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🎙️ Episode 34: AuDHD (& Human) Experience — Self-Concept & It's Influence on Autistic, AuDHD & ADHD Experience
"Am I actually broken? Or do I just have these lessons that I've learnt that have informed my understanding of myself?"
Summary:
This week Aaron unpacks self-concept: what it is, how we develop it as neurodivergent people, and how we can deliberately change it to improve our emotional experience. Building on the working model of emotions from the previous episode, he frames self-concept as our integrated understanding of who and what we are, woven together from core beliefs and spanning every domain that matters to us: relationships, learning, work, family, and social life.
Aaron explains that every single experience teaches us something about ourselves, and shares personal examples of how failure experiences shaped his own self-concept: failing year twelve twice, mixed performance in the Navy, and believing he was "academically stupid" until nearly 40, when a colleague encouraged him to study psychology. He contrasts this with the success experiences since, which have reshaped his understanding of himself as a learner once he found the right environment and the right anchors for his attention.
He then turns to the neurodivergent experience under a deficit-based model, where "normal" is implicitly assumed to be "right" and difference is repeatedly fed back to us as vague, impulsive, too much, or not enough. These implicit lessons create a self-fulfilling loop: expecting social situations to go badly, becoming anxious, performing worse, and reinforcing the belief. Aaron closes with two practical pathways for change: deliberately collecting new success experiences through scaffolded, CBT-style exposure, and finding community, where comparing ourselves against a realistic norm teaches us that we are not wrong, deficient, or broken. He cautions against the "superpower" framing just as much as the deficit framing, landing on a balanced view of ourselves as humans with strengths, weaknesses, and neutral characteristics alike.
Key Themes & Takeaways:
- Self-concept as integrated beliefs – our understanding of who and what we are, across every important life domain
- Every experience is a lesson – successes and failures alike continually update our self-concept, which is never set and forget
- Failure experiences and anxiety-driven motivation – relying on urgency and deadlines without the right anchors can build a history of perceived failure
- The deficit model's implicit lessons – when the construct itself is framed as a deficit, neurodivergent people learn they are "not right" simply by being different
- The self-fulfilling loop – a negative self-concept raises anxiety, reduces performance, and makes mistakes the salient memory
- Success experiences change self-concept – scaffolded challenges teach us "I can cope with this" and build confidence
- Community as a realistic comparison – being among similar people replaces comparison against "normal" with a fair and appropriate norm
- Balanced, not superpowered – a truthful self-concept includes strengths, weaknesses, and value-neutral characteristics
- Self-concept drives emotion, and emotion is the quality of our lives
Referenced Concepts:
- Self-concept and CBT core beliefs
- Working model of emotions (previous episode)
- Deficit-based and medical models of neurodivergence
- Implicit learning and the "normal equals right" heuristic
- Scaffolded exposure and success experiences
- Community and realistic social comparison (queer theory and minority community)
- LOAPAC – the League of Autistic Psychologists and Affirming Colleagues
We are different, not defective.
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Keywords: AuDHD podcast, autism and ADHD, neurodivergent psychologist, neurodiversity affirming, Howearth Psychology, queer psychologist, autism diagnosis, ADHD awareness, lived experience, neurodivergent mental health, clinical psychology podcast
