An Interview with :: Alicia Marie Hutton, MS, LMFT, ACRPS

HOW DOES SHAME PRESENT ITS SELF WITH NEURODIVERGENT PEOPLE?

So when I work with neurodivergent folks, one of the biggest themes that I see is shame. And most often when they come into the therapy room and I see them for the first time, they’re not saying, “oh my, Alicia, I just feel so ashamed.” They’re saying, “I’m so anxious all the time. I’m so depressed. I can’t just seem to get out of bed,” or, “I’m suicidal”, or, “I can’t stop,” you know, fill in the blank. Once we unpack that, really the, core of what they’re feeling is shame. 

WHERE DOES THE NEURODIVERGENT SHAME COME FROM?

It comes from this lifetime of being compared to neurodivergent peers from childhood, whether it be teachers, family members, peers themselves. We’re constantly receiving this feedback of, you need to do better. And shame is really about who we are. Guilt is about what we do. We feel bad about the what we do. Shame is I feel bad about who I am. And when we’re receiving those messages from all of these people in our lives throughout a lifetime, it really contributes to low self-worth and feelings of shame about who we are. And, you know, that can, how the person manages that shame can look very different, and in ways you wouldn’t even expect for a neurodivergent individual. But it is very, very common.

HOW DOES NEURODIVERGENT SHAME IMPACT A PERSON’S LIFE?

When someone experiences that amount of shame over a lifetime, it impacts their job, school, relationships. They often avoid doing things where they feel like they will fail because in their mind, I am a failure. I often make mistakes. I screw things up. Unpacking that I think is really the first step ’cause it’s so ingrained into their life and it causes so much stress, and unhappiness really.