I Performed Fine for 30 Years. Here's What It Cost Me.

Welcome. You're listening to a space created for sensitive, intuitive, and neurodivergent nervous systems. This is a place for empaths, cycle breakers, healers, and anyone who has learned to survive by staying quiet, staying small, or staying strong. Here we move gently. We don't rush healing. We don't bypass the body. You're invited to listen in the way that feels safest for you. You can pause, breathe, move, or come back later. Your nervous system sets the pace here. Let's begin.

30 years. That's how long I performed.

Fine.

Not occasionally fine. Consistently, convincingly, exhaustingly fine. This week's episode and Substack essay is about the mask, the performance that high-functioning ADHD women put on just to get through the day. If you haven't read it, The link will be below. But this episode goes somewhere the essay couldn't, because there are things that happen in the body, in the nervous system, in the spirit, and in parts of you that are sensitive to energy that don't fit into 1,200 words. This is those parts. So I want to talk a little bit more about the essay itself. Defining masking in one sentence: the performance of neurotypicality at a cost most people can't see. 30 jobs. You know, I used to think there was something wrong with me and it was my fault, and there was a lot of shame and guilt from being fired or we're downsizing, oh, we're letting you go. Who knows if it was actual firing or not, but really it's not a list. It's a fact. 30 jobs in my lifetime. That's the number. And then in the parking garage, that one sentence in 2017, being fired for being too much and standing in that parking garage, just totally obliterated. And then getting the call, the diagnosis at 52. You know, the doctor said a word and everything made sense. ADHD. So what the essay didn't have space for, what all of this actually felt like in my body, in my spirit, it's in the parts that were supposed to be sensitive to energy while I was spending every ounce of that sensitivity performing. Exit the circus, build the sanctuary. So what masking actually does to the nervous system, and you can also see this as a response to trauma, there are four. I've spoken about them before: fight, flight, fawn, and freeze. And masking is not just social, it's physiological. The body is running a parallel process all day and For me, it's a physical thing. My shoulders never fully drop. That's stress. That's tension. That's holding on. My massage therapist always used to say, your shoulders are touching your ears. Hahaha. Or you get a lot of buildup in the back, or maybe that hump. It's not just posture. It's fascia, right? Oh, and then the jaw, the jaw clenching. The teeth grinding. It's not just snoring, sleep apnea. I also got the tight chest. So that's why I love yoga. And I practice heart openers a lot because we tend to live like this, right? We're hiding. We're, we're feeling fine. We're staying in our shell. And then there's the sleep that's almost, but not quite restful because the brain is still running the script at 2:00 AM. Oh, and my favorite, the hypervigilance, constantly scanning the room, or I'm a people watcher. Who's in a mood? What's expected? Have I said something wrong? For an ADHD brain, this isn't paranoia. It's coping mechanism that, that's learned that if you can read the environment faster, you can adapt faster and adapting faster keeps you safe. And then there's the adrenaline economy, how the ADHD brain uses stress hormones as a substitute for dopamine. When the dopamine runs dry, this is why crisis felt normal. This is why calm, and I get this a lot with my clients, how about we just practice doing nothing? That felt suspicious. That felt weird. That felt tense. That felt like, well, what am I supposed to do? Coming home completely empty, drained, not tired, like after exercise, empty, like a phone or a computer at 1%, still technically on, but not actually functional. And that's why I love functional medicine. The long-term cost here, let's name that chronic muscle tension, immune dysregulation, hormonal issues, mood issues. Everything is all connected and interconnected. Your body keeps the score of every performance you ever gave. And here's what I want you to hear: your exhaustion is not weakness. It is the measurable physiological cost of performing neurotypically in a world that was not designed for your brain. And you have not been failing to cope. You have been working 4 times as hard as everyone around you with no one, including yourself. And please know this, please know this. I have tried to fit into corporate. I have tried to fit into toxic workplaces and cultures and relationships. And it does not work. It is time to choose yourself. It is time to say no. It is time to practice in the mirror saying no and also saying, I love you and you matter and you're important and you're beautiful and perfect just the way you are. And I believe that corporations are changing. With all the chaos around us. But there's also corporations that will use corporate culture washing, meaning we are an inclusive space. We welcome diversity. We are all inclusive. Really? What does that mean? Because if the top of the organization is not practicing that and not having their hands in it, And also checking in with people that work differently. Everybody works different. I guess what happens when you have visual thinking, you recognize patterns right away. You like routine and you like clear definitions on what your tasks are and what's expected of you. Not, you know, just glossing over and, oh, that's just the way it is, or, oh, you're so difficult and you don't go along to get along. And when you call out practices and you call out procedures and policies that don't work, people get offended, corporations get offended, corporations define you as difficult. And then it, it, it's toxic. It spreads throughout the workplace. Then all your, your coworkers are ganging up on you because maybe some of, they're getting some of that blowback. But if an HR person and manager got together and sat down with you and said, so are you on the spectrum? Do you have ADHD? What kind of supports do you need? And how do you work and how would communication look like to you? What would it feel like to you? Because we want to work with you. Wow. That would be transformational, wouldn't it? Now I can see why I left corporate in 2017 and I have not gone back because people will say what you want to hear, but do they actually follow through? Are they ethical? Do they have, you know, social, corporate responsibilities? If they don't, you know, and that's really important even before applying somewhere, if you are applying, is to look at the company, see if there's any press on them. What do they believe in? What do they stand for? And then actually see what they're saying is matching what they're doing. That's a big green flag. Now, when you go into the interview, I want you to bring in questions. And I love this one. You might want to pause on this one to write it down. You ask them what they love about the company, why did they join the company, and where do they see themselves or in the future of the company? I've done that a few times in the past and I get, you know, blank, sometimes like, what? Oh, you're asking me? Because now you're kind of flipping things on them and also making them talk about themselves. So you're therefore, you're building a connection too. That's important. Then you start looking at body language, right? We are very good at that, watching cues. Now you may say, oh, I'm not good at that, but people give themselves away all the time. It's psychology. So let's get into the spirit piece. What masking costs the empathic and intuitive self. This is about— nobody really talks about this, and LinkedIn definitely doesn't like me because I say that spirituality does belong in the boardroom and it's not religion. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Watch all the ego-based, science-based, evidence-based people run. Uh, so this is the intersection of neurodivergent and spiritual sensitivity. It's all connected and all interconnected. And yes, I am a psychic medium. As a child, I was reading energy. I spoke with animals. I spoke to my grandmother. I could see auras. So yes, the Reiki Masterpiece, it was specifically for me to learn how to self-heal, what energy actually feels like, because we are energetic beings. We are spiritual beings having our human experience and the sensitivity to energy, to emotion, to the unseen. It is not separate from ADHD. They are woven together. Why is ADHD, especially late diagnosis in women, up 400% since 2020? Because everybody focused on boys. That's why. That's why. No more. So what happens to your sensitivity when it's covered by a mask for 30 years? When every internal signal gets overridden in service of the performance, of the fitting in, of I want everybody to like me. Well, not everybody's going to like you and Who cares what other people think? Okay. Your intuition gets quieter as you're performing, not because it's gone. It never leaves, but because you've trained yourself to override your internal GPS signals, your animal instincts, so consistently that you stop hearing them clearly. And that's why I love teaching about the 8 Claires. The empathic ability turns outward towards performing and pleasing and martyring and perfectionism instead of inward towards receiving because I already am. You're using your sensitivity to read the room for threats, not to receive guidance. And animals knew before I did. Man, there's been so many animals in my life. I'm an animal guardian. I've had animals since birth, pre-birth, past lives. They have been totems. They have been spirit guides. They are always with me. They always show up. Symbols, signs, messages, love, fun. I'm an animal communicator. I respond differently to you masked versus unmasked. Animals do. They know. Why does my dog always act up? Because he's trying to tell you something. You need to play more. You need to let go more. You need to have fun. You need to just, they want you to be happy, happy, joyful, present. And they, and they, and they don't respond to performance. They respond to what's underneath it. They are the original Reiki masters. They are connected to the earth. And they always have been. Always. And I want to talk about that moment in the parking garage, that quiet that fell over me that wasn't defeat. Looking back, that was my nervous system finally going still enough to receive something and maybe taking an energetic big breath in and a sigh out. The performance stopping was the first crack of Light. There's a version of spiritual bypassing that says, just raise your vibration, just choose Love, just hold the Light. I've been in healing space long enough to know that that approach without bodywork, without somatic work, without being grounded, without nervous system repair, without looking at the actual patterns doesn't heal anything. It just adds a prettier mask on top of the other one. Oh, look, I did it. I'm healed. I don't have to do anything else. And you know what they say, you make plans and God laughs. Haha. So real spiritual sensitivity requires real safety, and safety requires an unmasked nervous system. You cannot receive clearly when you are performing constantly. And now I want to go into the AUDHD layer. That is, there's autism piece, the autism masking meets the ADHD masking. It's a double mask. This really is about ADHD masking and autism masking, they're not the same thing, and when you have both, you have a double mask that's very costly. Autism masking: learning to perform neurotypical social behavior, script conversations, mirroring others, suppressing sensory responses, appearing at ease in environments that are completely overwhelming and you can't wait to get out like a caged animal. ADHD masking is compensating for executive function differences. So arriving early. Oh, I love being early. At least 10 minutes. Then I can get settled and have my tea. It's a thing. Overpreparing. I, I, yeah. How many more things do I need to do? And then I might feel like I'm ready. We're never ready. Building system after system. Oh my gosh. Just to appear organized. I must have, I must at some point had 7 different systems and I was on 7 different social media accounts and I had all these emails and had different websites. It was crazy. Crazy. So when you have both, you're not just managing one performance. You're managing two simultaneous and overlapping performances. Like, You have different layers, different lineages, different timelines in an environment designed for neither of your brains. The late diagnosis reality. Most AU/DHD women are diagnosed late because they mask so well. Very performative. The very skill that protected them is what made them invisible to the diagnostic system. I mean, I'll ask people, how are you? And they're like, I'm fine. I'm good. And then I look, I feel bullshit. No, but I get it. We don't want to burden people. We don't want to get into it. We don't even know where to begin. And my reaction when I got my ADHD diagnosis at 52 with a piece of autism was total relief. Relief for the version I was at 4, 8, 15, 25, 35. Who thought I was just failing at being a person, a human being. And you don't have to have formal autism diagnosis for this to be relevant. If you've always felt like you're translating yourself for the world, this is for you. Please take this in, take some pieces, take what you want and leave the rest. So now this is the unmasked life. It's so what it actually looks like now, the real version. My morning practice starts with gratitude, prayer, self-Reiki, yoga, being outside for a walk with the actual sunlight. That's very important in the morning and meditation, 1 hour, non-negotiable. It's not an aesthetic. It's not a, Well, look at me. It's because my nervous system requires it. This is maintenance, not luxury. And one thing at a time. In fact, I had a conversation with someone in my class about how they had all these different to-do lists. And because they were so long and so much, they didn't even want to do one thing. Do you perform best in the morning? Do you perform best in the evening? So we decided in the morning, take one task, put it in for the calendar, take the other one, put it in the day 2, day 3, day 4, day 5. And then as you go along, you realize, oh, I'm getting better at this. Maybe I can add 2, right? Start small. This really plays out in your workday, whatever you're doing, what it looks like to run your brain's way instead of against it. Now, oh, I need to be doing more. I need to push. I need to be what everybody else is doing. Stop. So the business built specifically so you don't have to mask, no performing, no client management theater, work that pulls from your actual gifts, talents, and abilities. And what you notice now that the mask is off, you can breathe for one, the clarity of your intuition, your, your spidey senses, your guts, the way animals communicate with you. The quality of your presence in conversations. You ever been around someone, you're like, oh wow, I just feel like myself, like we've met in another life, like you're my sister, my brother, whatever that is, right? That's the quality. That's the presence. That's the real conversations, the soulful conversations. And speaking of conversations, I told my son, I don't like I don't like small talk. And he's like, well, why not? Isn't that how you get to know people? I'm like, because it's so surface. It's so fake. I just want to get right to the deep stuff. So maybe recognize yourself there too, that baby steps, because you might scare people. Some people are not ready, or some people are so, they've had bad experiences that they think it's going to be used against them, their trust level. They have to know, like, and trust. And that begins with time and patience. Okay. So what's harder now is the social performances that used to feel automatic now feel strange. No thanks, not for me. So now you're like, okay, I know what I like and what I don't like, and I'm not having to stretch and fit myself into boxes. So the environments that used to feel manageable now feel clearly wrong. Ding, ding, ding, ding. Love that. Sensitivity turned back on is louder before it gets quieter. And then the grief, I, you know, honor that, please. You can't unmask without grieving. The years, the relationships, the paths not taken. And then you come through this, you will come through this. So I'm not going to tell you unmasking is easy. It isn't. What I will tell you is that it's real. And that it's yours and you're still here and you're still listening. The woman underneath the performance, the one with the ADHD brain, the empathic nervous system, the spiritual gifts, the 30 jobs, the parking garage moment. She was never broken. She was just surviving in the wrong rooms, wrong rooms, wrong table.

How about this?

Build your own table. You don't need a better mask. You need a room and a table that's built for you. Yeah. If this episode is landing for you, if you recognize yourself somewhere in the mask, in the body, in the performance, I want you to know there is a next step. I'm building something called the First 111, the beginnings It's a founding cohort, a small, carefully held group of empathic women with ADHD who are ready to leave corporate or already have and build something that doesn't require them to perform. We work on nervous system, the identity, the business model, cuz that's a big component. The whole thing built for your actual brain. There are links below. The discovery call link if you're ready to talk, the Substack link if you're not there yet, but you wanna stay close. And if today's episode opens something, please share it, comment below. The woman in your life who is still performing fine, she needs to hear this. I'm Christine J Gold. This is Heart Led Soul Fed, and I will see you next time.

Thank you for listening. If this episode resonated, join my weekly emails for support and guidance for sensitive, intuitive, and neurodivergent nervous systems. And if you feel called to work with me, I would be honored to connect with you. The link is in the show notes.