Emotions Counselling and Psychotherapy

22/04/2026

I called myself a chameleon for years. I enjoyed blending in and disappearing into the background. I hated being perceived.



When I discovered autistic masking, so much of my life made sense.



We all mask, all humans. We need to present ourselves as professional at work or as a good moral person at church. But, when we leave those situations we can be ourselves again and we know who the real us is. The autistic mask is so much more. It erodes any sense of identity we may have had. We may shapeshift so much that we have no idea who we are.



Masking isn’t premeditated, it’s not something we walk into a situation and decide to do. It’s a survival technique. We learned very young that our natural way of being is displeasing to our peers and community and we also learned that to survive we needed those people to accept us and protect us, so we altered our behaviour. I hate that it’s pathologised so much because I think that it’s very natural that a human might do that to survive.



The mask adapts to different people and scenarios. We may have 50 masks by the time we are an adult. We may have a mask for our parent and a different mask for our teacher. Or we may have two friends and a different mask for both. This can make group situations hard because suddenly you’ve got to mix those masks somehow and people may tell you you’re acting differently than usual. They don’t understand that you're in survival mode, trying to navigate this situation as safely as possible.



For a long time I would try to keep friendships very separate. I’d spend one on one time with different people, avoiding my social circles overlapping. It’s very common for autistic people to prefer one on one interactions over group ones.



I've spent a lot of time trying to unpick my mask and in all honesty I don't think I'll ever fully unmask. Every other week I have a moment where I realise I'm masking and I have to re-evaluate everything all over again.



Figuring out who I truly am, who authentic Cara is, is what has helped me to pull parts of my mask off.



I remember when people asked me who I was and what I liked doing, I couldn't answer. I had no idea. Underneath everything I was an empty shell. Who Cara truly was was a total mystery.

I'll talk more about attempting to mask less over the next couple of days. Stay tuned.

21/12/2023

03/10/2023

Imagine living in a world where chicken’s are the only species of bird.

Now, there is nothing wrong with chickens, but just imagine a world without the Wren, or the Robin, no Peacocks and Ostriches!

Imagine arguing that an Ostrich isn’t really a bird because it can’t fly!!

Or criticising a flamingo because it has a limited diet, but that diet is the very thing that makes them so beautiful?

Imagine also only having a one sized egg box to store bird eggs in – Trying to put a quail, duck or goose egg in a chicken egg box…What is likely to happen?

Unless your chicken-egg size then you’re going to get thrown around and damaged or completely crushed. Doesn’t sound good does it – What does that remind you of?

It tells us we need variety!

Without Neurodiversity we would be lesser world.

Neurodivergent people have given us some of the most important inventions and creations which we cannot imagine being without.

What would the world be like without the internet, without tech, science and medicine. Industries all full of beautiful, amazing and creative brains.

This current narrative that different means deficient is extremely damaging.

As neurodivergent individuals we are constantly being fed the narrative that we are not “normal” and we are “less.”

It is no wonder that ND children grow up experiencing shame and embarrassment about their condition – leading to children rejecting the support offered to them in schools because they do not want to be different.

So – we have to drop the word disorder, and start celebrating the wonderful differences of being ND.

Stop seeing ND as deficient, defiant and disordered and lets just all celebrate the wonderful positives and strengths of our ND community. 😊

(This comes from a blog post I wrote with my friend and colleague Angela Kelly last year Emotions Counselling and Psychotherapy)

17/06/2022

Would you like to know what invalidation trauma is? If so come along to this Webinar on Monday 20th June. Can't make it? A recording will be made available and sent to you.

Angela Kelly and Kate Jones with Harry Thompson discussing Invalidation Trauma

18/05/2022

💚💚

19/04/2022

From Neha Mistry, PsyD
https://instagram.com/dr.nehamistry

15/04/2022

Seen in Neurodivergent Cleaning Crew ❤

07/04/2022

This is spot on. There is a huge lack of acknowledging the enormous power we hold as adults over children.

Ben Martin listens to the way we talk to kids. And he finds it incomprehensible that we can't give them the respect we give to adults.

11/02/2022

MPs debated SEND and Children’s Mental Health Services in Parliament- yesterday: GP quote “...It feels as if [CAMHS] are always looking for a way NOT to have to see a child. They demand detailed referral forms…and then find reasons not to see a child” http://ow.ly/HPce30saeIZ