Not a Map, But a Compass: Reclaiming Neurodivergent Professional Identity Beyond the Binary of Brokenness

Not a Map, But a Compass: Reclaiming Neurodivergent Professional Identity Beyond the Binary of BrokennessCaitlin Hughes

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There wasn't one dramatic moment.

Just a slow unravel.

A quiet knowing that I could no longer shape-shift into someone else's version of "okay."

I was showing up…in sessions and in systems.

Doing what I thought was ethical.

But inside, I was drifting.

Functioning, yes…but far from flourishing.

I'd become fluent in performing a curated version of myself:

Neutral tone. Regulated posture. Just the right amount of small talk.

What I didn't realise then was that this wasn't integrity, it was professionalism as performance.

And over time, it left me unable to hear my own emotional tone beneath the mask.

Masking: Survival, Then Silence

Before I ever called it masking, I called it being prepared.

Being kind. Flexible. A good mental health practitioner.

The sort of social worker who could support anyone, adapt to anything, and never need too much.

It worked…until it didn't.

Masking meant pre-empting feedback by over-preparing.

It meant smiling through fluorescent lights and vague expectations.

It meant flattening my tone to sound "neutral" even when I was fragmenting inside.

I had been masking for so long, I didn't even know what my own unfiltered emotional tone sounded like.

And the systems I was moving through, the trainings, the policies, the supervision scripts, didn't ask.

They rewarded adaptation and reinforced the idea that to be professional was to be emotionally contained and interpersonally smooth.

Autistic allied health professionals describe this tension acutely: workplaces that demand constant navigation of stigma, silent management of accommodations, and performance of neuronormative professionalism (Gréaux et al., 2023).

At some point, masking stopped being a strategy and became a state.

And like many others, I began to experience what Raymaker et al. (2020) describe: the psychological cost of camouflaging as a condition for belonging. Mitchell et al. (2019) argue that camouflaging produces not just exhaustion, but a profound disconnection from one's own emotional experience and a loss of the ability to hear one's authentic voice beneath the performance.

Internalised Ableism Doesn't Always Shout. Sometimes, It Strategises.

It says:

"You're being dramatic."

"You just need better boundaries."

"If you were clearer, they wouldn't misread you."

"You're not really neurodivergent…you're just inconsistent."

Craddock (2024) describes this phenomenon in late-diagnosed women, noting that being undiagnosed has enduring negative repercussions. Research reveals that late-diagnosed individuals often internalise narratives of personal failure for years before recognition (Morrison, 2019; Viswanathan, 2025).

Internalised ableism isn't always cruel.

Sometimes, it sounds like competence.

And in a world that collapses complexity into compliance, that sees your difference only through the lens of risk or rigidity, coping begins to look a lot like self-abandonment.

It took me years to realise that I wasn't just overfunctioning.

I was being reshaped, professionally and personally, by a system that prioritised performance over presence.

I began to ask a question I'd never dared speak aloud:

"Has professionalism helped me be ethical… or just compliant?"

What If We Didn't Need the Right Map — Just a Way to Orient?

For so long, I searched for a map.

A gold-standard model of practice. A trauma-informed pathway. A diagnosis that would finally explain me in full.

Maps feel comforting. They promise certainty. They say: "Follow this line, and you'll be fine."

But for many of us, late-identified, multiply neurodivergent and marginalised, the terrain is not fixed.

One day it's a winding forest path. The next, a noisy highway.

What worked last season may now cost you your capacity.

Pantazakos and Vanaken (2023) propose phenomenological approaches that center subjective experience and allow for flexible, individualised adaptation, not rigid maps, but responsive compasses. This shift from prescriptive protocols to values-based orientation reflects a growing recognition that neurodivergent practitioners and clients need tools that honour variability rather than enforce conformity.

So I stopped chasing the map.

And started building a compass.

The Compass: Values Over Rules, Resonance Over Rigidity

This compass wasn't a productivity tool or a step-by-step strategy.

It was a relational check-in. A return to myself.

It started with five small questions:

What's my true north — the value I want to steer by today?

What need is calling for care?

What strength is available?

Where is my edge — the boundary I don't want to override?

What's one tiny act of alignment?

I began asking these questions before I started my work day and between client sessions.

They became my way of noticing drift. Of reclaiming orientation.

Not to fix…but to reconnect.

Over time, I began to develop and share a personal lexicon, language that moved me from shame into self-understanding, and eventually, shared understanding.

Words that replaced "non-compliant" with "boundaried."

"Rigid" with "predictability-seeking."

"Too sensitive" with "sensory-aware."

Language became a form of liberation. A way of re-authoring how I saw myself.

Identity Isn't Separate from Practice — It Is Practice

For years, I tried to keep "me" and "work" distinct.

I showed up to sessions regulated, neutral, composed.

Then collapsed in the car on the way home.

But what I now know, what my nervous system taught me, is this:

When I am congruent, my practice deepens.

When I honour my needs, I model dignity.

When I use my own language, not pathologising scripts, my clients feel safer, too.

Strong (2024), an autistic therapist, describes this integration as essential to autism-affirming psychotherapy, arguing that congruence, not neutrality, is the ethical foundation of therapeutic work. Unmasking, I've come to realise, isn't a dramatic reveal. It's an act of relational integrity, a way of inviting others into realness, not performance (Botha & Frost, 2020).

And it's not about perfect communication…it's about finding resonance.

From Evidence to Embodiment

This isn't just anecdotal.

When identity is affirmed, when language reflects strengths, when systems adjust instead of solely individuals, self-esteem rises, internalised stigma loosens, and relational clarity improves (Botha et al., 2021).

Neuroaffirming approaches work because they don't treat identity as a liability.

It names it as a foundation.

And even when things fall apart, when burnout hits, when we unravel, we can reframe the collapse, not as failure, but as an opportunity to clear space for new values, new truths, and new selves.

Lennox (2025), a late-diagnosed practitioner, describes workplace burnout as a turning point, a crisis that forced identity integration and led to sustainable career development grounded in self-knowledge. It can be a painful but necessary process that makes space for rebuilding a career aligned with one's true capacity.

This is what epistemic justice looks like in the everyday (Fricker, 2007): when lived experience is not dismissed, but recognised as a valid source of knowledge, one that can guide ethical, sustainable ways of working.

And it's not just something we offer to clients.

It's something we must practise, too.

If You've Been Wondering…

"Why am I still so tired?"

"Why does my work feel like wearing a costume?"

"Why do I know how to support everyone else, but feel like I'm unraveling?"

You're not failing.

You're noticing.

You're noticing that the mask has become heavier than the risk of being seen.

That compliance is eroding your clarity.

That professionalism, as you were taught, is not the same as congruence.

Morrison (2019) describes this as biographic mediation, the exhausting labour of making oneself legible and acceptable in systems designed for neuronormative minds, often through decades of self-accommodation before diagnosis.

Begin with One Soft Reorientation

Reclaiming identity isn't a linear process.

It's seasonal. Circular. Sometimes grief-drenched, sometimes giddy.

But there are tools.

The one I keep returning to is the Mini-Practice: The 5-Minute Compass Check FREE RESOURCE LINK

It's five questions. Five minutes. A practice of coming home to yourself.

Feel free to use it: In the quiet. Between clients. Before decisions. After overstimulation.

Something Exciting is Coming

If this post stirred something in you, a soft ache of recognition, a quiet curiosity, or the sense that you’re ready to root your neuroaffirming practice in something more honest, you’re not alone.

That’s why I am creating The Ripple Framework for Neurodivergent Flourishing: Supervision Program

It’s not a traditional program.

It’s a spacious container for reorientation, reflection, and return.

A place to deepen your personal and professional development in a way that feels congruent with your Neurodivergent identity.

Because flourishing doesn’t come from fixing yourself.

It ripples out from coming home to who you are.

Join the interest list to receive first access and quiet invitations as it takes shape: LINK

References

Botha, M., & Frost, D. M. (2020). Extending the minority stress model to understand mental health problems experienced by the autistic population. Society and Mental Health, 10(1), 20–34. https://doi.org/10.1177/2156869318804297

Botha, M., Hanlon, J., & Williams, G. L. (2021). Does language matter? Identity-first versus person-first language use in autism research: A response to Vivanti. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 53, 870–878. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-020-04858-w

Craddock, E. (2024). Being a woman is 100% significant to my experiences of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and autism: Exploring the gendered implications of an adulthood combined autism and ADHD diagnosis. Qualitative Health Research, 34(10), 1056–1070. https://doi.org/10.1177/10497323241253412

Fricker, M. (2007). Epistemic injustice: Power and the ethics of knowing. Oxford University Press.

Gréaux, M., Katsos, N., & Gibson, J. L. (2023). “I’m in a unique position to make a difference”: The experiences and practices of autistic speech and language therapists. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/6wj2p

Lennox, E. (2025). Promoting sustainable career development via organisational support: Autoethnographic insights from a late-diagnosed autistic practitioner. Career Development International, 30(1), 45–62. https://doi.org/10.1108/cdi-02-2025-0057

Mitchell, P., Cassidy, S., & Sheppard, E. (2019). The double empathy problem, camouflage, and the value of expertise from experience. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 42, e96. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X18002212

Morrison, A. (2019). (Un)reasonable, (un)necessary, and (in)appropriate: Biographic mediation of neurodivergence in academic accommodations. Biography, 42(4), 589–618. https://doi.org/10.1353/BIO.2019.0066

Pantazakos, T., & Vanaken, G.-J. (2023). Addressing the autism mental health crisis: The potential of phenomenology in neurodiversity-affirming clinical practices. Frontiers in Psychology, 14, 1225152. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1225152

Raymaker, D. M., Teo, A. R., Steckler, N. A., et al. (2020). “Having all of your internal resources exhausted beyond measure and being left with no clean-up crew”: Defining autistic burnout. Autism in Adulthood, 2(2), 132–143. https://doi.org/10.1089/aut.2019.0079

Strong, S. D. (2024). Learning to be an autistic therapist: Personal steps towards an autism-affirming psychotherapy. Ought: The Journal of Autistic Culture, 6(1), Article 6. https://doi.org/10.9707/2833-1508.1196

Viswanathan, P. (2025). From shame to advocacy: A late-diagnosed autistic woman’s journey through self-discovery and systemic barriers. Mental Health and Social Inclusion, 29(3), 234–248. https://doi.org/10.1108/mhsi-08-2025-0236