POV: Your Therapist Asks If You’ve Ever Been Assessed for Autism/ADHD – Understanding the Conversation About Neurodiversity -Part 1

POV: Your Therapist Asks If You’ve Ever Been Assessed for Autism/ADHD 

Understanding the Conversation About Neurodiversity – Part 1

By Lisa Healy, Senior Accredited Psychotherapist 

In this two-part blog we look into Autism and ADHD assessments and the conversation you might have which leads you to a neurodiverse assessment.  Imagine this: You’re sitting across from your healthcare provider. Maybe it’s your therapist, GP, or psychiatrist, maybe even your physiotherapist. You’ve just shared something about your physical or mental health, and suddenly, they gently bring up something unexpected: they ask if you’ve ever wondered if you might be neurodivergent or if you’ve ever been assessed for anything like ADHD, autism, or sensory processing disorder.

At that moment, a wave of emotions might hit. You could feel relief, confusion, fear, or even anger. The idea of being neurodivergent may not have crossed your mind before, or it might feel like suddenly things make sense, but there’s still a lot to process. This blog is here to help you understand why a healthcare professional might bring this up, and to validate the complex emotions you might experience in response. *

Why Might a Healthcare Professional Suggest Neurodivergence?

Neurodivergence refers to natural variations in how people think, learn, process information, and experience the world, including differences such as autism, ADHD, and sensory processing differences.

When a healthcare provider suggests that you might be neurodivergent, it’s often because they’ve noticed patterns in your behaviour or experiences that align with certain neurodivergent profiles like ADHD, autism, or sensory processing disorder. Here are some of the things that might have ignited their curiosity:

1.  Sensory Preferences

You might notice that certain sensory experiences, like loud noises, bright lights, or certain textures, either overwhelm you or, conversely, help you focus or feel at ease. For example, you might crave specific sensory input, like music while you study or chewing on something while you work. You might feel the need to cut the tags from the inside of all of your clothes before you wear them, or you might be repulsed by touching the soggy food left on the dishes in the sink.

Maybe you struggle to make sense of what people are saying when there are a lot of overlapping noises. You might seek out quieter spaces, dimmer lighting, softer fabrics, and when these things are unavailable, you may be stressed out rather than just disappointed. These patterns are often heightened in stressful times but can be a constant factor in your life.

2.  Low Self-Worth and High Shame

Many neurodivergent individuals struggle with self-criticism or feelings of shame, often because they are struggling to thrive in a world that’s set up for people whose brains work in a specific way. If you’re neurodivergent and unaware of it, you could lack a vital piece of information about yourself that could help you make sense of your struggles.

Out of context, you might find yourself blaming your challenges on personal shortcomings. You might find yourself putting yourself down for lack of willpower, being lazy, being awkward, being too sensitive. This can end up leading to a deep sense of not being “good enough.” Many neurodivergent people will describe feeling like others were given a guidebook for life that they somehow missed out on, or like other people just know the unspoken rules that, despite their best efforts, they keep breaking.

This experience is often compounded by the experience of feeling misunderstood and invalidated when the people around you don’t share your perception of challenges. This contributes to a feeling of being on the outside, feeling out of step or isolated, and you may struggle to figure out why beyond blaming yourself.

Maybe your healthcare provider will have observed you using harsh, self-deprecating language or putting yourself down in conversations, or maybe making yourself the butt of every joke. They might be curious about whether neurodivergence is part of what shaped how you see yourself and treat yourself.

3.  Life-Long Challenges

Have you experienced anxiety, social difficulties like feeling out of place, or difficulties connecting with your peers, or difficulties with managing your time, your belongings, and tasks, for as long as you can remember? Perhaps these challenges intensified during adolescence, but really when you reflect you notice that they’ve always been there.

For some people, these lifelong struggles may point to unidentified neurodivergence, offering a fresh perspective on your experiences and the supports you may have been offered had you been identified.

4.  Struggles with Change and Reliance on Systems 

If you rely heavily on rules, rituals, or systems to manage your day-to-day life, it’s possible that changes to those systems might throw you off balance. In some instances, the reaction to the unexpected shift could seem out of proportion to those around you.

A friend texting to say they’re running late or asking to meet in a different pub when you’ve agreed to a time and place to meet could send you into a panic or a rage. Whether it’s needing to plan meticulously to handle crowded spaces or using multiple reminders to meet deadlines, these patterns might catch a healthcare professional’s attention, especially if others around you don’t experience the same levels of stress when these systems are disrupted.

5.  Slow/No Progress in Treatment 

If you’ve been working hard on improving your mental and physical health but haven’t seen the progress you and/or your provider anticipated, your healthcare provider might consider whether there’s an underlying neurodivergent trait that hasn’t been fully accommodated.

You might know more about CBT and have read more self-help manuals than half of the therapists you’ve sat in front of, but for some reason the skills just haven’t stuck. There are lots of different ways that a treatment approach may not be compatible for someone with a neurodivergent brain. In some ways, the frustration you and/or your healthcare provider may have been experiencing could be due to the fact that treatment protocols and research are often designed with neurotypical minds in mind. It’s essentially a rigged game for the people whose minds work differently. No matter how hard you try you don’t get the results you want. For you and your provider, recognising this can open the door to better, more tailored solutions. You can shift focus and prioritize working on things that are more neurodiversity-affirming and adapted to work with how your brain actually operates.

6.  Poorly Fitting Previous Diagnoses 

Some people, and especially women who struggle with emotional dysregulation, will have presented for help and support to a number of different professionals in different settings throughout their lives. They might have collected an alphabet soup of different mental health labels to try to pin down what’s going on for them.

If you’ve received a variety of diagnoses over time but none quite fit, it’s possible that neurodivergence could provide a more accurate understanding of your experiences. Like a mental health Goldilocks, you may have been trying on a bunch of different labels to find that none of them fit “just right”. Neurodivergence could be the fit you and your healthcare providers were looking for.