When neurodivergent people in eating disorder recovery talk about exercise, the narrative that we are more susceptible to becoming addicted to it than neurotypical peers might be. "Be careful," we're warned, because adrenaline, endorphins, vestibular input, dopamine, and emotion regulation are all things that movement provides, and becoming dependent on it to self-medicate might mean overdoing it. If you're sensing a tone of cynicism here, you're onto me. To be fair, this experience is real;...

I often hear from clients something along the lines of, "If someone overheard this, they'd probably think I was being irresponsible." Early in my career, I was quick to label this as a cognitive distortion and guess that it was stemming from an insecurity or fear. But there's another way to understand this pattern that gives us more choice in how we use it: I call this the "invisible audience" strategy. What's the invisible audience? When you mentally step outside yourself and imagine how...

Pathological demand avoidance, also called pervasive drive for autonomy (though if you ask me-a PDAer-both names are lacking), is a hot topic in the neurodiversity-affirming mental health realm. I often see colleagues chastise each other in therapist spaces: "It's not oppositional defiant disorder, it's PDA. ODD isn't affirming." I get the same "ick" I used to get in treatment team meetings when my boss would interrupt staff who used the term "attention-seeking" by saying "That's outdated; we...