Feeling “Childlike” in Power or Learning Situations:
A Common AuDHD Pattern
By Michelle Labine, PhD
October 2025
When an AuDHD woman says she feels “childlike” or “small” in certain situations, she isn’t being metaphorical. It’s a full-body experience and a visceral shrinking that shows up as a quieting of voice, a sudden loss of words, the sense that she’s eight years old again and about to be corrected. It often happens in rooms where power dynamics are present such as a performance review, a doctor’s office, a class discussion, or a board meeting. On paper, she’s capable, competent, and articulate. Yet in these moments, she feels herself dissolving into a younger version who is timid, overly agreeable, or apologetic. Later, she might replay the interaction with frustration, wondering why she couldn’t just speak clearly or advocate for herself.
Her nervous system is recognizing an environment that resembles the ones where she first learned to survive. For many late-diagnosed AuDHD women, those formative spaces classrooms, family tables, workplaces were not designed with their brains in mind. They were places where difference was corrected rather than understood. Over time, she internalized a powerful equation: visibility equals vulnerability. To stay safe, she learned to mask, to anticipate others’ expectations, and to make herself small.
The tendency to shrink in power situations is about learned safety. When the nervous system perceives threat, even a subtle social threat, it activates the same protective responses that once kept her safe as a child: appease, please, comply. These are not conscious choices but deeply embodied reflexes. So when she feels herself become “childlike,” it isn’t because she’s fragile or emotionally behind; it’s because her body has practiced that script for decades.
Take Laura, for instance, a 39-year-old project manager who came to therapy exhausted and confused by her own behaviour at work. She’d led her team successfully for years but dreaded meetings with senior management. “I can feel myself disappear,” she said. “My voice changes, I can’t think straight, and afterward I’m furious with myself for not speaking up.” She described feeling “like a kid trying to act like an adult.”
As we explored her story, patterns emerged. In childhood, Laura’s father corrected her constantly; her tone, her timing, her questions. Teachers told her she was bright but lazy, creative but unfocused. She learned to overprepare, to guess what adults wanted, and to bury her confusion under performance. That same survival strategy now replayed in professional spaces where she perceived authority. Her adult brain knew she was competent, but her body hadn’t caught up; it still associated being seen with being scolded.
We began working on helping her notice the moment of shift, that flicker when her shoulders hunched or her mind went blank. We treated those moments as signals. “Something old just got activated,” she’d learn to say internally. “My system is trying to protect me.” Over time, she began practicing what we called adult anchoring: before important meetings, she would ground herself, touch the table, and whisper quietly, “I’m here now. I know my field.” These rituals weren’t about confidence in the traditional sense, they were about creating safety in her body so that her adult self could stay present.
Gradually, Laura’s relationship with authority began to change. She started challenging ideas in meetings without feeling paralyzed afterward. She could disagree without panic. The childlike part still existed, but it no longer ran the show.
After years of being praised for competence and criticized for sensitivity, AuDHD women carry an internal split: one part fiercely capable, another perpetually bracing for correction. When those parts collide in an environment that feels evaluative or power-heavy, the younger one often takes over. What looks like insecurity is actually the body remembering powerlessness.
The work of healing, then, is not to silence that childlike part or shame her into confidence, but to bring her forward gently and compassionately into the adult present. She doesn’t need to disappear to stay safe anymore. She needs to be reminded that she belongs in the room exactly as she is.
In my experience, when women begin to understand this pattern through the lens of neurodivergence rather than self-blame, something remarkable happens. They stop asking, What’s wrong with me? and start asking, What is my body trying to tell me? The shift from judgment to curiosity is where healing begins.
Feeling small is a signpost. It points to the places where safety was once conditional, where authenticity was punished, and where the nervous system still waits for permission to relax. The invitation is not to toughen up or push through, but to notice, anchor, soothe, and remind yourself that you are no longer that little girl trying to earn approval. You are an adult woman with a brilliant, complex brain, learning how to stay fully present in a world that once required you to shrink.
Author’s Note:
The client example shared in this piece is a composite vignette. Details have been changed to protect confidentiality, and it reflects themes I frequently see in my work with late-diagnosed or self-identifying AuDHD women.