Being both LGBTQ and Neurodivergent

The Layers Beneath Identity

If you are a French expat, part of the LGBTQ+ community, or living with ADHD, there is a good chance that you have faced a particular kind of loneliness; the experience of masking. Not the theatrical kind, but the kind where you have spent years learning to appear as the person others expect you to be. Only to realise later that beneath that mask, there was even more of yourself still hidden.

What makes this even more complex is that masking itself can hide other parts of who you are. Someone might come out as gay or lesbian, finally claiming that part of their truth. Only to discover years later that ADHD was underneath all along, shaping how they navigate relationships, manage their emotions, and experience the world. The revelation is not just "I am neurodivergent." It is "I have been managing my identity while managing my brain in ways I did not even recognise."

Research shows that LGBTQ+ adults are almost three times more likely to receive an ADHD diagnosis later in life compared to the wider population.

More than 60 percent of adults with ADHD say that they mask symptoms in work or cultural environments, especially when they live abroad. These numbers reflect real people who are trying to make sense of themselves while navigating expectations from families, colleagues, and entire cultures. It is a lot. Anyone who says otherwise might need a decent cup of tea, a digestive biscuit they did not ask for, and a gentle reality check.

The Double Unveiling

Many of my clients have had to come out twice. First about gender or sexual identity, and then again about ADHD, or the other way around. It demands courage to do it over and over. And what often catches people off guard is that the second revelation changes how they understand the first.

"How many times do I have to come out and explain myself to people?"

Let me introduce you to stories that resemble conversations I have weekly in my practice.

There is Camille (not her real name), a French lesbian woman living in Amsterdam. She comes out in her twenties, feels incredibly proud, and begins to build relationships that feel aligned with who she is. A few years later, she receives an ADHD diagnosis. Suddenly, she wonders if people will see her as scattered or unreliable. She hesitates to tell friends because she fears yet another round of judgement. She feels exposed all over again. She tells me, "J'en ai marre. How many times do I have to come out and explain myself to people?"

Then there is a gay French man who came out at university and built a life he thought was authentically his own. For years, he managed everything beautifully, or so it appeared. But deep down, he was exhausted. He thought the exhaustion would disappear once he claimed his sexual identity. It did not. At 34, during a routine conversation with a therapist about work stress, ADHD emerged. As the pieces fell into place, the hyperfocus on partners, the rejection sensitivity that made every disagreement feel catastrophic, the executive dysfunction he had masked with elaborate systems.

"I was not just hiding that I was gay," he told me. "I was hiding that my brain works differently. And I did not even know the second part existed until recently."

"It makes me wonder what else I am not seeing about myself."

What Masking Actually Is

This is where the work gets important. Masking is not simply about hiding one's identity.

You learn to appear functional at work; you develop systems.

You learn to appear "normal" in your family; you monitor your behaviour.

You learn to appear confident in your sexuality or gender, so you perfect the presentation.

Each layer of masking builds on the others, and over time, you can lose sight of what is underneath. The ADHD that was always there often hides within the masking itself.

Someone might seem organised because they have built rigid structures to compensate for executive dysfunction.

Someone might seem emotionally steady because they have learned to regulate intensely, at great cost. Someone might seem socially confident because they have studied social interaction meticulously. None of this is false, but it is not the whole picture either. And there is a huge cost.

Unmasking, then, is not simply about being "authentic." It is about gradually recognising which parts of yourself you have been actively suppressing, which parts you did not even know existed, and which parts serve you and which parts drain you.

You might decide to disclose your ADHD to your partner but not your boss. And that is wisdom, not cowardice.

You might choose to be fully yourself with one friend and more guarded with another.

This is especially true for French expats, who often inherit a cultural expectation of appearing competent, polished, and perpetually in control. And for LGBTQ+ individuals, who have often learned, sometimes for safety, to assess every new environment for emotional risk before revealing themselves.

What Gets Missed

Here is what many professionals overlook.

Your struggles were not evidence of personal failure, but some barriers are real and systemic.

Workplace discrimination exists. Healthcare gaps for neurodivergent and LGBTQ+ people exist. Families sometimes do not come around. Therapy and coaching can help you build resilience, clarity, and connection, but they cannot process away discrimination or erase real consequences.

What we can do is help you understand what is yours to carry and what is not. Help you grieve what cannot be changed. Help you make conscious choices about where you invest your energy. Help you find, or build, communities where you do not have to mask.

For couples, this becomes even more complicated.

Your partner might not understand why disclosure feels so risky, or why you withdraw after one conflict, or why you need both closeness and space in ways that seem contradictory. I help your couple to move through these patterns together, so that you navigate this as a team, not something that divides you.

What Becomes Possible

Here is the hopeful part, and I want to offer it with full sincerity. As you start owning all parts of your story, the sexuality or gender you have claimed, the neurodivergence you are discovering, the cultural complexity you carry something shifts.

You will understand that your struggles were not evidence of personal failure, but of the enormous energy required to exist in boxes not designed for you.

You will discover relationships where you feel valued rather than tolerated; where you do not have to mask continuously; where there is room for your whole self.

You will feel more grounded, more connected. Increasingly, you will be able to distinguish between what is authentically you and what is a protective mechanism you have outgrown.

You will stop asking "Why am I so complicated?" and start recognising that complexity is actually depth.

What This Work Looks Like

I work with people exactly like you. LGBTQ+ individuals, neurodivergent folks, French expats, and those navigating the intersections of all three.

Whether you are gay, lesbian, trans, non-binary, bisexual, or still exploring your identity; whether your ADHD diagnosis is recent or you have lived with it for years; whether you are in a relationship trying to navigate these layers together or an individual building a foundation of self-understanding. This work is about recognising your whole truth and learning that you do not need to navigate it alone.

Your story matters.

Your identities matter.

Your neurodivergence matters.

Your needs matter.

If you feel called to begin this work, to unmask gradually, to understand what has been hiding beneath what you thought you were hiding, to build a life where you do not have to manage everyone else's comfort.

I invite you to reach out.

Let us have these unique conversations.