Many late-discovered neurodivergent women describe difficulties identifying emotions, recognising their strengths, or knowing how they feel in the moment. Sometimes this is linked to alexithymia or delayed processing, although experiences vary from person to person. This article explores these experiences through my own reflections as a late-discovered autistic and ADHD woman.
I was thinking about this recently, and I wonder whether it’s something that other neurodivergent people experience too. Have you ever been asked questions like:
- “What are your strengths?”
- “How would you describe yourself?”
- “What are you good at?”
- “How did that make you feel?”
For me, there is often just… nothing. I don’t mean that I don’t want to answer the question, or that I’m being guarded or difficult. I genuinely don’t know. Or perhaps more accurately, I don’t know in that moment.
When people ask me questions that involve knowing myself – my strengths, my talents, my feelings, how I would describe myself – it can feel as though my mind goes completely blank. More than that, it almost feels physical. As though my whole body becomes a void. An empty space where the answer should be.
I’ve been wondering whether this might be connected to alexithymia, which is often described as difficulty identifying and describing emotions, or whether it might be related to the delayed processing that many neurodivergent people experience.
Because here’s the interesting thing. If you ask me in the moment how I feel about something, I will often say, “I don’t know.” But if you ask me again a day later, or a week later, I might have a completely different answer. One that is thoughtful, nuanced and well considered.
The answer wasn’t missing. It just wasn’t immediately available to me. The same seems to happen when I’m asked about my strengths. If someone asked me directly, “What are your strengths?” I’d probably freeze. Yet when I stopped and thought about what my husband and children might say about me, the answers came more easily.
I think they might describe me as honest (sometimes brutally so), direct (you always know where you stand with me), inspiring, motivated, committed, supportive and understanding.
It struck me that perhaps I do know myself after all. I just don’t access that knowledge in the way that society expects me to.
I wonder whether many late-discovered neurodivergent women have spent so much of their lives focused outwards – noticing what others need, adapting to expectations, monitoring social situations, trying to get things “right” – that turning inwards and answering questions about ourselves can feel surprisingly difficult.
Perhaps some of us don’t discover who we are through quick-fire questions asked on the spot. Instead it happens through writing, reflection, conversations with trusted people, and noticing patterns over time.
Perhaps “I don’t know” doesn’t always mean “I have no idea.” Perhaps sometimes it simply means: “I need more time.”
I don’t have any neat conclusions to wrap this up with. I’m still thinking about it. But if this resonates with you, perhaps it’s worth considering a few questions for yourself:
- If someone who loves you was asked to describe your strengths, what might they say?
- If you gave yourself a week rather than a few seconds to answer, what would emerge?
- Are there parts of yourself that you know through experience rather than words?
Maybe knowing ourselves doesn’t always look the way we’ve been taught it should. Perhaps some of us simply need a little more time and a little more space to hear our own answers.