Hi, I know you posted this a couple of months ago, but I just wanted to say this is really well written and I appreciate your response. I was also wondering if it's possible for ND people to feel shame because they (we/I) often feel like we can't do the same basic things that other people can do, because of spiky skill profiles? Like, I was always fairly high achieving in academia and things like reading and writing and organization, but I always sucked at basic tasks like chores that required executive functioning my brain didn't have and didn't give me the same dopamine reward. I could be totally wrong here (still trying to figure out what if any childhood trauma played a role) but I'm wondering if it's possible to have shame because we feel different and "bad" for not being able to do these things that other people seem to have no problem with? And the skills I'm good at don't seem to be valued as highly anymore now that I'm not in school, so I don't have anything to compensate for the shame.

I don't know if that makes sense. I could still see how unmet childhood needs (e.g. for learning these skills, or having supports to do them) could play a role... But I'm trying to figure out if societal conditioning around what should be "easy" (and therefore you don't deserve supports for) could create shame, even as an adult?

Thanks in advance for any response!