“What we called ‘manipulative outbursts’ were meltdowns from sensory overload. What we labeled ‘oppositional behavior’ was a trauma response to years of being misunderstood. What looked like suicidal threats were expressions of internal overwhelm — not a desire to die, but an inability to cope. And if we only train ourselves to react to fire, we’ll miss those quietly drowning in plain sight.”
— Baseline Suicidality in Neurodivergent Kids, Psychotherapy Networker
That paragraph stopped me cold. Not because it was new, but because it finally named what so many of us lived.
The article focuses on a high-functioning, level-1 autistic teen. But as I read it, I kept thinking about how many people never get rewritten into a different story. I was one of those kids. And now, as a therapist in training and a mother, I sit across from adults every week who are still quietly carrying the same internal overwhelm.
Growing up neurodivergent and undiagnosed, I learned early that I had to tone myself down, to not be fully myself with adults. Thankfully, I had a best friend who might have been like me. We would get “hyper” together and laugh until our stomachs hurt. That was the one place my nervous system could exhale.
Then puberty hit, and suicidal thoughts suddenly appeared in waves. Worthlessness. Wanting to disappear. Feeling unseen, unattractive, painfully ordinary. I compared myself to the magazine beauty standards of the late ’90s and always came up short. These thoughts weren’t a plan, and not exactly a wish to die. But I did think about it. More like a fantasy — something I knew I wouldn’t act on, but whose presence offered a strange escape. A brief relief from the internal pain and loneliness I carried.
Then I would step back into the world and wear my smile like a piece of jewelry. My positivity shined so brightly that I was voted the most positive person in my high school class. It looked like a beautiful life. No one knew that inside I was struggling with what I thought was depression, but was really a deep sense that I didn’t fit anywhere. Intrusive existential questions followed me everywhere: What is my purpose? Why am I here? These weren’t abstract thoughts — they were responses to feeling invisible, unheard, and overwhelmed for far too long. Existing felt heavy. And no one seemed to notice the weight.
What I didn’t know then is that what we now call rejection sensitivity shaped much of my inner life. A comment. A tone. A look that felt off. And I couldn’t think of anything else for days. My mind would loop endlessly: Am I bad? What did I do wrong? What did I say? I noticed subtle shifts in mood, gestures, and emotional undercurrents that others seemed to miss entirely. That level of sensitivity doesn’t fade on its own. When it’s met with invalidation instead of understanding, it becomes another layer of overwhelm a child carries alone.
What the article names so clearly is that this doesn’t magically resolve with age. The child’s internal world doesn’t disappear when they become an adult. It follows them. Adults learn to mask. They learn to perform “functioning.” Some explode in rage or emotional dysregulation. Some collapse into avoidance or numbness. Some walk into the cannabis store on the corner, looking for quiet, for relief, for a pause. The numbing may help for a moment — but it doesn’t heal what was never seen.
As a therapist in training, I see this pattern again and again. And as a mother, it reshapes how I listen. What looks like behavior is often communication. What sounds alarming is often exhaustion. What we call resistance is often a nervous system that has been carrying too much for too long.
This article matters because it invites us to stop reacting only to visible crisis and start listening for quiet drowning. To meet children — and the adults they become — with curiosity instead of correction. And that’s the space I try to offer now — the space I needed then.
Because healing doesn’t come from fixing or numbing. It comes from finally being seen, heard, and understood.
With love,
Christiane