Episode 126 (Season 4): Am I Still Me? Post-Diagnosis Identity Spiral

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Divergent Conversations, Episode 126 (Season 4)

"Am I Still Me? Post-Diagnosis Identity Spiral"

Hosts: Dr. Megan Anna Neff & Patrick Casale
Release Date: October 3, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this raw and affirming episode, Dr. Megan Neff and Patrick Casale, both neurodivergent clinicians, explore the profound identity upheaval experienced after an autism or ADHD diagnosis (often in adulthood). They candidly discuss the internal spiraling that can follow—unraveling old assumptions, facing imposter syndrome, grappling with intersectional identities, and negotiating new accommodations and relationships. The pair share their lived experiences, highlight the whirlwind of self-questioning that arises, and reflect on the destabilizing yet eventually stabilizing journey of integrating a neurodivergent identity.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The “Am I Still Me?” Question – Identity Spiral After Diagnosis

[01:47-03:26]

• Dr. Neff introduces the central theme: post-diagnosis identity spiral, summarizing it as: “Am I still me?”
• Patrick relates deeply, sharing that unmasking led him to question everything from friendships to hobbies to core values:

  “You start to question your sense of self completely... When all is said and done, you’re left kind of sorting through almost like an archaeologist: is this me?” (Patrick, 02:21)

2. “Buckets” of Identity Upheaval

[03:01-06:35]

• Dr. Neff describes several “buckets” (categories) in which identity questions arise:
  1. Masking Bucket: Realizing that long-term masking has disconnected individuals from their authentic desires and pleasures.
  2. Diagnosis Bucket: Wondering if naming a trait (e.g., “special interests” as “autistic traits”) reduces its significance as part of one’s personality.

     “If it’s an autistic trait, does that make it less of a personality thing?” (Dr. Neff, 03:26)

  3. Imposter Syndrome: Doubting the validity of one’s diagnosis and feelings of not being “autistic enough” or “ADHD enough.”

     “What if all this time I’ve spent... trying to figure this out... chalks up to ‘nope’, otherwise specified?” (Patrick, 05:05)

3. Intersecting/Queering Identities

[06:46-07:41]

• Embracing a new neurodivergent identity often leads to re-examining other facets of self (race, gender, queerness, etc.).

  “Whenever you start queering any one identity... all other identities often get put on the table.” (Dr. Neff, 06:46)

• Integration of neurodivergence expands into questioning broader social constructs and initiating self-discovery in multiple domains.

4. Accommodations, Vulnerability, and Shame

[07:41-09:25]

• Becoming aware of one’s needs and accommodations can cause shame, especially from previously cultivated hyper-independence.

  “If part of our identity before was maybe being hyper achieving or hyper independent... that identity is threatened.” (Dr. Neff, 08:15)

• The process sometimes triggers ableist responses from others about “needing more” than before.

5. Shifting Relationships, Careers, and External Validation

[09:25-10:49]

• Diagnosis and disclosure often prompt dramatic changes in friendships, partnerships, and professional paths.

  “Friendship/relationship bucket gets created: who do I feel is affirming and understanding, or at least curious enough to learn?” (Patrick, 08:47)

• Careers may shift, as one’s capacity and interests realign.

6. Community Engagement – “Burnout City” & “Monotropic Manor” Art Projects

[10:12-11:11]

• The hosts brainstorm a collective art project about autistic burnout (“Burnout City”) and monotropic focus (“Monotropic Manor”).

  “If anyone’s listening, and you like doing art, send in your pictures of Burnout City or Monotropic Manor...” (Dr. Neff, 10:18)

• Community call: Listeners are invited to submit illustrations via Instagram or email.

7. Overwhelm & Continual Self-Doubt

[11:21-14:53]

• The process feels like “the roof is leaking”—so many “buckets” of challenge, not all in one’s control.

  “All these buckets are piling up, and it almost feels like the roof is leaking and it’s falling into all these different places, appropriately though.” (Patrick, 11:13)

• Constant questioning: “Am I actually autistic/ADHD?” and a drive to “map” every experience to a diagnosis (sometimes to a fault).

  “There can be this urge to try and pinpoint every single experience we have to a diagnosis... sometimes we start losing our humanity.” (Dr. Neff, 12:53)

• The “complex soup”: Co-occurrence of autism/ADHD with trauma, OCD, bipolar, etc. makes mapping even more confusing.

8. Disclosure – Deciding Who to Tell and Managing Vulnerability

[15:39-16:30]

• Disclosure is complicated; fear of being disbelieved or having to “prove” struggles.

  “Do I have to unpack my trauma or the things I feel shame on for you to believe this thing?” (Dr. Neff, 16:08)

• Many choose just one or two “safe people” to initially confide in.

9. Destabilization Before Restabilization

[20:45-23:40]

• Both hosts detail the destabilizing first year after diagnosis, especially while managing other major life events (e.g. Patrick’s major throat surgery/losing his voice; Megan’s long Covid and pandemic parenting).

  “For me, it was more stabilizing, but I’ve definitely seen for some people it really is more destabilizing... coming to this identity.” (Dr. Neff, 20:45)

• Overlapping crises can “overshadow” or convolute the identity process.

10. Why Is It So Heavy? Reflections on Playfulness

[24:35-28:13]

• The duo reflect on why recent episodes feel heavier, less playful than the previous “Burnout City” series.
• Possible explanations: the personal nature of identity work, the heaviness of listener-submitted questions, and the sheer number of episodes recorded in a short time.

11. Vulnerability of Sharing

[28:13-28:31]

• Dr. Neff anticipates feeling greater vulnerability when these identity-focused episodes air, as opposed to previous clinical/educational topics.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Unmasking:

  “Masking separates you from your true sense of self so much... you’re left kind of sorting through almost like an archaeologist.”
  — Patrick Cassell (02:21)

• On Imposter Syndrome:

  “What if I am not autistic/ADHD? What if all this time I’ve spent... trying to figure this out... chalks up to ‘nope’, otherwise specified?”
  — Patrick Cassell (05:05)

• Naming Traits & Identity:

  “If it’s an autistic trait, does that make it less of a personality thing?”
  — Dr. Neff (03:26)

• Diagnosis and Relationships:

  “Who am I placing in this bucket? Who I feel is affirming and understanding or at least curious enough to learn?”
  — Patrick Cassell (08:47)

• On Vulnerability in Disclosure:

  “Do I have to unpack my trauma or the things I feel shame on for you to believe this thing?”
  — Dr. Neff (16:08)

• Destabilizing Process:

  “I was discovering this early in the pandemic...grappling with long Covid, autism, working remote, parenting... overlapped in ways... I almost diagnostically overshadowed, saying everything was the autism...”
  — Dr. Neff (22:23)

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Important Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment/Topic | |-----------|-------------------------------------------------------------| | 01:47 | Introduction of “Am I Still Me?” question | | 02:21 | Unmasking and existential questioning | | 03:01 | Buckets of identity — masking, diagnosis, imposter syndrome | | 06:46 | Intersectional/queering identity | | 07:41 | Accommodations, vulnerability, shame | | 08:47 | Relationship shifts | | 10:12 | Community art project idea | | 11:13 | “Leaking roof” metaphor for identity buckets | | 12:53 | Over-mapping to diagnoses | | 15:39 | Disclosure and vulnerability | | 20:45 | Destabilizing vs. stabilizing integration | | 22:23 | Megan’s pandemic/health context | | 24:35 | Struggling to find playfulness in heavy topics | | 28:13 | Anticipating vulnerability as these episodes air |

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Tone & Language

• Conversational, vulnerable, and affirming
• Candid humor: Acknowledgment of chaos, heaviness, and creative tangents
• Maintains clinical insight while foregrounding lived experience

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Summary Takeaways

This episode thoughtfully maps out the turbulent territory of post-diagnosis self-discovery for neurodivergent adults. Dr. Neff and Patrick Casale dissect the many “buckets” of identity—masking, impostor syndrome, intersectionality, accommodations, relationships—and capture the sense of uncertainty, grief, and eventual re-calibration this path demands. Listeners hear that destabilization is both common and necessary; that neurodivergent identity is complex and multifaceted; and that seeking community, permission to question, and safe spaces are vital steps toward integration.

Listener Invitation:
Share your illustrative visions of “Burnout City” or “Monotropic Manor” via Instagram or email to join in collective reflection and art-making.

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For more resources, visit:
neurodivergentinsights.com/burnoutresources

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Transcript

[Dr. Neff]

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[Dr. Neff]

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[Patrick Cassell]

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[Dr. Neff]

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[Patrick Cassell]

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Hey everyone, you are listening to the Divergent Conversations podcast. We are two neurodivergent mental health professionals in a neurotypical world. I'm Patrick cassell.

[Dr. Neff]

And I'm Dr. Neff.

[Patrick Cassell]

And during these episodes we do talk about sensitive subjects, mental health. And there are some conversations that can certainly feel a bit overwhelming. So we do just want to use that disclosure and disclaimer before jumping in. And thanks for listening.

[Dr. Neff]

Welcome back to Divergent Conversations. So we've been having a. Oh my.

[Patrick Cassell]

Gosh, you got this.

[Dr. Neff]

Social ligaments hard. We've been talking the last few episodes about of the emotional experiences post discovery, post post identification, post diagnosis. And what we want to dive into today is the kind of post diagnosis identity spiral and the question of, and I love this question when I've seen it of like am I still me? And partly because it's. Well, I think there's a lot to unpack in that. But yeah, do you resonate with this question of like, did you have that question of am I still me as part of your.

[Guest or Co-host]

Yeah.

[Patrick Cassell]

As someone who has masked very highly throughout most of his life, I think when you start to unmask, you start to question your sense of self completely in all aspects of like. Because I think masking separates you from your true sense of self so much that like, when all is said and done, you're left kind of sorting through almost like an archaeologist. Like, is this like, am I still me? What do I. We've talked about this. Like, do we still enjoy the Same things, like, do I have hobbies that I like? Do I actually like these friends that I have, like. Yeah, question everything.

[Guest or Co-host]

Yeah.

[Dr. Neff]

Okay. I almost want to have like different buckets because there's so much about identity that gets kicked up. So that would be one bucket would be the masking of, like, if we've been masking, then you know, what we find pleasurable or our desires, like, we've not necessarily thought about those, or we're pretty disconnected. So there's the coming to know, like, more authentic self, but then that doesn't necessarily match the life we've built.

[Patrick Cassell]

Right.

[Dr. Neff]

And so that's a huge bit of identity. I think another bucket, I would add is, well, if there's a name for this, does it? But I've thought it's me. Does it take it away? So, for example, okay, that's an autistic trait. If it's an autistic trait, does that make it less of a personality thing? So, for example, like, with special interests. If it's like so much of my identity was around my relationships to special interests, but now we call that a trait. Right. So is it. I see that happen for people too, where now that we have a name for an experience, it's an autistic trait, it's like, well, does that take away from my identity?

[Guest or Co-host]

Yeah.

[Patrick Cassell]

And I think you even start to ask yourself, do I actually, is this really a special interest of mine? Like, am I really that interested in this thing that has shaped so much of my formative years or my identity? Now I'm looking at it as of like, do I actually like Lord of the Rings? I don't know.

[Guest or Co-host]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Neff]

Like, for, for me, it was like being a really zealous Christian. Right. Not current context. It's like, that was so core to my identity because it's like being a really passionate Christian becomes pretty integral to someone's identity in the evangelical context. But then if it's like, especially. I think this would make more sense if someone was still in that context. If someone is like, oh, I'm this passionate about my religion, or I'm this passionate about, you know, a social justice issue because of my autism, does it take away from the passion? I think becomes the question for some people.

[Patrick Cassell]

Absolutely. One thing I see people experience too. This isn't exactly in the identity space or post discovery, but you've just maybe went through the evaluation testing process, you start to have massive imposter syndrome. What if I am not autistic? Adhd? What if all of this time that I'VE spent during my entire existence trying to figure this out. Chalks up to nope, otherwise specified, or some other mental health experience that they're going to explain to me.

[Dr. Neff]

Yeah. So the, like, maybe we call that the diagnostic bucket. The like. And also with that, the am I autistic enough or am I ADHD enough or am I taken away from someone else by putting on this identity so that becomes part of it as well.

[Patrick Cassell]

Imposter syndrome. Ish. You know, it's like, I don't want to take up too much space. I don't want to say the wrong thing. I don't want to, like, take away from other people who are struggling. Like, maybe I'm not autistic enough. All the things that start coming.

[Guest or Co-host]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Neff]

So, like, yeah, do. Do I really kind of have the right to take on this identity? Which I think makes. Whenever we're integrating a new identity, I think it makes so much sense that we would have a lot of that imposter syndrome around that. Of what does it mean to take this identity on, to integrate it?

[Guest or Co-host]

Yeah.

[Dr. Neff]

What will people think?

[Patrick Cassell]

Yep, all of that comes to mind. Other buckets that start to. That start to exist post discovery.

[Dr. Neff]

I would say, like, maybe we could call it the intersectional bucket. And we've kind of alluded to this in the wardrobe episodes. But it's just the idea that I think whenever you start queering any one identity, like, and so and I would say putting on an autism or ADHD identity and integrating that, that's kind of an act of queering.

[Patrick Cassell]

Right.

[Dr. Neff]

That all other identities often get put on the table. So the identity bucket, in the sense of other identities might get explored in new ways. And so. Or maybe we call it the queering bucket of just. You start exploring different idea. Ideas from. It's almost like once you get free of the social constructs of, like, this is what society expects me to be. And like, you start asking, who the hell am I? Actually, if you. Once you start doing that in one part of your life, then you start doing it in all of them. So, yeah, the queering bucket.

[Patrick Cassell]

I would say queering bucket for sure. I would say there becomes like almost a accommodations bucket because you become so much more aware of the accommodations that you need in your life. So you're like, sometimes shameful. Shamefully asking for things that bring up vulnerability or they. It might have a certain reaction from a family member or a friend or a loved one who's like, well, you never needed this before.

[Dr. Neff]

Yeah, so like, accommodations, vulnerability, like getting more in touch with our. Our needs.

[Guest or Co-host]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Neff]

That's a huge one. Especially if part of our identity before that was maybe being like, hyper achieving or hyper independent.

[Guest or Co-host]

Yep.

[Dr. Neff]

That gets that bucket is hard because it directly threatens perhaps something that was. We were using to feel secure in our identity. And it kind of undermines that. Like, if that was the way we were coping is by overcompensating, then that would feel like a threat to our. The way we were identifying.

[Patrick Cassell]

Absolutely. And I think that it brings up some. Some ableism too, from potential people in your life who are like, you've done A, B and C, and now all of a sudden you can't go out in public. You can't socialize in a certain way. You need. You need, you know, A, B, and C in order to be comfortable at my house. I mean, it starts to really create these dynamics if people are not receptive, where the friendship slash, relationship bucket gets created, where you're like, who am I placing in this bucket? Who I feel like is affirming and understanding or at least curious enough to learn.

[Guest or Co-host]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Dr. Neff]

That was exactly where my brain was already going. Because it's. Of course, my brain has a visual of these buckets with labels. And I was like, oh, the next one is the relationship bucket. Because relationships shift often post discovery. And when we start talking about it, some people shed away. New people enter our lives, and our relationships have a big impact on our identity. I guess also career. Many of us might shift careers as part of this process. And career is a huge part of our identity. Damn. Like, this is a huge process to go through.

[Patrick Cassell]

Workbook slash set of graphics coming from Megan Anna. At some point, even though I was told to hold you accountable to know more of those.

[Dr. Neff]

That would be a. It would. Because it'd be such a good visual workbook. Is the thing.

[Patrick Cassell]

Such a good visual workbook for the autistic burnout city, too. Like, God, we had so many good pours in that. That series.

[Dr. Neff]

Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. That would be a cool collective. Like, if people who listen to the podcast wanted to draw pictures and a cool, like, collective experience to make like, an autistic burnout city illustration guide and then a monotropic manner and people could submit. And then it's like, wait, that'd actually be really cool. And it's just an illustration of the two books. Yeah. So if anyone's listening and you like, like doing art and you want to send in your pictures of. Yeah, that'd be a. That'd be really cool.

[Patrick Cassell]

I would actually be. This is an amazing idea and divergent thought process right now. But if you all want to send us any sort of pictures or illustrations or creations of Burnout City and Monotropic Manor, can send them to our Instagram messages, or you can email them to our Divergent Conversations podcast, Gmail. So that will be awesome. I'm looking forward to seeing those.

[Dr. Neff]

Yeah, that'd be really cool.

[Patrick Cassell]

So all these buckets are piling up, and it almost feels like the roof is leaking and it's falling into all these different places. Appropriately, though.

[Dr. Neff]

So at the same time, while the roof is leaking, you're asking, but am I actually autistic or am I actually adhd? So you're having these buckets, but you're also like, but. But am I.

[Patrick Cassell]

And I need more proof.

[Guest or Co-host]

Yeah, Yeah.

[Patrick Cassell]

I think that's a very real part of this journey in discovery. Because for so many of us, right, like, if it happens later in life that you're starting to unpack this, you might have gone several decades, you know, upwards of five, six, seven, eight decades of. Of not knowing this, or maybe it was gnawing at the back of your mind, but you really didn't have the language for it yet. So there's just so much to unpack. And I think it makes a lot of sense to constantly be questioning, like, but am I really. Am I missing something? Is it something else that could be described or explained for this experience?

[Dr. Neff]

Well, that gets tricky, right, because there often is other things in the mix. Like, it's so rare to meet someone who's autistic and nothing else, or ADHD and nothing else. And then I would imagine if you're combining autism and adhd, it would make it even more rare for there to be nothing else in the mix, be it complex trauma, ocd, bipolar, A personality disorder.

[Patrick Cassell]

Like, right.

[Dr. Neff]

These are. So there probably is something else in the mix. And then there can be this kind of urge to, like, try and pinpoint every single experience we have to, like, almost map it to a diagnosis.

[Guest or Co-host]

Yep.

[Dr. Neff]

And on one hand, I see how that can be helpful. On another hand, sometimes I think that can get too, like, reductive, reductivistic with it, where we kind of start losing our humanity or our, like, you know, maybe this is just the complexity of my experience, and it doesn't neatly map on to some diagnostic or identity label, and maybe that's okay. But I do find this almost like, frantic urge at times, probably. And this is probably a lot of the autism of, like, well, Is this experience an attachment experience? Or is it rsd, or is it complex trauma? And it's like. Well, it's all of those things. Like, it's part of the complex soup.

[Guest or Co-host]

Yep.

[Patrick Cassell]

The complex soup, yes. Yeah, I think that's a great point. And really common to try to pinpoint, and then really common to be overwhelmed by the inability to pinpoint because it becomes so complicated and so overwhelmed. And then maybe you go and look at Dr. Neff's misdiagnosis Monday graphics. And you're like, ah, a little bit of peace and reassurance. But the overlaps are challenging and complicated and very nuanced.

[Dr. Neff]

Well, and because they're not just like overlaps, but they kind of. We've talked about it on a recent episode. The idea that anxiety or OCD will, like, breed on, you know, autistic or adhd core woundings. It's. It's not just like they have a compounding experience. Right. So when you have OCD on top of being adhd, that is a different experience than just ocd. It's not like this plus this, plus this. It's. What is the phrase the whole is greater than the sums of the parts. Like the way they stack and then influence each other. Or like in a recent episode, you were kind of like, well, was it adhd? Was it addiction? Was it. It's like, well, those things are interacting in a way that it'd be probably impossible to pinpoint. It's one thing because it's how they compound.

[Guest or Co-host]

Yep.

[Patrick Cassell]

Yeah. And exacerbate or intensify or reduce, even. So complicated, to say the least. And I think you can get caught up in a lot of that thought. Post discovery. Immediately post discovery. You almost like, okay, here's this answer. Here's this, like, aha moment. Now I'm going to unpack every single portion of my life, and I'm going to do it through this lens. But if it doesn't add up the way I need it to, you start to almost question every single thing of, like, is that really real? Is this. Does. Does this land for me? And then I think another bucket post discovery is the disclosure bucket of when do I feel confident enough to actually publicly share this with other people.

[Guest or Co-host]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Dr. Neff]

Yes. And that can get complicated because depending how that disclosure goes, we can then get pulled into feeling like we have to justify, like, our autism or our adhd, which that can also look like kind of, you know, one idea we talk about on here is like, what does autism or ADHD look like behind closed Doors. And it's. Sometimes it's like I'm pulling out my dirty laundry to. I meant that figuratively, but I guess that could also be meant literally to like, try and show you how much I struggle to prove my autism or my adhd. So that can be a really awkward dynamic and also leave us feeling really raw and vulnerable of like, do I have to kind of unpack my trauma or the things I feel shame on for you to believe this thing I'm disclosing to you.

[Patrick Cassell]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Guest or Co-host]

Yep.

[Patrick Cassell]

So that gets really complicated as well. So I think there's a lot of. A lot of overwhelm that happens immediately afterwards. And I think you want to have one or two safe people in your life who you can process some of this stuff with because you've talked about it. I've talked about it at length. But sometimes this is not received the way you want it to be.

[Guest or Co-host]

Yeah.

[Dr. Neff]

And when there's.

[Guest or Co-host]

Oh.

[Dr. Neff]

I was just gonna to go with your metaphor of all these buckets. The roof is dripping with water. And then when we're just letting someone into that and it's like, it's. It's kind of a half constructed building that we're letting them in on. And so the feedback they give us is going to be really kind of vulnerable. So when we're already in that mess and then we invite feedback in that, that can be really destabilizing because we haven't yet sorted it for ourselves. There's so much we're unpacking.

[Patrick Cassell]

Right, right.

[Guest or Co-host]

Yep.

[Patrick Cassell]

I like that.

[Dr. Neff]

Okay, but what.

[Patrick Cassell]

Oh, no, go ahead.

[Dr. Neff]

I was just gonna ask, what's the rain in this metaphor with the. What's the rain from the ceiling? What is that?

[Patrick Cassell]

Oh, man, I don't know. I don't want to go like too extreme. It's certainly not like acid rain esque. It's not like burning you.

[Dr. Neff]

I was just curious why your mind, why your brain added that to the buckets of like, like water dripping from a roof that is leaking.

[Patrick Cassell]

I just, I get the, the metaphor, I get the image of like patching the roof. Of like patching. Each place that's leaking is a place of like, maybe you are intentionally spending time with it, deconstructing it, solidifying the foundation of it. But at first it's like patchwork because you are trying to do so many different things simultaneously that you are missing a lot of it. Often where you're like overlooking certain aspects or you get really firmly entrenched in one area and let the other stuff go And I think it's hard when you're trying to kind of do it all at the same time. And I think a lot of our mentality and brain is. Are often like, I need to do it all at once. Like, it's, it feels chaotic.

[Dr. Neff]

So it's kind of the whack a mole idea that you brought into like. Yeah, we have these buckets of identity we don't always have control over when, like, questions pop up around them.

[Guest or Co-host]

Yep.

[Dr. Neff]

That's the leaky roof that you're like, patching. I like that metaphor because yeah, it is, it is a lot to be tracking if our relationships are shifting, if our career shifting, if we're queering identities. And it can, it can feel really whack a mole and out of control. And it's. Again, it's not an autistic friendly process. It is a. My life has been deeply destabilized and I'm trying to patchwork it back together, but there's not a linear process for this.

[Guest or Co-host]

Yeah, exactly.

Okay.

[Patrick Cassell]

That's kind of where my brain goes. And I think it gets, you know, gets easier over time at least to, to solidify each of those buckets and like, not have it feel so whack a mole esque. But at first I do think it feels very much like chaos in a lot of ways.

[Guest or Co-host]

Yeah.

[Dr. Neff]

So I don't, I don't do much research anymore these days, but this is something if I magically had like extra hours I could pull out of my pocket. I'd actually really love to do a qualitative study, like looking at the identity experience post. Post discovery for, for adults. Because I think it is such a complex process for all the reasons we've just named.

[Patrick Cassell]

Sure.

[Dr. Neff]

And I'm sure there would be themes that emerged and it'd be, it'd be, It'd just be so interesting to like, do a proper research study on that.

[Guest or Co-host]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Patrick Cassell]

I mean, I think it's fascinating to see all the different things that come up for people and their own experiences after post discovery with. With something that feels really significant.

[Guest or Co-host]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Dr. Neff]

And I think it's like ultimately for me it was more stabilizing, but I've definitely seen for some people it really is more destabilizing than stabilizing coming to this identity or. It just, it takes a lot of destabilization to get to something that feels more stabilizing.

[Guest or Co-host]

Yeah.

[Dr. Neff]

For you, how destabilizing was the process? Like, in the first year, it was.

[Patrick Cassell]

Very destabilizing and you know, unfortunately, that process coexisted with my. My second, like, major throat surgery and losing my voice. So it was really. What symbolism? Yeah, yeah, it was. It was a rough couple of years of, like, losing and reshifting and reframing identity in multitudes of ways. So it was not just coming to terms with an Audi HD identity, it was also losing my voice simultaneously. And that was a really weird psychological and emotional place to be of trying to make sense of this and communicate some of this stuff out into the world and only being able to speak for X amount of hours per day because my vocal cords wouldn't allow for it. Coming to terms of, like, chronic, rare medical conditions simultaneously. It was. Was not a pleasant couple of years.

[Dr. Neff]

Yeah, yeah, we were recording during that.

[Patrick Cassell]

Yeah, shortly thereafter. Yeah, we were recording in that. And yeah, it's. It's been a. It's been a journey, for sure.

[Dr. Neff]

I mean, that. That gets back to, like. It's not neat and tidy for interest. Like, for me, too, it was a similar experience in the sense of I was discovering this early in the pandemic, and then I also had. So the first time I had Covid, I had pretty significant symptoms for the first, like, nine months. And then so grappling with, like, long Covid pieces, autism working remote for the first time, parenting in a pandemic context, and all of these overlapped in ways. So, like, then, you know, for years, I rarely left my house. And it's like, I think I almost diagnostically overshadowed where because of the fatigue and the brain fog and the fear of contracting Covid, I just made my life really small, which. And I kept being like, well, that's the autism. I'm accommodating my autism. But actually it was a bit more complex because there was also discovery of the health piece. My life also had shifted significantly because of the pandemic. So, yeah, similar for you. It's like it was this really layered experience and I almost overshadowed by saying everything was the autism, when actually looking back, it's like, that was the long Covid, or that was like, there are other pieces at play.

[Guest or Co-host]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Patrick Cassell]

I think it's gotta be really rare for someone to probably have, like, go through this process and then like, just be unpacking one. One of these buckets or boxes, so to speak. Like, there's. There's multitudes of things going on simultaneously, unfortunately, and often it's chronic health or.

[Dr. Neff]

Whatever else, because usually that's what makes the autism apparent is either a burnout or because there's been a health condition. So now the autism becomes more apparent. Yeah, absolutely. Or a child's. A child that's been diagnosed. So you're also wrapping your mind around parenting an autistic kid or an ADHD kid? Well, also your identity. So, yeah, usually there is. Because of. There's something that caused the awareness. So usually there's another big thing in the mix.

[Guest or Co-host]

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

[Dr. Neff]

The identity spiral light.

[Patrick Cassell]

Note that you wanted to end.

[Dr. Neff]

No, we are failing. We are failing at finding our lightness in our play.

[Patrick Cassell]

That's okay. I think, you know, we need both sides of the coin. So.

[Guest or Co-host]

Yeah.

[Dr. Neff]

Why do you think let's actually. So we've been record. I don't know how many episodes we've recorded, but we've recorded, I don't know, seven. Why do you think it's harder to find our playfulness in the series we're recording? Do you think it's the content? Do you think it's where we're at?

[Patrick Cassell]

Well, when we. When we did the Burnout City series, I was in pretty bad burnout, and I still am.

[Dr. Neff]

Yeah, I was. I was too.

[Patrick Cassell]

I was actually really depressed laughing at it.

[Dr. Neff]

Do we record best when we're depressed?

[Patrick Cassell]

Probably, yeah. I mean, that doesn't make sense. I mean, I feel often more like, creative when I'm depressed. I don't know. But I think, and this is just a hypothesis is because we are not structuring it. We were just kind of like jumping all over the place. So maybe it's just harder for us to feel as anchored into a concept because it's like. Because burnout. It was like eight episodes of burnout. Right. So, like, the themes change, but the common construct was the same. That was probably somewhat helpful in a way.

[Guest or Co-host]

Yeah.

[Dr. Neff]

Which is interesting. That's how I often talk about my ADHD and autism play best together. When there's a really solid frame container and then my ADHD kind of knows the parameters from which it can play. And so, yeah, we had that in that series, which. The series. We have more of an ADHD container of like. Let's tackle this topic or this question.

[Guest or Co-host]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Patrick Cassell]

And actually doing the math, this is now episode 10 that we've recorded in a week. I think there's that, too. I mean, I know we batched Burnout, but I think we did eight episodes over two weeks. Right.

[Guest or Co-host]

Yeah.

[Dr. Neff]

Yeah.

[Patrick Cassell]

So now here we are, Monday to Monday. This is the finality of 10. And with four more days of recording set up, trying to get to, like, 18 to 20.

[Dr. Neff]

It's a lot.

[Guest or Co-host]

Yeah.

[Dr. Neff]

So I, I do feel like we're talking about heavier topics and not like it's interesting. We. Because we are coming in with like a question that someone asked because we've. We like, asked listeners, you know, if you're just entering the ADHD or autism conversation, what are topics? And I don't think we necessarily expected that, but I feel like in a lot of these episodes, we start talking and then we kind of bump into things that feel emotionally complex or heavy. And so I also think maybe it's a reflection of, like, it. A reflection of the heaviness that is.

[Guest or Co-host]

Yeah.

[Dr. Neff]

Graft into this experience of discovering your autistic or ADHD later in life or at any point in your life.

[Patrick Cassell]

I agree. Yeah, I think it's. That's probably exactly it. And like with burnout, right. It's a. It's a concept. It sucks. I'm not minimizing how bad autistic burnout sucks, but it's also like one thing, Right. It's like this immovable object in a way that we're thinking about. What we're talking about now is a lot of identity focused stuff opposed to like, hey, we're in burnout. It sucks. Like, I don't know what to tell you. It's inevitable for the most part. Yeah. It feels a bit more personal in this. In this regard, I would say. So it's probably just heavier in that way too.

[Guest or Co-host]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Neff]

I know I'm going to feel a lot more vulnerability when these start airing than past stuff that we've recorded.

[Guest or Co-host]

Yeah.

[Patrick Cassell]

I just want to share a little bit with you. So, you know, we'll create that buffer minus the nook for yourself, but yeah, I think. Yeah, I think that's probably it.

[Dr. Neff]

Yeah.

[Patrick Cassell]

Life is weird right now, too.

[Dr. Neff]

I mean, life is weird right now.

[Patrick Cassell]

So. All right, well, we're gonna wrap up, I suppose, new episodes on Fridays and on platforms and YouTube, so. Goodby Foreign.

[Dr. Neff]

Hey, it's Dr. Neff here. This season we are clearly talking about autistic burnout, a topic that neurodivergent Insights has covered extensively. So if you would like more resources to supplement your learning, we've put together a page where we've curated all of our autistic burnout resources freed and paid resources. We have lots of articles on autistic burnout. We have a upcoming free email course. It's going to be released soon. We have workbooks on autistic burnout. So if you'd like to check out our resources again, both free and paid, you can go to neurodivergentinsights.com burnout resources. It's linked below and in the show notes. I hope you don't need these resources, but if you do, they are there for you.