Why I Chose to Disclose My AuDHD Diagnosis
By Michelle Labine, PhD
May 26, 2025
Disclosing my AuDHD diagnosis was not a light decision.
For as long as I remember, I’ve masked (a term I now understand but didn’t have language for at the time). I studied what was expected. I mirrored what made others comfortable. I learned how to say the “right” thing at the “right” time. I smiled when I was supposed to, even when I felt like I was falling apart inside. I learned to cater to the comfort of others, to push down my own feelings until they eventually erupted (a pattern that followed me through many relationships over my lifetime and caused much damage). I put my own needs aside so others could have theirs met. I became completely other-focused. I pushed through—until I hit the inevitable wall.
Masking was all I knew. It was how I moved through the world.
It was not a conscious choice. It was automatic. I don’t even know when it started, it’s just always been there. I tried to be who people needed me to be, to stay agreeable, and to hold it all together. And underneath it all was a persistent feeling that I wasn’t enough, that I had to earn my place, prove my worth, and never let the cracks show.
I didn’t even know I was masking. It took me a long time and much therapeutic support to figure out where it ended and I began. Like many late-diagnosed Autistic and ADHD women, I became so good at all that for a long time, I forgot there was a “me” beneath the mask (Hull et al., 2017; Raymaker et al., 2020). There are still days I cover myself up.
A hard truth I had to face as part of my healing journey: masking is performing and I had performed my entire life.
For me, there was so much grief in that part of the journey (there is so much to say about that part that I’ll come back to that again in another blog).
There was a point in my healing where I deep-soul-realized the true cost of masking. It was disconnection. From myself. From others. From joy.
It chipped away at my sense of self. It wore down my nervous system and it slowly eroded my self-worth.
All the things I yearned for most—authentic connection and belonging—were just out of reach. The mask that once helped me cope had become a barrier between me and everything I was aching for.
We often talk about diagnosis in terms of “before and after”—and yes, there is a before and after. But, what’s often missed is everything in between. I want to first honour the messy middle.
My diagnosis was not a snap of the fingers and a dramatic shift. It was slow, subtle, and years in the making. It was a quiet unraveling of old stories and internalized beliefs. It was a gradual realization that the things I struggled with were signs of coping, contorting, and masking.
The ‘middle’ was slow, quiet, and years in the making. It was gradual noticing, then un-noticing. It was a deep dive into reading and learning then a pulling back when things were ‘too close, too fast’. It was a circling back and pulling at threads that didn’t seem to fit until they finally started to make sense.
My diagnosis was a decade in the making, built on a lifetime of wondering, coping, and not quite fitting in.
So, when I finally received my AuDHD diagnosis, it was a validation of my new beginning. It meant looking within myself and facing everything I had internalized about who I was supposed to be. It was an invitation to choose with intention, to become who I actually am. The clarity and the deep knowing brought with it a deep sense of responsibility.
So, I made a choice: I chose not to conform any longer. I chose not to let fear stand in my way. I chose to stop condoning the silence around neurodivergence especially in women and girls. I chose to use my voice. I chose to tell my story.
I chose to disclose as a radical act of self-acceptance. I chose to disclose as I believe in justice, for those who came before me and were misdiagnosed, mislabeled, and mistreated. I chose to disclose because I grieve for those in history who, under the medical model, were institutionalized, silenced, sterilized, or murdered (Silberman, 2015). I chose to disclose because I see my responsibility in not allowing those cycles to continue.
Change begins with one voice, one story, and one woman choosing to be visible, joined by another woman choosing visibility, and another, and so on.
I also want to acknowledge that choosing to disclose can be an act of courage—and it’s not always accessible or safe for everyone. For some, it’s empowering. For others, it’s risky and sometimes even dangerous. Disclosure isn’t a privilege everyone holds. It can come at a cost, especially for those who are racialized, trans, gender-diverse, multiply disabled, or living without support.
So let me be clear: you don’t need to disclose to be valid. Your story, your identity, and your truth matter whether they’re spoken out loud or held quietly within.
I recognize the relative safety I hold as a white, educated, cisgender professional. I have a support network. I have access to healthcare. I live in a context where, while stigma certainly exists, my disclosure is unlikely to cost me my housing, my job, or my children. That is not the case for everyone.
For many people, especially those who are racialized, trans, gender-diverse, multiply disabled, or living in poverty, disclosure can come with very real risks. It can mean loss of employment, access to services, credibility, or safety. And so, I want to be clear: disclosure is not a requirement for authenticity or advocacy. Choosing not to disclose can also be an act of self-preservation. A boundary. A form of wisdom. And that deserves just as much respect.
My decision to share publicly is just one path. One voice. One way of using the privilege I have to push for something better. Until disclosure is safe for everyone, the work is not done.
When all three of my children were navigating their own neurodivergent journeys, each with ADHD and Autism diagnoses of their own, it shifted something in me. While I was supporting them, guiding them, advocating for them… I was also quietly beginning to see myself more clearly.
I couldn’t keep asking them to embrace who they are if I was still hiding who I am. I couldn’t model self-acceptance while secretly carrying shame. I couldn’t teach them to take up space while I was still trying to stay small.
So, I made a choice. I chose to stop contorting myself into shapes that weren’t mine. I chose to stop striving for “normal.” I chose to make my life—and my motherhood—a space for truth, not performance.
References:
Brown, L. X. Z. (2021). All the Weight of Our Dreams: On Living Racialized Autism. DragonBee Press.
Hull, L., Petrides, K. V., & Mandy, W. (2017). The Female Autism Phenotype and Camouflaging: A Narrative Review. Review Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 4(4), 306–317.
Lai, M.-C., & Baron-Cohen, S. (2015). Identifying the Lost Generation of Adults with Autism Spectrum Conditions. The Lancet Psychiatry, 2(11), 1013–1027.
Raymaker, D. M., et al. (2020). “Having All of Your Internal Resources Exhausted Beyond Measure and Being Left with No Clean-Up Crew”: Defining Autistic Burnout. Autism in Adulthood, 2(2), 132–143.
Silberman, S. (2015). NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity.
Avery. Singer, J. (1999). Why Can’t You Be Normal for Once in Your Life? In M. Corker & S. French (Eds.), Disability Discourse. Open University Press.
Walker, N. (2021). Neuroqueer Heresies: Notes on the Neurodiversity Paradigm, Autistic Empowerment, and Postnormal Possibilities. Autonomous Press.
