October is ADHD Awareness Month: What Is ADHD Masking? What is Internalized Hyperactivity? How Hyperactivity and Inattention Obscure Each Other, How Autism and ADHD Obscure Each Other

© 2024–2026 Raven LeFebvre. All rights reserved.

Written by: Raven LeFebvre, LCSW, LCSW-C, LICSW, MAC, CCTP-II

Owner and Founder, Silhouette Psychotherapy PLLC

Certified Clinical Trauma Professional Level 2 (CCTP-II)

PDA North America Level 1 Certified Clinician

Copyright & Attribution Notice: © 2024–2026 Raven LeFebvre. All rights reserved. This publication, including its original text, selection, arrangement, and other original expressive content, is protected by applicable copyright law. You may cite or reference this publication with appropriate attribution where permitted by applicable law. Attribution alone, however, does not grant permission to copy, reproduce, distribute, display, publish, adapt, create derivative works from, or otherwise use copyrighted material beyond what is permitted by law. Except as permitted by applicable law, including fair use, please obtain prior written permission before reproducing, adapting, publishing, distributing, or otherwise using material from this publication. For permissions, licensing inquiries, or questions concerning use of this publication, please contact Silhouette Psychotherapy PLLC.

Raven's clinical practice is grounded in an anti-oppression and liberation-oriented therapeutic frame, recognizing that emotional, cognitive, and nervous system wellbeing cannot be understood apart from the social, relational, cultural, and systemic environments in which people live. This orientation emphasizes autonomy, self-determination, critical consciousness, and the right of clients to understand their experiences within the broader contexts of power, marginalization, identity, and relational conditioning. Her work considers how oppressive systems, interpersonal dynamics, internalized beliefs, and histories of adaptation can shape the ways people understand themselves and navigate relationships. She is collaborative, with intent to support greater agency, self-trust, authenticity, and freedom from patterns that require self-erasure in order to belong.

Table of Contents

Understanding the Paradox of Dual Neurodivergence

How autism and ADHD can mask, amplify, and obscure each other, creating an outward appearance of competence while concealing significant internal complexity, cognitive effort, and emotional exhaustion.

ADHD Awareness Month: When Autism Obscures ADHD

Why an existing autism diagnosis can overshadow unrecognized ADHD symptoms, making executive dysfunction, internalized hyperactivity, and attention difficulties harder to identify—even in highly self-aware adults.

When ADHD Hyperfocus Looks Like an Autistic Special Interest

How intense concentration can arise from different neurodevelopmental processes, why ADHD hyperfocus and autistic special interests can overlap, and how their interaction affects attention, transitions, and everyday functioning.

When Autistic Stimming Masks ADHD Hyperactivity

Why repetitive movements, fidgeting, rocking, and pacing can serve different or overlapping purposes, including sensory regulation, self-soothing, and stimulation-seeking.

How Autism’s Need for Structure Can Hide ADHD Executive Dysfunction

Why elaborate routines, rigid systems, and meticulous organization can conceal difficulties with working memory, task initiation, time management, and everyday follow-through.

The Masking Multiplier Effect: Autism, ADHD, and Emotional

Dysregulation

How the cognitive demands of autistic masking can compound ADHD-related challenges, creating mental overload, emotional exhaustion, and difficulties that remain invisible to others.

When Social Hypervigilance Looks Like Good Attention

Why intensely monitoring social cues, facial expressions, conversations, and personal behavior can create the appearance of excellent focus while consuming the cognitive resources needed for other tasks.

Why You Can Function at Work but Struggle at Home

How external structure, social expectations, anxiety, and compensatory strategies can temporarily support functioning and why ADHD symptoms may become more apparent when those supports disappear.

How Hyperactivity Can Hide Inattention—and Inattention Can Hide Hyperactivity

Why racing thoughts, mental restlessness, and stimulation-seeking can create secondary attention difficulties, while hyperfocus can conceal significant struggles with routine and low-stimulation tasks.

The High-Functioning Trap: ADHD Masking in High-Achieving Autistic Adults

Why professional success, independence, intelligence, and apparent competence do not necessarily reflect effortless executive functioning—and how exceptional achievement can conceal the cost of compensation.

Invisible Compensation: Intelligence, Anxiety, and Perfectionism

How intellectual strengths, elaborate organizational systems, fear of mistakes, and perfectionistic standards can mask ADHD symptoms while creating unsustainable pressure to perform.

The Neurobiology of Stimulation-Seeking and Sensory Regulation

Why ADHD-related stimulation-seeking and autistic sensory regulation can pull in opposite directions, creating the seemingly contradictory experience of craving stimulation while becoming overwhelmed by it.

The Executive Function Puzzle: When Strengths and Challenges Coexist

How systematic thinking, detailed knowledge, and strong organizational abilities can coexist with difficulties initiating tasks, remembering everyday responsibilities, adapting to change, and following through.

The Cost of Invisibility: When Neurodivergence Goes Unrecognized

How years of being misunderstood, held to neurotypical expectations, or labeled lazy, disorganized, or undisciplined can contribute to shame, anxiety, exhaustion, and barriers to appropriate support.

ADHD Burnout in Late-Diagnosed Adults: Recognizing Your Hidden Patterns

How to recognize internalized hyperactivity, fragmented attention, hyperfocus, masking fatigue, and the difference between functioning under pressure and functioning sustainably.

Recognizing Your Own Patterns: Could Unrecognized ADHD Be Part of Your Experience?

Questions to help you reflect on attention, mental restlessness, executive functioning, stimulation-seeking, masking, and the contexts in which your difficulties become more or less visible.

Integration and Self-Compassion: Understanding Your AuDHD Experience

Why recognizing the interaction between autism and ADHD can replace self-blame with greater understanding, help clarify support needs, and create space for both genuine challenges and meaningful strengths.

Building a Life That Works With Your Neurodivergent Brain

How greater self-understanding, appropriate accommodations, practical support, and sustainable expectations can help you work with your neurodevelopmental profile rather than continually fighting against it.

Understanding Dual Neurodivergence

You can be capable and overwhelmed, organized and forgetful, stimulation-seeking and sensory-sensitive, intensely focused and profoundly distracted. When autism and ADHD coexist, these contradictions are not necessarily inconsistencies in who you are. They may reflect the interaction of two neurodevelopmental systems that deserve to be understood together.

Understanding the Paradox of Dual Neurodivergence

October is ADHD Awareness Month. As a clinician who provides comprehensive diagnostic assessments for ADHD and Autism in late-identified adults, I want to offer you a framework for understanding something that often remains invisible. The way that autism and ADHD can simultaneously mask and reveal each other, creating a lived experience presentation that appears high-functioning on the surface while operating under considerable internal complexity and effort. This is an experience in which one can feel very alone. Although the literature on late-identified adults with this particular constellation of traits remains sparse, what we do know from emerging research is that when multiple neurodevelopmental systems are present, they don't simply add together—they interact in ways that can obscure individual components from external observation and, critically, from clinical recognition and most importantly from self-recognition.

The traditional narrative around ADHD emphasizes hyperactivity, impulsivity, and obvious inattention. We imagine the person who cannot sit still, who interrupts constantly, whose desk is chaotic, whose life is marked by missed deadlines and forgotten commitments. This stereotype, while accurate for some, has created a profound blind spot in how we identify internalized hyperactivity, ADHD in women, and particularly in women who are also autistic. The version viewable by the external gaze, often doesn't fit this narrative. Many have developed sophisticated compensatory strategies that make their ADHD largely invisible—even to themselves. The hyperactivity might be channeled into productivity or perfectionism. The inattention might be masked by hyperfocus on areas of interest or by the anxiety-driven hypervigilance that often accompanies autism and years of masking. The impulsivity might be constrained by the rigid rule-following and deliberate processing that characterizes autistic cognition. What emerges is a person who appears, to the outside world and often to themselves, as simply high-functioning, capable, perhaps even exceptionally organized or focused. But beneath this surface, the neurodevelopmental reality is far more complex.

October, ADHD Awareness Month: The Autism-First Identification and ADHD Obscurity

When autism is identified first—as it often is—the ADHD frequently remains unrecognized because the observable behaviors that might signal ADHD are already being explained through the autism lens. Consider how this works in practice. Hyperfocus, one of the most characteristic experiences of ADHD, is often attributed to the intense, sustained attention that autistic individuals are known for. An autistic person with ADHD might spend hours absorbed in a special interest, and this appears to be simply autistic engagement. But the subjective experience may be quite different: the hyperfocus might be driven by ADHD's dopamine-seeking mechanism rather than by the kind of systematic, detail-oriented exploration that characterizes autistic special interests. The difference matters because it affects how you experience transitions, how you manage when the hyperfocus ends, and what happens when you try to redirect that attention to something less intrinsically rewarding.

Similarly, stimming and repetitive behaviors—core features of autism—can completely obscure the restlessness and need-for-movement that signal ADHD hyperactivity. An autistic person might engage in repetitive movements, fidgeting, or ritualistic behaviors as a form of sensory regulation and self-soothing. An ADHD person might do the same thing, but for a different neurobiological reason: to generate stimulation and maintain arousal in an understimulated nervous system. When both are present, the behavior looks identical from the outside. You might rock, fidget, pace, or engage in repetitive movements, and everyone—including you—assumes it's autistic regulation. But it might also be serving an ADHD function. You might need the movement not just for sensory comfort but for cognitive activation. The distinction matters because it changes how one understands their own needs and how they might support themselves.

The rigid thinking patterns and need for structure that characterize autism can also mask ADHD executive dysfunction. Autists often benefit from and seek out structure, routine, and predictability. This can create an appearance of excellent executive function: you have systems, you follow them, you maintain organization. But if one also has ADHD, the internal experience might be quite different. One might maintain structure not because executive function comes naturally but because they have had to build elaborate external scaffolding to compensate for executive dysfunction. The rigidity that appears to be autistic preference might actually be a necessary accommodation for ADHD-related difficulties with flexibility, working memory, and task initiation. One might experience significant distress when routines are disrupted, not purely because of autistic need for predictability but because the disruption removes the external structure that allows them to function. This distinction is crucial because it affects how they approach self-compassion and problem-solving.

The Masking Multiplier Effect: Late Diagnosed ADHD and Emotional Dysregulation, Cognitive Processing Overwhelm

High masking—the process of suppressing autistic traits and adapting to neurotypical social expectations—is cognitively and emotionally expensive. It requires constant monitoring of your own behavior, real-time adjustment of responses, and sustained effort to appear "normal." This masking process itself can obscure ADHD symptoms in a particularly insidious way. The hypervigilance required for social masking can create an artificial appearance of attention and focus. One might appear to be listening intently in social situations because they are, in fact, intensely focused on reading social cues, monitoring their own behavior, and managing their viewable experience. This looks like attention. It feels like attention. But it is actually a form of anxiety-driven hypervigilance that is consuming enormous cognitive resources. Meanwhile, their actual capacity for attention to other tasks—things that don't carry the same social threat—may be significantly compromised. They might be able to maintain focus in a social situation where they are masking but find it nearly impossible to focus on administrative tasks, reading, or other non-social work. This pattern is often misattributed to preference or motivation rather than recognized as a symptom of ADHD interacting with autism-driven masking.

The energy expenditure of masking also affects how ADHD symptoms manifest across different contexts. One might appear highly organized and focused at work because the social stakes are high and the structure is external. They might appear scattered and disorganized at home because they have finally stopped masking and their actual executive function challenges become visible. This contextual variation is sometimes interpreted as evidence that ADHD isn't really present—if they can focus at work, the reasoning goes, they should be able to focus at home. But this misses the reality of how masking works. At work, they are running on adrenaline, anxiety, and the external structure of the workplace. At home, without the social pressure and external scaffolding, their actual neurology becomes apparent. The difference between these contexts isn't about motivation or capability; it's about the cognitive load of masking and the presence or absence of external structure.

The Camouflage of Hyperactivity and Inattention Within Each Other

One of the most overlooked aspects of ADHD in high-functioning adults is the way that hyperactivity and inattention can actually camouflage each other, creating a presentation that appears more integrated and functional than the underlying neurology would suggest. This is particularly true in women and in autistic individuals, where hyperactivity is less likely to be expressed as obvious physical restlessness and more likely to be expressed as mental restlessness, racing thoughts, or difficulty with sustained attention to non-preferred tasks.

Consider the experience of mental hyperactivity. The mind might race with multiple thoughts, ideas, and tangents simultaneously. This is a form of hyperactivity—an excess of mental activity and stimulation-seeking. But this same mental hyperactivity can create significant inattention because attention is being pulled in multiple directions at once. They cannot focus on the task in front of them because their mind is already three steps ahead, or because it has suddenly jumped to something completely unrelated. From the outside, this looks like inattention. They appear scattered, unable to concentrate, perhaps even forgetful. But the underlying mechanism is actually hyperactivity—an overabundance of mental stimulation and activity rather than a deficit of attention. This distinction is important because it changes how one might address the problem. If the issue is inattention, one might try harder to focus. If the issue is hyperactivity creating secondary inattention, one might need to find ways to channel or satisfy the hyperactivity itself.

Conversely, hyperfocus—the ability to become intensely absorbed in a task—can mask inattention in the opposite direction. When one is hyper-focused, they appear to have excellent attention. They can sustain focus for hours on something that interests them or that carries sufficient novelty or urgency. But this hyperfocus often coexists with profound difficulty attending to routine, non-preferred, or low-stimulation tasks. The inattention to these tasks is real and significant, but it becomes invisible because the hyperfocus on preferred tasks creates an overall impression of good attention. They might be someone who can spend eight hours absorbed in a project but cannot focus for fifteen minutes on email or administrative work. This isn't laziness or lack of motivation; it is ADHD's dopamine-dependent attention system. Attention goes where the stimulation is. When the stimulation is present, they have excellent attention. When it is absent, attention becomes nearly impossible. But because they can hyperfocus, people assume they simply don't want to do the boring tasks, or are being difficult or resistant. The ADHD remains unrecognized.

In autistic individuals with ADHD, this pattern becomes even more complex. Special interests might provide natural hyperfocus, which is wonderful and should be honored. But the ADHD component means that attention to other areas—even areas that are important or that one cares about—might be significantly compromised. One might have intense, sustained focus on their special interest and profound difficulty with attention to everything else. This can create a presentation that looks like pure autism: a person with deep, narrow interests and difficulty with attention to other domains. But the difficulty with attention to non-preferred areas might be ADHD-driven rather than autistic. The distinction matters because it affects how one understands their own flexibility and how one approaches tasks outside their areas of interest.

The High-Functioning Trap and Invisible Compensation: ADHD Awareness Month Spotlight: Masking in High-Achievers

The term "high-functioning" is problematic in many ways, but it is particularly misleading when applied to 2E adults with autism and ADHD. High-functioning might mean that they are employed, raising children, independent, and appear to be managing their life successfully. By these metrics, they might indeed be high-functioning. But this external appearance often masks the internal reality: the enormous effort required to maintain this functioning, the constant problem-solving around neurodevelopmental challenges, and the significant distress or exhaustion that may accompany your apparent success.

Intelligence is a crucial factor in this masking. If you are intellectually capable, one can often problem-solve around ADHD symptoms rather than displaying them overtly. One might have difficulty with working memory, but develops systems to compensate—written lists, digital reminders, external organization. One might have difficulty with task initiation, but may have learned strategies to push through the resistance. One might have difficulty with time management, but may have developed routines that help you stay on track. These are genuine adaptations and they are valuable. But they can also create a situation where ADHD remains unrecognized because the symptoms are being managed through compensation rather than being visible as dysfunction. A clinician or family member might see someone who is organized and functional and conclude that ADHD is not present, without recognizing the elaborate scaffolding that is required to maintain that organization and functionality.

Anxiety plays a particularly important role in this compensation. Many autistic individuals experience significant anxiety, and many people with ADHD also experience anxiety. When both are present, anxiety can create an artificial structure and hypervigilance that mimics attention control and executive function. One might be anxious about making mistakes, so they double-check everything. One might be anxious about being late, so they arrive early. One might be anxious about forgetting things, so they write everything down. These anxiety-driven behaviors can create an appearance of excellent executive function and attention. But the underlying ADHD remains, masked by the anxiety that is driving the compensatory behavior. Moreover, this reliance on anxiety as a motivator is unsustainable. It is exhausting to live in a state of constant vigilance and worry. And if the anxiety decreases—through treatment, through life circumstances, or through simple burnout—the ADHD symptoms often become suddenly visible as the anxiety-driven scaffolding falls away.

Perfectionism is another crucial compensatory mechanism in high-functioning 2E adults. Perfectionism can arise from autism (the desire for things to be "right" or "correct"), from ADHD (the hyperfocus on areas of interest leading to high-quality output), and from the internalized pressure of masking (the need to appear flawless to avoid detection of neurodivergence). Perfectionism can drive you to complete tasks despite executive dysfunction. One might struggle with task initiation and working memory, but their perfectionism pushes them to complete the task anyway, and to complete it well. This creates an appearance of capability and functioning. But it also often comes at a significant cost: the tasks take longer than they should, one experiences more stress and frustration than necessary, and one may be prone to burnout because they are constantly pushing against their own neurology in service of perfectionism. The ADHD remains unrecognized because the perfectionism is masking it.

The Neurobiology of Stimulation-Seeking and Regulation: How Do High-Achieving People Have ADHD? What Is Internalized Hyperactivity?

Understanding ADHD in the context of autism requires understanding how both conditions relate to stimulation and arousal regulation. ADHD is fundamentally a disorder of arousal regulation. The ADHD brain tends to be understimulated in routine, low-novelty situations. This understimulation is experienced as discomfort, restlessness, difficulty focusing, and a drive to seek stimulation. This stimulation-seeking can manifest as physical hyperactivity, mental restlessness, impulsivity, or the pursuit of novel or intense experiences. The goal is not chaos or disruption; it is to bring the nervous system to an optimal level of arousal where focus and functioning become possible.

Autism also involves differences in sensory processing and arousal regulation, but the mechanism is somewhat different. Autistic individuals often experience sensory input as more intense than neurotypical individuals do. This can lead to sensory overwhelm and a need to reduce or regulate sensory input. Autistic regulation often involves reducing stimulation, creating predictability, and engaging in soothing or organizing activities. When autism and ADHD are both present, these two systems can be in tension. The ADHD system is seeking stimulation; the autistic system is seeking to reduce or regulate stimulation. The result can be a complex internal experience where you simultaneously need more stimulation (to activate the ADHD system) and less stimulation (to regulate the autistic system).

This tension can manifest in various ways. One might find themselves seeking stimulation in ways that feel contradictory: they might crave novelty and change while also needing routine and predictability. They might seek intense sensory experiences while also being easily overwhelmed by sensory input. They might engage in high-stimulation activities (like scrolling social media, watching videos, or engaging in intense conversations) while also needing quiet, low-stimulation time to recover. They might find that you need movement and activity to focus (ADHD stimulation-seeking) but that too much movement or activity becomes overwhelming (autistic sensory regulation). Understanding this internal tension is crucial because it helps them recognize that these seemingly contradictory needs are not character flaws or signs of instability; they are the natural result of two neurodevelopmental systems with different arousal regulation needs operating simultaneously.

The Executive Function Puzzle: ADHD Awareness Month: Can You Mask Your ADHD Your Whole Life?

Executive function encompasses a range of cognitive processes including working memory, task initiation, planning, organization, time management, and cognitive flexibility. ADHD is characterized by difficulties in executive function. Autism can also involve executive function challenges, though the pattern is often somewhat different: autistic individuals may have difficulty with flexibility and transitions, but may have strengths in systematic thinking and organization. When both are present, the executive function profile becomes complex and often contradictory.

They might, for example, have excellent ability to organize information in a systematic way (autistic strength) but significant difficulty with working memory (ADHD challenge). This means you can create beautiful, organized systems, but they might forget to use them or forget what they were supposed to do with the information you organized. They might have excellent ability to focus on detailed, systematic tasks (autistic strength) but significant difficulty with task initiation (ADHD challenge). This means that once they start a task, they might do it very well, but getting started might be extremely difficult. They might have excellent ability to follow rules and procedures (autistic strength) but significant difficulty with flexibility and adapting to changes in those rules or procedures (ADHD challenge combined with autistic rigidity). This means that they function well in structured, predictable environments but struggle when things change unexpectedly.

The interaction between these strengths and challenges creates a particular kind of executive function profile that is often misunderstood. One might appear highly capable in some domains and significantly struggling in others. One might be someone who can manage complex projects but cannot manage basic self-care. One might be someone who can remember vast amounts of information about your special interests but cannot remember to take medication or eat lunch. One might be someone who can follow detailed procedures but cannot adapt when the procedure needs to change. These contradictions are not signs of laziness, lack of motivation, or character flaws. They are the natural result of the specific combination of executive function strengths and challenges that characterize your particular neurology.

The Cost of Invisibility: Is it Worth Getting Diagnosed as an Adult?

One of the most significant challenges of being a high-masking, late-identified adult with autism and unrecognized ADHD is the cost of invisibility. When your neurodivergence is not recognized, you are often held to neurotypical standards of functioning. You are expected to manage your time like a neurotypical person, to focus like a neurotypical person, to organize your life like a neurotypical person. When you struggle with these things, it is often interpreted as laziness, lack of motivation, poor character, or personal failure. The person may internalize these interpretations, leading to shame, self-criticism, and a sense of fundamental inadequacy. They might work harder and harder to meet neurotypical standards, pushing yourself beyond what is sustainable, leading to burnout, anxiety, depression, or physical health problems.

The invisibility also means that the person does not receive the accommodations and support that could make their life significantly easier. If their ADHD is not recognized, they might not have access to medication that could help with focus and executive function. They might not have access to coaching or organizational support that could help them manage their time and tasks more effectively. They might not have permission to structure your work or life in ways that align with your neurology. They might continue to struggle with things that could be managed with appropriate support, simply because the underlying cause has not been recognized.

Moreover, the invisibility can affect your sense of self and your identity. If a person has been told your whole life that you are lazy, disorganized, or lacking in discipline, they might internalize these messages even after you recognize your neurodivergence. They might struggle to see themselves as neurodivergent because you have been so successful at masking, or because their presentation doesn't match the stereotypes of ADHD. They might feel like a fraud or an imposter, like they don't really have ADHD because they are not like the stereotypical ADHD person. But neurodivergence is not about stereotypes; it is about how the brain actually works. And the brain works in a particular way that deserves recognition and accommodation, regardless of how well one has learned to mask or compensate.

Recognizing Your Own Patterns: What Does ADHD Burnout Feel Like?

As we reflect on this ADHD Awareness Month, I invite you to notice your own patterns without judgment. Where does your hyperactivity show up? It might not be obvious physical restlessness. It might be racing thoughts, difficulty settling your mind, a constant drive to do something or be productive, difficulty being bored, or a tendency to seek stimulation through various activities. It might be the way your mind jumps from topic to topic, or the way you find it hard to sit still even when you want to. It might be the way you feel most alive and focused when you are engaged in something intense or novel. These are all forms of hyperactivity, and they are worth noticing.

Where does your inattention show up? Again, it might not be obvious. It might not be that you cannot focus at all; it might be that you can focus intensely on some things but find it nearly impossible to focus on others. It might be that you can focus for a while but then your attention fragments and you find yourself doing something else entirely. It might be that you start tasks but do not finish them, or that you forget what you were supposed to do halfway through. It might be that you have difficulty with sustained attention to routine, non-preferred tasks but excellent attention to things that interest you. These are all forms of inattention, and they are worth noticing.

Notice also where your hyperactivity and inattention interact. When you are hyperfocused on something, what happens to your awareness of time, of your body, of other tasks that need to be done? When your mind is racing with multiple thoughts, how does that affect your ability to focus on a single task? When you are seeking stimulation, what forms does that take, and what happens when you cannot find the stimulation you need? When you are trying to focus on something low-stimulation, what strategies do you use, and how effective are they? These patterns are not pathology; they are information about how your neurology works.

Notice also the role of masking and anxiety in your functioning. In what contexts do you feel you need to mask? What does that masking cost you in terms of energy and attention? When you are not masking, what becomes visible? What changes? How does anxiety affect your ability to focus and manage tasks? When anxiety is high, do you become more organized and focused, or does it interfere with your functioning? These patterns can reveal a lot about how your ADHD and autism interact with each other and with your emotional state.

Integration and Self-Compassion: How Do I Know If I Have Undiagnosed ADHD?

The goal of this blog is to offer a framework for understanding yourself more fully and more compassionately. If you have been high-masking and late-identified, you have likely spent a significant portion of your life not understanding why certain things are hard for you, or believing that you should be able to do things that are actually quite difficult given your neurology. You have likely internalized messages about your own inadequacy or laziness. You have likely pushed yourself harder than was sustainable in an effort to meet neurotypical standards.

Recognition of ADHD—whether or not it is formally diagnosed—can be profoundly liberating. It allows you to stop blaming yourself for things that are actually neurobiological. It allows you to approach your challenges with curiosity and problem-solving rather than shame and self-criticism. It allows you to seek accommodations and support that can make your life significantly easier. It allows you to structure your life in ways that align with your actual neurology rather than constantly fighting against yourself.

This recognition also allows for integration. You are not broken. You are not lazy or disorganized or lacking in discipline. You are a person with a particular neurology—autism and ADHD—that has led you to develop remarkable compensatory strategies, to achieve success despite significant challenges, and to develop a deep understanding of how to work with your own mind. These are strengths. The challenges are real, and they deserve accommodation and support. But the strengths are equally real, and they deserve recognition and celebration.

As you move through this ADHD Awareness Month, I invite you to hold both of these truths simultaneously: that you have real challenges that deserve recognition and support, and that you have real strengths that deserve recognition and celebration. That many ADHD'ers have learned to mask and compensate in ways that have allowed them to function and succeed, and that this masking and compensation has come at a cost that deserves acknowledgment. That they are neurodivergent in ways that may not be obvious to the outside world, and that this neurodivergence is a fundamental part of who they are and how they experience the world.