Exploring Autism or ADHD Doesn’t Require Other People’s Approval

by Katia Erokhina, MA Gestalt Therapy | PACFA Certified Practising Counsellor

Albert Ellis, the founder of Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) and an important figure in the development of cognitive behavioural approaches, wrote extensively about the rigid demands we place on ourselves, other people, and the world.

In REBT, these demands often take the form of musts and shoulds, while in Gestalt therapy we refer to them as introjects.

“People must behave the way I think it is right."“

“This should not be happening.”

“They should not need a label to understand themselves.”

At times people turn their preferences into rigid rules about how others should think, behave, identify, or understand themselves. And this is particularly relevant to conversations about neurodivergence.

When someone begins exploring whether they might be autistic, have ADHD, or experience another form of neurodivergence, the response they receive is not always supportive.

“You don’t look autistic.”

“Everyone has ADHD these days.”

“Why does everyone need a label?”

“You managed fine before.”

“Everyone does that.”

Sometimes these comments are presented as scepticism or concern. But they can also invalidate experiences that another person may have spent years trying to understand.

For many people, exploring neurodivergence is not about collecting a fashionable label. It may be an attempt to find an explanation for patterns they have noticed throughout their lives. It can provide language for sensory experiences, attention differences, social difficulties, executive functioning challenges, communication styles, or the exhaustion associated with trying to meet expectations that never seemed designed for them.

Self-exploration and formal diagnosis are also different things. A person wondering whether they are autistic or have ADHD is not necessarily claiming the certainty of a clinical assessment. They may be at the beginning of a process of understanding themselves. Some will eventually seek a professional assessment, while others will not have access to one. Some may explore the possibility and later decide that another explanation fits their experience better.

None of this requires a stranger, colleague, friend, or family member to act as the gatekeeper of someone else's self-understanding.

So, if another person's exploration of neurodivergence really bothers you, it may be worth asking yourself:

What rule of mine are they breaking?

Why do I believe they should understand themselves differently?

Why does their explanation of their own experience need to make sense to me?

What would actually happen if I allowed them to explore this without correcting them?

You do not have to agree with every conclusion another person reaches about themselves. You do not have to understand every term they use. And acknowledging someone's experience does not require abandoning thoughtful discussion about diagnosis, evidence, or the limitations of labels.

But there is an important difference between thoughtful discussion and gaslighting.

Telling someone that they “can’t be autistic” because they make eye contact, have a job, have relationships, or do not match your picture of autism is not a meaningful assessment. Neither is dismissing possible ADHD because “everyone gets distracted.”

A person's internal experience cannot always be inferred from how they appear to you.

That matters because people can become highly skilled at compensating, masking, preparing, rehearsing, or structuring their lives around difficulties that other people never see. What looks effortless from the outside may not feel effortless to the person living it.

For sure labels are not perfect. Diagnoses are not complete descriptions of human beings. Our understanding of neurodivergence continues to develop.

But language can help people make sense of their experiences. It can help them find appropriate support, communicate their needs, recognise patterns, seek assessment, make accommodations, and replace years of confusion with a more coherent understanding of themselves.

You do not have to need that language yourself to recognise its value to somebody else.

Perhaps the more useful question is not, “Why do they need a label?”

It is, “Why do I need them not to have one?”

People have a right to explore and understand their own experiences on their own terms. We can leave room for uncertainty, professional assessment, changing understandings, and genuine disagreement without treating another person's self-exploration as something that requires our permission.

Sometimes the rigid should that needs examining is our own.