Take Off the Mask, Meet Who You Actually Are with Marie Chaproniere

12th November 2026 | 12:00-13:00 (UK)

"I don't know who I am when I'm not performing."

Said by nearly every late diagnosed ADHDer I've ever met.

And if you coach ADHDers, or you're training to, you've prob heardOr you will. Maybe not in those words. Maybe as "I'm fine", said by someone who is very clearly not fine.

Because the research backs up why this matters. Boys are diagnosed three to four times more often than girls in childhood, but by adulthood it's nearly one to one, which means a whole generation of girls learned to hide it instead. Adult ADHD diagnoses in the UK rose around twentyfold between 2000 and 2018. And 69% of workers with ADHD have no reasonable adjustments because they never told anyone. Which means it's very likely a good chunk of your clients are masking at work right now, and some of them are masking in your sessions too.

It shows up as the client who over prepares for every session. The one who apologises before they've said anything. The one who's brilliant at their job and completely burnt out by it. The one who got the diagnosis, felt the relief, and then a grief nobody warned them about.

I did ten years of corporate PA jobs convinced a brain like mine could never earn a living doing something it loved. I was good at those jobs. I was also playing a part in every single one of them. It took leaving corporate, and a diagnosis, to find out who was under the part.

So, coach to coach: can you spot masking in a session, when the mask is the very thing that makes a client look like they're doing well? How do you coach someone towards what they want when they've spent 20 years never asking? Is unmasking at work actually safe for this client, and who decides? And when is late diagnosis grief coaching work, and when does it need a therapist?

The process to support ourselves and our clients through this is complex, which is why this Deep Chat happens on every single coach training we do. And now you can join this one without being on the training.

What you'll walk away with:

• What masking actually is for an ADHDer, what it costs, and how to spot it in a client who looks fine

• The grief that comes with a late diagnosis, why it's normal, and how to hold it in a session without turning into a therapist

• How to coach the unmasking decision at work, disclose or don't, without pushing a client somewhere that isn't safe for them

• Questions that help a client meet who they are underneath, and where to start when they have no idea

• A look at your own mask, because most of us coach with one on too

• Whether late diagnosed ADHDers are the niche you want to build in

And there ain't no one better for the job than founder of Behind The Mask, one of our very own 1:1 coaches here at ADHD Untangled, and one of my best friends, Marie Chaproniere. Fifteen years in Talent Acquisition helping other people feel seen while quietly masking herself. Then at 37, burnout stopped her, and an ADHD diagnosis explained a lifetime of adapting to everyone else's rhythm. A woman who KNOWS, like really knows, what masking costs, because she paid it for years. And on top of all that, she's one of the most compassionate people I've ever met. A deep feeler and a deep thinker. I could not be prouder of the work she does and how she does it.

🧡 Untangling ADHD & Unmasking at Work as an ADHD Coach, with Marie Chaproniere