A Neurodiversity-Affirming Guide to Healing, Shadow Work, and Authenticity

Carl Jung understood something essential about human nature: we’re not designed to live as tidy, one-dimensional beings. We’re layered, emotional, symbolic, and full of contradictions. And when our inner world becomes misaligned, everything else begins to fray including our relationships, our health, our identity, even our sense of meaning.

For neurodivergent people, especially autistic and ADHD individuals, this misalignment can feel amplified. Many were raised to mask, suppress their needs, silence their emotions, or conform to systems that misunderstand them. Jung’s principles offer language for experiences neurodivergent people often live without having a name for.

These six Jungian ideas have reshaped my own journey. They can help neurodivergent people find a stronger, more authentic and unashamed neurodivergent sense of self.

1. A Life Without Meaning Isn’t Sustainable

Jung believed the human psyche needs purpose the way the body needs air. Without meaning, we drift, detach, and lose our sense of self.

For many neurodivergent people, purpose is nonlinear. It shifts as interests shift, as sensory needs shift, and as life circumstances change. That’s not a flaw, it’s a strength.

My own meaning has evolved through multiple identities: sailor, Buddhist, therapist, mother, wife, grandmother, autistic girl. Each chapter taught me something about who I was becoming.

If your purpose changes with you, that doesn’t mean you’re lost. It means you’re alive.

2. Your Persona Isn’t Your Authentic Self - Especially If You Grew Up Masking

Jung described the persona as the social mask we wear to function in the world. For autistic people, this often shows up as masking — suppressing natural emotions, hiding distress, forcing eye contact, performing “normalcy.”

The problem isn’t having a persona.The problem is believing the mask is you.

How many of you lived your lives as “the agreeable one,” endlessly pleasant, endlessly available. Or"the smart one" who didn't dare make a mistake because than you would less worthy? Or "the helper" who gained worth through service to others. Or "the quirky one", the manic pixie dream girl or the funny guy, never quite sure if you were pulling it off. You learned to fear the consequences of being fully yourself. Many neurodivergent people know this story too well.But wearing a role long-term becomes a form of self-abandonment.

Your full, human and authentic self is bigger and more powerful than any mask you learned to wear.

3. The Shadow Doesn’t Disappear When You Hide It - It Grows

Jung believed that any emotion or impulse we repress will eventually demand expression. Autistic and ADHD clients often learn early that certain emotions are “too much”: anger, overwhelm, sensory distress, meltdowns, grief, shame.

So those emotions get buried.But buried emotions don’t die — they metabolize into:

• chronic anxiety

• shutdowns

• stomach issues

• burnout

• internalized shame

• emotional numbness

• damaged autoimmune systems

I learned this through my own anxiety and anger which led to serious nervous system damage and autoimmune issues. What I ignored eventually spoke through my body.

Shadow work isn’t about blaming yourself. It’s about identifying and integrating the parts of you that needed compassion all along.

4. The Unconscious Will Get Your Attention When You Ignore Yourself

To Jung, the unconscious was a living intelligence, not mysterious woo-woo, but the deeper truth beneath the surface.

When we ignore our real needs, the unconscious speaks in stages:

1. Dreams

2. Intuition or internal “pings”

3. Life patterns that repeat

4. Relationship conflicts

5. Burnout, illness, or shutdown

Neurodivergent people often override their needs in order to meet expectations: working through sensory overload, ignoring fatigue, masking too hard, skipping rest, pushing past boundaries. But the psyche keeps score.

Listening early prevents louder messages later.

5. Extremes Create Imbalance - Integration Creates Wholeness

Jung warned that overdeveloping one part of the psyche creates imbalance:

• All intellect, no emotion

• All emotion, no grounding

• All thinking, no embodiment

• All spiritual, no physical

• All effort, no rest

Many neurodivergent people live in these extremes because the world demanded they adapt rather than integrate.

I’ve swung between extremes myself sometimes using intellect to avoid feelings, or spirituality to avoid my body. Neither path led to wholeness.

Balance isn’t about perfection.It’s about giving each part of yourself a voice.

6. Borrowed Beliefs Can’t Replace Your Inner Compass

Jung cautioned against giving authority to teachers, ideologies, or systems in place of your own intuition.

This is especially important for neurodivergent people who grew up in environments where:

• their instincts were invalidated

• their emotions were misread

• their needs were dismissed

• they were told “experts know better than you”

When you don’t trust your inner world, you cling to outer authority. But those external voices disappear eventually, and then you’re left without your own.

Finding your voice takes time. But it’s worth the work.

A Neurodiversity-Affirming Takeaway

Jung’s ideas weren’t created with neurodivergent people in mind — but they resonate deeply for those whose identities were shaped by masking, invalidation, and chronic misunderstanding. Wholeness isn’t about making yourself palatable.It’s about creating a life where you don’t have to fracture yourself to survive. Healing comes when the mask softens, the shadow is met with compassion, meaning is allowed to evolve, and the unconscious is invited to speak and not forced into silence.

If You’re Seeking Support

At Heartstone Guidance Center, our therapists specialize in neurodiversity-affirming care for autistic, ADHD, and otherwise neurodivergent adults, teens, and children.We help clients explore these Jungian themes through:

• identity work

• trauma healing

• masking recovery

• shadow integration

• inner child work

• strengths-based neurodivergent empowerment

• sensory-aware approaches

• meaning-making and life direction

• IFS parts work

If you're ready to reconnect with your authentic neurodivergent self, we’re here to help.

Learn more at www.heartstoneguidancecenter.com Schedule with one of our neurodivergent-affirming therapists today