Coping Strategies
7 terms
Camouflaging
The conscious or unconscious suppression of neurodivergent traits to appear more neurotypical. Often used interchangeably with "masking," camouflaging involves hiding, compensating for, or overperforming to meet social expectations.
Demand Avoidance
When your nervous system treats everyday requests like threats, triggering fight-flight-freeze responses to even gentle suggestions. Not defiance or oppositional behavior—a neurological response where the brain's threat detection system perceives any loss of autonomy as danger, making you unable (not unwilling) to comply with demands, even ones you genuinely want to follow.
Masking
Hiding or suppressing neurodivergent traits to appear more neurotypical. A survival strategy that involves mimicking social behaviors, suppressing stims, and performing neurotypicality at significant personal cost.
Overfunctioning / Underfunctioning
Two common responses to stress: doing "too much" (taking on everything, over‑controlling) or "shutting down" (reduced capacity, withdrawal).
Pacing
Balancing activity and rest to avoid overwhelm, burnout, or crashes.
Resilience
The capacity to adapt, persist, and thrive despite facing challenges, adversity, or systemic barriers, often developed through navigating neurodivergent experiences in a neurotypical world.
Unmasking
The process of reducing or stopping masking behaviors and allowing more authentic expression of neurodivergent traits and needs.