What do you say to yourself when you mess up or encounter a failure? No really, take a moment and think about it. List the words you speak to yourself. Now think of a friend and imagine them in that same scenario. What would you say to them? What do you notice about how you treat yourself differently than you treat others?

Many people struggle with responding to themselves with the same kind of support, understanding, and kindness they would offer a friend. For neurodiverse individuals, this may be exacerbated by living in systems that are difficult to process or keep up with, leading to stress and feelings of rejection and failure. While the neurodiversity movement seeks to empower, break stigmas, and create acceptance and awareness, unfortunately many individuals still struggle with low levels of satisfaction, high levels of stress, and generally poorer well-being. The good news for everyone is that we can learn to respond differently through self-compassion to build resilience and coping.

While self-compassion is a great tool for anyone, neurodiverse individuals tend to have lower levels of it. Given the connection between self-compassion and improved wellbeing, you might think it would be an important skill for neurodiverse people to build – and researchers think so too! No, self-compassion does not take away difficult experiences, but it can shift perspectives to counter shame, isolation, and frustration. It involves being kind rather than critical when inadequacy rears its ugly head, and treating ourselves with warmth when we are challenged. This mindset can help counter “black and white” or “all or nothing” thinking that is common among neurodiverse populations.

Self-compassion can also shift goals away from societal norms and perfectionism, and toward personal values, leading to increased satisfaction and motivation. Self-compassion sounds wonderful but if it were natural, we would probably all be doing it, so let’s break it down a little. Self-compassion involves three main pillars: Kindness vs. self-judgement, mindfulness vs. suppression and overidentification, and common humanity vs. isolation.

Kindness

Most of us know what kindness looks like, its more the practice of applying it to ourselves that we have difficulty with. One way to build this skill is to practice what we did at the beginning of this article: treat yourself as though you were a friend. Remain positive, care for your physical needs, and let yourself off the hook here and there. Ask yourself if you are upset because your failure is counter to your morals, values, or goals, or if it is because you are worried about a negative evaluation of your difference from society. Acknowledging the gap between your neurodiversity and societal norms can help reframe the way your see yourself as you move through life- are you really failing or are you doing amazingly well at navigating systems that do not resonate with your natural ways of thinking? Shifting where you validation comes from can also be a powerful tool. When we value ourselves by how others appraise us, it can be easy to find flaws. People don’t even have to treat us negatively; we will often fill in the blanks for them and assume we are viewed poorly. Instead, choosing to validate from within, based on our personal values, can be a radical act of self-kindness.

Mindfulness

This element of self-compassion is all about balance. There are two extremes we may revert to when faced with overwhelming emotions. We may suppress them (think the old notion of a “stiff upper lip”) or overidentify with them (I feel badly so I must be a bad person). Sometimes we may supress because we know we’d just end up overidentifying if we didn’t! In the context of neurodivergence, heightened emotional sensitivity can lead to overidentifying, while masking to hide struggles and fit in increases suppression. The remedy is to meet yourself in the middle. Acknowledge your feelings to avoid suppression and then release them of judgement to avoid overidentification. One way to do this is to simply say, “I feel____ and that is okay”. It may take some time and practice before you get to a place where you can say this and believe it. Some activities to help boost your mindfulness skills include yoga, deep breathing, mindful eating, and meditation. And bonus, these are versatile practices that can be done almost anywhere!

Common Humanity

When you feel like you’ve been labelled as “different” or “other”, it can be easy to isolate yourself by believing you are the only person who is struggling. Feeling like an outsider in this way can make the neurodiverse experience feel extremely lonely. This dimension of self-compassion involves countering those thoughts that say, “nobody else feels this way” or “nobody else has to deal with difficulties”. It is about recognizing that to be human is to be messy, imperfect, and vulnerable and realizing that this is what connects us to others. If we struggle, it simply means we are human, and if we are human, we are in good company. How can we build and maintain this perspective? Reflecting on shared experiences of humanity is important. But perhaps the most important element (and possibly most difficult) is reaching out! To a friend, a trusted family member, and yes, a therapist can help too. We can’t put our feelings into the context of humanity if we are in isolation. Sharing our struggles helps us recognize points of commonality, build closeness, and gain new perspectives.

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