Not in a dramatic, self-destructive way. In a project-management way. I had just been approved for a disability pension, diagnosed with Bipolar II after decades of treatment, and I did what any analytical psychologist with a grim piece of data might do. I went to the literature, pulled the mortality statistics, split the difference between the studies, and ran the numbers.

Seventeen years. That was the projected remainder of my life.

So I planned accordingly. Finances. Relationships. Output. What to build and what to abandon. Everything reverse-engineered from an estimated date of obsolescence.

Years later, I deleted the file. Not because I recovered, but because the diagnosis was wrong.

Why healing isn't linear, especially for neurodivergent people.

Healing is often imagined as a straight line.

Symptoms reduce.

Function improves.

Life moves forward.

But nervous systems don't work that way.

They learn in loops.

Progress often looks like improvement followed by regression.

Especially when new layers of awareness emerge.

For neurodivergent people, this can be confusing and demoralising.

You understand yourself better.

You accommodate more.

And yet, new difficulties appear.

This isn't failure.

It's recalibration.

As masking drops or awareness increases, the system reveals what was previously suppressed.

Healing often makes things visible before it makes them comfortable.

This is why patience matters more than optimism.

And why comparison is unhelpful.

Your nervous system has a unique history.

It learned what it needed to learn to survive.

Unlearning those patterns takes repetition, not insight.

If your progress feels uneven, it doesn't mean you're doing it wrong.

It means your system is learning something new.

And learning, almost always, is messy.

Why predictability is calming, not boring.

Predictability often gets a bad reputation.

It's associated with monotony.

Stagnation.

Lack of spontaneity.

But for the nervous system, predictability is information.

It answers the question, "What happens next?"

When that question is answered reliably, the system relaxes.

This is especially important for neurodivergent nervous systems, which often process uncertainty more intensely.

Unpredictable schedules.

Sudden changes.

Ambiguous expectations.

These don't just annoy.

They activate.

Predictability doesn't mean rigidity.

It means enough structure that the system doesn't have to stay alert.

Routines reduce cognitive load.

Familiar environments reduce sensory strain.

Clear expectations reduce internal negotiation.

People often resist predictability because they fear becoming trapped.

But predictability doesn't remove freedom.

It creates capacity.

When less energy is spent managing uncertainty, more energy becomes available for choice, creativity, and connection.

If you find yourself calmer in routines, it's not because you're dull.

It's because your nervous system finally knows what it's dealing with.

Why masking works until it doesn't.

Masking is often misunderstood as deception.

In reality, it's translation.

It's the effort of reshaping internal experience into something the outside world can tolerate.

For neurodivergent people, masking often begins early.

Tone is adjusted.

Reactions are filtered.

Needs are minimised.

This allows access to work, relationships, and safety.

And for a long time, it works.

The problem is that masking is metabolically expensive.

It requires constant monitoring.

Constant adjustment.

Constant self-interruption.

Over time, this creates exhaustion that doesn't respond to rest.

Because the effort never stops.

Many people don't realise they're masking.

They just feel tired, irritable, or detached.

They wonder why things that "should be fine" feel so hard.

The cost of masking isn't failure.

It's success without relief.

Unmasking doesn't mean abandoning all adaptation.

It means becoming selective.

Choosing where effort is necessary and where it's optional.

That might involve reducing social exposure.

Allowing more direct communication.

Letting your environment fit you instead of the other way around.

Masking kept you safe.

You don't need to punish yourself for that.

But you are allowed to ask whether it's still costing more than it gives.

Why rest doesn't work when your nervous system doesn't trust it.

Many people say they're resting, but they're not restoring.

They stop working.

They lie down.

They disengage.

And yet, they don't feel better.

This is especially common for people with long histories of vigilance.

Rest only restores when the nervous system believes it's safe to rest.

If the system is still scanning for threat, rest becomes another task.

The body lies still.

The mind keeps watch.

This is why some people feel more anxious when they finally stop.

Without activity as a buffer, the system surfaces everything it's been holding back.

For neurodivergent people, this can be even more pronounced.

Rest is often unstructured.

Unpredictable.

Sensory-noisy.

Which makes it feel unsafe rather than soothing.

What helps is redefining rest as low-demand regulation, not absence of activity.

That might mean repetitive, absorbing tasks.

Predictable routines.

Quiet sensory input.

Rest doesn't have to be passive.

It has to be non-threatening.

If rest hasn't been working for you, it doesn't mean you're bad at resting.

It means your nervous system hasn't yet learned that stopping won't cost you something.

Teaching that takes time, consistency, and the removal of pressure to "do rest properly".

Why regulation matters more than resilience.

Resilience is one of the most overused words in modern psychology.

It's usually framed as the ability to push through.

To adapt.

To keep going.

And for a while, that works.

But resilience without regulation quietly drains people.

It asks the nervous system to tolerate more and more without ever resetting.

Regulation is different.

Regulation is not about toughness.

It's about recovery.

It's the system's ability to move out of activation and return to baseline.

Without regulation, resilience becomes endurance.

And endurance has a cost.

Many people, especially neurodivergent people, have been praised for resilience their entire lives.

They learned to mask early.

They learned to perform competence.

They learned to override discomfort.

That skill kept them functional.

But it often came at the expense of regulation.

The body stayed alert.

The system stayed braced.

Downtime never fully restored.

Over time, resilience becomes indistinguishable from survival mode.

This is why some people "cope" for decades and then collapse suddenly.

Not because they lacked strength.

But because strength was never paired with recovery.

If you're neurodivergent, regulation often needs to be deliberate.

Not dramatic.

Just intentional.

That might mean allowing sensory decompression without guilt.

Reducing context switching.

Letting routines stabilise you rather than bore you.

Regulation isn't self-care theatre.

It's what allows resilience to stop being expensive.

You don't need to become less resilient.

You need more opportunities for your system to stand down.

Why being "high functioning" often delays getting help

High functioning is a dangerous compliment.

It suggests competence without acknowledging cost.

People who are described this way often delay seeking help because they don't look unwell enough.

They're still working.

Still parenting.

Still producing.

So they assume they should be coping.

What gets missed is how much effort that coping requires.

High functioning distress is often invisible.

It shows up as exhaustion rather than collapse.

Irritability rather than despair.

Detachment rather than chaos.

Because there's no obvious breakdown, support is postponed.

Sometimes for years.

By the time help arrives, the system is already depleted.

Recognising this pattern isn't about labelling yourself.

It's about legitimising strain that hasn't yet turned into crisis.

You don't have to wait until things fall apart to take your own experience seriously.

Functioning is not the same as being okay.

The quiet grief of becoming functional again

Recovery is often portrayed as triumphant.

Strength returning.

Confidence rising.

Life resuming.

But there is another side that doesn't get talked about much.

Grief.

When people start functioning again after collapse, illness, or burnout, they often notice what was lost.

Time.

Identity.

Illusions about who they were or what they could sustain.

Functioning again can bring clarity.

And clarity can hurt.

It shows you the cost of what you were doing before.

It shows you the fragility you didn't want to see.

This grief isn't a setback.

It's a sign that awareness has widened.

You're not just functioning again.

You're integrating what happened.

That process takes time.

And it doesn't need to be rushed or reframed as gratitude.

Some losses deserve to be acknowledged quietly.

Why safety feels boring to some nervous systems

This is a strange and uncomfortable truth.

For some people, safety doesn't feel good.

It feels flat.

Empty.

Even unsettling.

They relax for a moment and then feel restless, irritable, or low.

This is often misinterpreted as self-sabotage.

But what's actually happening is habituation.

If a nervous system has learned to operate in high stimulation, high alert, or emotional intensity, calm can feel unfamiliar.

Without the constant buzz of activation, the system doesn't know what to do.

So it seeks stimulation.

Conflict.

Urgency.

Noise.

This isn't a desire for chaos.

It's a system trying to feel alive in the only way it knows how.

Learning to tolerate safety is a skill.

It involves letting the body experience quiet without panicking.

That process can feel dull at first.

But boredom is often the doorway to rest.

And rest is where repair happens.

If safety feels uncomfortable, it doesn't mean you're broken.

It means your system hasn't practised it yet.

Why thinking about your feelings doesn't always help

Modern psychology has taught people to reflect.

To name emotions.

To analyse patterns.

To understand where reactions come from.

This has been useful.

But it has also created a quiet misunderstanding.

That if you think about your feelings carefully enough, they will resolve.

For many people, the opposite happens.

They become more tangled.

They think about their anxiety.

Then think about why they're anxious about being anxious.

Then worry about why insight isn't working.

What's happening here is not a lack of intelligence.

It's a mismatch between tool and task.

Thinking is a cortical process.

Emotion regulation is not.

When feelings are driven by the nervous system, thinking about them can actually keep them alive.

Attention acts like fuel.

The body reads focus as importance.

So when you keep scanning your internal state, the system stays alert.

This is why some people feel better when they're distracted, grounded, or absorbed in something physical.

It's not avoidance.

It's regulation.

Understanding feelings is valuable.

But it's not always the intervention.

Sometimes the most helpful shift is from analysing experience to changing the conditions around it.

You don't always need better insight.

Sometimes you need less internal surveillance.