You promised yourself you would never be like them. You would never make your child feel the way you felt. So you do the opposite. You soften every hard edge, struggle to say no, and panic when your child is disappointed in you.

But what if trying so hard not to become your parent is still letting them shape the way you parent?

If you grew up in a toxic family, you may have no reliable benchmark for what healthy parenting actually looks like. This episode explores the parenting pendulum, why fear can push you towards permissiveness, rescuing, hypervigilance or repeating the very patterns you wanted to escape, and how to find the middle ground between control and fear-led parenting.

Resources mentioned:

Research on conditioning and learned behaviourChild development and age-appropriate expectationsResearch on rupture, repair, and relational safety

Go deeper:

The companion episode of Is This A Thing? explores how much of what your child does is actually about you, including why your child’s behaviour can trigger reactions that belong to your own childhood and how to separate the child in front of you from the child you once were. 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

You have a cupboard full of abandoned hobbies. A project you still can’t bring yourself to throw away. Every unfinished task feels like evidence that you’re lazy, flaky, or incapable.

Except what if it isn’t?

If you have ADHD and grew up in an environment where your differences were criticised, mocked, or misunderstood, it can become almost impossible to separate the way your brain naturally works from the shame that was layered on top of it. This episode explores how ordinary ADHD traits become confused with character flaws, why unfinished projects carry so much emotional weight, and how years of criticism can leave you measuring yourself with a stick that was never built for your brain.

Resources mentioned:

Russell Barkley on ADHD and executive functionResearch on self-handicapping and perfectionismResearch on conditioning, shame, and behaviour change

Go deeper:

The companion episode of Is This A Thing? explores self-handicapping in much more depth, including why shame changes the way we approach goals, how perfectionism develops as a protective strategy, and what the evidence says about breaking the cycle. 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

You meet someone and tell them your life story within a week. Or you’ve known someone for years and still don’t think they really know you.

It can feel like you’re either all in or completely shut down, with nothing in between.

If you grew up in an environment where your privacy wasn’t respected and your boundaries were repeatedly crossed, trusting other people can become incredibly difficult. This episode explores why oversharing and hyper-independence are often two versions of the same survival strategy, and why the real work isn’t learning to trust other people, it’s learning to trust yourself.

Resources mentioned:

Research on attachment and interpersonal trustResearch on boundaries and self-conceptNeurodivergence, masking, and relational safety

Go deeper:

The companion episode of Is This A Thing? explores the difference between privacy and secrecy, why so many survivors feel guilty for having an inner world of their own, and how learning to keep something for yourself can become an essential part of recovery. 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

You leave a conversation because you’re overwhelmed. You stop replying because you need space. You take a break from someone who’s hurting you.

And then the guilt arrives.

Not because you’re worried about the relationship. Because you’re worried you’ve just become the person who hurt you.

If you grew up around withdrawal, silent treatment, emotional punishment, or unpredictable communication, it can become incredibly difficult to tell the difference between protecting yourself and punishing someone else. This episode explores why so many survivors struggle to trust their own exits, how neurodivergent overwhelm can complicate conflict, and why two behaviours that look identical on the outside can be completely different underneath.

Resources mentioned:

Research on stress and verbal processingResearch on threat prediction and conditioned responsesFunctional analysis and behavioural psychology

Go deeper:

The companion episode of Is This A Thing? explores the behavioural science underneath silence, withdrawal, and conflict responses, including the difference between conditioned reactions and learned behaviours, and why understanding that distinction changes everything. 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

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

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

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

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