Realizing I Was Neurodivergent
When Masking Starts to Fall Away
The Nervous System Cost of Performing “Normal”
I grieved the return to normalcy after the COVID quarantine. The breakneck pace of capitalism. The demands to make money, to constantly engage with people in ways that I found challenging, in order to make ends meet. In order to get my basic needs met. In order to function in society.
I started a DEI non-profit (my second endeavor at launching a 501(c)(3) in the last decade), both of which eventually fizzled due to burnout. In the reckoning of my nervous system and revolt of capitalism, I pivoted my career to becoming a somatic therapist with Viasomatic. I enrolled in social work school, mostly because I caught myself doing social work as a trans activist anyway, when given the option to do nothing, as I couldn’t work as a massage therapist during quarantine.Essentially, I began to honor the ways in which I naturally oriented towards the world through my passions and joy and recalibrated my inner compass.
The more I aligned my lifestyle to my nervous system’s capacity, the more energy I had to pursue the things that brought me joy. And the less I had to mask.
This is a privilege that I fully recognize. Not only am I masculine-presenting, I’m white bodied. Masking in this body is more optional and safer than if I was female presenting and/or not white.
I started a DEI non-profit (my second endeavor at launching a 501(c)(3) in the last decade), both of which eventually fizzled due to burnout. In the reckoning of my nervous system and revolt of capitalism, I pivoted my career to becoming a somatic therapist with Viasomatic. I enrolled in social work school, mostly because I caught myself doing social work as a trans activist anyway, when given the option to do nothing, as I couldn’t work as a massage therapist during quarantine.Essentially, I began to honor the ways in which I naturally oriented towards the world through my passions and joy and recalibrated my inner compass.
The more I aligned my lifestyle to my nervous system’s capacity, the more energy I had to pursue the things that brought me joy. And the less I had to mask.
This is a privilege that I fully recognize. Not only am I masculine-presenting, I’m white bodied. Masking in this body is more optional and safer than if I was female presenting and/or not white.
Losing the Ability to Mask
Masking is so convoluted. As the years passed after I realized exactly how neurodivergent I was, I started to lose my ability to mask, much to my chagrin.
I found that I had a much lower threshold for parties and crowds, along with aligning with my nervous system’s needs. I usually had 90 minutes maximum in me, before I had to go home to decompress. It didn’t matter how much I loved the people I was with.
Increasingly, I chose not to talk to people in social settings unless I felt like it, releasing the pressure I’d had on myself to perform.
Recently, at another partner’s birthday party, I was so tired and unmasked, I found myself non-consensually info-dumping about trauma to a metamour, after they told me about their draining experiences with EMDR in therapy.
"I think going back and re-excavating traumatic memories in therapy is counterintuitive at best, and deeply re-traumatizing at worst," I said, and then began to cite my sources.When I stopped talking, they blinked at me silently and walked away without a word.
These instances had become so commonplace for me at parties and mixed gatherings that I couldn’t muster an ounce of shame or self-recrimination anymore.
I’d just missed the social cues and should have defaulted to sympathetic witnessing:
"That sounds so hard. It sounds like you’re getting something out of it, though."
The sentence marched through my mind in my voice, gently reminding me of the masking that I’d forgotten as I sat on the couch, clutching my can of sparkling water.
Even though neurodivergence is now the topic du jour these days, it’s startling to me how much misinformation, stigma, and stereotypes abound, to the point that many neurodivergent folks can’t recognize themselves.
What’s worse is that many neurodivergent folks who are late diagnosed (or undiagnosed, but strongly suspect they are neurodivergent) don’t understand that their nervous systems have drastically different needs and capacities than what neurotypical society offers.
I found that I had a much lower threshold for parties and crowds, along with aligning with my nervous system’s needs. I usually had 90 minutes maximum in me, before I had to go home to decompress. It didn’t matter how much I loved the people I was with.
Increasingly, I chose not to talk to people in social settings unless I felt like it, releasing the pressure I’d had on myself to perform.
Recently, at another partner’s birthday party, I was so tired and unmasked, I found myself non-consensually info-dumping about trauma to a metamour, after they told me about their draining experiences with EMDR in therapy.
"I think going back and re-excavating traumatic memories in therapy is counterintuitive at best, and deeply re-traumatizing at worst," I said, and then began to cite my sources.When I stopped talking, they blinked at me silently and walked away without a word.
These instances had become so commonplace for me at parties and mixed gatherings that I couldn’t muster an ounce of shame or self-recrimination anymore.
I’d just missed the social cues and should have defaulted to sympathetic witnessing:
"That sounds so hard. It sounds like you’re getting something out of it, though."
The sentence marched through my mind in my voice, gently reminding me of the masking that I’d forgotten as I sat on the couch, clutching my can of sparkling water.
Even though neurodivergence is now the topic du jour these days, it’s startling to me how much misinformation, stigma, and stereotypes abound, to the point that many neurodivergent folks can’t recognize themselves.
What’s worse is that many neurodivergent folks who are late diagnosed (or undiagnosed, but strongly suspect they are neurodivergent) don’t understand that their nervous systems have drastically different needs and capacities than what neurotypical society offers.
Neurodivergence Is a Nervous System Experience
The thing that I wish more people understood is that neurodivergence is not simply a collection of cognitive quirks or behavioral traits. It is a full-body experience. A nervous system experience.
ADHD, Autism, and Trauma Are Not the Same Thing
And while there is overlap between Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Autism Spectrum Disorder( ASD), and Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD), they are not interchangeable experiences, even if many of us carry more than one of them.
ADHD often presents as a nervous system that struggles with regulation around attention, motivation, impulse control, and dopamine allocation. The mainstream narrative frames ADHD as an inability to focus, but many ADHD folks can focus intensely when interest, novelty, urgency, or emotional engagement are present. The issue is not attention itself, but regulation of attention.
ADHD nervous systems often require movement, novelty, stimulation, variation, body doubling, urgency, external structure, play, and interest-based engagement in order to function sustainably. Monotony, rigid scheduling without flexibility, and shame-based productivity models often lead to burnout, anxiety, and nervous system collapse. Russell Barkley’s work on executive functioning and ADHD has been particularly illuminating here. [1]
Autistic nervous systems, meanwhile, often process sensory, emotional, and social information differently and more intensely. Many autistic people experience heightened sensory sensitivity, deep pattern recognition, strong attachment to routines and predictability, bottom-up processing, and social fatigue from prolonged masking. Autistic burnout is real. It is not simply “stress.” It is a profound nervous system depletion caused by chronic overwhelm, masking, sensory overload, and living outside one’s actual capacity for too long. Autistic shutdowns and meltdowns are deeply rattling nervous system events that occur when autistic individuals blow past their capacity, and can further the stigma and shame of ASD. Nervous system work is thus far one of the most effective interventions to prevent and lessen the occurrences of these. [2]
Then there’s C-PTSD, which can look deceptively similar on the outside. Hypervigilance. Emotional flooding. Dissociation. Rigidity. Shutdown. Sensory sensitivity. Difficulty with relationships. Trouble identifying needs. Chronic exhaustion. The difference is that C-PTSD emerges from prolonged trauma, especially relational trauma, where the nervous system learned that safety was unpredictable or nonexistent. [3]
ADHD often presents as a nervous system that struggles with regulation around attention, motivation, impulse control, and dopamine allocation. The mainstream narrative frames ADHD as an inability to focus, but many ADHD folks can focus intensely when interest, novelty, urgency, or emotional engagement are present. The issue is not attention itself, but regulation of attention.
ADHD nervous systems often require movement, novelty, stimulation, variation, body doubling, urgency, external structure, play, and interest-based engagement in order to function sustainably. Monotony, rigid scheduling without flexibility, and shame-based productivity models often lead to burnout, anxiety, and nervous system collapse. Russell Barkley’s work on executive functioning and ADHD has been particularly illuminating here. [1]
Autistic nervous systems, meanwhile, often process sensory, emotional, and social information differently and more intensely. Many autistic people experience heightened sensory sensitivity, deep pattern recognition, strong attachment to routines and predictability, bottom-up processing, and social fatigue from prolonged masking. Autistic burnout is real. It is not simply “stress.” It is a profound nervous system depletion caused by chronic overwhelm, masking, sensory overload, and living outside one’s actual capacity for too long. Autistic shutdowns and meltdowns are deeply rattling nervous system events that occur when autistic individuals blow past their capacity, and can further the stigma and shame of ASD. Nervous system work is thus far one of the most effective interventions to prevent and lessen the occurrences of these. [2]
Then there’s C-PTSD, which can look deceptively similar on the outside. Hypervigilance. Emotional flooding. Dissociation. Rigidity. Shutdown. Sensory sensitivity. Difficulty with relationships. Trouble identifying needs. Chronic exhaustion. The difference is that C-PTSD emerges from prolonged trauma, especially relational trauma, where the nervous system learned that safety was unpredictable or nonexistent. [3]
When Trauma and Neurodivergence Stack Together
For many of us, these experiences stack on top of one another.
An autistic nervous system adapting to chronic trauma does not look the same as neurotypical trauma adaptation. ADHD with attachment trauma has its own unique flavor of chaos, grief, and nervous system exhaustion. A traumatized neurodivergent person may spend decades believing they are fundamentally broken, lazy, too sensitive, too intense, too disorganized, too rigid, too needy, too much.
When in reality, their nervous system has simply never been properly understood or supported.
An autistic nervous system adapting to chronic trauma does not look the same as neurotypical trauma adaptation. ADHD with attachment trauma has its own unique flavor of chaos, grief, and nervous system exhaustion. A traumatized neurodivergent person may spend decades believing they are fundamentally broken, lazy, too sensitive, too intense, too disorganized, too rigid, too needy, too much.
When in reality, their nervous system has simply never been properly understood or supported.
Nervous System Work Is An Act of Self-Recognition
This is why nervous system work matters.
Not as a way to “fix” yourself into neurotypicality.
But as an act of self-recognition.
As a way to understand:
Not as a way to “fix” yourself into neurotypicality.
But as an act of self-recognition.
As a way to understand:
For me, this has looked like:
It is an ecosystem to understand.
You Are Not Failing at Being Human
At Viasomatic, this is the lens I bring into my work with clients, especially neurodivergent, queer, trans, and trauma-impacted folks who are exhausted from trying to survive in systems that were never built for their nervous systems in the first place.
You are not failing at being human.
Your nervous system may simply have different needs than the culture taught you to expect.
If you’re wanting support in understanding your nervous system, your masking patterns, your relational dynamics, burnout, overwhelm, sensory needs, or how trauma and neurodivergence intersect in your body, I offer free consultations through Viasomatic.
You don’t have to force yourself into “normal” in order to deserve a life that feels sustainable, connected, embodied, and real.
You are not failing at being human.
Your nervous system may simply have different needs than the culture taught you to expect.
If you’re wanting support in understanding your nervous system, your masking patterns, your relational dynamics, burnout, overwhelm, sensory needs, or how trauma and neurodivergence intersect in your body, I offer free consultations through Viasomatic.
You don’t have to force yourself into “normal” in order to deserve a life that feels sustainable, connected, embodied, and real.
Sources:
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