By Emily Linder, LPCC-S | Calibrations Counseling & Consultation A client sat in my office last month and said something that stopped me cold: "I've been unmasking for six months now. I'm finally being myself. And I don't like who that person is." She'd spent three years in therapy working toward this moment. Learning about her autism. Understanding her need to mask. Slowly letting the performance drop. And now that she was finally being authentic, she discovered she didn't a

By Emily Linder, LPCC-S | Calibrations Counseling & Consultation A client came to therapy with a question that surprised both of us: "I know I need to unmask. But I don't know who I'm unmasking toward. Who am I supposed to become?" She'd spent months recognizing her autistic traits, understanding her need to mask, beginning to let the performance drop. But all of that work was about what to stop doing. Stop forcing eye contact. Stop suppressing stims. Stop pretending to be so

By Emily Linder, LPCC-S | Calibrations Counseling & Consultation I said yes to hosting Thanksgiving dinner even though the thought made my stomach turn. Yes to a networking event I knew would leave me depleted for days. Yes to taking on an extra project at work when I was already drowning. And then I went home and cried in my closet because I couldn't figure out why I kept doing this to myself. This was three years into knowing I was autistic and had ADHD. I'd done therapy. I

By Emily Linder, LPCC-S | Calibrations Counseling & Consultation For most of my twenties, I was the friend who organized everything. Weekend trips, group dinners, birthday celebrations, impromptu happy hours. I was always saying yes and constantly creating opportunities for people to gather. Everyone knew me as social, outgoing, the connector who brought people together. I was exhausted all the time. But I thought that was just normal adult tiredness. Then I got my autism dia

By Emily Linder, LPCC-S | Calibrations Counseling & Consultation I was sitting in a coffee shop when I overheard two women at the next table talking about executive dysfunction. One was describing how she'd spent forty-five minutes trying to make herself start a simple task, not because she didn't want to do it, but because her brain just wouldn't initiate the action. The other woman nodded. "Oh, the wall," she said. "I hit that constantly." They kept talking, trading strateg

By Emily Linder, LPCC-S | Calibrations Counseling & Consultation I was sitting in my therapist's office staring at a blank piece of paper with colored pencils in front of me. She'd asked me to draw myself. Not a portrait, just a visual representation of how I saw myself after my autism and ADHD diagnoses. I couldn't do it. I had no idea how to represent myself visually anymore. The old image, competent, neurotypical-passing, socially skilled, didn't fit. But I hadn't built a