When you discover you’re neurodivergent, something unexpected can happen.
Tasks you used to manage (however imperfectly) become impossible. Sometimes you can feel like you’re ‘more ADHD’ or ‘more autistic’. Your ability to “power through” dwindles. You feel less capable, not more.
This is often called a “skills regression”, and it’s incredibly common. As a therapist, I see it often, and I know it can feel worrying and painful. It’s one of those things we’ve started to recognise on social media very recently, and thousands of people comment.
Whilst we’re only just starting to talk about why this happens, I have a theory based on some well-established science.
It is not actually a regression.
It’s part of the healing – and things will get better.
Here’s how I’d explain it…
🧠 What Is A ‘Skills Regression’?
Skills regression is when you lose access to coping strategies, executive function, or emotional regulation you used to rely on. You might find:
- You make more mistakes (leaving your phone in the fridge, oven on, etc…);
- You feel more sensitive to lights and sounds;
- You lose motivation to get out of bed, eat, exercise, etc;
- Your social energy vanishes and you don’t want to talk to people;
- You feel more restless and your brain is like a squirrel;
- You feel overloaded by life and just want to be in a quiet, dark room;
- You are having meltdowns and shutdowns more frequently.
This can feel frightening and lonely, like it’s out of your control and the people around you don’t understand or know how to support you. I’ve heard quite a few people say they almost wish they could go back in time to undo it.
However, it’s not that your brain is breaking—it’s that you’re coming out of survival mode.
😶🌫️ ‘Getting On With It’: Masking, Dissociation & State-Dependent Memory
If you grew up undiagnosed or unsupported, you likely developed ways to mask your neurodivergent traits to survive, fit in, or perform.
You might’ve learned to:
- Work twice as hard to ‘be good enough’;
- ‘Be good’ or ‘say the right thing’ to avoid disapproval or getting into trouble;
- Push through sensory discomfort;
- Get a dopamine hit or numb by keeping busy or using props like caffeine;
- Ignore fatigue, overwhelm, or emotional needs.
These adaptations often involved dissociation – a disconnection from your body, your needs, or your inner experience. This is not something you chose; it was how you survived. Read more about dissociation here and here.
A ‘part’ of you learned to ‘just get on with it’. That ‘part’ is like one version of you, and it may have become the dominant one amongst different aspects of yourself.
Also, those skills were learned in a stress state – underneath the dissociation, your nervous system was on high alert.
This created what is called state-dependent memory: you recall certain skills or knowledge better when you’re in the same mental or emotional state in which they were learned.
You know how we forget what we did after too much to drink? That’s state-dependent memory. 😉
When you begin the process of identification and unmasking, you are changing these deep processes.
🌱 Healing: Reconnecting With Yourself & More Peace
As you you’re learning more about who you really are, you begin to undo dissociation and shift out of a continuous stress state. You reconnect to yourself and your body finally feels a little bit safer to stop performing.
Your process might have started with another part (or parts) of you who knew something didn’t feel right, and you started learning and seeking something better for yourself.
You started to develop conscious awareness – you began connecting with parts of your experience that had been buried a long time.
Then, 3 things might happen (I think most people experience a combination):
- Increased Awareness:
In part, you start noticing more. You always did these things, but now you register it.
This is likely to be part of it, but not all…
- Reduced Dissociation:
The wall starts to come down between the masking part(s) and the parts of you seeking something better.
Your connection to the part of you seeking something better gets stronger. That part doesn’t want to just ‘get on with it’ anymore – you can’t ‘un-see’ it. The internal balance of motivation starts to tip.
That part might also be ‘younger’, developed in your earlier life before you learned to mask. That part rarely/never learned helpful understanding or skills to manage.
- Reduced Stress State-Dependent Memory:
You’re now in a different state, so your access to stress-state memory is reduced.
It could be because your body feels safer from relief.
It could be that you’re connected to the unmasked part(s) of you that did not learn helpful management tools.
As a result, you don’t default into the masking part anymore. Temporarily, as you didn’t strategies in an unmasked or relaxed state, you don’t have much of a toolkit to use.
Also, as your brain is making more connections, you might notice some painful memories about how alone, misunderstood, or unsupported you felt as a child. You might feel like that now too, in an echo of your past experience, particularly if you don’t have supportive people around you nowadays.
So, where do you go from here?
🌈 Rebuilding in a Way That Actually Works for You
Now, you’re in a new phase—one where you can develop a toolkit that you can use whilst staying connected with yourself and feeling more peaceful. You can develop compassionate self-understanding, supportive relationships, and sustainable skills based on your actual needs, not constant self-suppression.
You can give yourself and ask for what you needed growing up. This can be deeply healing.
Gradually, it will get easier.
You’ll find some things naturally settle down. For some things, you’ll find ways to manage them so that they bother you less.
There will also be other things that feel permanently changed and the truth is that you will not return to the version of yourself that could power through everything – but you won’t want to. You can learn to embrace that as part of your unique profile of strengths and challenges – you might not be superhuman, but you will be human, and wonderful exactly as you are.
It will take time, and some trial and error. You might grieve the old version of yourself, even as you outgrow it. It might feel unfamiliar and uncertain, even as you move forwards.
However, every person I’ve supported through this process says it’s the best thing they’ve done. It feels real, authentic and sustainable.
💬 Final Thoughts
Remember This:
- Be kind to yourself. Reassure yourself that this not something to worry about. Instead, it’s a sign of your growth and courage.
- Make extra time for rest. You’re going through a huge internal shift, which is a lot to do.
- Find what’s helpful for you. Help can be invaluable, such coaching, books, podcasts, and other neurodivergent friends/family – and of course therapy too.
Most importantly: surround yourself with people who affirm your process. You don’t have to do this alone.
Skills regression isn’t a sign that something’s wrong. It’s a sign that your body, mind, and nervous system are releasing old patterns of survival—and you are on your way to a life that fits you.
Hang in there and I send my best wishes.
Warmly,
Sarah
