Rebuilding Your Self-Image After a Neurodivergent Diagnosis: 7 Visual Exercises That Help
- Emily Linder
- May 8
- 9 min read
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 new one yet. I was just a blank space where a self-image used to be.
"Start with the parts you do know," my therapist said. "What colors feel right?"
I picked up a pencil and drew a jagged line across the page. It looked chaotic. It also felt more honest than anything I'd drawn about myself in years.
That moment started a process of rebuilding my self-image from the ground up. Not just understanding myself differently on an intellectual level, but actually changing the internal picture I carried of who I was.
In my therapy practice, I use visual exercises regularly with clients navigating identity shifts after a neurodivergent diagnosis. There's something about externalizing identity through images, drawings, or collages that accesses understanding in ways talking alone can't reach.
Why Visual Exercises Work
Our self-image isn't just cognitive. It's visceral, emotional, often subconscious. After diagnosis, that old self-image needs to be dismantled and rebuilt. Visual exercises help that process in concrete ways because they:
Surface subconscious beliefs about yourself that you might not be able to verbalize
Make abstract identity concepts tangible
Allow complexity that linear description doesn't capture
Create external representations you can look at, adjust, and return to over time
Engage different parts of the brain than verbal processing
One client told me after her first visual exercise: "I didn't know I saw myself that way until I drew it. It was right there in the colors I chose and I hadn't consciously realized it."
That's the point. Making identity visual shows you what you're carrying underneath the articulated understanding.
None of these exercises require artistic skill. Stick figures, basic shapes, and simple collages work just as well. The process is what matters, not the product.
Exercise 1: The Before and After
The first exercise I did in therapy was drawing two versions of myself: before diagnosis and after.
Before diagnosis, I drew myself as a solid outline. Neat, contained, controlled. It looked competent but also flat. After diagnosis, I drew multiple overlapping shapes in brighter colors. Messier, more chaotic, but also more dimensional.
Looking at them side by side, I could see what I'd been doing: flattening myself into something manageable for others. The before version looked more acceptable. The after version looked more alive.
When I use this exercise with clients, the before and after images are always revealing. One client drew her before self as a perfect circle, smooth and contained. Her after self was a collection of jagged shapes that didn't quite fit together yet. "The circle was simpler," she said. "But these shapes are actually me."
How to do it: Take two pieces of paper. On one, draw or collage a representation of how you saw yourself before diagnosis. On the other, how you see yourself now. Use colors, shapes, and symbols rather than literal imagery. Then look at both. What changed? What stayed the same? Which version feels more true, even if it's messier?
Exercise 2: The Identity Map
A few months into therapy, my therapist had me create a visual map of all the different parts of my identity and how they related to each other.
I drew myself in the center, small. Then I drew circles radiating out for different aspects: autistic, ADHD, therapist, woman, friend, writer. Some overlapped. Some were separate. Some were larger than others.
Looking at it, I noticed I'd drawn my neurodivergent identities much smaller than my professional identity. Even though I was actively working on integration, I was still treating autism and ADHD as minor aspects of who I was rather than fundamental ones.
My therapist asked: "What would it look like if these circles were sized by how much they actually affect your daily experience?"
I redrew it. The autism and ADHD circles got much bigger. They overlapped with almost everything else, because the reality was, they did affect everything.
Clients' identity maps reveal all kinds of patterns. Where neurodivergence is positioned relative to other identities. Which aspects feel integrated versus compartmentalized. One client drew her autism identity completely off to the side, separate from everything else. "I keep it compartmentalized," she realized. "I don't let it touch the rest of me." Seeing it visually helped her understand why integration felt so hard.
How to do it: Draw yourself in the center of a page. Draw shapes around you representing different aspects of your identity, sized by significance and positioned by how integrated they feel with your core sense of self. Use colors and overlaps to show relationships. What patterns emerge? Where is your neurodivergent identity in relation to everything else?
Exercise 3: The Symbol That Represents You
My therapist asked me to create a personal symbol that captured the essence of who I was becoming after diagnosis. Not a logo, just a visual representation that felt true.
I struggled with this for weeks. Everything I tried felt too neat, too simple, too much like the old version.
Finally, I drew a spiral. Imperfect, with uneven lines and an open center. It just kept spiraling inward in this irregular pattern.
That felt right. The ongoing process of understanding myself more deeply. The non-linearity of it. The way it looked imperfect but was still coherent.
I've kept that symbol. It's in my journal and on a sticky note on my desk. When I'm struggling with identity questions, I look at it. It reminds me that I'm not supposed to be a neat circle.
Clients' symbols are always deeply personal. One created a tree with roots above ground: "My neurodivergence was supposed to be hidden. But my roots are visible now, and they're part of the whole structure." Another created a prism: "Light goes in as one thing and comes out as multiple colors. That's how I process the world. I used to think that was a problem."
These symbols become touchstones. Visual reminders of self-understanding to return to when the old negative self-image tries to reassert itself.
How to do it: Create a symbol, image, or small drawing that represents who you are now. Let your intuition guide you. It can be abstract or literal, simple or complex. The only requirement is that it feels true. Keep it somewhere you'll see it regularly.
Exercise 4: The Timeline of Self-Understanding
This exercise tracks the evolution of your self-image over time.
I created a visual timeline showing key moments in my journey. Early childhood: a question mark. Adolescence and young adulthood: increasingly solid but also increasingly enclosed. At diagnosis: an explosion, everything fragmenting. Post-diagnosis: gradual reconstruction, still messy.
Looking at the timeline helped me see that self-understanding isn't linear. It's not a straight progression from confused to clear. It's a process of building, fragmenting, and rebuilding.
One client's timeline showed repeated cycles of building competence, then burning out. "I keep doing this," he realized. "Maybe I need to stop building the high-functioning version." Another's showed that her self-image had been fairly consistent until her late twenties, then became increasingly fragmented. Mapping it visually helped her see the fragmentation corresponded directly with when she started masking more heavily for her career.
How to do it: Create a timeline from childhood to present. At key points, draw or use symbols to represent how you understood yourself at that time. Mark moments that shifted your self-understanding. Simple shapes and colors work fine. Where do you notice patterns? What moments created the biggest shifts?
Exercise 5: The Ideal Day Visualization
My therapist asked me to draw what an ideal day would look like if I could structure it entirely around my actual neurology, not around what I thought I should be able to handle.
I drew long blocks of uninterrupted time, substantial alone time, predictable routines, sensory comfort, minimal transitions. It looked nothing like how I'd been living.
That drawing showed me how far my actual life was from what would actually work for my brain. I'd been living according to neurotypical structures while wondering why everything felt so hard.
One client drew an ideal day that included working from home, no phone calls, written communication only, and predictable routines. Then she looked at her actual life: commuting, constant meetings, verbal communication all day, constantly shifting demands. "No wonder I'm exhausted," she said. "I'm living the opposite of what works for me."
This exercise isn't about immediately overhauling your life. It's about making visible what a life structured around your neurodivergence could look like, so you have something to move toward incrementally.
How to do it: Draw or map out your ideal day if you could structure it entirely around your neurodivergent needs. What would the rhythm be? How much social versus alone time? What sensory environment? Don't limit yourself by current constraints. Then look at the gap between that ideal and your current reality. What small movements toward the ideal are possible?
Exercise 6: The Parts Collage
I created a collage representing different parts of myself that sometimes felt contradictory: the competent therapist and the person who struggles with basic tasks. The deep thinker and the person who can't make phone calls. The creative writer and the disabled person who needs accommodations.
I cut out images and words and arranged them on a page. At first I tried to make them coherent. Then I gave up and let them overlap and clash.
The final collage was chaotic. It was also accurate. These parts do coexist in me, even when they seem contradictory. The collage helped me see that integration doesn't mean resolving contradictions. It means accepting that they're all part of the whole.
One client included images representing both her professional success and her struggles with basic self-care. "I kept thinking I had to fix one or the other. But they both exist. I can be successful at work and struggle to remember to eat. That's just how I am."
How to do it: Create a collage, digital or physical, representing different aspects of yourself that feel important or contradictory. Use images, words, drawings, whatever feels right. Don't try to make it coherent. Let the parts overlap and clash. What do you notice about how they relate? Can you hold the contradictions without needing to resolve them?
Exercise 7: The Container That Holds You
My therapist asked me to draw a container that could hold all of me, neurodivergence included. Not a container that would suppress parts, but one that could accommodate everything I actually was.
I drew an irregular shape with permeable boundaries. It had some rigid edges where I needed structure and some flexible areas where I needed adaptability. It had openings where things could flow in and out.
Looking at it, I realized I'd been trying to fit myself into containers designed for neurotypical people. Neat boxes with firm edges. No wonder I'd never fit.
One client drew a container with lots of padding and soft edges: "I need cushioning. Buffer time, sensory accommodation, emotional space. The rigid structures I've been using don't have that." Another drew multiple smaller containers connected by passages: "I need separation between work, home, and social. They can't all bleed together or I get overwhelmed."
How to do it: Draw a container that could hold all of you comfortably. What shape would it be? Rigid or flexible? What openings, what protections? Don't think about real-world constraints. Just visualize a container that would actually accommodate your full self. What does this tell you about what kind of life structure you need?
The Integration That Happens Over Time
These exercises don't create instant integration. You don't do one and suddenly have a clear, coherent self-image.
But over time, they build something. A visual vocabulary for understanding yourself. External representations you can return to and refine. Concrete evidence of how your self-understanding is evolving.
I look back at the visual work I did in the first year after diagnosis and it's completely different from what I create now. The early stuff was fragmented, confused, often painful. What I create now is more integrated, more accepting.
With clients, I sometimes have them recreate earlier exercises after several months or a year. The differences are always striking. The self-image becomes more integrated. Neurodivergent aspects move from peripheral to central. Contradictions become more accepted rather than problems to solve.
That's what integration looks like. Not resolution of complexity, but acceptance of it. Not a neat, simple self-image, but a complex one that actually reflects who you are.
If you're struggling with identity integration after diagnosis, try these. Don't worry about artistic skill. Don't worry about making something impressive. Just try externalizing your internal experience through visual representation.
You might be surprised what emerges when you give your identity a shape you can actually see.
Looking for support? Calibrations Counseling & Consultation offers neurodivergent-affirming therapy in Ohio for adults navigating ADHD, autism, identity, and more. We offer telehealth across Ohio and in-person sessions in the Barberton/Akron area. Visit calibrationscc.com to learn more or schedule a free consultation call.
This content is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for therapy, treatment, or crisis services. If you are looking for mental health support in Ohio, visit calibrationscc.com to connect with one of our counselors.
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