Wired Divergent: Unmasking, Confidence & Regulation for Autistic Adults

Autistic unmasking is a healthy thing, and it can still get you read as a jerk, intimidating, or angry when you never meant any of that. In this episode I talk about what happens when you unmask as an autistic or AuDHD adult and other people misread your intention.

A lot of us hear the same words from other people. Intense. Blunt. Too direct. Intimidating. I get into how that connects to the way autistic communication actually works, what the research says about the misunderstanding, and why it shows up so much in autistic and AuDHD social...

This is a 10-minute grounding reset for autistic and AuDHD adults, a follow-along practice for after a long day of masking. If you've masked all day at work, at an event, or out running errands, and you've come home depleted, in a crash or a shutdown, this practice is for that thing.

I guide you through settling in and then a gentle check-in with a few places masking tends to leave tension. You can do the noticing externally or internally, whichever one you have access to, so it works whether or not you get clear signals from...

I've taken a lot of courses on nervous system regulation, and most of them left out autistic and AuDHD brains with alexithymia and low interoception. And never a very clear idea about what so-called "regulation" truly even means. In this episode I talk through how I build my own "regulation" system, one that fits the way my brain actually works and doesn't involve trying to figure out what is regulated and what isn't!

When neurodivergence came up in these courses at all, the model being discussed stayed the same and the activities stayed the same, so anyone...

This is a 10-minute regulation practice for autistic and AuDHD adults that uses a chosen passion as the resource. If you're generally worn down and looking for a reset, bringing your interest to mind on purpose can do some of that work for you.

You don't need to be doing the interest to get something from it, so this one suits the days when you can't get to your passion, and you're welcome to hold an object from it or look at a photo on your phone while we go. It works whether your interest arrives as...

Autistic burnout is hard enough, and a lot of us add a second layer on top of it, performing recovery for other people while we're still deep in it. I talk through why that extra masking happens and what makes it possible to stop.

The performance looks like telling people (even the professionals!) you're getting better on the schedule they expect and saying you're fine to get out of a conversation you don't have the energy for, sometimes without even knowing whether what you're saying is true. I get into why the usual recovery model, that straight...

This is a 10-minute grounding practice for autistic and AuDHD adults, made for the end of a day with heavy masking in it. If you're home now and still revved up, or just completely worn out, this is the one for you.

I walk you through bringing a place to mind where nothing is asked of you, with no small talk, no performance, no masking, and no alternate version of yourself to keep running. It works whether that place arrives as a clear picture, or if visual imagination isn't something you want to or can work with...

Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD) can hit hard and fast over something you didn't even want, and knowing it makes no sense doesn't slow it down or stop the darn thing. I talk through my own RSD as an AuDHD adult and the decisions I've made to keep it from costing me as much.

RSD works like a voice that tells you a person, a group, or the whole world is singling you out and rejecting you, even when you can logically say, in the moment, that it isn't true. I go through the two categories I sort...

This is a five-minute regulation practice for autistic and AuDHD adults who are stuck in functional freeze. It's for those times when your body feels rooted to the couch or the bed and getting up feels like too much.

You can do the whole thing without getting up, and every step is optional, so you can skip or change anything that doesn't fit. I guide you through a few small points of contact and sensory noticing you can reach from wherever you're sitting or lying down, and it might help a little if getting up and moving...

Someone once told me I was playing a character when I taught my dance fitness classes, and I said that was totally me up there. Unmasking in autism and AuDHD assumes you already know where your mask is, and a lot of autistic adults do not, so this episode is about finding it and about what happens when people still read you wrong.

In the first part I go through what autistic masking actually covers, which runs well past face and eye contact into voice, wording, suppressed stims, and matched gestures, and why it gets automatic enough...

This is a 10-minute guided nervous system regulation practice for autistic and AuDHD adults, and you build the whole thing yourself. I walk you through making up a calm place one small detail at a time, and there's no wrong version of it. Supports very visual imaginations or aphantasia, and everything in between.

CHAPTERS

0:00 Safety note and what this practice does

2:45 Settling into where you actually are

9:55 Coming back and reorienting

10:26 Outro

About Audio and Video

This show is available as a video on...

Being misunderstood as an autistic or AuDHD adult can set off something that feels a lot like rejection sensitive dysphoria (RSD), and about half the time I don't even catch it happening until hours or days later. In this episode I get into why that delay happens and what I do about it.

I get into why I think being misunderstood can register as a rejection when you're autistic or AuDHD, and why a nervous system reaction can show up well before any logical assessment of what happened arrives. I also cover how the autistic and the...

This is a five minute resourcing practice that uses one of your special interests as the resource. If you've spent years being told your special interest is a distraction, this one goes the other way. It's wonderful, regulating, a source of joy... it's no distraction and is highly valuable to our lives.

Resourcing is a self-care practice where you bring something good to mind on purpose and pay attention to what your body and your nervous system do while you're there. In this one the resource is a passion or special interest of yours, something you're genuinely...

If you're in autistic burnout recovery, you might have run into the worry that getting better just means putting the mask back on. That worry is pretty valid, and this episode is about the parts of it you get some choice over.

Real recovery from autistic burnout usually points toward some kind of life that allows for a more unmasked version of you, and the two big variables there are capacity and safety. In this one I get into why your energy coming back can leave you feeling like you're meeting a person you barely know, and...

This is a fifteen minute body double session I made for winding down at the end of the day. Press play, pick one small evening task, and we'll work through it at the same time.

Body doubling gives a lot of neurodivergent adults the co-regulation and gentle accountability we need to actually start and finish a task. I kept the energy low on purpose in this one because I built it for the end of the day, for the sorting, folding, tidying one surface, journaling, or bits of admin that got left behind. I check in with...

So many confidence videos tell you to take up space because you deserve it, and almost none of them mention that safety in doing that isn't the same for all of us. Which is so important for those of us who are part of marginalized populations (neurodivergent ones being one of them). Add any other, layer more on, and safety is even more of a thing to consider. In this episode I talk about how to decide when to speak up, when to pass, and why both of those can be confidence.

Your right to take up...

In this week's Regulation Practice, I am guiding you through a short "permission to move" exercise designed for those times when you are feeling restless, or prickly with energy, or holding onto pent-up energy that you want to let go of. We will explore various stimming motions (like shaking your hands, rolling your shoulders, tapping, and rocking) to gently release that energy and help regulate your nervous system. Remember, there is no wrong way to do this, and you always have permission to let your body move exactly as it needs to.

About Audio and Video<...

Monotropic flow can be one of the best parts of an autistic or ADHD or AuDHD brain, we are unmasked in JOY! Really ferocious joy. But it can also be the reason you come up for air hours later feeling wrecked. What?! In this episode I get into what monotropism actually is, why the monotropic split (something we experience in neuronormative "life") can push you toward burnout, and what I do about it in my own life.

Most days ask you to switch rapidly between your email, your errands, your appointments, and a bit of small talk...

In this episode, I guide you through a sensory orientation practice designed to act as a reset when life feels overwhelming. If you are experiencing that disconnected, far-away feeling where the space around you does not seem real, this practice uses your senses one at a time to help bring your attention back into the present room or space.

This is an educational self-care episode, not therapy or clinical treatment. If you feel unpleasant or activated at any point, you can return to a safe sensation or simply stop the activity. If you are driving or performing...

High masking autistic and ADHD burnout can show up like it arrived from nowhere, with no warning that you were heading there. Oof. In this episode I look at why that early signal often goes missing, and what low interoception has to do with it.

A lot of us run a constant neuro-normative performance, the masking, for most of our waking hours, often for safety. When your interoception runs low, the internal flag that is supposed to warn you before burnout can be faint, or it might not show up until you are already there. I talk...

This is a brief resourcing exercise based on the Community Resilience Model (CRM) concept of a "resource" for nervous system regulation. This educational self-care practice focuses on bringing a positive, steady resource to mind to help you gently refocus and reset your nervous system.

What to expect in this episode

Inertia makes task switching super difficult. You can see the thing you need to do, you actually want to do it, and your body responds like it's completely out of reach. In this episode I get into what's happening underneath autistic inertia, and what helps once you know which kind of stuck you're in making the transition (or task switching) difficult.

Plenty of us autistics named this thing in our own community years before researchers got around to it, despite a lot of people find it one of the most disabling parts of being autistic, mostly because...

I cover a guided neurodivergent somatic practice designed specifically for when you cannot read your internal body signals. I offer alternatives to emotional labeling by using external temperature, physical pressure, and neutral feedback. I walk through a short self-care exercise that avoids the demand to identify complex emotions. I explain how to use your hands, jaw, chest, and feet and other methods (external or internal) to gather simple sensation data without the pressure to feel something specific.

CHAPTERS:

0:00 Introduction to the self-care practice

0:53 Who this check-in is designed for

1:34 Starting practice...

I cover why standard somatic advice fails some neurodivergent brains and explain interoceptive confusion, emotions, feelings, and explore how to regulate when you genuinely cannot process emotions using sensations from your body. This can affect nearly half of all autistic, and around 40% of ADHD brains to some extent, and for some of us to a great extent.

Many standard therapies, models, and general wellness advice assumes everyone can locate specific feelings as clear physical sensations. And easily apply what emotion that sensation might involve. I discuss how alexithymia changes the link between an emotion and the body...

This is a five-minute nervous system reset you can do at your desk, in a bathroom, in a meeting room you ducked into, outdoors, wherever you happen to be during your workday. Everything here can be done from this regulation practice without anyone around you noticing.

About Audio and Video

This show is available as a video on YouTube. Some audio you are hearing is taken from the video versions that are recorded outside, and why there are some changes in the microphone quality.

NEURODIVERGENT RESOURCES FROM JEN:

If you are neurodivergent and you socialize, which you probably do, you probablly get hit with the social tax of social masking (or camouflaging) on an almost daily basis. It can lead to meltdown, shutdown, autistic burnout, and more because it is really hard on our nervous systems and body. Most conversations about autistic masking stay on the psychology, or in that "you shouldn't mask" or "hey, just unmask!") territory, so in this episode I cover the body side of things.

We should be able to "just unmask". Sure, it would be so great! But the reality...

This is a grounding practice built for shutdown, the offline and quiet state where everything has become a lot and even small routine things feel impossible. The practice asks for almost nothing from you. You can stay lying down, seated, standing at a desk, or wherever you already are, with your eyes open or closed. Nothing has to change, and you can stay exactly as you are the whole time.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

If you understand your neurodivergent nervous system better than most people you know and still can't make a daily practice or a new habit stick, there are still elements from your life that you can adjust to work with how your brain is wired. This episode breaks down why understanding alone doesn't change neurodivergent nervous system patterns, and some ideas that can lead to a personal system that actually helps.

However... for late-diagnosed autistic, ADHD, and AuDHD adults, the problem is rarely a shortage of information.

Allostatic load, predictive processing, and variable executive function all...

If you've sat through a body scan or regulation practice that didn't seem to work for you or your nervous system, or got asked to find an emotion in your chest and felt only nothing or experienced uncertainty or confusion or something similar to that, there are REASONS! And possible solutions, too. This is the what-to-do follow-up on interoception, and it walks through a body awareness practice that can start from a signal you can actually detect.

Tuesday's episode (linked below) covered interoception, the nervous system's ability to read internal signals like heartbeat and hunger, along with...

This is a five minute guided temperature awareness practice. Standard body scans ask you to find sensations that some neurodivergent people genuinely cannot locate, and that gap can make the whole exercise feel useless. Temperature gives you something concrete to work with. We move through the hands, feet, forehead, chest, and stomach, and at each region we check two things: whether the temperature is warm, cool, or neutral, and whether it feels pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. Neutral counts as a real answer, and noticing nothing counts too. The external regions like your hands and the air on your forehead...

Book with me! https://jendehaan.com/coaching

"Listen to your body" shows up everywhere in wellness advice, and for about half of autistic adults it asks for something the nervous system might not be delivering in a usable format. Elevated in the ADHD community too. This is a look at interoception, alexithymia, and why body awareness instructions can leave some of us feeling kinda left out.

I spent close to twenty years trying to feel what teachers, guides, and books kept describing, through meditation, yoga, mindfulness classes, and somatic workshops, and nothing transferred into a...

Your body is already bracing for a conversation that hasn't started yet. This 5-minute guided resourcing practice helps you regulate your nervous system before a meeting, phone call, or any interaction your body is anticipating. Resourcing is a skill from the Community Resilience Model (CRM) that uses a positive memory, person, place, or activity to shift your nervous system toward steadiness before you need it. In this guided practice, you'll ground yourself by noticing physical contact with surfaces around you, bring a resource to mind, track what happens in your body, and anchor that sensation so it's available to...

Functional freeze and ADHD paralysis look almost identical from the outside, but they involve completely different biological mechanisms, and fixing one the wrong way can make the other worse. This episode breaks down how to tell which kind of stuck you're actually in and what to try for each.

If you've ever googled "why can't I move" while lying in that same spot on the couch, you might already know that the standard advice (make a list, start small, go outside) doesn't seem to help. That's because functional freeze is a nervous system shutdown response driven by...

Wired Divergent is a show about nervous system regulation built specifically for neurodivergent brains. If you've ever been told to close your eyes, take a deep breath, and check in with where you feel emotions in your body, and it made you feel worse instead of better, this show is about why that happens and what you might want to try instead. Jen deHaan is autistic and ADHD, and she's spent years studying and certifying in nervous system regulation, the Community Resilience Model, and neurodivergent somatics. The thing she kept running into was how many of the tools and...