neurokin | This will help you to understand how neurodivergent masking is affecting the way you live

and give you guidance to reprogram how you take care of yourself

Dear neurokin,

Throughout October I’ve been focusing on the topic of neurodivergent masking.

I’ve learned a lot that I will be sharing here with you; Understanding the driving force for masking, understanding how your masking traits can show up in camouflaging and compensating and becoming aware of the harm it’s inflicting on your mental and physical wellbeing.

This article includes a guided Coaching session for you to delve deeper into what all of this means for you and how you can be more tuned into your own needs.

I don’t want to be autistic

Sometimes I want a break from autism.

Sometimes I wish I wasn’t different.

I had some heartbreaking realisations over the last couple of months. I was forced to deeply reflect after I got myself into burnout again this Summer.

I hadn’t realised I had been continuing to mask my autism - from myself!

Here’s some things I found myself thinking and saying when I started to explore why I was in burnout, yet again.

I don’t want to have a “thing” that get’s in the way of doing everything I want to do.

I don’t want to be different from everyone else, I want to be able to achieve things like they do”

“Oh…. I don’t want to be autistic”

Of course, I don’t want to change my neurotype. There are many things I love about what neurodivergence gives me.

Covering up and trying your best to hide your neurodivergence or doubling down, pushing yourself to breaking point, to compensate for your neurodivergence, is a huge part of the unravelling that comes when you make a late life neurodivergent discovery.

That unravelling, looking at your life through a neurodivergent lens, can come with huge amounts of shame, grief and at times anger.

• all that energy you’ve had to use up to cover up something that you didn’t even fully understand yourself.

• you had no access to information to understand your neuro type and adapt to living your neurodivergent life, no guidance about what’s required for you take good care of your mind, body and spirit

In a word “ Rejection”

When I invited neurokin women into a conversation about masking on instagram I was so uplifted by the insightful and generous honesty in the conversations that took place. Here’s some of the insight that was shared:

• terrified of being found out

• to avoid people thinking I’m rude/unfriendly/weird/boring

• to avoid being vulnerable or seen as weak

It’s a bitter pill to swallow; the internal dialogue we have and the stories we unconsciously carry play the biggest part in expending huge amounts of energy to show up in the world in ways we think will protect us.

We mask our neurodivergence to protect ourselves and yet it can cause us huge amounts of harm.