“Who Am I?”: Identity Spirals and the Neurodivergent Search for Self
“I keep thinking I’ve figured myself out… but then something happens, and I’m right back at zero.”
If you’ve ever found yourself asking, “Who am I, really?”—not once, but over and over—you’re not broken.
You’re just navigating a question that doesn’t have a single, final answer.
For many neurodivergent people, identity isn’t something we find once and keep forever.
It’s something we construct, re-evaluate, deconstruct, and rebuild—often in response to how the world responds to us.
In this post, we’ll explore:
This is the deeper dive. The reflection that comes after the spiral.
Not to stop the questioning, but to learn how to live alongside it.
Most people build their identity gradually—through consistent feedback from the world around them.
But for many neurodivergent people, that feedback is often inaccurate, invalidating, or completely missing.
Instead of discovering who we are, we spend years trying to figure out who we’re supposed to be.
When you grow up without knowing you’re neurodivergent, you internalize every struggle as a personal flaw:
These questions don’t foster identity—they fracture it.
And when a diagnosis finally does come—whether at 20 or 40 or 60—it doesn’t instantly rebuild self-trust.
It just hands you a new lens to look through—one that takes time, grief, and practice to use.
Many neurodivergent people become experts at masking—the subtle (or extreme) practice of hiding natural traits to blend in.
When you’re constantly adjusting your behavior, tone, interests, or facial expressions to meet expectations, it creates a kind of false self: one that works to be acceptable, but never quite feels true.
You learn to play roles so well that eventually, you forget where the mask ends and the real you begins.
And when others continually reflect back misunderstanding or judgment, you start to doubt your instincts, your preferences, even your personality.
Executive function challenges—like poor working memory, time blindness, and emotional flooding—can affect how you remember, organize, and interpret your own life story.
Instead of a cohesive self, you end up with fragments.
Moments. Episodes. Mismatched roles.
And you’re left trying to thread them together without a clear timeline or throughline.
This isn’t failure.
It’s what happens when your brain is doing its best in an environment that doesn’t reflect your reality back to you clearly.
But that doesn’t mean identity is out of reach.
It just means we may need different tools—and a more compassionate map—to find our way back to ourselves.
Neurodivergent people are often highly adaptable—not because they want to be, but because they have to be.
To stay safe. To stay connected. To stay employed. To stay invisible.
We shift, shape, and stretch ourselves to fit into environments that rarely accommodate how we naturally think, feel, or function.
Chronic Code-Switching & Camouflaging
You might talk one way at work, another way with friends, and a third way when you’re completely alone.
You might laugh when you don’t feel like it. Mirror others’ tone. Numb your real reactions. Fake enthusiasm just to seem agreeable.
Over time, this becomes second nature—and increasingly difficult to distinguish from who you really are.
You become fluent in survival, but unsure in selfhood.
When your daily life is built around adjusting, it’s easy to start viewing your entire identity as a kind of performance.
This isn’t impostor syndrome.
This is the residue of living in a world where being yourself often came at a cost.
Many neurodivergent people carry an invisible tension:
And when those two don’t align, you start to spiral:
“Am I adaptable because I’m flexible… or because I’m afraid?”
“If I stopped adjusting, would anyone still like me?”
“If I could just be myself… who would that even be?”
But what if you’re not meant to choose between the two?
What if your adaptability is part of your authenticity—
And the real question is: How can I adapt in ways that bring me closer to myself, not further away?
There’s a quiet kind of grief that lives beneath many neurodivergent identity spirals.
Not the grief of losing someone else—
but the grief of never fully meeting yourself.
When you look back at your life through a new lens—whether that’s a diagnosis, a realization, or a burned-out mask—you may start to see all the moments where your authentic self was suppressed, ignored, or misunderstood.
This grief doesn’t always show up as tears.
Sometimes it shows up as numbness, bitterness, or sudden waves of sadness that seem to have no source.
“I don’t even know who I was before I started hiding.”
It’s okay to feel angry about how long it took to get here.
It’s okay to feel sad about how much of your life was spent performing.
And it’s okay to feel tired—because searching for yourself in an ever-shifting mirror is exhausting.
You may grieve:
It means your self-awareness is expanding.
It means you’re reconnecting with the parts of you that were left behind.
It means something inside you knows that your story is still unfolding.
You can mourn what was lost and build what was missing.
You can hold grief in one hand and possibility in the other.
And the version of you that’s emerging now?
They’re real. Even if they’re still taking shape.
After the spiral settles, the question usually remains:
“Okay… but how do I actually build a sense of self that feels like mine?”
The answer isn’t instant clarity. It’s not a sudden breakthrough or a list of adjectives that neatly define you.
It’s a slow, living process.
And for neurodivergent people, it may look different than what you’ve seen modeled.
Let’s make space for that.
Instead of asking “Who am I?”, try:
“What do I care about?”
“What kind of person do I want to be in this moment?”
When you act in alignment with your values—even when your energy, emotions, or focus fluctuate—you begin to feel more grounded in your own compass, not someone else’s checklist.
Sometimes you can’t feel like “you” until you see yourself.
Try gathering:
Make an “I Remember Me” folder. Fill it when you’re grounded. Use it when you’re not.
3. Reclaim Preferences, One Choice at a Time
Start noticing the micro-decisions:
When you’ve masked for years, even basic preferences can feel out of reach.
Give yourself permission to rediscover them gently, without pressure to explain or justify.
Your identity doesn’t have to be fixed to be valid.
You can be:
Neurodivergent identity often is nonlinear—interwoven with cycles of burnout, masking, inspiration, overwhelm, and growth.
You don’t have to define yourself to be yourself.
You can live into your identity instead.
“Who am I?” is a powerful question.
But for neurodivergent minds—especially those shaped by masking, adaptation, and long periods of not being seen—it can also become a trap. A loop. A puzzle with missing pieces.
Maybe the goal isn’t to finally land on a perfect answer.
Maybe it’s to ask a different kind of question.
“How can I feel like myself right now?”
“What would support me in being more ‘me’ today—even if that looks different than yesterday?”
“What truth, feeling, or value do I want to honor in this moment?”
These aren’t shortcuts. They’re portals.
They move you out of the abstract and back into the felt experience of self—messy, real, and evolving.
You don’t have to solve the question of who you are all at once.
You just have to keep noticing the moments when you feel like you’re home.
Keep collecting them.
Keep honoring them.
Keep returning to them when the spiral starts again.
Because yes—your identity might change.
But the part of you that wants to know yourself?
That part has always been there.
And it’s not going anywhere.
Check out Part 1 in this series:
Neurodivergent Identity Spirals: What They Are, Why They Happen, and How to Cope
And stay tuned for a free tool coming soon: The Living Self-Map—a printable worksheet to help you gently reconnect with your values, preferences, and identity anchors over time.You’re not unfinished.
You’re in motion.
And that’s okay.
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