Have you just tried being yourself?

21 Nov

People love to say “why don’t you just be yourself?” They have no idea what it is like to reach adulthood and realise you do not actually know who that is.

They assume the self is waiting underneath, ready to appear once you relax or stop trying so hard. For many ADHDers and autistic adults, the self has been shaped by survival. When you spend a lifetime masking, adapting, and absorbing the expectations around you, there is no stable identity to return to. There is only the role you learned to play.

Masking is something many ADHDers and autistic adults learn long before we have words for it. It is the quiet, relentless work of blending in, copying what seems normal, smoothing over our differences, and shaping ourselves around the expectations of the people and environments around us. Over time it becomes automatic. We stop noticing we are doing it. Unmasking is the slow, often uncomfortable process of noticing those adaptations and meeting the person underneath. Not the performance. Not the role. The real self that never had space to grow.

Part of this is the double empathy problem. It wasn’t that I couldn’t understand others. It was that we weren’t understanding each other, and I carried all the weight of closing that gap.

I was fifty when I understood this. My childhood never stood still long enough for a sense of identity to grow. Four houses before I turned five, then Germany, then boarding school, then back to the UK, then to live with my Granny, then another place in Shetland, then finally Lerwick to finish high school. Every time I found my feet, we left again. I did not have time to become anyone. I only had time to adapt.

Looking back, much of who I became was shaped by sensory survival as much as social adaptation. I have always been more comfortable in low light, with the fan on, in the same clothes, the same meals, the same routines. I hated fluorescent lights, queues, crowds, echoey places, and people in my space unless it was on my terms. I had no idea these were sensory needs. I pushed through overwhelming environments all my life without realising these small preferences were clues to who I actually was.

Socially, I learned to become the energetic one, the funny one, the person who was always up for something. Mischief was my social passport. It helped me integrate quickly, and eventually it became who I thought I was. Only later did I realise how much of that behaviour was scripted. Being “on”, filling silence, performing confidence. I had no idea what my natural social style looked like because I had never dared to look for it.

Alcohol became part of this too. Excessively at times when out, but usually just enough that the recycling box told the story. It helped me stay in the sociable, confident role people expected. It softened the edges and kept the show going. I did not think of it as masking. It was just life.

Everything shifted when I was diagnosed with ADHD and started medication.Within a year, the drinking stopped without effort. Once my mind settled, I no longer needed alcohol to keep me “in character”. When it dropped away, exhaustion rushed in. Hunger, sugar cravings, sleeplessness, anxiety. It felt like meeting the unfiltered version of myself for the first time. Regulated me is calm and grounded. Dysregulated me is scattered and overwhelmed. I had lived most of my life scattered.

Around this time, I read Rachel Morgan Trimmer’s How to Be Autistic. It explained boundaries in a way I had never encountered. I realised I had lived fifty years without any. Not because I was weak, but because I had never known what boundaries were supposed to be or how to actually implement them. I also began to understand why my emotions often misfire. Sometimes I do not know what I feel until much later. Sometimes the wrong reaction appears on my face. Sometimes I laugh when I should feel sad or serious. My dad died and I felt nothing. I am learning that these things are part of how my brain works, not personal failings.

Then I took Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies test, a framework that shows how people respond to expectations, both internal and external. The first time, I came out as an obliger. That was the mask. After thinking about where I had answered it from, I took it again and came out as a rebel. Both fit. I swing between craving stimulation and needing to crawl away from it. Structured one moment, carefree the next. Deep conversation one minute, solitude the next. These contradictions made it hard to know who I am, yet they are all parts of my authentic self.

Unmasking has changed my relationships quietly. My family, my close friends, and even people at work have seen glimpses of the person underneath. He is quieter, calmer, and drawn to solitude. He makes choices out of preference rather than obligation. Some relationships have adapted. Others feel different now that I am not being who others expect me to be. I also feel safer speaking to a thousand people than talking one-to-one. A crowd gives distance. One-to-one feels exposed.

Unmasking depends on safety.

Not everyone has the same freedom to show who they are. Gender, culture, ethnicity, disability and upbringing influence how someone is perceived and how much space they are allowed to take up. For some, masking protects them from misunderstanding or judgement. For others, it protects them from real harm.

Unmasking is not a requirement and it is not a moral decision. It begins only when your environment becomes safe enough to support it or when you have no other option.

The act of unmasking does not feel like a dramatic reveal. It often feels like pass the parcel at a kids birthday party. You peel off one layer and hope something good is underneath, something that finally feels like you. Instead you find another layer, another realisation, another round of work you were not expecting. It can feel slow and tiring, and you never know how many layers are left. But they do get thinner, and over time I am starting to believe there really might be something worth finding in the middle.

Being yourself, for many ND adults, is not about expression or confidence. It is about safety, regulation, and detective work. It is a slow introduction to the person who has always been there but was never given the chance to emerge. Authenticity grows through patience, through rest, through sensory safety, and through the willingness to meet yourself gently, one layer at a time. It is not quick, but it is kinder than the life that came before.

What I have learned is that meeting myself requires small, honest moments. Not big declarations or reinventions. Just stopping long enough to notice what feels true. I finally feel like I am on my own path and do not have to ask anyone for permission.

Neuro-affirmative coaching is about creating a space where nothing has to be performed. A space where you can be uncertain, contradictory, quiet, overwhelmed, or curious without judgement. A space where you can finally hear yourself again.

If I was coaching someone at the start of unmasking, I would ask them to pay attention to the tiny signals they usually override. What feels comforting. What feels too much. What gives them energy. What steadies their breathing. What choices they make when no one is expecting anything from them.

We would look for the small moments in their past where they accidentally acted from their real self. A boundary they defended. A preference they honoured. A time they chose rest over expectation. A time they said “No”. These moments matter. They show the authentic self has always been there, even if it was quiet.

From there, we would build small, safe practices that help them stay closer to themselves, one honest moment at a time. Unwrapping the layers is not a dramatic unveiling. It is a series of incremental steps toward the person who has been hidden under years of expectation and bending yourself out of shape.

My own unmasking, including researching and writing these articles, podcasting, and becoming an ADHD coach has grounded me in ways I never expected. It has helped others too, often giving them permission to begin the journey towards themselves. And in doing so, it has helped me become more myself than I have ever been.

For the first time in my life I am learning to like the person I see in the mirror. I am beginning to stand up for myself and what I believe in, to connect with people in ways that feel real, and to loosen the grip of the self-loathing that has followed me for decades.

Does this resonate with you? I would love to hear your thoughts.

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