Masking and Mental Health, with Calial McCarty
About this episode
Therapist Calial McCarty discusses the impact of masking on mental health and offers insights on unmasking and self-advocacy.
In this episode of The Vibe With Ky Podcast, therapist Calial McCarty explains why masking drains your mental health, and what it takes to stop performing okay. This one is for you if you have spent years being the easygoing, low-maintenance one, and you are quietly exhausted from holding it all together. Calial McCarty is a licensed mental health counselor and board-certified autism specialist who is AuDHD and chronically ill herself. She wrote Naturally Divergent, a book built on one idea: your divergent brain should not have to bend to neurotypical rules. She works with late-diagnosed kids and adults every day, and she leads with her own story first. Ky and Calial trace masking back to childhood and follow it all the way into adult burnout, so you can finally see the pattern in your own life. The shift here is simple and steadying: the structure around you needs to change, not you. Understand why masking drains you on a biological level, so you can stop blaming yourself for being tired. Learn the small, low-burnout first steps for unmasking without overwhelming your whole life at once. Hear how chronic illness reshaped what a successful day looks like, and how self-advocacy…
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