Disappear Shame: Reject Internalized Ableism
Ableism is prejudice and discrimination against people with disabilities or neuroatypicalities because they are somehow “lesser than” or “need fixing.” Ableism can range from bigoted or subtle, such as the assumption that a deaf person wishes she could hear. In any form it is offensive.
Internalized oppression is the belief that you are somehow “bad” because you are part of a group that is “lesser than.” Internalized oppression creates shame, defined by Brene Brown as the belief that “I am bad.” (1) For example, a student’s unwillingness to attend a dance in a suit because the family can’t afford a tux stems from shame, demonstrating an acceptance of somehow being “lesser than” the kids in black tie.
Neuroatypical learners often suffer from an internalized ableism: judging, shaming, and sometimes hating themselves for the way their brains work. “Why am I like this? Why can’t I just do things like everyone else? What’s so hard about doing a homework assignment?”
Lacking awareness of any neuroatypicality, adults may respond negatively to characteristics over which the learner has no control. Frustrated at the fourth request for the homework assignment, a teacher may snap, “Why can’t you just keep track of the three I already gave you?” Parents may ask, “You’re so smart. What’s with these grades?”
If the learner lacks awareness of a neuroatypicality, they are asking themselves the same question, internalizing the negativity expressed by the adult. If the learner has awareness of their neuroatypicality, the negativity is applied to their learning difference.
Over time, that negativity becomes the voice in the learner’s head, eroding self-esteem and creating an enormous sense of shame at somehow being “defective;” this is internalized ableism. I know learners who truly hate themselves for having anxiety, autism, OCD and/or ADHD. It is heart-breaking to witness.
Our primary objective in supporting anxious learners is to push back against a learner’s internalized ableism.
My stance: What is “neurotypical”? Is it the ability to excel at tasks related to school and self-management? Who decided that is “typical”? Two-hundred years ago, very few people went to “school.” In fact, ADHD - the ability to focus on many things at the same time with a lot of physical energy - is an asset for a farmer or a person running a household while caring for several small children. You know, what humans have done for millennia instead of sitting still all day in school.
All of our brains are beautiful. Our species benefits from the variety of the gifts we all bring, our neurodiversity. I daresay - as a person who can concentrate to the exclusion of bombs going off next to me - I would not be here were it not for my ADHD ancestors who saved my overly-focused ass from that charging rhinoceros 30,000 years ago.
Schooling privileges a particular suite of neuro-abilities. (2) Those whose brains deviate from this general profile logically tend to struggle in a schooling environment, but that doesn’t mean there is something wrong with the neuroprofile. It means there is something wrong with the environment.
It strikes me that for most of our 300,000 years as a species, children learned through watching and imitating a knowledgeable adult. Universal schooling as we know it is a historically recent phenomenon - approximately 200 years. Without exception, every “neurodiverse” learner I know would thrive learning through an apprenticeship model. There is nothing “wrong” with these learners.
But we live in our current reality where all children attend schooling, which is set up as it is and likely won’t change significantly for lots of good sociological reasons we won’t discuss here.
So! As people gifted with the privilege of supporting anxious learners, we set the tone by communicating that brains are diverse and we are glad for that! Helping a “neurologically spicy” learner toward self-affirmation and acceptance is the foundation of our alliance. Instead of, “Let’s figure out how to ‘fix’ you,” our work says, “Let’s figure out how you can drive this beautiful brain of yours given that schooling is what it is.”
Learners who step into their neurodiversity are empowered to ask for and receive what they need, which - by the way - is their civil right under the American with Disabilities Act (1990).
Letting go of the shame: “I am unworthy” and claiming: “I am me” reduces anxiety because the learner is no longer hiding anything. Learners step into their power of who they are and to their shock, the world cooperates!
Brene Brown tells us “Shame derives its power from being unspeakable,”(2015, p. 58). Claiming one’s neurodiversity counteracts shame, freeing the learner to be who she is and get support using strategies she needs.
1 Brown, Brené. “Shame vs. Guilt - Brené Brown.” Brene Brown, Brene Brown, LLC, 15 January 2013, https://brenebrown.com/articles/2013/01/15/shame-v-guilt/. Accessed 3 June 2026.
2 People whose brains align with the neuroprofile privileged by schooling tend to like school. Often people who like school grow up to be educators, which perpetuates the neuroprofile’s privilege.