It started on a random Saturday night in October. The kids were in bed, and my husband and I decided to pick out a scary movie. Something spooky, in the spirit of the season. As we scrolled through the endless streaming options, one title caught my eye: a little-known Rumpelstiltskin movie that looked campy, low-budget, and delightfully bad. But as we started watching, I found myself thinking less about the movie itself and more about the story behind it.

Why do I, and have I always, found this particular fairy tale so deeply unsettling?

When I was a kid, the story of Rumpelstiltskin scared me more than most. There was something about that strange little man. The way he appeared out of nowhere, the deals he made, the quiet threat behind his help. That gave me chills! And the woman in the story? She wasn’t facing a monster with fangs or claws, but something much worse: the feeling of being trapped with no good options.

As an adult, and as a therapist, I’ve come to see why this story gets under the skin. It’s not really about magic golden straw or secret names. It’s about power, survival, and the things we do when we feel like our only choices are bad ones.

Spinning Straw Into Gold: The Weight of Impossible Expectations

In the story, the miller brags to the king that his daughter can spin straw into gold. The king, greedy for more wealth, locks her in a room full of straw and demands she do the impossible, or die trying.

That image hits hard for so many of the people I work with: high-achieving adults, and neurodivergent professionals who’ve spent their lives performing under pressure. The demand might not come from a king, but it can sound familiar: Be perfect…Be productive…Make everyone happy…Do more.

Many of my neurodivergent clients (especially those who’ve been masking for years) know exactly what it’s like to feel trapped in a room full of straw. They’ve been told to turn chaos into competence, exhaustion into excellence, and overwhelm into output. The world rewards their “gold,” but few see the toll it takes to create it.

The Strange Little Man: Our Shadow in Disguise

Then there’s Rumpelstiltskin. The odd little man who appears when the woman is most desperate. He spins the straw into gold, but demands something valuable in return: first her necklace, then her ring, and finally, her firstborn child.

Psychologically, he can be seen as a symbol of our shadow self: the parts of us we call on to survive impossible situations. Maybe it’s the mask we wear to appear competent when we’re falling apart inside. Maybe it’s the inner critic that pushes us to perform beyond our limits. Or maybe it’s the perfectionism that keeps us safe from judgment, but quietly drains the joy out of everything we do.

Rumpelstiltskin’s help always comes at a cost. So does masking. So does burnout.

Naming the Thing That Controls Us

The turning point in the story comes when the woman discovers Rumpelstiltskin’s name. Once she names him, his power over her disappears.

That’s such a powerful metaphor for healing. In therapy, “naming” things (our emotions, our patterns, our fears) is often where transformation begins. When we name shame, it loses its grip. When we name burnout, we can begin to rest. When we name that our “productivity” has really been a trauma response, we can start to soften.

For many neurodivergent adults, receiving a diagnosis or discovering their neurotype later in life can feel like their own version of that moment. The patterns that once felt mysterious or shameful begin to make sense. The name gives shape to the struggle, and offers a way forward.

The Systems That Trap Us

It’s also worth noticing that the woman in the story isn’t trapped just once , she’s trapped by systems. First by her father’s lie, then by the king’s greed, and finally by Rumpelstiltskin’s bargain.

That, too, feels familiar to so many of the people I work with. Systems that reward overwork, devalue rest, and treat human beings as machines leave little space for authenticity or care. For women, parents, and neurodivergent professionals in particular, these pressures can be relentless.

It’s no wonder that so many people end up burned out or disconnected from themselves. They’ve been spinning straw into gold for years! Trying to meet impossible standards…and the cost keeps adding up.

Finding Our Way Out

What makes Rumpelstiltskin such an enduring story is that the woman does find her way out. She wins. Not by magic, but through awareness. Through knowledge. Through naming.

In the same way, healing often begins when we stop bargaining with the parts of ourselves that demand constant performance. When we start acknowledging the cost of survival mode. When we let ourselves stop spinning andsimply rest.

For some, that looks like therapy. For others, it’s self-understanding through ADHD or Autism evaluations. Giving a name to something that’s always been there, unseen but powerful. For many, it’s finally realizing that the problem was never that they couldn’t spin straw into gold, it’s that they never should have had to.

This Halloween Season…

So this Halloween, when the world leans into its spooky stories, I find myself thinking less about ghosts and more about the old fairy tales. The ones that live under our skin, because they speak to something real.

Rumpelstiltskin isn’t just a story about a deal gone wrong. It’s a story about being trapped, finding your power, and naming what once haunted you. It’s about recognizing that the “strange little man” might not live in the forest after all. Sometimes, he lives inside the parts of us that learned to survive the impossible.

And once we finally name him, we’re free.

If you’re ready to stop spinning straw into gold and start understanding the patterns that keep you stuck, therapy can help. I offer online therapy for neurodivergent adults across Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, as well as ADHD evaluations for adults seeking clarity and self-understanding.