In recent years, there has been a growing awareness of neurodiversity, including conditions like Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Social media platforms, online communities, and popular media have brought these neurotypes into the spotlight, offering spaces for individuals to share their experiences. However, this cultural shift raises a significant question: does this newfound attention encourage unmasking and acceptance, or does it inadvertently amplify neurodivergent traits in ways that might not always be beneficial?

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What is Masking?

Masking refers to the conscious or unconscious suppression of behaviours and traits associated with neurodivergence to conform to societal expectations. For individuals with ADHD or ASD, masking can involve hiding stims, mimicking neurotypical social behaviours, or suppressing impulsivity. While masking often allows people to navigate social and professional settings more easily, it can come at a significant cost, including anxiety, burnout, and a diminished sense of self (Hull et al., 2017).

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Current Culture and Unmasking

The current cultural landscape offers opportunities for many neurodivergent individuals to explore and express their authentic selves. Key aspects of this shift include:

1. Increased Representation

Popular media has started to feature characters with ADHD and ASD traits, promoting visibility and normalisation. This representation can encourage individuals to embrace their neurodivergence rather than hiding it (Lai et al., 2014).

2. Online Communities

Platforms like TikTok, Twitter, and Reddit have become havens for sharing unfiltered experiences of neurodivergence. These spaces often advocate for acceptance and validate behaviours once viewed as “inappropriate.”

3. Advocacy for Workplace and Academic Accommodations

Cultural conversations around ADHD and ASD have pushed institutions to consider accommodations like flexible schedules, sensory-friendly environments, and tailored education plans, potentially reducing the need for masking.

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Exacerbating Features of ADHD and ASD

While the current cultural climate provides validation, it may also inadvertently amplify certain traits.

1. Over-Identification

The surge of ADHD and ASD content can lead to over-identification, where individuals may perceive traits as being solely related to their neurotype, overlooking other contributing factors like stress, sleep, or mental health (Nicolaidis et al., 2011).

2. Pressure to Perform Neurodivergence

Some individuals report feeling pressured to “perform” their neurodivergence in ways that align with popular narratives, leading to heightened expressions of certain traits inappropriately or uncomfortably.

3. Echo Chambers

Online communities, while supportive, can sometimes reinforce negative coping mechanisms or exacerbate traits without promoting strategies for managing them effectively.

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Balancing Acceptance and Support

To ensure the cultural narrative around ADHD and ASD is truly supportive, the following considerations are critical:

1. Education and Nuance

Promoting a nuanced understanding of neurodivergence that balances acceptance with self-awareness is vital. This includes recognising the spectrum of experiences and encouraging tailored strategies for managing challenges.

2. Encouraging Individuality

Celebrating neurodivergent traits without boxing individuals into specific behaviours or traits allows for a more inclusive understanding of ADHD and ASD.

3. Access to Resources

Advocating for accessible mental health care, workplace accommodations, and educational resources ensures that individuals have tools to thrive without over-relying on cultural narratives.

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Conclusion

The current culture around ADHD and ASD has undoubtedly contributed to greater acceptance and the encouragement of unmasking. However, it is essential to approach this culture with caution. While it offers spaces for validation and self-expression, it can also inadvertently exacerbate neurodivergent traits or lead to over-identification. Striking a balance between embracing authenticity and fostering practical support will help ensure that this cultural shift benefits individuals rather than complicates their experiences. Building on this, I work with people as they are. I help them untangle what they bring, so that they can step forward into the life that they can live authentically.

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Addendum

Subsequent to writing this article, I found the following on Facebook. It seems to sum up much of the therapeutic journey for many people. I would be interested if it resonates with you. X has recently changed how it allows content producers to post. Instead, you will find this on Bluesky @jd-psychotherapy if you want to comment.

The burning question when one enters analysis is “Who am I?” The immediate problem, however, as soon as powerful emotions begin to surface, is often a psyche soma split.   While women tend to talk about their bodies more than men, both sexes in our culture are grievously unrelated to their own body experience.   Women say, “I don’t like this body”; men say, “It hurts.” Their use of the third person neuter pronoun in referring to their body makes quite clear their sense of alienation.   They may talk about "my heart,‘’ “my kidneys,” “my feet,” but their body as a whole is depersonalized. Repeatedly they say, “I don’t feel anything below the neck. I experience feelings in my head, but nothingin my heart.”   Their lack of emotional response to a powerful dream image reflects the split. And yet, when they engage in active imagination with that dream image located in their body, their muscles release undulations of repressed grief. The body has become the whipping post.   If the person is anxious, the body is starved, gorged, drugged, intoxicated, forced to vomit, driven into exhaustion or driven to frenzied reaction against selfdestruction. When this magnificent animal attempts to send up warning signals, it is silenced with pills.   It is possible that the scream that comes from the forsaken body, the scream that manifests in a symptom, is the cry of the soul that can find no other way to be heard.   If we have lived behind a mask all our lives, sooner or later if we are lucky that mask will be smashed. Then we will have to look in our own mirror at our own reality. Perhaps we will be appalled. Perhaps we will look into the terrified eyes of our own tiny child, that child who has never known love and who now beseeches us to respond. This child is alone, forsaken before we left the womb, or at birth, or when we began to please our parents and learned to put on our best performance in order to be accepted.   As life progresses, we may continue to abandon our child by pleasing others—teachers, professors, bosses, friends and partners, even analysts. That child who is our very soul cries out from underneath the rubble of our lives, often from the core of our worst complex, begging us to say, “You are not alone. I love you.”

• MARION WOODMAN From her book, Conscious Femininity

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References

• Hull, L., Petrides, K. V., Allison, C., Smith, P., Baron-Cohen, S., Lai, M. C., & Mandy, W. (2017). “Putting on My Best Normal”: Social Camouflaging in Adults with Autism Spectrum Conditions. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 47(8), 2519–2534. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803–017–3166–5
• Lai, M.-C., Lombardo, M. V., & Baron-Cohen, S. (2014). Autism. The Lancet, 383(9920), 896–910. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140–6736(13)61539–1
• Nicolaidis, C., Raymaker, D., McDonald, K., Dern, S., Ashkenazy, E., Boisclair, C., Robertson, S., & Baggs, A. (2011). Collaboration strategies in nontraditional community-based participatory research partnerships: Lessons from an academic–community partnership with autistic self-advocates. Progress in Community Health Partnerships: Research, Education, and Action, 5(2), 143–150. https://doi.org/10.1353/cpr.2011.0022