Episode 135 (Season 4): Neurodivergent Identity Arc for Later-in-Life Discovery

Summary

Podcast Summary: Divergent Conversations – Episode 135

Title: Neurodivergent Identity Arc for Later-in-Life Discovery
Hosts: Dr. Megan Anna Neff & Patrick Casale
Date: December 5, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode marks the finale of a deeply reflective season where Megan Anna Neff and Patrick Casale explore the neurodivergent identity arc, especially focused on individuals who discover their neurodivergence later in life. Drawing from Dr. Neff’s recent article, they dissect the developmental stages of integrating a neurodivergent identity—particularly for those with lower traditional support needs and who are entering the neurodivergent space, often for the first time claiming a marginalized identity. Expect a raw, nuanced conversation about personal stories, clinical implications, privilege, pitfalls, and the bittersweet contradictions of discovering and integrating neurodivergent identity in adulthood.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

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1. Setting the Stage: The Emotional Weight of Identity Work

• Hosts acknowledge the emotional intensity of recording this series, reflecting on how personal and heavy exploring neurodivergent identity can be.

“As we've reflected on, like, it's felt like a heavier series to record.” – Dr. Neff [02:11]

• Batch-recording fatigue and authenticity: The hosts humorously admit, despite the workload (“crawling to the finish line”), they’re still committed to genuine, vulnerable exploration.

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2. Introducing the Neurodivergent Identity Arc

• Dr. Neff unpacks how models of identity development aren’t new—they exist for queer identity, Black identity, etc.
• Her model is not an academic ‘gold standard’ but is a synthesis of lived experience, community observation, and initial mapping for later-in-life, lower-support-needs (often white) individuals.

“I just kind of want to map this out. So these are just my initial thoughts from patterns I’ve seen from my own experience, from what I’ve noticed as being in community with a lot of newly identified folks.” – Dr. Neff [04:06]

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3. The Four-Phase Arc of Neurodivergent Identity

a. Pre-Encounter: Assimilation, Masking, and Shame

• Common Experiences:
  • Not knowing you're neurodivergent, heavy internalized ableism.
  • Strong drive to conform, minimize support needs; manifests as people-pleasing, overachieving, burnout, and denial of struggles.
  • Overarching emotions: confusion, self-doubt, shame, isolation.
• Risks: Chronic stress, delayed diagnosis, misdiagnosed mental health struggles, exhaustion, identity confusion.

“Does that sound familiar to you?” – Dr. Neff [06:55]
“I mean, this is my life in a nutshell. So thank you for wrapping that up in a nice little bow.” – Patrick [07:02]

• Personal Stories:
  • Patrick describes the exact moment perfectionism and burnout led him to finally seek therapy, not realizing it would connect to an autism diagnosis. [07:33]
  • Dr. Neff’s route was the medical system, desperate for answers to chronic exhaustion.

Quote:

“I’ve yet to meet a late identified person who wasn’t asking some version of that question: ‘What is wrong with me?’” – Dr. Neff [09:52]

• Additional Insights:
  • This is a period where advice from professionals often misses the mark (“try yoga”), compounding the sense of failure and deepening shame.
  • Recognition that some people externalize, experiencing bitterness at the world, while others, like the hosts, internalize the “brokenness” story.

b. Encounter: Disruption and Recognition

• Catalysts:
  • Disruption of old narratives—a book, a diagnosis, or hearing a friend’s story.
  • Relief and disorientation in equal measure.

“This is often, like, we talk about, like, grief relief. Right? The paradox that comes with that. I think that’s a lot of this stage...” – Patrick [18:45]

• Behaviors and Pitfalls:
  • Consuming ND content, recontextualizing life, challenging internalized ableism, seeking community and/or diagnosis.
  • Risk of overwhelming oneself, idealizing the identity as a fix-all.

“I thought this acknowledgment and final, like, understanding that I’ve been seeking for my entire life was gonna alleviate all of the things that I’ve been struggling with, but in reality... just gives us language and understanding.” – Patrick [19:54]

Quote:

“I know what autistic burnout is…doesn’t magically go away.” – Dr. Neff [20:09]

• Emerging Struggles:
  • Sensory overload and burnout can become more pronounced post-diagnosis—partly due to increased self-awareness and a hyper-vigilant mindset.
  • Both hosts discuss the irony of identity discovery seemingly making life harder before it gets better, and the perennial quest for a fix.

c. Immersion: Reclaiming and Pride

• Characteristics:
  • Strong engagement with ND community; sense of pride and belonging.
  • Telling everyone about the diagnosis; seeking out connection and advocacy.
  • Rejection of neurotypical norms—sometimes falling into ‘us vs. them’ (Aspie supremacy, idealization of ND traits).
• Risks:
  • Reverse othering, superpower rhetoric, support needs invisibility, intersectional blindness.
  • Temptation to conflate one’s marginalized experiences, especially among those with other privileged identities.

Quote:

“Many of us don’t necessarily have the context of the disability movement or the conversation that’s happening there. So we can kind of enter in with a lot of gusto and then without intending to cause some hurt and cause some harm to other people.” – Dr. Neff [31:53]

• Honest Admissions:
  • Both hosts fess up to pitfalls: making superpower/kryptonite presentations, using blanket statements, over-identifying with the marginalized aspects of their identity as a way to avoid confronting other privileges.
• Self-Compassion Reminder:
  • Citing Kali, the Black Spectrum Scholar:

“You have to have compassion for wherever you are in the development arc, because shame and guilt, it shuts us down.” – Dr. Neff [33:51]

d. Integration: Rooted and Relational Identity

• Emergence of Nuance:
  • Neurodivergent identity becomes part of a flexible, multifaceted self—not always front and center but significant.
  • More comfort holding paradox (e.g., loving and hating aspects of ND experience).
• Behaviors:
  • Boundary work, self-compassion, relational growth, intersectional advocacy.
  • Collective liberation focus, more grounded engagement with others, including cross-neurotype.
• Risks:
  • Community fatigue, facing ongoing systemic barriers, challenge of sustaining presence amid injustice.

“I think the integration phase, I feel like it's important in the sense that I know for me, my thinking around support needs, my thinking around intersectionality, it's just really deepened the more I've been in the community, the more I've been thinking deeply about these things.” – Dr. Neff [44:05]

• Evolution Over Time:
  • Both note how their own podcasting and content creation reflects movement through the arc—early content less nuanced, more celebratory; recent work marked by deeper complexity and willingness to name ongoing struggle.

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Notable Quotes & Key Moments

• The Cry for Help:

“Why do I never feel like anything’s good enough? Why do I feel like I’m so connected to my productivity? Why am I such a workaholic? How come I never feel proud of myself?” – Patrick [09:36]

• Relief and Grief:

“I can actually now build a life that I want to be a part of because I have the language and I know my needs.” – Dr. Neff [17:54]

• On Social Media & Community:

“There is a lot of content on social media that comes from the immersion phase…for me, it was—I went through a phase of like, I'm gonna scroll and I'm just gonna notice what my body feels like. And what I noticed was that my body did not respond well.” – Dr. Neff [40:34, 41:03]

• Integration and Acceptance:

“I can love this part about my experience. I can have days where I hate being autistic and that, and that’s okay. That doesn’t make me a bad autistic person.” – Dr. Neff [43:00]

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Section Timestamps

| Segment | Timestamp | |------------------------------------------------------|------------| | Series fatigue & emotional weight | 02:11–03:07| | Introducing the ND identity arc/model | 04:06–05:42| | Pre-encounter phase—symptoms & personal stories | 05:42–15:45| | Encounter/discovery—relief, overwhelm, new lens | 15:45–26:25| | Immersion—community, pride, risks/pitfalls | 26:44–39:51| | Integration—nuance, boundaries, intersectionality | 39:59–46:05| | Reflecting on evolution and the podcast | 44:05–46:05|

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Memorable Moments

• Both hosts recount their personal “crisis moments” leading to discovery, offering potent insight into the internalized struggle that precedes diagnosis. [07:33–09:49]
• Candid acknowledgment of the immersion stage pitfalls (“Aspie supremacy,” superpower language) and the need for self-compassion as one learns. [28:53–33:51]
• Reflections on privilege and the psychology of “relief” in discovering a marginalized identity, even when that may be a subtle way of navigating guilt or discomfort with their own privilege. [34:34–38:44]

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Concluding Thoughts

The episode strikes a balance between clinical insight and lived experience, encouraging self-compassion at every stage of identity development, while unapologetically naming both the liberation and the traps along the way. For listeners, it offers a validating, honest, and layered walk through the emotional, psychological, and social complexities of later-in-life neurodivergent discovery.

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[End of Summary]

Transcript

[Dr. Neff]

We'd like to take a moment to talk about Jane, one of our sponsors who helped make this episode possible. Jane is a practice management software built for every kind of mental health practitioner and is thoughtfully designed with your clients in mind. Jane makes it convenient to meet with individuals, couples or families, whether that's online via Jane's telehealth options or in person.

[Patrick Cassell]

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[Dr. Neff]

Just as you are always learning and improving, Jane is too. The team at Jane values customer feedback and uses it to design even more helpful features. So you can think of Jane as a software that grows with you.

[Patrick Cassell]

If you're curious to see Jane in action, head to Jane app mentalhealth Us to book a free one on one demo. You can also mention the code DCPOD at signup for a two month free grace period on your new Jane account. 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.

All right, everyone, welcome back to Divergent Conversations. Today we have our finality, like our final episode to the series that we've been doing. We're going to be talking about the neurodivergent identity arc. Megan Anna has created an article that we're going to be referencing and linking in the show notes and kind of unpacking our own experiences. If you don't know, we've been batch recording for two weeks. We've done like 17 episodes together. So we are, I think we still like each other. We still like each other. But you said crawling to the finish line and that is. That's real. That's real.

[Dr. Neff]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We both have a bit of brain fog and it's been, as we've reflected on, like, it's felt like a heavier series to record. Like, I think I know for me, I feel like I've bumped into things that I'm still in process of processing. So there's also just been a heaviness and the world feels really heavy right now. So, yeah, crawling to the finish line.

[Patrick Cassell]

It really does feel that way. And, you know, I think we got a lot of feedback from y' all about our Burnout City series, about how much people really enjoyed it. And I think what you enjoyed was our, like, metaphors and our examples and our visualizations and our creativity and our jokes and our laughter. And this series has felt very much on the opposite end of the spectrum, but full of a lot of nuance and complexity. I think that's what creates some of the heaviness sometimes.

[Dr. Neff]

Yeah, for sure. For sure. Yeah.

[Patrick Cassell]

Well.

[Dr. Neff]

Well, let's talk about identity. This is actually identity is one of my favorite topics to talk on. So, yeah, I. So first of all, I guess maybe it's helpful to zoom out a little bit. So identity models kind of identity development or identity integration. This is not unique to us at all. In the 1970s, someone named Cass put forward. It was called homosexual identity formation, because that was the language being used right now, or back then, that was the language being used. But so we've got queer identity models, We've got black identity models. We have a lot of. There's different models out there. Cross is the person who in the 90s put forward a black identity model. But it's basically the idea, especially when you live with a marginalized identity, that experience of.

How you integrate that identity throughout the lifespan. And so. And I've had conversations with fellow. Several people in the field of neurodivergence are like, oh, my goodness, we need a model for neurodivergence. And in my head I was like, well, we'd have to do research first and blah, blah, blah. And then I was like, I just kind of want to map this out. So these are just my initial thoughts from patterns I've seen from my own experience, from what I've noticed as being in community with a lot of newly identified folks. But this is not like some gold stamp model. I'm sure at some point we'll have some academic version of something, but these are my noticings.

[Patrick Cassell]

Okay, yeah, that sounds pretty good to me. And that makes a lot of sense. So I guess if you want to walk us through where to start and we'll unpack whatever comes up.

[Dr. Neff]

Yeah, I was thinking we could talk about our own experiences. The other thing I'll say about this model specifically is I was thinking about folks like us who tend to come to know this later in life and also tend to have lower traditional support needs. And I also think this model applies more so to white folks, partly because a lot of people who have entered the neurodivergent space.

Especially if you don't have another marginalized identity. Folks who enter this space and they've already done some identity work, they perhaps come more naturally to this process. But if this is your first marginalized identity you've ever integrated, this might be a process that unfolds more often.

[Patrick Cassell]

Sure, that makes a lot of sense.

[Dr. Neff]

Okay, so the first phase that I outlined is this idea of pre encounter. So that's assimilation, masking, shame. And again, a lot of the other identity models also have some version of pre encounter. So this would be some of the common experiences here would be when we don't yet know that we're neurodivergent. And so there's a lot of internalized ableism that's running the show. There can be a strong drive to conform and to mask our support needs tend to be pretty heavily minimized or misinterpreted by other people. So that could show up as things like overachieving or people pleasing or burnout cycles or denying our struggles would be another common experience and then a lot of shame around our perceived failings. So I would say the emotional tone of this part of the arc, there tends to be a lot of confusion, loneliness, self doubt, shame, isolation. And I would say some of the risks of this stage are things like chronic stress, delayed diagnosis, identity confusion because we don't know what's happening, co occurring mental health conditions, exhaustion, things like that.

[Patrick Cassell]

Right.

[Dr. Neff]

Korean counter assimilation, masking, shame. Does that sound familiar to you?

[Patrick Cassell]

I would say you got it to a T. And I also see that you have perfectionism burnout on here as a risk and identity confusion delayed. Yeah, I mean, this is my life in a nutshell. So thank you for wrapping that up in a nice little bow.

[Dr. Neff]

It's a lovely place to live.

[Patrick Cassell]

I. Yeah, I mean, people pleasing to a T prior, you know, prior to discovery for me, masking exhaustion, although I didn't know that's what it was.

Perfectionism, burnout. That's actually what led me to diagnosis. I remember the exact day and time where I was just like so much in that space of workaholism, perfectionism, burnout, absolutely fucking exhausted and depleted physically and mentally from. From a big event that had just happened. Laying on my bed thinking, like, I'm not doing enough, I need to be doing more. And then literally like verbalizing out loud of like. But you just had this like huge soccer tournament weekend. You're physically exhausted, you're mentally exhausted, you're emotionally depleted, you don't need to do anything. And I was like, I think I need to get back into therapy. And that was kind of my.

[Dr. Neff]

So that was the moment, like, that was the, the moment that got you back into the therapy, which is like the pathway toward discovery.

[Patrick Cassell]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I was just in this burnout space and I just didn't know why I was struggling so much. And I was really grappling with, like, coming to terms with capacity. And I just kept saying to myself, like, you should be able to do more like you should. You're so used to doing more. Like, what is. Why is it not feeling possible? Or why is it feeling so exhausting?

So I'm sorry.

[Dr. Neff]

Well, I was just thinking, so you've had that experience and then you went to therapy? I would say I had that experience in my early 30s. And I try to solve it through the medical route of. And I was going to natural pass. I was going to my primary care doctor. I wasn't getting answers, but. But it was the same question. Why. Why am I so exhausted? Why can't I do more? Why does everything feel like such a heavy lift? And I bet that could be a common to either try to get our answers through the medical system or per. Or through the mental health system.

[Patrick Cassell]

And to be explicitly clear, like, when I was, When I decided, like, I need to find a therapist, it was certainly not to unpack autism. It was like, right, yeah.

[Dr. Neff]

You're like, what's wrong with me?

[Patrick Cassell]

Yeah. I just kept thinking, like, why do I never feel like anything's good enough? Why do I feel like I'm so connected to like my productivity? Why am I such a workaholic?

How come I never feel proud of myself?

[Dr. Neff]

I should add that to this stage of the what's wrong with me era. Like, that would be part of pre encounter because I think, I mean, I've. I've yet to meet a late identified person who wasn't asking some version of that question. What is wrong with me?

[Patrick Cassell]

Yeah, that was the big pervasive theme. What is wrong with me? Felt really broken. I felt really defective in, in those moments. And I, Yeah, I just remember that was the reason I decided to, to pursue finding another therapist at the time and then simultaneously had my friend, like at lunch be like, you should go get tested for autism. And that kind of overlapped and interwove with each other.

[Dr. Neff]

And this is also the stage, I would say, where we can experience a lot of invalidation and confusion through mental health providers and medical providers, which then adds to the confusion of this stage because we're going ask, like, seeking answers what's wrong with me? And the answers we get rarely feel like they're answering that question. And so I think this also is a stage where we can develop a lot of mistrust of traditional systems, but especially medical and mental health systems.

[Patrick Cassell]

This stage for me, when we did our anti or not your typical wellness series, what do we call that again? From like burnt out and worthy, something like that. I don't remember. I messed it up every time. It doesn't matter. But that was a lot of what was happening, right? It was like medical or mental health providers like, oh, have you tried maybe taking a day off of work? Or like, maybe you should try some mindfulness on the porch? Or like, what, try a yoga class or like relaxation techniques. And I was like, no, that. That is not what is happening here. And.

[Dr. Neff]

And that deepens the shame because it's like we're asking what's wrong with me? We're getting advice. It's not solving it. So then it's like, well, what's. Or I also think another reaction, like we're both more internalizers to be like, what's wrong with me? I think another reaction could be anger here of like, where instead of the anger getting turned inward, it actually gets turned outward toward like systems of. And so that could be another expression of the pre encounter phase is like, what's wrong with people? Not what's wrong with me, but like what's wrong with the world? And I don't think we talk about that a lot because that's not necessarily our experience. But that I think could be another way. This could certainly show up would be bitterness. Like maybe the self esteem is a little preserved, but bitterness toward the world is really elevated. And so a lot of distrust toward the world.

[Patrick Cassell]

Yeah, yeah, well said. And again, yeah. Because it's not typically our experiences, we're much more likely to go in words and be like, I'm. There's clearly something off here. For me, it's. It's me.

[Dr. Neff]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, yeah, it's a pretty intense stage, which is why I think so many of us feel so much relief when. When we finally do get to identification. Because, like, there's all that context, which is why it confuses people when they're like, how are you excited that you're autistic? Like, that doesn't make sense because they're not understanding that under that tip of the iceberg has been years, often of confusion and struggle and not having a name for it.

[Patrick Cassell]

And just to piggyback on that years of it. But oftentimes this is like almost room. I mean for me, rumination of like I was thinking about this all day, every day and it consumed me. Like it was. Oftentimes what I was thinking about is like, what the fuck is wrong with me and why is life so hard all the time?

[Dr. Neff]

Yeah, no, very similar to me. And then also always trying to reconfigure my life to make it work and oh my gosh, I tried so many different, like health diets. Like I've literally like listed out and I've been on it like vegan for years. Keto, bulletproof. Like I. Because I was just for me, so much of it was about the fatigue. But beyond that there, there was also the social aspect too of like trying to build a life that worked but not knowing why it wasn't working.

[Patrick Cassell]

Yep. You just feel like it's coming up short constantly. Like and you're rearranging your life and that can really have an impact on partners and friends when they're like, what. You're making these massive like life altering changes and decisions and we're doing it constantly and you're just like, I'm just trying to feel okay. Like, I'm just trying to figure out how to make things a little bit easier for myself. And. Yeah, you're so desperate in the way, you know, like, you're just so desperately hoping.

That something is going to click.

[Dr. Neff]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think part of why the seasons felt so heavy for me. There's a phrase that popped in my head after we recorded a few days ago of like, it's hard living a life that you don't want to be a part of. Like realizing that so much of what I've been doing the last handful of years is like desperately trying to cobble together a life that I want to exist in.

[Patrick Cassell]

Yep.

[Dr. Neff]

And I think that is what often gets missed in this pre. Pre encounter stage is that it can be so common for us to be having an existence that we are confused by and that we don't necessarily want to be a part of. And so then we're desperately trying to like, well, let's move or let's do a career shift or. Cause we're, we're looking for answers for this.

[Patrick Cassell]

Right.

[Dr. Neff]

This deep angst and discomfort that is so hard to articulate. And, and when we do articulate it, it's often like, oh, well, everyone struggles in blah, blah, blah. And it's like not capturing the experience quite 100. Yeah.

Okay, so that's pre encounter I imagine there's a lot of mental health conditions that take root in that era. And it can also look like mental health conditions, understandably that it might not be, but also there would be organic mental health conditions in there as well. And then there's the encounter phage. Oh my gosh. Gosh, Words really crawling to the finish line Friday. Then there is the encounter phase, which, like disruption and recognition. And that's where something disrupts the existing narrative or question. Maybe it is something we've seen on social media, maybe it's a book we've read, maybe it's getting a diagnosis we weren't expecting and. Or maybe it's hearing, like a friend's story. And then through that comes the experience of recognition of like, I recognize myself in this identity. And so that again, given everything we just described, can bring an understandable huge amount of relief for a lot of us, but also quite a bit of disorientation, which I think we unpacked pretty well when we talked about, like the messy wardrobe and all, everything we're unpacking. So I think some of the common experiences here would be this significant shift and beginning to connect the dots again. This would be that wardrobe stage where it's all of a sudden you have this new lens to revisit the past. And so there can be a lot of disruption that happens in that, which again can be relief, but also disorienting, I think. So it can be common. This can be a common time where people begin to consume a lot of neurodivergent content. Maybe it becomes a special interest. Maybe they start listening to our podcast and they start recontextualizing their life through this new lens. They start addressing or questioning internalized ableisms. Maybe they seek out a diagnosis during this phase, maybe they don't. So a lot of the strengths of this phase is things like our self awareness increases because we finally have the right language for it. So there can be a lot of hope and relief in the sense that I can actually now build a life that I want to be a part of because I have the language and I know my needs.

[Patrick Cassell]

Absolutely. Yep.

[Dr. Neff]

I would say some of the risks of this phase are things like a lot of overwhelm because it's so much to process and because it can be destabilizing in our relationships or in our careers or in our sense of self. And I think we can also lean into kind of overly idealized views of a neurodivergent identity in this process.

Because it is so new and exciting. So that's kind of how I am envisioning this liminal space of encounter. Does that resonate? Are there things you'd add to that?

[Patrick Cassell]

I'm just reading what you wrote, and I see that this is a liminal, tender space. The old identity no longer fits, but the new one isn't fully formed. They are between worlds. It's really well said.

And I agree 100%. This is often, like, we talk about, like, grief relief. Right. The paradox that comes with that. I think that's a lot of this stage is the grief, like you're saying, or the relief that you're saying. And sometimes it's grief of unpacking your entire existence and just being, like, laying it all bare soul, exposing.

Reshifting, complete perspective.

I said this in my TED talk, but I said, oftentimes an autism diagnosis is a lot like, it feels a lot like it gets worse before it gets better type of thing, because it is that epiphany, aha moment. But then you are met with.

The immediacy of the burnout, the sensory overwhelm, all of the things that come with it, and you're just like, holy hell. I thought. Thought this. I thought this acknowledgment and final, like, understanding that I've been seeking for my entire life was gonna alleviate all of the things that I've been struggling with, but in reality.

Just gives us language and understanding about all of the things I.

[Dr. Neff]

So I'm glad you said that because I actually think that's one of the. I kind of want to add that too. I think that's one of the risks of this phase, is starting to believe this is gonna solve everything that's hard about my life.

[Patrick Cassell]

Yeah.

[Dr. Neff]

And I definitely fell into that of like, oh, now I know. I know what autistic burnout is. I know what these things are. So now. And it's. Yeah, no, my mental health conditions did not go away. Like, I have more capacity to hold them. I work with them a bit better. But I still struggle with several mental health conditions that I have to manage and that I live with and I hold and I. Those don't magically go away.

[Patrick Cassell]

No, no. And I think that this is one thing that people seem to get confused about sometimes of like, I'm unmasked. I'm learning how to be myself. How come things have become so much harder in a lot of ways. And for me, I can. I can certainly relate to that. I think post discovery phase, the unmasking process has led to feeling, like, significantly more overwhelmed and impacted by things in my day to day. And when we're no longer using those, we're no longer masking and using those accommodations that we may be subconsciously built into our lives or we're pushing ourselves way beyond our capacity. I mean, everything starts to feel like a domino effect.

[Dr. Neff]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Patrick Cassell]

Hey everyone, it's Patrick. One half of Divergent Conversations Some of you may know that I own a group therapy practice in North Carolina, Resilient Mind Counseling. We specialize in supporting the neurodivergent LGBTQIA and black, brown and Asian communities online and across North Carolina. We also have limited in person openings at our offices in Asheville and Cary. We really love working with clients who are coming to terms with with both autism and ADHD discoveries later in life or questioning, as well as the intersections of race, gender identity and orientation. All of our therapists have lived, experience and identify as adhd, autistic or adhd. Our team of affirming therapists offers a safe, anti racist, anti oppressive, inclusive and accessible space where you can show up exactly as you are. No masking, no judgment and no need to make eye contact. Just real connection and healing. We accept most commercial insurances like Blue Cross, Blue Shield, United, Aetna and medcost as well as self pay options. We currently have openings for new clients and you can visit our [e-mail] and if you would prefer, you can either text or call to get started to our HIPAA compliant phone line at 828-515-1246. You can also email us at scheduling resilientmindcounseling.com.

[Dr. Neff]

This is something I often hear from people and people often ask like why is this where people's sensory sensitivities they'll talk about how it becomes worse after like discovery. And so I've noticed that as a really common trend with speaking about things getting harder is that like and, and I think it, it kind of makes sense to me of for one, we might be reconnecting from our bodies and if we've had a really disconnected relationship to it, we're going to feel things more. But I also think, and this took me a while to realize is I started having stressful thoughts about sensory overwhelm and I and that I think was.

Making it more stressful, right? So if I go into a grocery store and now I have language of I'm dissociating, I'm sensory overloaded, those stressful thoughts are now amping up my nervous system as well. So Now I'm also flooded with that cortisol. I'm going to have a more intense experience of that. Those sensory experiences versus before it was like, oh, yeah, I feel like I'm in a dream. This thing that happens to me is happening. And so there was actually something about sensory overload or then I'd be bracing because I'm like, I know I'm going to get sensory overloaded. The lights and the smells and. And all of that mental stuff I was doing was actually making the sensory overwhelm so much more intense. So it was about reconnecting with my body, but it was also about how, like, bracing I was, which activates the fight flight and the narratives I was sharing about that experience to my body, which signals threat response. So I'm going to be experiencing it more intensely.

[Patrick Cassell]

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. You're thinking. It's almost like you're like hyper vigilant and preparing and thinking about it at all times. And it takes up that extra amount of cognitive energy and therefore. And then you're also like on defense mode all the time of like, how do I build in all of the supports under the sun? Acknowledging that I now understand that I am so impacted in all of these ways. It's a lot. But you said it perfectly. And as I was dropping my fidget toy on the ground and looking for it, so apologies.

[Dr. Neff]

Mics that don't work. Fidgets dropping, thoughts dropping.

[Patrick Cassell]

There are magnets too. So I got caught to like, it doesn't matter anyway. But yes, you said that perfectly. And I think that's. That's something that a lot of people kind of struggle with because I think again, they just. And I think myself as well just thought this was going to be the answer. Like I. I was going to get this diagnosis, life was going to get easy breezy life.

[Dr. Neff]

I think we're always looking for the answer. And I don't know why, but I associate this to my ADHD part of like always looking for the fix, the easy fix, like the vitamin that is going to fix me or the diet or the diagnosis. Like, it is so tempting to look for the one thing that is gonna, you know, magically cure my life and make it a more comfortable existence.

[Patrick Cassell]

If any of you find that answer, please let us know. Yeah, you're absolutely right.

[Dr. Neff]

So that will become our sponsor for the podcast forever.

[Patrick Cassell]

If anyone bottle it, we will pay. Whoever that is to sponsor us. We will do that.

[Dr. Neff]

My gosh. So that, yeah, that is the encounter stage. I. Let's see. I feel like I Kind of went through that stage pretty quickly in the sense that, I mean, I went through aspects of it longer, but just because it was such an intense process.

[Patrick Cassell]

Yeah.

[Dr. Neff]

And then, so. And then I think the next stage that often comes for many of us again, this is the one that I think happens more. So for those of us who have more privileged identities, like. Or we fall. I would say we fall into the risks of this stage a little bit more. So that's the immersion stage, which has to do with reclaiming and pride. I feel like I went from immersion to immersion, or I went from sorry, encounter to immersion quite quickly. So this is where that new narrative is starting to take hold. And we're getting a lot of validation from the community, from being able to connect with other neurodivergent folks, realize we're not alone in that. So this is typically what we see here, is a lot of deep engagement with neurodivergent identity. And that could look like pride for many of us. Maybe we're telling everyone we're autistic or adhd, maybe not. But some. Some connection to the community that tends to give us pride. Some of the behaviors we might see here would be things like unmasking, maybe joining our divergent communities or doing advocacy work. And it's also common. Here is where we start seeing more like, rejection of neurotypical norms. And this. I mean, this can be a really powerful phase in the sense that it can be really empowering, which there's a lot of reclaiming that happens through that. There can be a lot of liberation from shame. We can have a sense of belonging, which is huge for us, and just more kind of clarity. But there are some risks to this stage. And this would be things like kind of falling into us, like, us versus them thinking or reverse othering, where we're kind of talking, you know, the big bad neurotypicals, is how I talk about it. And I. I see a lot of this energy in the community, which is. I'm very. For me, I'm very sensitive to this kind of energy. And so I like my. I can only take in so much of that content.

So it's like, we are good. Neurotypicals are bad. This is also where kind of that Aspie supremacy can creep in of, like, if autistic people just ran the world, it would be so much better.

[Patrick Cassell]

Right.

[Dr. Neff]

There can also be some rigidity around.

Engaging in nuance around some of these conversations around neurodiversity. Or we might fall into the superpower rhetoric of, like, idealizing ADHD or idealizing autism. I think another. And a person wouldn't necessarily fall into all these risks. These are just some of them. Another one might be to have kind of a. To fall into a victim mindset that makes us feel really helpless of, like, my life is hard because the world's not built for me. And this sense of like, there's nothing I can really do about it. It's until. Until the world changes, kind of, because it's putting a lot on. On the systems. And then I think in this early phase, there can be what I'm calling support needs invisibility, where I think, because again, for so many of us, we're finally getting language for our. Our needs and we want. There's an understandable desire to kind of front and center that legitimacy, that in doing so, it can be really easy to invalidate those in our community with higher support needs and to say things, again, any of that, like, Aspie supremacy stuff is going. The way that comes off is often not thinking in a nuanced way about those in our community with higher support needs. So that is another one of those risks is not thinking enough about intersectionality, not thinking enough about support needs in some of the statements that we're making.

[Patrick Cassell]

Right. Yeah.

[Dr. Neff]

So I realize I just ended on a lot of the negative, but this. There can be a lot of healing and vibrancy that happens here. And these are some of the common pitfalls. I fell into these pitfalls as well. Like, I'm not saying this as someone who's immune from that.

[Patrick Cassell]

Sure. No, same. I think I've said it on here before, but, I mean, I definitely did a presentation back in the day at a conference about the superpowers and kryptonites of being an neurodivergent entrepreneur. Not something I would do today.

But that was very early on in my discovery phase. And I was just feeling like, so prideful, but also like, I needed to defend my struggle areas and. And highlight all of the strengths in a unique way.

[Dr. Neff]

So, I mean, at least you included the kryptonite. You weren't just like, autistic people or ADHD people are better entrepreneurs.

[Patrick Cassell]

I am way better at talking about all the things that I struggle with and the things that I do well. So that was never hard for me. But it was at first. Initially, I just didn't understand why the usage of language like that was harmful and having to just do a little bit more work around the disability models and just spending more time and doing deeper dives with, like, even for Myself as a. A lower support needs, autistic person, thinking about all of the accommodations I have to build into my day and my week, I'm like, I need to talk about that stuff way more.

[Dr. Neff]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I think that's part of the challenge is like, we enter into a disability space with a lot of excitement and again, understandable. Like, all of a sudden, our life makes sense, we feel validated, but many of us don't necessarily have the context of the disability movement or the conversation that's happening there. So we can kind of enter in with a lot of gusto and then without intending to cause some hurt and cause some harm to other people. Yeah.

[Patrick Cassell]

Yep. And we've talked about on this podcast how when you enter into this space, especially later in life, you're probably going to say things that you're going to step in it and you're going to have to walk it back and do some learning and unlearning. And that is a part of this process.

[Dr. Neff]

Yeah. And this. So this comes from Cali, the black Spectrum scholar on Instagram. And I. I did an interview with them, and one thing they said that I just loved so much. And we're kind of talking. We're talking about both white identities, but. But also autistic identities, is they said you have to have compassion for wherever you are in the development arc because shame and guilt, it shuts us down. So, for example, as a white person, if I get kind of filled up with my white guilt and if I feel shame, I stop showing up and I stop learning. And I love that invitation from them of have compassion for yourself wherever you are in the learning, because there's a reason it's a developmental arc. It actually makes a lot of sense that we go through these stages we have to go through or we don't have to, but it's developmentally makes sense to go through an immersion phase where you are throwing yourself into the community you're connecting with pride. And there's gonna be some things that we don't yet know. And that's nothing to feel shame on. It just means that's where you are in the developmental arc.

[Patrick Cassell]

Absolutely, 100%.

[Dr. Neff]

So some of the steps, the missteps I did in this phase, I definitely felt fell into us versus them thinking. I think. I think there were a few reasons for that. I think I was so excited to feel like I had a community I belonged to and an identity group I belonged to that it was really easy for me to fall into neurotypicals and then neurodivergent. And so I did fall into some of that us versus them and where I definitely made a lot of blanket statements about neurotypicals that are not fair. I think I also.

This is uncomfortable, but I think it's so important to name.

Because there is things like discomfort around my white privilege and my other privileged identities. There was also something where I. I felt relief having a marginalized identity that I could identify with. And I noticed that and I was like, ooh, this would be really easy to kind of bypass my discomfort around my other privileged identities.

[Patrick Cassell]

Right.

[Dr. Neff]

But I. In that there was times in my head that I overly conflated. I don't think I did this publicly, but I know I was doing it in my head. I overly conflated my experience of a marginalized identity with other people's different experiences with marginal identities. So there's also something in this phase for me around power and privilege and having an identity that names something but also like, help me move away from the discomfort of my privilege, that there was a temptation to over identify with that identity so that I could bypass the discomfort of my privilege.

[Patrick Cassell]

Yeah. I imagine for a lot of people that's. That's definitely a common experience, for sure.

[Dr. Neff]

Was there any of that for you?

[Patrick Cassell]

Possibly not that I can like immediately recognize. I have an interesting perspective sometimes being married to a black woman.

[Dr. Neff]

Yeah.

[Patrick Cassell]

By a lot of black women in my life and family members now. And that I always am trying to revisit perspective through multiple lenses because I'm like, I have probably as much privilege as any human on the planet. Right. If people didn't know I was audhd people didn't know I was half Jewish.

That I. I really could be comfortable in most situations. So I've just try really hard to remember that and remind myself of that. And that does not mean I always get it right at all. But I've learned a lot from being married to Ariel in a lot of ways.

[Dr. Neff]

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. I was curious about that for you.

[Patrick Cassell]

I think I'm hyper vigilant about my awareness of how privileged I am. And it can be a frustration of mine sometimes.

[Dr. Neff]

I mean, I think I am too, which is why I think then having one identity that I could point to.

[Patrick Cassell]

Yeah.

[Dr. Neff]

Like, because I'm hyper aware.

There was. There was that temptation to like over identify with.

[Patrick Cassell]

That makes a lot of sense, you know?

[Dr. Neff]

Yeah.

[Patrick Cassell]

Because it's like, this is a real struggle. I want to lean into how much of. How much of a Struggle. This is. And like you said. I'm sorry, go ahead.

[Dr. Neff]

Well, I was going to say partly because also my experience didn't match the privilege. I don't know how to say this, but it's like if. If I looked at. Again, pre. Awareness, if I looked at my life, I knew I had a lot of privilege, but I also. So then I was like, but why am I suffering so much? And then I'd feel guilt about that of like, when I have this much privilege, I shouldn't be suffering, like, especially with my mental health as much.

[Patrick Cassell]

Yeah.

[Dr. Neff]

And so I can relate to that. Then it was like, I think that was part of it was because there was a life experience that felt like it didn't match or. Or like my. My difficulty integrating into groups but not knowing why. So it's like, it also felt like it named something about how I'd experienced privilege that I didn't yet have a name for before. So that was also part of it.

[Patrick Cassell]

I can definitely relate to that absolutely 100%. And it almost feels like an incongruency, like a discrepancy, you know, when you're like, I'm recognizing all my privilege, but why am I struggling so much? And then there's guilt about struggling because you have so much privilege. It's really complex.

So, yeah, I definitely experienced that as well. For sure.

[Dr. Neff]

Yeah. So I would say this stage is very much influenced by our privilege and by our. Our other identities. And then again, if someone's already integrated, either a queer identity or a black or brown identity or another marginalized identity or another disabled identity, then I think this stage would look pretty different than for those of us who are. Have more power and privilege. So the next phase after that, immersion. And I would say, like, also the thing is, some of us will kind of. Some of us will move through and some of us will kind of perhaps stay. And I actually.

I feel like a lot of people maybe get kind of stuck in the immersion phase.

[Patrick Cassell]

Yeah.

[Dr. Neff]

This also might be a time where people have a lot of passion. And so it also might be a time where people have a lot of energy for content creation. So it also could be that this might be a time that. That's really interesting actually, is that a lot of the content that we might be consuming might be coming from creators in the immersion stage. Cause that's when they have energy to be making this kind of content.

[Patrick Cassell]

True, that's very true. I can say that my ability and capacity to make content now versus two, three years ago is very different.

[Dr. Neff]

Yeah. Yeah, and it's. And that's. So that speaks to like, the plus side of this stage is there's a lot of energy, there's a lot of life, there's a lot of vibrancy.

[Patrick Cassell]

Absolutely.

[Dr. Neff]

Yeah. Yeah. I still see, like, you know, different feeds of like, even with everything that's happening now, it's like, well, neurotypicals are kind of designed to get to be like cows that are herded and autistic people are non hierarchical, and this wouldn't happen if it was autistic people. And it's like, okay, that's. That's immersion phase. That's. We're. We're doing some Aspie supremacy there.

So there is a lot of content on social media that comes from the immersion phase.

I think that's partly why I got off. Like, I really don't open the apps anymore. I. I think I'm for, like, mindful social media consumption of. For me, it was. I went through a phase of like, I'm gonna scroll and I'm just gonna notice what my body feels like. And what I noticed was.

That my body did not respond well. And. And so I made decisions based on that.

[Patrick Cassell]

Yeah.

[Dr. Neff]

And in my early days, again, pre, like, encounter and immersion, I absolutely needed social media because there weren't other resources. And so I'm so appreciative for what it provided me when I was in those developmental phases of integrating this identity.

[Patrick Cassell]

100%. Absolutely.

[Dr. Neff]

Okay, so the next, the next phase then would be integration, and that's kind of rooted and relational. Identity is. Is what I have for that. And that's where the identity begins to settle a little bit more. Understandably. I think it's really front and center early on. It needs to be. But here's where perhaps there's less urgency around it. Maybe there's more time to kind of integrate it into our other identities. It's not so, like, kind of front and centered.

[Patrick Cassell]

Yeah.

[Dr. Neff]

And so some of the experiences that can be common here would be a more grounded focus, flexible narrative. So neurodivergent identity perhaps is less. All defining and more integrated, integrated into other parts of us. There's a little bit more space to hold contradiction and paradox, both like you and I. Even in recording our podcast, I feel like we've expanded in our ability to talk about the hard parts of being autistic and ADHD. I bet if you listen to our first 30 episodes, I doubt we were that comfortable getting into the hard stuff. So there's more comfort withholding the nuance of Like, I can love this part about my experience. I can have days where I hate being autistic and that, and that's okay. Like, that doesn't make me a bad autistic person. So the ability to hold nuance. So some of the common behaviors we might see here would be people doing more boundary work, having more self compassion, more relational growth.

More openness to cross neurotype, collaboration, and also more awareness and advocacy that is intersectional in nature, both in regards to thinking about different support needs, but also identities. So kind of more intersectionally grounded. I think some of the strengths of this phase are things like more resilience, more what I would call relational maturity, and being able to hold that nuance. A lot of collective liberation becomes a bit more of the focus versus individual liberation. I think some of the risks around here are some of this, like the systemic barriers obviously still are here. We can start to get some community fatigue and I think just the ongoing challenge of staying present and in it and grounded when we continue to experience and face injustice. So.

I don't think this means everything's resolved by any means, but I think it's like these are some of the things we'd see when the identity has gotten kind of integrated in.

A more nuanced, More nuanced ways. Does that, what do you, what do you think about that phase? Does that resonate with you? Does that, do you see those patterns?

[Patrick Cassell]

Yeah, yeah, for sure. And I agree with you about, like, if we did a timeline.

Glimpse into our podcast and our collaboration and relationship, you would see very different stages on the arc, probably from even when you used to appear on my other podcast till now. I think. Yeah, absolutely, yes.

[Dr. Neff]

I think the integration phase, I feel like it's important in the sense that I know for me, my, my thinking around support needs, my thinking around, like intersectionality, it's just really deepened. The more I've been in the community, the more I've been thinking deeply about these things. And I also know that like, yeah, that's not where I could have jumped in. I, I needed to go through the other phases first.

[Patrick Cassell]

A hundred percent. A hundred percent.

That's why we did the ADHD autistic starter pack series as well, simultaneously with this, and added a lot of nuance and complexity to those conversations. The things that we wish we had known, things that we immediately found out post discovery. Because those conversations need more nuance than just simplistically saying, this is now how we think about things or this is the language we use. There's a lot of complexity to every conversation that we've had over the last two weeks. And we could add even more to probably every single episode that we've done.

[Dr. Neff]

Yeah. And I'm sure there's things that we're missing from our own subjectivity that we'll learn, like, as this airs, and we'll be like, oh, my gosh. Yeah, that's. That's something that was important that we missed or a perspective that I missed. And. And I think that's part of the. Like, we're always learning and growing.

[Patrick Cassell]

Yeah.

[Dr. Neff]

Especially when we're in, like, a community that holds a lot of complexity and a lot of complex, like, a lot of different identities.

[Patrick Cassell]

Absolutely. Absolutely. So let's say we've crawled to the finish line.

[Dr. Neff]

We've crawled to the finish line. We made it.

[Patrick Cassell]

All right, y'. All. Sponsorship time.

[Dr. Neff]

We really are grateful for our sponsors because that was another thing is we actually weren't sure we could continue to financially float the podcast. And then we have had some really fantastic sponsors this year.

[Patrick Cassell]

Yeah. Yep. For this series and the ADHD Autistic Starter Pack series, we've had both Landmark College and the Jane App for healthcare simultaneously sponsoring as. As recurring sponsors. And we really appreciate both of them. You can find Jane App for healthcare for mental health and medical professionals. You can use Code DC Pod for two free months off your EHR needs. And honestly, we just want to continue to work and collaborate with businesses and companies and people that we can stand behind confidently. And we appreciate everyone's support and probably not listening to us anymore as we babble on about this. So we'll see you on Fridays on all the platforms in YouTube and Goodbye.

[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.