Intergenerational Masking Trauma (IMT): A New Framework for Understanding Neurodivergent Family Trauma
What happens when neurodivergence goes unrecognized—not just in a child, but across generations?
I’ve been exploring the hidden trauma that arises in families where masking, misattunement, and emotional invisibility are passed down like heirlooms. This framework—Intergenerational Masking Trauma (IMT)—is a companion to the Unidentified Autistic Family System (UAFS). It offers a new lens for understanding emotional harm in unrecognized neurodivergent families, even when everyone flew under the diagnostic radar. For those unpacking family dynamics that never quite made sense until you realized you were neurodivergent—this is for you.
Overview
Intergenerational Masking Trauma (IMT) is a lens for understanding the unique forms of relational and developmental trauma that emerge in families where neurodivergence exists—but remains unrecognized, unsupported, or stigmatized across generations.
This model fills a critical gap in both trauma and neurodiversity-affirming frameworks by exploring how traits like masking, emotional misattunement, scapegoating, and identity confusion are not only personal survival strategies, but also inherited relational patterns shaped by neurodivergent needs that were never acknowledged.
Core Concepts
1. Neurodivergence Doesn’t Begin With the Child
Neurodivergent traits in children are often treated as if they emerge in isolation. IMT recognizes that neurodivergence is frequently intergenerational. Caregivers may exhibit undiagnosed or unsupported ND traits—autism, ADHD, AuDHD, sensory and/or processing differences—but without language or safety to recognize them.
2. Masking as Inheritance
Masking isn’t just something ND individuals do on their own—it’s something modeled, rewarded, and demanded in ND families shaped by external, systemic ableism which then becomes internalized ableism. Children often inherit not only the need to mask, but the belief that authenticity is dangerous.
3. Trauma in the Absence of Recognition
Unacknowledged neurodivergence often leads to chronic misattunement, invalidation, and emotional neglect. Children may grow up feeling “too much” or “not enough,” internalizing shame, even in the absence of overt abuse.
4. Familiar Family Roles, New Roots
IMT re-examines classic family roles—scapegoat, golden child, lost child, parentified child—through a neurodivergent lens. These roles may be shaped not only by parental trauma, but by the parent’s own unrecognized neurotype, and how it intersects with their child’s.
Key Patterns in IMT-Affected Families
Emotional misattunement due to sensory or processing differences in caregivers, as well as chronic ND burnout
Overcontrol, rigidity, or enmeshment as trauma responses
Inconsistent support, validation, or boundaries
Shame-based parenting rooted in the caregiver’s own ND masking
Children absorbing guilt for their caregiver’s dysregulation
“Invisible trauma” (neglect, misattunement, constant invalidation without explicit abuse)
What Healing Can Look Like
Naming what was never named: reframing family history through a neurodivergent lens
Validating the harm of emotional invisibility
Grieving unmet needs—your own and your caregivers’
Exploring boundaries, autonomy, and unmasking in relationships
Releasing the roles you were cast in and choosing your own
Building a sense of self rooted in dignity, safety, and authenticity, not survival
Who This Work Is For
Neurodivergent adults who suspect their caregivers were also ND—but undiagnosed
People unpacking chronic family invalidation, scapegoating, or emotional disconnection
Late-diagnosed or self-identified ND individuals exploring attachment trauma
Therapists and clinicians working with clients in autistic and ND family systems who want a framework beyond pathology
Why This Matters
Neurodiversity-affirming therapy has made great strides in supporting individuals. But to truly support healing, we must zoom out. Many ND clients are carrying not only their own trauma—but the echoes of unacknowledged ND survival patterns passed down for generations.
Intergenerational Masking Trauma offers a new way to see—and tend to—that wound.
If this framework resonates with you—you’re not alone. I’m building a body of work around UAFS and IMT that centers the experiences of autistic and neurodivergent adults, caregivers, clinicians, and families.
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Want to go deeper?
If this resonates with your experience—personally, professionally, or both—I invite you to explore the rest of the Unmasked Lineage site, sign up for blog updates, or share this post with someone who might see themselves in it. Naming what’s been unnamed is the first step toward healing.
Email: hello@unmaskedlineage.com
Instagram: @unmaskedlineage
Follow along as I continue to develop the Unidentified Autistic Family Systems framework and create tools for families and clinicians alike. Your reflections, questions, and stories are welcome here.
Support
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About the Author
Claire McCulley, LCSW, is a social worker, therapist, researcher, writer, disability justice advocate, and theorist based in NYC developing the Unidentified Autistic Family Systems framework. Drawing on lived experience, clinical practice, and systems thinking, she explores the intergenerational impacts of masking, misattunement, and collective trauma in unidentified neurodivergent families. Her work centers autistic self-understanding, relational healing, and culturally attuned theory that speaks to real-world patterns.