Navigating Neurodivergence and Masking with Dr. Devon Price
Today, we dive deep with Dr. Devon Price, a social psychologist known for his groundbreaking work on neurodiversity and societal expectations. Dr. Price, who identifies as transgender and autistic, brings a wealth of experience and personal insight to our discussion, focusing on the complexities of masking in neurodivergent individuals. Price graduated with a BA in psychology and political science from Ohio State University in 2009, and he obtained his MS and PhD from Loyola University Chicago, where he has been teaching as a clinical assistant professor at the School of Continuing and Professional Studies since 2012. You can find Dr. Price’s research in journals such as the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, and the Journal of Positive Psychology.
Dr. Price is also the author of the books Laziness Does Not Exist, Unmasking Autism, and Unlearning Shame. His new book Unmasking for Life is set to be released on March 25th - so if you’re listening to this when it comes out tomorrow.
I imagine with those book titles; you might have a good sense of where this episode is heading - although I will say that despite Dr. Price’s focus on autism, these concepts absolutely apply to ADHD as well, and we definitely get into how they differ. In this episode, we explore the survival strategies behind masking and how these can morph into rigid personas that are hard to shed. We also unpack the nuances of camouflage and compensation in social interactions, the strategic yet often oppressive need to conform, and strategies for managing and minimizing masking in daily life. Dr. Price's expertise is not only academic; his lived experience enriches our understanding of these dynamics, making this episode a must-listen for anyone navigating the intricacies of neurodivergence.
William Curb: So I figured a great place for us to start would be what we're talking about when we're talking about masking.
Devon Price: So in the scientific literature on neurodivergence, masking normally encompasses two sets of behaviors. One is camouflage and the other is compensation. The overarching goal for most masking is to avoid detection as disabled or to avoid some of the social consequences of being disabled, whether that's people disliking you or getting fired or having the cops called on you, any number of kind of negative social consequences. But within that goal, there's so many different strategies that a person can employ. So camouflage can include things like faking facial expressions that don't come naturally to you.
So you see more friendly or approachable faking eye contact by staring in the middle of someone's forehead, memorizing a script of a kind of standard customer service interaction. You can present as more neurotypical and the list goes on and on and on. A lot of it is like the kind of performative aspects or like suppressing your stims, stuff like that. A lot of that aspect has to do with how you look to the outside world. And then the compensation piece is about finding ways to get your needs met or to kind of paper over holes in the world caused by a lack of accommodation, a lack of accessibility.
So an example of a compensation that a lot of neurodivergent people do is a lot of us basically have no choice but to work part time or to work from home because a lot of the social demand and the sensory overwhelm of a full time, let's say office job or a full time retail job is just way too stressful to us. It's something we just cannot cope with. It's something we can't fit into. And so we have to find some way to live that is a little bit distinct from what's typical, what's accepted and expected for neurotypical people.
This can include a number of different strategies. It does not always necessarily need to work the best. An example of compensation that some of us use is things like drinking or using drugs to deal with sensory overwhelm. It's all about just kind of plugging those holes that are left in our life by a lack of this world being not built for us. Those are just some examples, but broadly speaking, that's what most masking behaviors fall into those categories.
William Curb: And it does feel like there are absolutely situations in our life where it's like, yeah, but it's appropriate to mask some of our behaviors in the appropriate circumstances. Like we don't want to be our complete unmasked self, you know, like in a courtroom or something where we like really need to present ourselves as conforming to society because it's going to have consequences if we don't. But I know a lot of people have that problem where they like start doing these masking behaviors and can't stop.
Devon Price: Absolutely. Masking is definitely a survival strategy. It's neither inherently good or bad. I think it's just a tool. And I think if we approach it as a tool that we can make conscious choices over, here's when I'm going to use it.
Here's how I'm going to use it to get my needs met and make sure that I'm behaving in a way that reflects my needs and my values rather than just conforming for conformity's sake. That can make a really big difference in us having a better relationship to masking because, unfortunately, yeah, it's a matter of safety and security for most of us. If you have the ability to mask, it can prevent your neighbors from calling the cops on you. It can prevent yourself from being held in contempt of court to go with your example.
It can help you hold down a job. And it's often horrible that we kind of have no choice but to suppress aspects of ourselves. And there's an extent to which everybody is expected to do it in society, but it falls the most harshly on you the more disabled you are. And a lot of people grow up masking all the time because they've been corrected or punished for every little thing they do that's different.
And if that's the way that you've been living, then you might not be able to make a conscious choice in the moment about, am I doing this just to make people like me or am I doing this because it's going to help me in the long run? It's going to help me get the medical care I need. It's going to help me make a good impression so I can get what I need. These more strategic uses of masking, which can be a little bit more adaptive and a little bit less psychologically draining.
William Curb: Because we all have this kind of curated image we want to give people. I was listening to something earlier today that I was talking about when Roosevelt was president and he was in a wheelchair, but we rarely have any images of that wheelchair because he spent such a long time curating that image because for him it was very important to be powerful, although I don't want to say people in wheelchairs can't be powerful or imposing, but for him that was the image that he was worried that he would lose.
But it wasn't something that really held him back in that sense either because he could just be like, oh yeah, I'll be the first person in the room so that nobody has to watch me come in with the wheelchair and all that. It is a tool that people can use for curating their own image. If they, yeah, as you said, you're doing it strategically and mindfully.
Devon Price: Yeah. And with the FDR example, he was very much reflecting and responding to the prejudices of the time, right? Where absolutely people would have viewed him as weak knowing that he had polio and was using a wheelchair. And none of these biases that we're still living with today are fair or just.
And certainly speaking as an autistic, a lot of us are really big on justice and so it feels very wrong to have to conform when these rules are made up and are super unfair and oppressive. At the same time, it is good to be just for the sake of our own survival, to be aware of here or how people are perceiving me. What are the aspects of it that I can control? And what are the aspects of it that trying to suppress it is just going to make me feel really depressed and stressed and inauthentic and it's really ruining my quality of life.
And that's a really tricky balance and set of decisions that I think we kind of all have to make if we're capable of masking, right? Because obviously the ability to do that is a privilege that not all disabled people have. Some people's difference is right there in the open and they are targeted and treated differently all the time. And so those of us who can make choices about how much of my disability and difference is visible to people, we can really think about am I doing it in a way that really reflects on its base level who I am and how I want to move through the world again, rather than just putting on the neurotypical persona and never taking it off.
William Curb: Yeah, it was also making me think this morning about this idea too of like with ADHD, we have all this stuff with workplace disclosure ideas and it's because yes, you can absolutely be discriminated against because of your ADHD, but at the same time that along the ADHD traits that you're worried about being discriminated against can't be hidden as well. Like if you are repeatedly missing deadlines and all those kinds of things, it's like that's the practical effects of my disability are much harder to hide in that sense. And so instead of being this accurate label of, you know, I have ADHD and I have trouble with these things, we have this like, yeah, you're lazy or, you know, you just don't care about this job or something else, which is maybe not equally as bad, but is also not a great place to be in.
Devon Price: I've definitely seen some ADHDers, part of the way that they try to mask for that is with their choice of career or field that maybe they pick a creative field where there's a lot of not tolerance, but there's an understanding of people are eccentric. The process takes a while, you're not always going to be able to deliver a draft on time. But when you do deliver it, it's going to be this really unique creative thing. And that's going to almost justify in people's minds the fact that you're not this like perfect capitalist worker B, you know.
That so many people are expected to be in most workplaces or sometimes people fall back on using some other quote, unquote excuse because it's more respectable like, oh, I had a migraine. Oh, my kid was sick. People can be sometimes more patient with those things than if you say that you have a disability, which is incredibly unfair. But it's just another way that people do cope with that stigma and kind of mask how difficult they find things and how people are going to view it.
William Curb: And it is what he'd be like, yeah, it's unfair, but you have to just base this on the reality we live because as much as I'd like to live in a place where it's like, oh, this is just accepted and it's fine. That's not how things are. And I don't even think that you can get to a place like that because there's just so many differences in people. I'm never going to understand everyone as much as I would like to.
Devon Price: Yeah, you kind of have to work with the world as it is. That's a big conversation that I have with a lot of people going back to the question of disclosure, right? Should I come out as autistic at work? Should I come out as an ADHD or any other kind of neuro divergence? And on one hand, part of me wants to say, yes, I want us to live in a world where those things are just accepted as a form of diversity and are fine.
But the reality is a lot of workplaces don't view it that way. A lot of people that you'll meet don't view it that way. And so you have to kind of take the temperature in the room a lot of the time and decide, is this a safe place for me to share this information about myself or is it not?
William Curb: When we also want to also then try and make sure that we have places that we can be our unmasked self, we don't want to live a life where it's just always trying to... Not everyone has that option either. If you live with parents who do not understand, that is not something you're going to be able to just escape from easily. But trying to find those places so that you can be your authentic self is very important.
Devon Price: I'm glad you brought that up. It's all about building out those pockets where you can feel safe and relaxed and unmasked because for most people, if you are in the working world, it's probably not going to be your work. It may not be the schooling institution you're in. If it's not a very accepting kind of neurodivergent friendly school, a lot of public facing spaces are still not built for us and it's really tough to navigate.
But if you have your home base of people that you can really relax around and stim and info dump and talk a mile a minute about the stuff that you're passionate about, even to go with the example of somebody stuck living with an unaccepted family, even if it's just like a Discord server where you can get on a video call with some people and just be your own weird self with other people like you, it is a really huge sanity saver for a lot of us and it really helps you internalize the idea that, oh, I'm not broken. There are other people like me. The way I am can be understood and accepted. I just need to find my people and make them as central in my life as possible.
William Curb: So what are the ideas that I've been trying to come back to with this idea of masking? Is that when we have these things that we've really internalized and started to just build our personality around, it can be hard to then take the mask off for a lot of people. And I was wondering if you had some strategies that people could explore for learning how to take the mask off.
Devon Price: So one piece of advice that I got is from this autistic coach named Heather Morgan, who works with clients on this process that she calls the values-based integration process. So it's basically an unmasking therapy. And she really believes that for a lot of us who are really heavily masked, the idea of taking the mask off initially can seem really unsafe. It might be a really scary idea. We don't know what's lurking behind there. We might not trust ourselves. If we've been masking so long that we don't really feel like we know who we are.
So she says, before you even try to do that, you need to kind of affirm for yourself that the person behind the mask is a safe person to be with, that they know a lot of things about who we are and what we need, and that we can really kind of honor them and not be afraid of them. And the way that she recommends people do that is they sit down and kind of journal and think of at least five key moments in life throughout life. It could be your childhood, your adulthood, many different settings, five key moments where you really felt like yourself, where you felt really alive and present. And when you look back on those times in your life, you can say, if all of life were like that, life would be amazing. And to really journal about those moments, what was special about them? What were you doing?
Who were you with? What did feeling free and relaxed and like yourself feel like? And using those memories, using those five moments to figure out what your core values are, what's really important to you. So that might be, you know, if one of your memories is a time when you were working on an artistic project with a friend and you were just really, really engaged in the project and you felt really expressive and free and supported, maybe that tells you that you really value creativity and collaboration with another creative person. Right? If one of your key moments was your wedding day, that might tell you that you really value your relationships, your partner, your family, and your values kind of flow from that.
We all have a bunch of different things that really galvanize us and make us feel good and okay, but it can be so easy to get out of touch with those things if you're masking. So she really recommends just starting there. And I think it is a really valuable place to go in terms of other exercises that are a little bit more just kind of concrete and specific. It can be things like picking one of your stims that you do privately normally and challenging yourself to bring it out into the open.
Can I do this stim around a friend when a friend's in the house? Can I do this stem on a flight or on a train? Can I do it in the park? Obviously not every stem that's going to work for if you have ones that are kind of loud or distracting to others. Maybe some of them you'll want to keep private and that's fine, but it's all about slowly expanding that realm of here's what I allow myself to do around other people.
Here's what I invite people into. And that principle can apply to a lot of things like okay, I'm going to actually tell this friend of mine about this special interest I have that is maybe kind of nerdy or weird and I'm normally afraid to talk about it, but I'm going to trust this person by talking about it. Little things like that can really help kind of crack open the door and get us more comfortable being more authentic with people.
William Curb: And I think that can also really help with how we feel when we are with those other people because I know a lot of us identify as introverts because of how draining social experiences can be. But if we try and think about social experiences where we weren't masking, we often don't have that same level of oh my god that was I just need to take a couple days to like lie in the dark by myself or something.
And I'm like oh yeah, maybe I'm not quite as introverted as if I think I am. It's just I spend so much time masking in those social situations and being like okay, how can I maybe move things around in my head so that I can do some of those social things that I want to do. And then also just maybe find ways not to do the social things where I have to mask all the time.
Devon Price: Yeah, inhibition like reigning yourself in and suppressing yourself takes so much energy and it's not a fun use of energy. It's kind of soul sucking right? No wonder you feel exhausted after socializing with people where it's like for me, for example, like a networking event at work where I have to be kind of fake nice, very professional, I'm wearing uncomfortable clothes, you can't say anything too weird or controversial. It takes so much energy to just keep myself boxed-in in all those different ways.
Whereas if I go to some like furry convention or like anime convention and people are in cosplay and dancing around and wearing all kinds of fun things like I can just feel the difference in my body. Like I can I can just talk to strangers in those kinds of environments because people aren't judgmental. Whereas, you know, talking to a stranger at a networking event, it's like, I don't even want to, you know.
William Curb: Yeah, I was like going back to like what I I'm standing with the other parents at the bus stop in the morning and I'm like, this is not my group and but I have to do it every morning. I could just sit here on my phone but I don't want to and.
Devon Price: Yeah, it's like there's no good option, right? It's like I can't say anything that's going to make them uncomfortable because like I want my kids to have a good relationship and all this pressure and stuff. But then if I'm on my phone, are they going to think I'm being too cold? There's so many variables that are like in your brain when you're in those kinds of high pressure situations, right? And so the space is where you can just let some of that go and some of it is your own mental work of like, okay, it's okay. I don't need to worry about this right now. It's not the end of the world if somebody thinks I'm weird. But a lot of it is also just finding the environments where that's actually true.
William Curb: Yeah. Well, yeah, because I was like, you're like, yeah, these high pressure situations like, yeah, that's also high pressure situation standing for the my kids bus. Yeah, it's definitely something you build up in your own head and you're like, oh, yeah, this is I'm and I'm also like one of the things that's been negative. But in two years, my kids aren't going to take this bus anymore. And I'm just never going to interact with these people again.
I'm just not going to ever be talking to them. And I'm like, this is kind of funny that this is something that comes up in my head. Of course, comes up in my head once or twice a day, depending on what I'm doing and going getting kids from bus. But it's something that like, oh, yeah, this is every day, I have to like kind of feel like I need to navigate this because I haven't found a good medium place.
Devon Price: Again, it's really exhausting. And there's this weird like work that we all have to do to kind of figure out, okay, what are the situations where I can just challenge myself to let go a little bit because it actually isn't that big of a deal. I'll have these conversations with my partner all the time where we'll be at some party or some situation and I'll be like, is it normal for me to do this thing? Can I do this thing? And they'll be like, who cares?
Like you don't even know these people. It doesn't matter, right? And I have to really work hard to internalize that for myself. And a lot of times like, it doesn't matter. And maybe actually, if I take a risk a little bit and loosen those restraints a little bit, maybe it'll actually make it easier for me to connect with other people, because other people are often a lot weirder than they present as too.
William Curb: Oh, yeah. Because we're like, oh, yeah, we don't see something to like too controversial or anything. And you'll be at a party and like someone will say something, you're just like, oh my God, what? Is that your real opinion on this?
Devon Price: Yeah, or just like how people live. Like everybody lives in like a completely bizarre, unique way. Everybody has like a life backstory that's just full of trauma and exciting weird things and funny things that happened. And we button all of that up, neurodivergent or not. And when you can get to the point where people are loosening up on some of that, again, it's not to say you're going to get along with everybody.
Sometimes you're going to hear their opinion and be like, oh my God, I actually now don't care what you think about me because I've decided that you and I have no values in common. And so that's kind of freeing. But then sometimes you'll also realize, oh, wait a second, why was I so terrified of you? Like you're just a human being who gets diarrhea and has panic attacks. Like the rest of us, why was I so scared?
William Curb: Yeah, I mean, and there are certain people who you're like, oh yeah, you're not a, because of your opinion, you just identified yourself as not a safe person. And it's like, great, I know that now. You're clearly on the opposite side of the political spectrum is man, I'm going to be more cautious here.
Devon Price: Right.
William Curb: But you know, good to know that way. I don't have to engage in something that could become actually scary.
Devon Price: Yeah, yeah, you know, then to kind of just disengage your energy and give them less information, which sometimes, I don't know, for me at least, like when you know, okay, this person is a lost cause, like I don't, I don't want any closeness with this person. Sometimes that can be easier than masking as like likable, friendly, outgoing person, like being kind of more distant is a little bit less exhausting sometimes because it's like, well, okay, I just need to get out of this situation and out of this conversation as fast as possible.
William Curb: So what are the things we talked about before this or two is that we also, there is this difference between masking for everyone, like for being autistic or ADHD, and there are these different levels of masking and how we do it. And maybe you could speak to that a little bit more.
Devon Price: Yeah, and this might be a good back and forth because you can talk a little bit about what, you know, masking looks like and feels like for you. But for a lot of autistic people, a lot of masking is like running this human being simulation, lots of memorizing small talk, memorizing conversational patterns.
I know some autistic people who before a work meeting will literally write out sample dialogue of how they think the work meeting is going to go so that they can plan what they're going to say, practicing facial expressions in the mirror, practicing body language in the mirror. And, you know, for me, all of that's because my default and what feels comfortable for me looks really kind of negative and off putting to people. Like my natural posture is to sit really closed off looking by other people's standards really curled up. My face is kind of like screwed up and looks kind of serious.
My voice can sound kind of monotone. All of these things that to the average person from the outside is like porcupine spikes. Like it's giving away this like stand back kind of energy, even when that's completely not my intention. So for me and for a lot of autistic people like that, masking is all about, okay, how do I make myself seem non threatening, approachable, nice, like I'm not angry, because people always think that I am those things. Obviously, that's not a one size fits all situation. There are some autistic people who they may be come across to others as almost too open. And so people are just walking over their boundaries all the time, right? People see them as childlike or naive or passive.
And that's just how they come across maybe because they are just processing everything and are a little bit more just kind of open and and taking everything in and that gets taken advantage of by people so then they have to mask as a little bit more quote-unquote mature or assertive or whatever the case may be but a lot of it for a lot of autistic people is this learning of the social cues that neuro-conforming society uses and learning to fake those because they don't come naturally and even things like if somebody asks you a question about a topic and it's one of those topics that's your special interest and you know everything about it you're supposed to pretend to know less about the thing than you actually do so that's just a sample platter but I'd be curious to hear what you know what the more ADHD side of things kind of tends to feel like and look like.
William Curb: Well I mean with the very similarly with like the stimming things you know like every time I do a interview like this I will always have like a handful of fidgets that I just have down here below the camera that I'm just quiet once that they can just keep my hands going with but like taking those out while I'm talking with people like what are you doing with your hands it's you know it's like oh I'm just this is keeping me centered on talking to you instead of not everyone's comfortable with that.
And so I'll like you know and end up doing a weird fidget where I'm just like rubbing my fingers together or something and often does not get the same impact for me and still people are like what are you doing with and then yeah just tempering a lot of my thoughts jumping from place to place will often happen where I'm just like oh you said this thing this immediately made me think of this other thing that's way different but it is related in some way and I can bring it around eventually but I'm like I don't think they're gonna want to go on that journey with me.
So just tempering the hyperactive thoughts and movements you know not going to the playground with my kids and not you know jumping off of everything with them because the other parents are like why are you also on these things some playgrounds it's fine other places I'm like yeah they the parents do not want other parents around their kids like this and I I understand why and that's fine but it is yeah you got to be a kind of that awareness of what my body's doing a lot more when I am with other people.
Because I'm not always thinking about those things and then I guess thinking with like my own kids things like you know making sure that you stay seated at a table the entire time you're there like okay we're gonna finish a meal here whereas I know like yeah I want to go and do other things and I want them to stay at the table because otherwise they'll forget to eat but yeah a lot of stuff like that where it's just yeah I guess making sure your body's conforming to how other people's bodies are in that space.
Devon Price: Yeah lots of suppression I think is a really common theme for both kinds of masking yeah it's like yeah because I'm just pressured to not be too much you know.
William Curb: Yeah yeah exactly yeah because that's often what yeah it's like oh yeah like okay that guy is great but he is a lot like hmm not that much.
Devon Price: But then and why is that a bad thing you know like having a lot of energy and passion and things like that even the example just like playing with your kid on the playground like that's something that again I can understand why depending on the playground depending on the setting there's different social norms and boundaries to worry about and that's totally cool but like a parent who's like actually jazzed to like run around and actively play with their kid like that's something that I wish we had more space in society that was like celebrating that you know.
William Curb: Yeah I get so sad when I like see teenagers on the playground and then like parents being like they shouldn't be here if they're like this is for kids no but the teenagers play I mean as long as they are not just actively destroying the playground I'm happy.
Devon Price: Yeah of all the things that teenagers can be doing like why wouldn't you be happy they're just like having some some innocent fun and like moving their bodies like.
William Curb: Yeah like I don't want them to lose that childlike wonder of being like the swings are fun whereas I have lost the childlike wonder of the swings are fun because they make me motion sick now but what I discovered that is like man that makes me really old doesn't it.
Devon Price: Yeah when like the knees start popping and all that stuff it's like damn.
William Curb: And I think this actually can transition really nicely into talking about your other book: Laziness Does Not Exist because this is like kind of the same thing where like we want to have these things where we're moving and doing things but we can kind of get to the stage where it's like yeah I don't feel like I'm doing enough and I feel like I'm lazy but then if you step back and like well why am I not doing those things it's often like well there is an underlying reason here but culturally it's hard for me to admit that I need something.
Devon Price: Yeah and I would say having written that book a few years ago and just seeing the response to it the people who have connected with laziness does not exist the most have has been 80 HD years I think that's a population that gets the lazy label put on them unfairly so so much whether it's because they're a kid whose body wants to run around and play and they're being forced to sit and focus and they just can't and so then they get called lazy for that or if they're an adult who I think like a lot of humans they're more motivated and focused when there's something like body doubling right.
When there's another person in the room around to support them and they benefit from that support they need that support you know humans are a social species it's really not that weird to be like more motivated and focused when there's somebody around and yet we call that a lack of executive functioning a lack of motivation like why can't you complete all of your work from home sitting at your desk in complete isolation all day long that's just not suited to how a lot of people work and when we call that laziness we just erase everybody's different needs that are not getting met they get in the way of them getting things done.
William Curb: I definitely know so many people at ADHD that was the label they grew up with was they weren't diagnosed so they were diagnosed as lazy and it's something that a lot of us internalize like oh yeah the reason I'm not doing stuff is because I'm lazy not because there's something else going on that is making doing the work hard. I have spent a lot of time being like yeah I'm removing lazy from my language and still I'll find it like yeah this other day I didn't do much because in the library and goes because you were lazy and I was like well because I was really tired I had gotten no sleep the night before and I didn't know what I needed to do and so just nothing happened during the day oh yeah if you correct for those issues the idea of the laziness just kind of goes away.
Devon Price: Yeah there's so many aspects of being disabled where we still even once we know okay I'm disabled I have all these needs that aren't getting met I have more energy recovery needs like I need more rest than other people all of that stuff. We still beat ourselves up so much for all kinds of things like I'm just locked into the couch right now either because I'm depressed or because I'm having some kind of anxiety spiral whatever it is I just can't get up and move and it's not from lack of wanting to go do the dishes or get the groceries like laziness is obviously not the problem.
Because I'm thinking about it I want to do it I value it I'm beating myself up for not doing it like the problem is not a lack of motivation it's that the energy isn't there the support isn't there I'm recovering from something and but it's still so hard to break out of that loop of beating yourself up for it. And I know I certainly have that with just my energy recovery needs are not only more than the average non-disabled persons but they're getting kind of more extreme over time I'm getting older I've had burnout I'm not going to be able to just churn out what productivity I was able to when I was younger and making peace with that is really hard because you have that conditioning in your brain that says you're lazy and if you are different in all these ways you need to make up for it somehow by achieving incredible things and it's like no no I need to just live you know.
William Curb: Yeah and it's like even if I didn't make a bunch of incredible things it would be okay. One of the things I really want to instill in my children is that they have intrinsic value regardless of what they do like they are incredible and they do all sorts of amazing things but I don't want them to ever associate my love with the incredible things they do to associate my love with who they are as a person.
Devon Price: Yeah and that's certainly very different from what was normal when I was growing up everywhere around me I'm sure that's probably true for you too like that's such a gift to give to the next generation of neurodivergent kids or just kids in general. This idea that you're enough and that if you need support if there are things you can't do ever that doesn't change your value as a person or your loveability.
William Curb: Yeah one of the scary aspects of it too is I know when I have been on the verge of burnout and feeling like I need to be doing more but I can't get myself to do more I'm like there's this like voice in my head that's like what if you were in a car accident and then no one could blame you if you didn't get anything done and I'm like that is not an okay thought like that is something I need to listen to and be like okay things are too much.
Devon Price: Yeah it's like we feel like we need external permission to set boundaries right and and people generally don't take like mental health and neurodivergence related boundaries as seriously like they always think okay I heard you were stressed but here's just one more email here's just one more little nudge are you sure you can't do this thing. This is a very workaholic culture and one that doesn't understand these kinds of limits so I've definitely been there too.
I just recently had a health issue flare up where I think it was my body saying okay if you're not going to actually pump the brakes on this thing we're going to shut this system down so that you can't do this work that you're literally having nightmares about and wanting to not do you know and that happens to a lot of us or divergent people are at a really elevated risk of really severe burnout I think because we're just so chronically stressed and pushing ourselves past that brink so often.
William Curb: And it's definitely something that I've been fighting with a lot recently you know like looking at the news and being like I need to like I'm having this emotional overwhelm and being like man things are bad in so many areas and it is hard to for them find the motivation to do things and want to do stuff and then you know then having that like circular logic of like well if I'm not doing anything what's the value I have and it's tough.
Devon Price: I mean it's been true in the last several years but it's very heightened now you can also start applying that pressure to yourself about what's going on in the world of like oh I should be doing more oh I should be doing more activism I should be helping more people this like impossible standard of of like trying to save the world single-handedly which is very just very stress activating and just makes us if we hold ourselves to that impossible standard it really just breaks us down even more.
William Curb: so and I think it is really great for people to remind themselves like yeah you got to take care of yourself first in this situation because the whole uh putting your oxygen mask on for helping others because you're not going to be able to help others if you're not doing that.
Devon Price: And ultimately the difference that we make can be very small and that doesn't make it any less meaningful if you're just there for you know one or two friends of yours who are also freaking out about everything happening in the world and you're just a shoulder for them to cry on sometimes like that's enough like if you can help somebody in your community who is in need in some way whether that's like financially or helping them run errands or just being a person for them to call in crisis that is enough like whatever your capacity is if you don't have the capacity to do any of that like keeping yourself alive is enough and again it's really hard to stop pressuring yourself and to really believe that but it's true.
William Curb: Yeah and it's important to like step back and like go like realize that yeah you'll do have these pressures and these things are affecting you and for the longest time I'd be like having these you know there'd be some awful thing in the news and I'd be like why can't I get anything done and it's like oh yeah because my emotional response to these issues directly affects my capacity of what I'm able to do.
Devon Price: The body holds on to all of that even if our physical environment like that we're in right this moment as we're talking isn't unsafe our body knows that the world is feeling unsafe and it's in that fight or flight mode and so it's like yeah of course I don't want to answer an email it feels like there's things that are a lot more important going on right now and I know that for me I have to really set limits on how much of that information I take in because there's a big difference between staying informed and just flooding your immune system with like fight or flight chemicals where you just are like in despair that's not helping anything to live that way.
William Curb: Yeah and then I know I've all often feel like that I'm like oh I need to stay more informed because I know how many people are not being informed and then but I'm like that's also not helpful like just being more informed is not actually doing great things. I need to step back so it's yeah it's definitely been something recently for me like really really curtailing how much socially I can take in where I can take it in and then being like yeah let's not just read headlines let's read articles that you know you know might give a little bit more context and then being like oh yeah can I do things that are proactive rather than just reactive here. Can I do things that are going to make me feel better in the long run rather than just sitting in anxiety.
Devon Price: Yeah what's going to be empowering for me what are the topics that I want to stay the most informed on versus others where maybe I'm just going to look at a headline once a week or something like that. Even just kind of being aware of how much social media is set up to get us trapped and stuck on the platform they design these things to keep us feeling bad to keep searching and scrolling and they make it as hard to link out and get off the platform to do literally anything else as possible because they want our eyeballs for advertisers and so just knowing that and saying okay I don't actually have some responsibility to stay in this place I'm being manipulated right now and I can say I don't want that to be done to me makes it easier to give yourself permission I think.
William Curb: Yeah and especially before bed where I'm like I've never read a social media post that made me feel oh yeah now I'm ready to go and get to sleep it's always like no let's read something turn to my wife like did you see what.
Devon Price: Yeah that's not good yeah paper books before bed definitely are good for me you know.
William Curb: Yeah I think the one I saw this morning that just like completely blew my mind was I saw there's like experts warning against mesal parties and I was like they're warning what people would consider that? No.
Devon Price: Oh geez yeah yeah a few years ago we were in the point where we all knew chickenpox parties actually weren't a good idea like like we grew up with that being normal and now we know that's a bad idea but yeah like.
William Curb: There's no benefit here later this month you have a new book coming out: I'm Asking For Life you think you could tell me a little bit about that one?
Devon Price: Yeah yeah so I'm asking autism is kind of the book for by and large people who are figuring out that they're autistic maybe they didn't know when they were younger they're finding out later in life and they're trying to figure out okay what is autism really who am I really through this lens of realizing I'm disabled it's kind of for people on that early stage of the journey of unlearning a lot of the stigma and misinformation about what autism is and that's a journey that a lot of people have been going on the last few years a lot of people are realizing they're neurodivergent in some way and having to rethink kind of their whole lives and identity and changing things up and what I've found is that with that moment of realization.
It's very freeing it's very scary and then it opens up a whole lot of practical life challenges so on the one hand a lot of people have been going oh I'm actually an ADHD or I'm actually autistic that explains so many things that I found hard in life that's such a relief I'm gonna try and start unmasking this disability and get more comfortable with it and that's that's a beautiful journey that a lot of people have been on but reaching that point of self-acceptance doesn't necessarily change the fact that maybe your family still expects you to behave a certain way they expect you to be the neurotypical version of you that they had in their minds or it's really hard for you to get or hold down a job.
Because you have a disability and there's all these prejudices or a lot of the stuff we're talking about you're more prone to burnout than other people you might not ever be able to be super productive and that can even lead into just practical questions about okay what does the rest of my life look like what does growing older with a disability look like and so those kinds of questions are what I'm asking for life is all about it's all about autistics in particular but neurodivergent people in general I had in mind in writing it we have to kind of invent our own ways of surviving because the rule book that was given to us by neurotypical society doesn't really fit so I have several different chapters in the book about the main areas of life where a lot of neurodivergent people struggle ultimately have to kind of figure out our own unique way of doing things so there's a chapter on how do I actually make friends as my actual self and have them be friendships that are good for me there's a chapter on okay how do I raise kids.
Or have a family that reflects all of our unique neurodiversities how do I break out of generational patterns how do I deal with the fact that maybe some of my older relatives are neurodivergent and they never figured it out there's a chapter on work can I hold down a job if not how do I get benefits how do I find a job that's going to be sustainable for me how do I do that complicated dance of a little bit of masking but not so much masking that it fills me with despair in order to just survive in this world and I also talk a little bit in that chapter about what are some of the ways that we can become more dependent on each other there's lots of neurodivergent people who multiple different families all live in the same home they live on a really low cost of living they pool resources so then they don't have to work as much.
So that's kind of in that chapter too there's a chapter on relationships and sex because a lot of neurodivergent people were more likely to be queer we're more likely to be asexual we're more likely to just have a different approach to relationships and sex than is what's considered normal so how do we actually navigate that and get relationships that work for us and then finally the last chapter is about life what does aging look like as a neurodivergent people what does it mean to plan for getting older and needing support who do you want to be your people who are going to be around you as you get older how are you going to cope with your body breaking down your capacity breaking down.
And come to terms with that and make peace with that and also what are you going to decide that kind of the meaning of life is if you've kind of accepted that it isn't all about work it isn't all about productivity and all this kind of conventional stuff so so the hope with the book is to just help neurodivergent people figure out for themselves and empower themselves to meet those needs and fulfill those areas of life in a way that works with their disability rather than against it and just really showcasing the many many different ways that neurodivergent people live and work and love each other and make a family and and take care of each other into old age because we just we do it in our own unique ways and people might not necessarily be aware of all the options there are out there to kind of break them old.
William Curb: Awesome that sounds definitely going to be really cool that book is what it sounds like for me so I was wondering if there was anything else you wanted to leave the audience with.
Devon Price: I guess we can kind of circle back to that conversation of masking at the beginning because I think it's it's not either a good or evil thing right it's all about trying to get out of that frame of mind where you're just trying to appease other people and fit on all the time and really start to develop self-advocacy tools that's another big part of this new book is neurodivergent self-advocacy a lot of us when we're younger especially if we were diagnosed or flagged as different they try to put us in like social skills programs and most of the social skills training that gets pushed on us is just act more normal be less of a pain or burden to others fit in all that stuff which doesn't help us have lives that work for us.
So I just really want to emphasize how important it is for us to go against that impulse and actually be willing to take up space to speak up to be annoying like being annoying is not a crime like we get that so drilled into our heads that we should never ever be too much that it's actually it's okay to be too much for other people sometimes and really knowing that some of that stuff that makes us more quote-unquote difficult to deal with those are like the self-advocacy tools that we need to not get so taken advantage of and excluded and I think that's just a really important set of skills that I really want to empower more neurodivergent people to harness because so many of us get taken advantage of and excluded and it's all out of this fear of being too much and being different and so we just crumple ourselves up into the smallest possible space and when we find the safety and strength to make ourselves a little bit bigger and louder and more demanding then we can start to actually have lives that work for us rather than against us.
William Curb: All right and if people want to learn more about you or your work where should they go?
Devon Price: So my books are anywhere you get your books and then I also write for free on my sub-stack it's drdevonprice.substack.com lots of essays there about neurodivergence stuff productivity culture or anti-productivity culture.
William Curb: Awesome well I'm sure a lot of people will get a lot of this episode so thank you so much for coming on the show.
Devon Price: Yeah thank you for having me.
This Episode's Top Tips
It’s important to recognize masking as a tool that is not inherently good or bad. With that in mind, we can make conscious choices about how and when we want to be masking.
While it can be hard to find places to authentically be yourself and unmask, it’s important to find these spaces. These can be with friends and family, or if those are hard to find, there are many online communities to explore.
For some, consistently masking can make it hard to remember who is under the mask. To help remove that mask, you can gradually work on introducing authentic traits or behaviors in safe spaces to reduce the psychological strain of constant masking.
Additionally, you can consider professional guidance to help with unmasking, focusing on therapy that respects and understands neurodivergent experiences.