The Parts that Loved Too Brightly

IFS, Special Interests and Autistic Joy

1. Introduction

Many neurodivergent people know the experience of falling deeply into a special interest. Whether we are labelled autistic, ADHD, or something else, there is often a powerful pull toward moments of intense, joyful focus. Autistic joy is described as broader. It’s the deep, often wordless delight that can arise in moments of sensory pleasure, routine, connection with an interest, or authentic self-expression. It is an all-consuming excitement sparked by what might seem like small things to others but feel enormous to us. This joy fills us up, radiates through our whole being, and often finds its way out through stimming or movement, sounds, or rhythms that help us carry feelings too big to hold inside.

Yet, that joy is not always easy to hold onto. It can fade beneath exhaustion, masking, or pain leaving us feeling disconnected from parts of ourselves that once shone bright. This article is about that joy; the joy that comes with neurodiversity, the pain when it slips away, and the gentle, courageous work of reminding ourselves it is still there, waiting to be reclaimed.

2. What Brings Me Joy?

As a child, I loved watching dust float like fairies in the air, or flames dance in a fire. My body wanted to move and I flapped with excitement. I trotted like a pony on tiptoes. I still flap when I get excited. My special interests still bring me such joy. And I stim constantly. I never stop moving.

Today, I find intense joy in writing, painting, and in working with clay. In creating. When I create, time stops. There is just joy. The intensity in my head quiets. Everything else stills. My mind really does have thirty-two tabs open and random music playing from somewhere (right now I’m fully wearing my AuDHD badge). As I write this, all the other tabs in my mind go silent. I feel joy, fully and vividly.

For me, there is also joy in patterns, in safe rituals, in intense interests. Joy in connecting with something that asks nothing of me. Joy in looping rhythm of stimming. Joy in my body’s movements that no longer have to be hidden.

At multiple points in my life, I was shamed for my joy and my enthusiasm. Many of us learn early that joy is dangerous. Too much. So it goes underground, exiled. But not lost. And now it is a quiet miracle to my system, to all of my many parts, to be rediscovering it.

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2. When Joy Was Too Much

There were so many times I was told I was too much. Too loud. Too emotional. Too sensitive. Too bright, and so I dimmed my light.

I learnt to hold myself still when my body wanted to move. I gritted my teeth through days and nights until my back teeth fractured. And I learned, over time and quietly, how to makes parts of me disappear.

There was joy once, in writing. In painting. In sculpture. In making.
In sinking deep into the world of a book.
But I stopped writing for joy. I stopped reading for pleasure.

Those things became work. Hobbies were allowed, but only if they didn’t take up too much time. Writing became academic psychology and a doctorate and then research papers.

Yes, you can paint, but not for more than an hour.
Yes, you can write, but not if it means locking yourself away.

Joy had to be measured. Contained. It couldn’t spill. It couldn’t be multi-coloured, vibrant all encompassing anymore.

As a child, I was thrilled to receive a twenty-volume encyclopaedia for Christmas.
I was told that wasn’t cool. I was like Milly Molly Mandy and her Little Friend Susan jumping up and down when anything exciting happened except I also flapped too.

Collecting Fossils was so exciting. Holding something that was a million years ago. But Fossils were odd. Excitement was embarrassing. I was too much, again.

So I learned to hold it in. Don’t let your interests take over.

My body stiffened into silence.
My hands stopped moving.
The aliveness I once felt went underground.

Masking became so much a part of me that I’m not always sure where it ends.
What began as protection shaped how I speak, move, belong. Even now, I sometimes feel unsure how to stop.

But stimming brings me back to myself. So does painting. Writing. Creating. These are not just hobbies. They are the gateway to my self energy. Practices of return.

When I flap, when I sink into words, when I shape something with my hands,
I feel a kind of remembering. A part of me whispers, "Oh, there you are."

And with that comes joy. Joy not in opposition to shame, but growing through it, despite it, like wildflowers through concrete.

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3. How IFS Helps Me Understand This

IFS gives me a language for what happened to my joy. It helps me understand the roles my parts have played, not just in surviving, but in dimming what once came so freely.

I have protector parts who learned that joy was dangerous. '“You are such a Fuss Pot.” They quieted me down, stilled my hands, helped me blend in. They didn’t want me to be mocked for flapping or laughed at for loving things too much. They tried to keep me safe by keeping me small.

I have manager parts who whisper reminders:

• "Don’t paint for too long"

• "Don’t write too much”

• "Don’t be so intense, you’ll make people uncomfortable”

• “Don’t be so loud“

• “Don’t be dysregulated”

They worry that if I go too deep into joy, I’ll lose connection. I’ll lose approval. I’ll be alone.

And deep beneath them are my exiles, the parts of me who remember what joy felt like before it was shamed. They remember the fossil collections, the encyclopedias, loving reading about fantasy lands and the giddy thrill of sharing something I loved with others. And they remember the sting of being told it was too much. Being mocked. Being bullied for being weird. Brutalised for my joy.

These exiles carry not just joy, but the grief of its loss.

IFS helps me turn toward each of these parts with curiosity and care. And I don’t force joy now. Instead, I make space for it. And in that space, something changes.

A little hand starts to flap again.
A spark reignites in paint-covered fingers.
A voice inside me says, maybe it’s okay to love things deeply.

And here I am writing about re-finding my joy. And writing from my heart brings me such joy.

That voice, that feeling, is my Self-Energy. Calm. Present. Compassionate. Creative. Curious. Not fixing. Not rushing. Just welcoming.

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4. Seeing Joy as a Therapist

In my clinical work, I often meet people who like me have been masking for so long they no longer know where the mask ends and they begin. Their systems have shaped themselves around what the world demanded, and joy, when it shows up, can feel unfamiliar. Even dangerous.

IFS gives us a way to befriend that complexity. Often, the system has protector parts who believe the mask is essential. These parts have kept someone safe from bullying, rejection, exclusion. They may worry that letting go of the mask would lead to collapse or chaos. Their vigilance is constant.

And beneath those protectors, I often sense exiles carrying deep shame around being different. Shame for caring deeply. Shame for being too loud, too passionate, too sensitive. Shame for joy that once lived so naturally in the body and was punished or misunderstood.

Healing in IFS isn’t about tearing away the mask. It’s about honouring the parts who put it there, understanding their fear, and offering them another way. A gentler way. When those parts begin to trust, and when a part begins to trust that it can laugh, spin, create, or feel there’s often a kind of awe. “We’re really allowed to feel like this?”
“We’re safe enough now?”

As someone starts to reconnect with their own joy, the whole system shifts. There is more space. More light. More balance. And what often emerges is something breath taking: a moment of true, unmasked joy.

That’s what IFS offers: Joy that isn’t just a feeling but a return. A homecoming to something that was always ours.

It might be a small thing, a client speaking about their favourite subject with passion, or letting their body move freely for the first time in years, but it is deeply significant.

And when I witness that, something in my own system softens too. Because I know that joy is a form of healing. Joy is a beautiful trailhead. And that joy, in its unburdened form, is not just real. It is radiant.

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5. A Return to Joy

I am still learning how to unmask myself.

There are days when protector parts are strong, still so cautious.
There are moments when I feel the tug to shrink away, to hide my enthusiasm and
to be quieter, smaller, easier.

But joy is starting to find me anyway.

It finds me when I flap, and no one sees me. And now more people are seeing my flapping and some are even flapping with me. And there is such joy in my writing (and I'm hoping you are sharing that joy with me).

When I write, and time disappears. When I let my body move without explanation.
When I sink into paint or clay and forget the need to be anything else. That is my joy.

These moments aren’t just hobbies or habits. They are a gateway to something so essential for me. Connecting to the small parts of me that never stopped loving, moving, shining back to my self energy.

And I am back to being Milly-Molly-Mandy, jumping up and down in excitement. I am still the girl who loved encyclopaedias and fossils and firelight and fairies of dust.

That joy is not gone. It was just waiting for space to return.

And now, I welcome it. Not in opposition to the pain of being different or the intensity of rejection but as something woven alongside it.

This is not a return to some earlier version of myself, but a homecoming to who I’ve always been beneath the mask. The child who flapped, and read, and sparkled. The therapist who paints and writes and feels the world very deeply.

Joy, for me, is a remembering. A reclaiming. I never lost it. It was always there, waiting for me to come home.

Rereading this back I wonder. “What brought you joy before it was shamed? What joy is still waiting for space in you?”

Emma is a Clinical Psychologist and IFS Therapist and gently holds multiple neurodivergent labels including AuDHD.