Part One: Shame, Restlessness, and Erik Erikson

How core wounds shape our sense of brokenness ~ and what a neurodivergent lens reveals

“I realized I’m not broken. I’m different.”

Some version of this line has become a kind of neurodivergent tagline. And for good reason. It’s powerful. Some really important books have been written around this idea (We’re Not Broken, A Little Less Broken). It’s become a core reframe in our community.

And I agree ~ learning I was neurodivergent helped loosen the grip of that old narrative. The one that says: You’re the problem.

But lately, I’ve found myself circling a different question. Not just what helped me unlearn brokenness, but why did I come to believe it in the first place?

Why do so many of us feel broken? Psychologically. Socially. Existentially. How does shame get so deeply woven into our foundations?

It’s a question with layers. Developmental. Relational. Cultural. And it’s one I’ve been asking in my head for years ~ but one I want to explore more intentionally in my writing.

So this marks the start of a new series: an exploration of why so many neurodivergent humans come to carry a core belief in our brokenness. Or to put it another way, why so many of us live with such a deep, shape-shifting sense of shame.

Part One: Shame, Restlessness, and Erik Erikson

We don’t outgrow the past ~ we carry it. In stories, in silence, in how we rest. Or how we can’t.

In therapy this week, I was unpacking the restlessness ~ the way my mind starts spinning whenever I step away from work or felt productivity. I run through quiet rituals to convince myself it’s okay to rest. That it’s okay not to do. I tally what I’ve already accomplished. I make little mental contracts ~ I’ll sleep an hour less tonight, I’ll put in extra time over the weekend ~ just so I can let myself pause and play a family game. My panicked brain loops through all the ways I’ll make up for the loss of productivity. As if rest needs a receipt. My brain scrambles to frame presence as productive. If rest helps me be more productive later, then it counts. Then I can allow it.

That question ~ why rest feels unsafe ~ is actually what brought me back to therapy earlier this year.

This past fall, a combination of long COVID flare-up and sheer exhaustion hit me hard. My body collapsed, and for the first time, I began seriously looking into CFS (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome). I learned it’s not uncommon in people with type-A personalities. And if I wanted to be honest about my energy, I needed to be honest about my psychology.

About 18 months ago, I started naming something I’d long avoided: I might be a workaholic. I hoped that naming it would help me do something about it. But for many of us who are AuDHD, work is complex. It’s not just a pathological escape ~ it’s often the container where our passions live. The place we escape the overwhelm and dive into monotropic pleasure. The place we play. And yes… it can also become a place where we avoid, overcompensate, or spiral into burnout.

For a while, I chalked it up to “ADHD restlessness.” Like, of course I can’t sit through a board game without nudging everyone along ~ “Your turn. Your turn. Your turn.” Of course my brain always needs to be chewing on something. That’s just ADHD, right?

But over the past year and a half, I’ve been stretching myself to go deeper than those surface-level explanations. I’ve been asking: What’s under the restlessness? What happens when I stop producing? And what does that say about how I see myself?

Like most things in my life, it leads me back to identity, core woundings, and the stories we carry.

So in therapy, I’m describing what happens when I don’t work. The hollowness. The agitation. The boredom. The near-inability to be present with my own life. My therapist ~ who knows I can overanalyze anything into oblivion ~ smiled and said, “I imagine you have some theories.

“Well… yeah. But they’re mostly in my head,” I said, already bracing for how over-conceptual my attempt to explain my theories would be.

Still, I started talking.

“I’m working on this article about Erikson’s stages of development… and how they might impact neurodivergent people…”

And just as I started to explain what I meant ~ with a story ~ something shifted. A surprising swell of emotion caught in my throat.

… “I really struggled to learn how to read.”

It’s something I’ve said before. Many times. But saying it in therapy, saying it while feeling it, was different.

I told him how they pulled me out of class to test me (which came back inconclusive). How I used to memorize books word-for-word so I could trick my mom into thinking I was reading ~ unless I accidentally got off by a page and the words didn’t match.

The adults in my life found creative ways to help. They taught me to look at the shapes of words ~ like how house kind of looks like a house. Even then, I was finding visual workarounds before I had language for why I needed them.

Later in school, I remember the dread of public reading. How I’d count ahead in class, figure out which paragraph would be mine, and rehearse it in my head ~ over and over ~ trying not to mess it up.

This has always been part of my story. I’ve always known school was hard for me. I used to beg my parents to homeschool me. I’d fake sick to stay home ~ and in more desperate moments, even tried to make myself sick.

But somehow, I made it through. And later, I finally blossomed in college, where I could follow my passions and learn on my own terms. (Cue all the visual workarounds.)

But sitting there in therapy, I finally touched the feelings that live inside that story ~ the shame of watching my sisters breeze through advanced classes while I struggled. Growing up with two professors as parents and gifted siblings, I felt like the “dumb one.” I scratched and clawed my way toward worth.

If I wasn’t going to find it through academics, I had to find it somewhere else. So I became the designated “Jesus Freak” of the family ~ hoping that if I couldn’t be the smart one, I could at least be the good one. The giving one. The passionate one.

This week, I joked with my therapist: “Basically, when you get down to it, my identity is 10% special interest and 90% shame.”

It was a joke… but also not. That wrapping of shame around core identity ~ it’s not unique to me. It’s a pattern I see over and over in Autistic, ADHD, and AuDHD humans. And it makes sense. It makes so much sense. From unresolved developmental tasks, to chronic invalidation, to the ways we were misunderstood in our most formative years ~ the shame doesn’t come from nowhere. It is often the residue of invisible disability.

Much of late-in-life identity discovery is about unpicking those layers. Re-storying them with more understanding. More context. More compassion. Letting a bit of the shame melt.

That’s what led me back to Erikson. The stages of psychosocial development offer a useful map for understanding how these shame narratives form. Each stage asks something of us ~ trust, autonomy, identity, intimacy. And when our developmental task gets thwarted, the tension doesn’t disappear. It lingers

Rethinking Erikson’s Model Through a Neurodivergent Lens

I’ve always appreciated that Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development spans the entire lifespan. Unlike earlier models that suggest personality becomes fixed in childhood, Erikson leaves room for hope ~ the idea that identity can be shaped and reshaped through relationships, culture, and the crises we navigate at every stage of life.

He and his wife, Joan Erikson, co-developed the model, weaving psychological insight with creativity and embodiment (though Joan is often under-credited for her contributions). Together, they outlined eight developmental stages, each marked by a core tension or task: trust vs. mistrust, identity vs. role confusion, intimacy vs. isolation. When these stages are supported, we develop inner resources ~ what Erikson called “virtues.” When they’re unmet, the tension doesn’t disappear. It lingers, often just beneath the surface, and resurfaces quickly when bumped into.

Take the first stage, for example: trust vs. mistrust. An infant’s earliest question is simple but profound: Is the world safe?

If their needs are met with enough consistency and care, they begin to trust. They develop hope: the belief that future disruptions can be weathered. But if their needs are missed or met with inconsistency, mistrust takes root. The world begins to feel unreliable, even threatening. That mistrust doesn’t stay neatly in infancy ~ it follows us. It becomes an early imprint, a wound we bump into again and again, especially when later developmental tasks require connection, risk, or vulnerability.

When these core tasks go unresolved, they leave behind unfinished business ~ deep-seated beliefs about ourselves and the world.

As I sat with Erikson’s framework, I started to notice how these developmental crises (although I prefer to think of them as developmental tasks) carry additional barriers when you’re neurodivergent. Sensory-motor challenges can impact early feeding or difficulty dressing oneself. Executive functioning differences can complicate the sense of industriousness expected during school years. Peer relationships are often strained by misunderstood social differences.

And yet, I have yet to see Erikson’s work explored through a neurodivergent lens. So I started writing. And quickly realized: this isn’t a one-essay kind of task. Each stage deserves its own reflection.

Over the next eight weeks, I’ll be exploring Erikson’s stages of development through a neurodivergent lens. We’ll look at what each stage asks of us, how unrecognized neurodivergence may have complicated the process, and what healing or reworking might still be possible ~ even decades later.

Next week, we’ll begin with trust vs. mistrust.

In the meantime, if you’re curious, here’s a chart I put together while drafting. It maps the stages of development alongside neurodivergent considerations ~ a kind of bird’s-eye view of where we’re heading.

~ Megan Anna

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Conversation Entry Points:

I’d love to hear from you as I sit with these questions and write this series. How has neurodivergence shaped your development, your identity, core stories you carry? I’ll be deep in the marinating phase and I always learn from the reflections you share.

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Neurodivergent Insights Weekly Roundup

(The weekly roundup is a recap of things happening in the NDI digital eco-system)

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Divergent Conversations

We’re continuing our Burnout Season, and this week’s theme is the sensitive nervous system. Since I was deep in training-prep mode last weekend and didn’t get a newsletter out, in case you missed it ~ last week’s episode focused on sensory processing and burnout. You can catch up on the podcast or browse the accompanying resources if you haven’t already.

You can also catch all of Neurodivergent Insights burnout resource here.

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New Trainings!

I’ve been prepping several trainings for upcoming talks, and decided to put a few of them up early for those who’ve been asking. I always get a little imposter-y about “selling myself talking,” but people keep telling me that hearing me talk about neurodivergence and mental health is helpful ~ so I’m working to lean into that.

Two new trainings are now available:

• The Sensory Toolkit for Mental Health Providers
  This one dives into what it means to develop a sensory lens in clinical work ~ including understanding sensory profiles, interoception, alexithymia, and why these things matter when working with neurodivergent clients. It's a practical, layered overview for anyone wanting to integrate sensory awareness into therapy. It also comes with the Sensory Workbook a resource that can be shared with clients.

• Foundations of Neurodivergent Therapy
  This training introduces a framework for thinking through neurodivergent-affirming therapy ~ what it is and how to build neuro-affirming care into our practices throughout the entire arch of therapy (first contact to therapy).

And for those who’ve asked: yes, I created a bundle of core clinical trainings so you can access them together. (For reasons that are still unclear to me, some of you do want hours of me talking.)

More trainings are coming soon ~ including one on parenting and, of course, the Autistic Burnout Course. Right now, most offerings are geared toward clinicians, but I’m building more community-centered resources too.

Use code Enoughness for 30% off.

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July Enoughness Sale

I called this the Enoughness Sale as a symbolic nudge: that you are already enough. Even with shame, even with thwarted Erikson-stage development, even with undone dishes and messy countertops.

The sale runs through July 31, and all current trainings, digital downloads and toolkits are included. Use code Enoughness for 30% off.

I’ll be running more sales in the future ~ now that I’ve figured out how ~ so please don’t let urgency or scarcity drive your decision-making. Goodness knows ADHDers don’t need more of that. But if you’ve been eyeing something, this is a good time to snag it.