By: Kimberly Harkey
“Where do you feel that in your body?” can be such an instantly infuriating question for someone with ADHD or Autism to hear. It’s a therapist’s favorite question for a reason, and yet it can be so unhelpful for neurodivergent folks. When a therapist asks where you feel something in your body, you may notice yourself having no clue. Noticing those feelings doesn’t come as naturally for neurodivergent folks. What if we start by flipping the script? We don’t have to start with the “where do you feel it in your body?” question, and we don’t have to find the right words.
Identifying feelings is a multi-step process. Interoception is the fancy term for one of our 9 senses that helps us tune into our body. The first step is using interoception to notice our own heartbeat, to feel when we’re hungry, and to know when we feel scared, among other things. In folks with ADHD and Autism, this can prove to be more difficult (insert research link). Paying attention to emotions as sensations in their body isn’t the natural way of sensing emotion for ADHDers.
The second step is using that information with the context around us to identify the emotion we are feeling. In neurodiversity-affirming therapy for ADHD and therapy for Autism, we can expand our thinking and step outside the box to help ADHDers and Autistic folks attune to their emotions. There are lots of techniques for this, and I’m going to cover just a few. All of these techniques can be great to use in your therapy session or outside of therapy. They are definitely tools your ADHD therapist or Autism therapist may bring up with you.
Experiment with Mindfulness for ADHD and Autism
The first step to interoception is noticing your emotions in your body. So, let’s start with some tools for that.
Oh, the dreaded mindfulness. So many people think of mindfulness as having to sit quietly with their thoughts. That can sound overwhelming when you have ADHD and your mind is going like a train with an infinite number of cars. I find myself wishing we could substitute the word mindfulness with something with less baggage. Quick moments of connecting to the present — but catchier? I’ll keep workshopping a new name.
In the meantime, and before I lose everyone who stopped reading at “mindfulness,” I want to be very clear: I don’t mean sitting silently with your thoughts or taking tons of deep breaths.
Mindfulness is shown to help improve interoception in both ADHD and Autism. You’re using new neural pathways and making new trails in your brain by connecting to the present moment. Each time you do so, you give your ADHD or Autistic brain the chance to build the muscle of noticing emotions in your body in real time.
So, how does one do that? Great question! There’s no one right way, so feel free to experiment from the list below:
- An emotion tracker app: Apps that prompt you randomly throughout the day to track your mood get you intentionally tuning in to what your body is feeling. Just like lifting weights, the more you do it, the easier and more natural it can become.
- The ACE exercise: A mindfulness exercise with a simple acronym that can help you intentionally pay attention to your emotions and ground yourself in the present moment. Check out my blog on being present for ADHDers for the full walkthrough.
- Mindful movement: This can help you reconnect to your body. It’s shown to help individuals with ADHD and humans in general. Choosing a movement you enjoy can help with keeping up with it. It can be a walk, simple stretches, yoga, or a crossfit workout. Any movement allows you the opportunity to pay attention to how your body feels before, during, and after. Autistic folks may want to find the movement that best meets their sensory needs.
How to Improve Emotional Awareness for ADHDers and Autistics
The next step is being able to link what you notice to an emotion. This requires tuning into context, which can be tough for individuals with Autism. What if we start by taking away the pressure to use traditional feeling words?
Everyone has seen the emotions wheel. What if you didn’t feel restricted to using only those words? What if you found an approach that works better for you as an ADHDer or Autistic person?
A passage I read recently comes to mind by Jeffrey Eugenides (2002):
” Emotions, in my experience, aren’t covered by single words. I don’t believe in “sadness,”joy,” or “regret.” Maybe the best proof that the language is patriarchal is that it oversimplifies feeling. I’d like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic train-car constructions like, say, “the happiness that attends disaster.” Or: “the disappointment of sleeping with one’s fantasy.” I’d like to show how “intimations of mortality brought on by aging family members” connects with “the hatred of mirrors that begins in middle age.” I’d like to have a word for “the sadness inspired by failing restaurants” as well as for “the excitement of getting a room with a minibar.” (pg. 245)
You can describe your experience with vivid descriptions without having to nail down an exact word. Your description can be “the feeling that comes with tasting your favorite drink.” You don’t have to find the feeling word — you can instead draw from parallel experiences you’ve had.
This is less a strategy and more a permission slip to describe your feelings in the way that works best for you. You may prefer describing them as simply comfortable or uncomfortable. You may be able to sort them into broad categories like happiness, anger, or fear.
This flexibility is often essential in therapy for ADHD and therapy for Autism, because emotional language doesn’t always map neatly onto neurodivergent experiences.
Embrace Your Process: The ADHD or Autism Way
Both sections above are here to help ADHDers and folks with Autism move through the steps of interoception. But it’s also okay if your process simply looks different. Your process doesn’t have to resemble a neurotypical person’s or anyone else’s for that matter.
Neurodivergent humans often take more time to process their emotions, and that longer process is just as valid. There can be beauty in taking a pause, feeling feelings intensely, and going at your own pace in sorting through them. There’s no trophy for “fastest to identify feelings.” Find the pace that fits your ADHD or Autistic experience.
Folks with Autism often know they are feeling something — sometimes a lot of somethings — very deeply. They can be tough to sort through and overwhelming when you’re taking in so many things at once in this busy, beautiful, complicated world. You might choose to sift through your emotions carefully, or you might choose to honor one big blended emotion. Both are okay. You get to choose when it matters.
ADHDers often describe struggling to slow down enough to sit with their feelings. Folks with ADHD can talk about and think about emotions all day long, but slowing down to feel them may take a lot of effort. It can feel like untangling Christmas light strands. It can be tedious, but there is such beauty once you finish the untangling. There’s no pressure for your untangling process to look a certain way. Society may make you feel like it needs to be pretty or rushed, but your process can be unique and outside the box.
There is no one right way to do this — only the way that works for you.
Conclusion: There’s No Wrong Way to Feel
Emotion recognition isn’t a one-size-fits-all skill, and it’s certainly not a moral test you can fail. Whether you’re an ADHDer who needs movement and momentum to access your internal world, or an Autistic person who experiences emotions with depth that doesn’t fit neatly into categories, your way of feeling is already valid. Interoception, mindfulness, and emotion-recognition tools aren’t meant to make you more “typical” — they’re meant to help you understand yourself on your own terms.
Learning to notice emotions is a practice, not a performance. Some days you may clearly sense what’s happening inside you; other days, everything may feel like one big ball of tangled up holiday lights. Both are okay. What matters most is having compassionate curiosity for your internal experience and the freedom to explore it at your own pace.If you’re seeking therapy for ADHD or therapy for Autism, remember this: you aren’t behind, you aren’t doing it wrong, and you don’t have to contort yourself to fit an emotional model built for neurotypical people. Your emotions deserve patience, flexibility, and respect — and so do you.
Roseate Therapy 
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