Am I The Problem?

Someone asks for a favour. A colleague wants help. A friend needs something. Before you’ve even decided what you want to say, your body has already started preparing the yes.
Not because you’re weak. Not because you’re naturally a people pleaser. Because somewhere along the way, saying no became associated with danger.
If you grew up in an environment where autonomy was punished, disagreement was unsafe, or your needs were treated as evidence that you were selfish, saying no can trigger a genuine threat response. This episode explores how shame, hypervigilance, neurodivergence, and conditioned fear combine to make even reasonable boundaries feel frightening.
Resources mentioned:
Lisa Feldman Barrett’s work on predictive processingRussell Barkley on ADHD emotional dysregulationResearch on conditioned fear responses and threat prediction
Go deeper:
The companion episode of Is This A Thing? explores the science of threat conditioning in more depth, including how fear responses are learned, why they persist long after the original danger has passed, and what the evidence says about changing them. Available on The Hub: liberationacademy.co.uk/the-hub
Aperio Profiles:
Neurodivergent-informed cognitive and personality profiling for individuals, managers, and HR. Not a diagnosis. A functional map of how your brain actually works.
aperioprofiles.co.uk


This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit helenvilliersliberation.substack.com/subscribe

You stand in the ready meal aisle for ten minutes. You change your coffee order every time. Someone asks what you fancy doing at the weekend and your mind goes oddly blank.
Not because you’re easy-going. Not because you don’t care. Because somewhere along the way, you stopped trusting your own preferences.
If you grew up in an environment where your likes, dislikes, wants, and needs were ignored, mocked, overridden, or treated as a problem, learning what you actually prefer can become surprisingly difficult. This episode explores how toxic family dynamics, masking, and neurodivergent processing can combine to disconnect you from your own preferences and leave you constantly searching for the “right” answer instead of your own.
Resources mentioned:Research on self-concept clarity and childhood adversityLaura Hull’s work on masking and camouflagingResearch into autistic masking, identity, and mental health
Go deeper:The companion episode of Is This A Thing? explores masking, camouflaging, and performance in more depth, including why years of adapting to other people’s expectations can leave you disconnected from your own identity and preferences. Available on The Hub: liberationacademy.co.uk/the-hub
Aperio Profiles:Neurodivergent-informed cognitive and personality profiling for individuals, managers, and HR. Not a diagnosis. A functional map of how your brain actually works.
aperioprofiles.co.uk


This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit helenvilliersliberation.substack.com/subscribe

Season 2, Episode 3: “You Apologise For Existing”
You apologise before you ask a question. You apologise when someone bumps into you. You apologise for taking too long, talking too much, needing something, wanting something, or simply being in the room.
If you grew up in an unpredictable environment while also being neurodivergent, apologising can become much more than politeness. This episode explores how the apology reflex develops through survival learning, autistic rule-based social processing, ADHD impulsive guilt cycles, and chronic self-abandonment.
Helen breaks down why “just stop apologising” is genuinely ineffective advice, why the reflex is often trying to reduce anxiety rather than express remorse, and how reassurance-seeking can quietly keep the cycle alive long after the original threat has gone.
Resources mentioned:Joseph LeDoux on threat processing and the amygdalaDaniel Kahneman’s System 1 processing modelRussell Barkley on ADHD behavioural inhibitionResearch on behavioural conditioning and anxiety reduction
Go deeper:The companion episode of Is This A Thing? explores the behavioural psychology behind coping behaviours in more depth, including why removing a behaviour without replacing its function often makes anxiety worse rather than better.
Available on The Hub: liberationacademy.co.uk/the-hub
Aperio Profiles:Neurodivergent-informed cognitive and personality profiling for individuals, managers, and HR. Not a diagnosis. A functional map of how your brain actually works.aperioprofiles.co.uk


This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit helenvilliersliberation.substack.com/subscribe

You replay conversations for hours. You ask other people if your feelings make sense. You know your reaction feels too big, except sometimes it turns out it wasn’t big enough at all.
If you grew up in a toxic environment while also having a neurodivergent nervous system, there are specific reasons why emotional calibration becomes so difficult. This episode breaks down what actually happens when ADHD emotional dysregulation, autistic processing differences, alexithymia, and chronic emotional invalidation collide.

Because the real question often isn’t “Am I overreacting?”
It’s “What happened to me that made trusting myself feel impossible?”

Resources mentioned:
Russell Barkley on ADHD emotional dysregulation
Research on emotional invalidation and interoception
Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions
The Feelings Wheel (Geoffrey Roberts)

Go deeper:
The companion episode of Is This A Thing? explores the neuroscience of emotional dysregulation in ADHD and autistic nervous systems in much more depth, including why standard emotional regulation advice often fails for neurodivergent processing styles. Available on The Hub: liberationacademy.co.uk/the-hub

Aperio Profiles:
Neurodivergent-informed cognitive and personality profiling for individuals, managers, and HR. Not a diagnosis. A functional map of how your brain actually works.
aperioprofiles.co.uk


This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit helenvilliersliberation.substack.com/subscribe

Someone asks how you feel and you deliver a flawless twelve-minute analysis of everyone else’s motivations. Or you say “fine.” Or you get nothing at all, just a blank where the answer should be.
If you grew up in a toxic family and your brain is wired differently, there are specific, mechanical reasons why identifying your own emotions is so difficult. This episode takes that apart.
Helen explains the three layers that stack on top of each other to produce this: alexithymia (a processing difference found at significantly higher rates in autistic and ADHD populations), trained emotional suppression from growing up in an environment where having feelings was punished, and the maintenance cycle that keeps the whole thing running on autopilot. She covers the research (Kinnaird, Stewart & Tchanturia on alexithymia prevalence in autism; Donfrancesco et al. on ADHD; Murphy & Brewer on interoception and emotional awareness) and explains why the standard advice doesn’t work for non-standard brains.
The Rewire section offers four sequential strategies designed for brains that forget things, find social scripts impossible, or don’t process internal experience visually: body-state check-ins, pattern mapping, retroactive emotional identification, and vocabulary expansion. With specific adaptations for ADHD and autistic processing.
This episode is first in the season because everything else depends on it.

Resources mentioned:
Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions
The Feelings Wheel (Geoffrey Roberts)

Go deeper:
The companion episode of Is This A Thing? takes the interoception piece from today’s episode and goes much further: how interoception works and doesn’t, why it presents differently in ADHD versus autistic brains, and what to do about it when standard body-based approaches assume a type of processing you don’t have. Available on The Hub: liberationacademy.co.uk/the-hub

Aperio Profiles:
Neurodivergent-informed cognitive and personality profiling for individuals, managers, and HR. Not a diagnosis. A functional map of how your brain actually works.
aperioprofiles.co.uk


This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit helenvilliersliberation.substack.com/subscribe