『Following the Threads - Adult Autism Support and Masking』のカバーアート

Following the Threads - Adult Autism Support and Masking

Following the Threads - Adult Autism Support and Masking

著者： Natasha Stavros PhD and Sarah Liebman MFT | Adult Women Autism and ADHD
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概要
 After the masquerade, the masks come off — Following the Threads is a podcast for late-diagnosed autistic adults, ADHD and AuDHD women, and anyone navigating neurodivergence in a neurotypical world. Season 1 follows autistic researcher Natasha Stavros, Ph.D. and licensed psychotherapist Sarah Liebman (ADHD) through the full arc of adult autism diagnosis — from "wait, is this me?" through evaluation, identity shift, and what comes next. Drawing from The Unmasking Diary, the real-time journal behind Natasha's forthcoming memoir After the Masquerade, each episode weaves lived experience with social, psychological, and spiritual frameworks for resilience. Because unmasking is nonlinear, so is the podcast — seasons 2 through 9 follow the threads of adult neurodivergent life across identity, employment, relationships, parenting, and family. Wherever you are in your journey, there's a thread here for you — learn more at wkidsolutions.com/services/podcast-following-the-threads/

natashastavros.substack.comWKID Solutions LLC 社会科学 科学 衛生・健康的な生活
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  • Ep. 15: Autistic Meltdowns and Shutdowns (2 of 2) - How Shame Shapes Identity and Relationships

    Ep. 15: Autistic Meltdowns and Shutdowns (2 of 2) - How Shame Shapes Identity and Relationships
    2026/10/22
    Show NotesEpisode details* Season (Thread): 2* Episode number: 15* Release date: 2026-10-22* Hosts:* Natasha Stavros, PhD — author of The Unmasking Diary and Burning Inside Out (coming to a bookstore near you in December 2026)* Sarah Liebman — licensed marriage and family therapist, ADHD-diagnosed, special interests all things neurodiverse* Audio Engineer and Composer: Noah Smith* Director: Linda Highfield* Duration: 00:30:09* Audience and tone: Educational, conversational, supportive; stigma-free exploration of neurodivergence, diagnosis, and self-understanding using personal experience as a case study* Summary [AI generated, human edited]: Building on Part 1 on the mental and biophysical health behind autistic meltdowns and shutdowns, this episode unpacks how shame shapes autistic identity, and what happens when it goes unaddressed in relationships. Shame is not a core emotion but a modifier that binds to core emotions (joy, sadness, anger, fear, and disgust), becoming “unhealthy” when it overwhelms the underlying emotion and drives survival reactions instead of reflection. For late-diagnosed autistic adults, identity often forms around distorted external mirrors of caregivers’, teachers’, and peers’ reactions to who they are and how their neurodivergent behavior is a moral failure, until a diagnosis offers a corrective lens. In relationships, unaddressed shame operates like a constant poop-throwing contest: everyone goes into survival mode, power dynamics entrench, and connection becomes impossible. The antidote to shame is empathy, not direct confrontation, and creating enough space to ask: whose shame is this, and where did it really come from?Key takeaways about shame and how it shapes identity and relationships:* Shame is not a core emotion, rather it is a modifier that binds to core emotions (joy, sadness, anger, fear and disgust). It becomes destructive when it overwhelms the underlying feeling and drives survival reactions instead of reflection.* For late-diagnosed autistic adults, identity is often built around distorted external mirrors that read neurodivergent behavior as bad character; a diagnosis can be the first tool that makes it possible to question that story.* Direct contact with shame causes shutdown in anyone - neurodivergent and neurotypical; the clinical antidote is empathy that creates space from the shame, followed by the deeper work of tracing whether it’s intergenerational, emotion-bound, or never yours to begin with.[This section is AI-generated, human edited].Resources and referencesLewis and Stevens (2023) conducted interviews with 32 autistic adults with reasonable differentiation in identity, however - notably white (as opposed to people of color) - and found that autistic meltdowns and shutdowns may outwardly involve:* Feeling overwhelmed by informational, sensory, social, or emotional stressors;* Experiencing extreme emotions, such as anger, sadness, and fear;* Losing logic, including challenges with thinking and memory;* Grasping for self-control, in which participants felt out of touch with themselves;* Finding a release for emotions, often described as an “explosion” of external behaviors or self-harm; and* Minimizing social, emotional, or physical harm by avoiding triggers or self-isolating when possible.Participants shared examples of internal meltdowns, in which external characteristics of meltdowns were camouflaged. Participants also suggested that meltdowns may serve a functional role in regulating emotions and making one’s voice heard (Lewis and Stevens 2023) What is shame?* As a social construct: understanding of shame has been limited to individual differences in disposition prevailing or predominant tendency of one’s spirits; new research suggests that this basic understanding has limited interventions for management and repair of shame, especially in the context of shameful identities.* As an emotion: shame is a modifier of basic emotions: happy, sad, disgust, anger, fear, and surprise that can result in people’s behavior moving between attack self and attack other, and denial or withdrawal (Lyon-Rubin method). Neuroscience argues that emotions represent a constructive process as part of a “meaning-making mechanism that integrat[es] incoming sensory inputs from our external senses and the body, i.e. exteroception and interoception.”As an emotion and a social construct, shame is recognized as being both adaptive and maladaptive in the process of forming identity. Shame shapes identity through core memory formation and has potentially long-term effects on psychopathology like anxiety and trauma. Shame affects more than our psychology, it affects our relationships through influence on sociocultural factors like social and moral norms, stigma and discrimination, public humiliation, collective conformity, and cultural variability. It also affects institutions through healthcare culture, burnout, leadership, medical education, ...
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    30 分
  • Ep. 14 - Meltdowns and Shutdowns (1 of 2) - Biophysical and Mental Health

    Ep. 14 - Meltdowns and Shutdowns (1 of 2) - Biophysical and Mental Health
    2026/10/08
    Show NotesEpisode details* Season (Thread): 3* Episode number: 14* Release date: 2026-10-08* Hosts:* Natasha Stavros, PhD — author of The Unmasking Diary and Burning Inside Out (coming to a bookstore near you in December 2026)* Sarah Liebman — licensed marriage and family therapist, ADHD-diagnosed, special interests all things neurodiverse* Audio Engineer and Composer: Noah Smith* Director: Linda Highfield* Duration: 00:28:39* Audience and tone: Educational, conversational, supportive; stigma-free exploration of neurodivergence, diagnosis, and self-understanding using personal experience as a case study* Summary [AI generated, human edited]: Autistic meltdowns and shutdowns are neurological events — not behavioral choices — driven by sensory and emotional overload that bypasses the prefrontal cortex and triggers the amygdala's survival response. Shutdowns exist on a spectrum from dramatic collapse to chronic partial withdrawal, often accompanied by dissociation in the forms of depersonalization, absorption, and amnesia. Shame-based culture targets the last 10% of a meltdown — the visible explosion — while ignoring the 90% of cumulative sensory and emotional load that built it, making shame not only cruel but clinically ineffective. Healthy shame signals a need for reflection and repair; unhealthy shame condemns a person's natural state of being. Effective interventions combine coaching (demand audits, capacity tracking) with therapy (empathy-first, somatic awareness, self-compassion) to address the full buildup — not just the moment it overflows.Key takeaways about the biophysical and mental health of autistic meltdowns and shutdowns:* Autistic meltdowns are amygdala-driven neurological events, not behavioral choices — the “lid flip” happens at the last 10% of capacity after 90% of sensory and emotional load has already accumulated.* Shutdowns exist on a wide spectrum, from chronic partial dissociation (depersonalization, absorption, amnesia) to full collapse that can look like a major depressive episode.* Shame-based interventions fail because they target the moment of overflow rather than the buildup — effective support combines empathy-first therapy with practical coaching tools like demand audits and capacity tracking.[This section is AI-generated, human edited].Resources and referencesDr. Megan Anna Neff has an article describing dissociation: Dissociation falls into three categories depersonalization/derealization, absorption, and amnesia. While ABA, which centers pathologizing neurodivergence as something to be fixed and can result in traumatic experiences for neurodivergent patients, clearly delineates dissociation and autistic shutdown as a means of diagnosis and assignment of accurate intervention, autistic-led resources have considered dissociation a precursor to autistic shutdown. The research on the overlap between dissociation and autistic shut down as it relates to the neurodivergent perspective is just beginning.The Autism Doctor offers recommendations for reducing meltdowns and shutdowns. Supporting the psychological understanding of how to reduce meltdowns and shutdowns neurodivergent coach Neuro-Love-Notes ues a demand audit: external, internal, sensory and invisible, while others recommend load assessments: Cognitive - working memory, Mental - effort to complete a task, Sensory, Emotional, Social, Relational, and Physical.This is a free video on the Lyon-Rubin method for healing shame, for which they have a book on turning shame into an ally.Don’t Miss Out on Early AccessJoin our community of late-diagnosed adults learning to unmask. Subscribe to get the next episode of Following the Threads directly in your inbox. Upgrade to paid for early access to the book and other resources.Leave a review and share your own diagnostic journey to help others feel seen.Thanks for reading A Jester's Musings! This post is public so feel free to share it.The Unmasking Autism Diary: Memoir Excerpt on Autistic MeltdownIt’s been awhile since I went on leave and I feel no respite.Today, I opened my email to see a notice from a local children’s re-use vendor glaring at me. I had agreed to pay a portion of the consignment to the vendor to tag and price everything for me.As someone who can’t drive beyond a three mile radius and has a complete neurological meltdown looking at the refrigerator to decide what to eat, I don’t feel equipped to go through all of my daughter’s baby and toddler things, price everything, and then arrange for sale of it.I desperately need the money; I started “leave without pay” and all I’ve got left is my savings… once again. I build it up - only to deplete it again in one more lost job.But the thought of being in the old nursery - the place we thought would be our second child’s room. The place I decided to convert into an additional dwelling unit so that we could rent it out because having the first baby broke me.Infertility. ...
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    29 分
  • Ep. 13 - Grief and Betrayal After a Late Autism Diagnosis: Identity Loss and Institutional Failure

    Ep. 13 - Grief and Betrayal After a Late Autism Diagnosis: Identity Loss and Institutional Failure
    2026/09/24
    Show NotesEpisode details* Season (Thread): 2* Episode number: 13* Release date: 2026-09-24* Hosts:* Natasha Stavros, PhD — author of The Unmasking Diary and Burning Inside Out (coming to a bookstore near you in December 2026)* Sarah Liebman — licensed marriage and family therapist, ADHD-diagnosed, special interests all things neurodiverse* Audio Engineer and Composer: Noah Smith* Director: Linda Highfield* Duration: 00:29:47* Audience and tone: Educational, conversational, supportive; stigma-free exploration of neurodivergence, diagnosis, and self-understanding using personal experience as a case study* Summary [AI generated, human edited]: Grief after a late autism diagnosis is not linear, and it doesn't end — it resurfaces in parking lots, in jersey logos, in long-term disability claim forms. In this unplanned but urgent episode, Natasha Stavros and Sarah Liebman set aside the meltdown series to sit with the word neither of them expected to land so hard: betrayal. They map three distinct layers — the existential betrayal of a lifetime framed as personal failure rather than neurobiological difference; the workplace and institutional betrayal of systems that demanded loyalty while offering none; and the safety net betrayal of disability and social support systems designed to be inaccessible precisely when you need them most. They close with practical and philosophical frameworks for working with grief — from cultural mourning rituals to the yogic concept of aparigraha — and a diary excerpt from After the Masquerade that is one of the series' most raw and quietly devastating pieces of writing yet.Key takeaways about grief and betray with a late diagnosis of autism:* Grief after late autism diagnosis is nonlinear and recurring: It doesn’t arrive once and resolve — it resurfaces under new contexts, which means the goal isn’t to complete it on a timeline but to recognize it when it comes and give it somewhere to go.* Betrayal has three layers: The existential betrayal of an identity built on false premises, the workplace and institutional betrayal of systems that punished rather than accommodated, and the safety net betrayal of disability systems designed to reject first and see who comes back.* Working with grief requires ritual, not resolution: Whether that’s sitting with a trusted person, marking an anniversary, taking a walk with rocks that represent each loss, or practicing aparigraha — non-attachment — the point is to feel it, acknowledge it, and let it flow through rather than forcing it to end.[This section is AI-generated, human edited].Resources and referencesYou can read more about the Kübler-Ross model using five stages to describe the process of experiencing grief. You can learn more about the aparigraha from yogic philisophy described in this episode.Don’t Miss Out on Early AccessJoin our community of late-diagnosed adults learning to unmask. Subscribe to get the next episode of Following the Threads directly in your inbox. Upgrade to paid to become a patron for this work.Leave a review and share your own diagnostic journey to help others feel seen.Thanks for reading A Jester's Musings! This post is public so feel free to share it.The Unmasking Autism Diary: Memoir Excerpt on Grief and BetrayalToday I dropped my daughter off at pre-kindergarten and I saw one of the moms leaving. She was wearing a jersey with a company name on it for a company I used to work for. I asked her if she worked there. She said yes.I felt overcome with grief. I pressed a smile on my face and said, “I used to work there.”What was going through my mind was that this was one of three companies that had proved to me not that I was unable to meaningfully participate in society, but that I was unable to do so by the rules and systems that society has in place.My heart sank.When I admitted to my therapist that I am cycling through grief. They mentioned anger.This perplexed me. Yes it is a phase of grief, but I was not angry at that moment. I told them that sometimes I’m angry at the people who uphold these broken systems because the cost is too great for them to take a moral stance.Aside from my sense of moral justice, they asked if I had feelings of betrayal.This word stopped me. What did that even mean? It wasn’t a feeling I had ever internalized. We walked through the definition of breaking a person’s trust, confidence, or loyalty.That’s when the flood gates opened. I couldn’t stop crying. I went through over ten tissues covered in a clear, filmy snot. A slightly salty sting of my tears streaming down my cheeks.The therapist asked me questions and talked to me, but honestly – I couldn’t make sense of anything she was saying. She was saying words, and they were in sentences, that I presume made sense – but it was as if everything was so broken into pieces, I couldn’t interpret how the complexity of each word fit together, let alone parse how I felt or what I thought about ...
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    30 分
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