a way of staying safe.
For many neurodivergent people, fawning has its roots in the family. In family systems where conformity matters, the child who doesn’t fit the expected shape can become the identified problem. This can be especially true where a parent is carrying their own unacknowledged neurodivergence and a child who reflects that back can, unconsciously, become a source of discomfort rather than understanding. Not because they are a problem, but because difference is unsettling to a system that depends on everyone fitting a particular shape.
This is the child who notices things others don’t want to. Who reacts to what is actually happening rather than what the family pretends is happening. Who asks questions others don’t want to be asked. Over time, the neurodivergent child learns the safest response is to appease – to shrink, to anticipate others’ needs before their own, and to smooth things over rather than risk further rejection. Fawning becomes the price of belonging
What makes this pattern particularly painful is the double bind it creates. The harder the child strives through perfectionism, achievement, being endlessly helpful and accommodating, the more it goes unacknowledged.
The validation they desire never quite arrives. So, the striving intensifies and the self gets smaller.
I work with adults who have carried this pattern for decades, often without recognising it. They present with anxiety, low self-esteem, difficulty with boundaries or a chronic sense of never being enough. The neurodivergence is part of the picture, but so is the family system they grew up in, and the two are rarely unconnected.
Alongside this, there can also be a sense of grief. For not being understood earlier, for the effort it’s taken to keep going, or for the parts of the self that had to be adapted in order to belong.
Finding a way through
Neurodiversity Celebration Week reminds us that different thinkers bring genuine strengths. But it’s important to remember that, for many neurodivergent people, getting to a place where those strengths can be recognised and valued requires working through the emotional weight that has accumulated along the way.
Celebration, in this context, isn’t just about recognising strengths. It can be something much more individual. It’s about being able to understand yourself, to need less masking, or to feel accepted without having to constantly adapt.
Masking, perfectionism, and fawning are not character flaws or signs of weakness. They’re intelligent, often creative adaptations to environments that weren’t built with neurodivergent people in mind including, at times, the family home. In many ways, these patterns worked. They helped you navigate situations that felt difficult or exposing, even if they came at a cost over time.
Understanding why you adapted the way you did is often where something begins to shift. It can help you see the burden you’ve been carrying more clearly, and help you develop new strategies that are more reflective of the person you really are.
If any of this resonates, counselling can offer a space to explore it. You don’t need a diagnosis to begin, or to arrive with answers. If you feel ready to look a little more closely at what’s been driving the patterns or holding you back, that’s a good place to start.
1 Neurodiversity | Neurodiversity Celebration Week. (2016). Neurodiversity Week. https://www.neurodiversityweek.com/neurodiversity
