Michael Woudenberg and I have been trading messages for the better part of a year about why intelligent, capable people build entire identities around their own limitations, and then defend those identities like their lives depend on it. We finally had a discussion in real time a few weeks ago, and it was a lot of fun.
We talked a lot about the identity protective system. You adopt a label, which then becomes a membership card. The membership comes with social proof and status. Once your sense of human value fuses to the label, you can no longer tolerate a single question about it, because a challenge to the claim now registers as an attack on your soul. The label becomes who you are, and you’ll defend it voraciously.
We spend a good stretch on this; the classic example is the midlife neurodivergence wave, which seems to be made up largely of women who are roughly 40 to 65, wearing diagnosis lists as armor. Some of that is real and deserves resources and attention.
A large share of it is Cluster B behavior using neurodivergence as a mask, which, as Michael points out, is one of the most Cluster B moves possible.
The cost of all of this posturing falls on the genuinely autistic and ADHD people who watch attention and funding drain toward people performing disability for currency.
The mechanism underneath is even worse, and we talk about that as well: The brain wires to whatever you rehearse. We walk through the veteran who claims PTSD from a non-event, then has to manufacture the symptoms to justify the claim, strengthening the neurological connection every time he feeds it until the disability becomes physically real. You can talk yourself into the exact condition you are collecting compensation for, and the monetary incentive ensures that you’re never motivated to get better.
Then we turn to what you actually do with any of this. The short version: the entire system runs on accountability, or the refusal of it. Maturation means moving from the “I” ego to the “us” ego, and every identity protective system is a way to skip that work while appearing to do it. The tools are ordinary and difficult (which is why so many people ignore or straight up refuse them):
Insatiable curiosity.
The humility to assume you are probably the one doing the thing you resent in someone else.
Intentional reframing.
These are parts of Michael’s Mixed Mental Arts model.
It’s a pretty interesting conversation, and I hope to do more of these with Michael and others! In fact, if you’d like to bring a contrary position to the table, let me know! Let’s have a conversation.
