Masking: Protective Strategy with Hidden Costs

Dr. Jessica Eccles, an award-winning neurodevelopmental psychiatrist, returns for a deep dive into the profound connections between hypermobility, variant connective tissue, and the neurodivergent brain.

In this conversation, she explores why individuals with bendy bodies are significantly more likely to be autistic or have ADHD, and how these conditions create a "spiky profile" of sensory and emotional challenges. Dr. Eccles unpacks the embodied nature of rejection sensitivity, describing it as a physical "punch in the chest" and reveals how improving proprioception (your sense of where you are in space) can actually stabilize emotional regulation.

This episode provides a vital unifying framework for those who have spent years feeling misunderstood by the medical community, offering both a shared narrative and practical tools for healing.

Takeaways:

The Shared Narrative: Healing requires a shared framework between doctor and patient; without a narrative that unifies brain and body symptoms, patients often experience clinician-associated trauma.

Proprioceptive Surprise: Hypermobile individuals often experience "proprioceptive surprise," where uncertainty about the body's position in space directly doubles the risk of emotional dysregulation.

The Physical Side of Rejection: Rejection sensitivity is not just a psychological construct but an embodied experience, often felt as a physical blow or a sudden loss of support.

The Masking Spectrum: Many hypermobile people mask not only neurodivergent traits but also chronic pain from a young age, often assuming their "medical strangeness" is typical for everyone.

Diagnostic Labels vs. Patterns: Dr. Eccles argues that many people diagnosed with borderline personality disorder may actually be autistic or have ADHD, finding that stimulants can often improve impulsivity and emotional stability better than traditional psychiatric medications

Find the episode transcript here.

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Thank YOU so much for tuning in. We hope you found this episode informative, inspiring, useful, validating, and enjoyable. Join us on the next episode for YOUR time to level up your knowledge about hypermobility disorders and the people who have them.

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