Traitors in the Workplace: Neuro-Play vs Role-Play™ and The Mask That Sold You Out
6 min read
Cat Burns’ reveal of being AuDHD on The Celebrity Traitors prompted a shift in my perception, highlighting how neurodivergence can sometimes be strategically disclosed to deflect suspicion and avoid accountability. In high-stakes environments like the show – and many modern workplaces – neurological adaptability becomes a survival tool, with social mimicry and emotional camouflage often rewarded over integrity. While some contestants faltered due to analytical neutrality or an inability to blend, Cat’s ability to read and adjust gave her a distinct advantage. This isn’t about questioning diagnoses, but about recognising when difference is deployed as a tactic rather than shared for understanding. When strategy is wired into someone’s cognition, success doesn’t always signal honesty – and once you see it, it’s hard to keep clapping.
I was rooting for Cat Burns.
Like anyone seeing a celebrity, I had predisposed affection towards her, having been invited by a friend to one of her shows at Koko in Camden. Back then, I’d never heard of her, knew nothing about her, but enjoyed her set and came away impressed. So I was excited to see her on The Celebrity Traitors and wanted her to do well – until she revealed that she was Autism-ADHD (AuDHD).
For me, that particular disclosure – and the way it was delivered – would have sent my antennae straight up. Not because of her per se, but because of what I’ve come to recognise with that exact neurological pairing when it’s surfaced in the workplace. In Traitors-style environments – like most modern workplaces – it can cause great personal harm. And I say personal because the rationale of “it’s only a game” or “it’s only business” is one that certain neurotypes – like AuDHD – can maintain through a kind of emotional compartmentalisation: the idea that if harm only exists within a context, it somehow doesn’t count beyond it.
But when the hood is lifted, and the lantern’s light falls upon a face you dared to call ‘friend’, the wound can’t help but go deep.
And this would likely be the case for any form of treachery. But it is particularly injurious when the person holding the knife is so adeptly able to deceive by socially attuning to make you feel seen and emotionally mirroring to sound as if you’re supported. So, to see connection revealing itself to be camouflage – to watch it play out, in real time, on national television was triggering. But also clarifying.
The Weaponisation of Difference
As we saw, Cat’s neurodivergence wasn’t mentioned early on in the show – it was strategically disclosed later, as pressure mounted and suspicions around her began to form. Stephen Fry, very perceptively, had begun questioning how much she slept during the day. It was a subtle observation – but a correct one. Traitors, after all, tend to get less sleep. They’re up late plotting, performing, making choices that wear on the body.
And then came the reveal. AuDHD.
Suddenly, what might have looked like avoidance or strategic quietude could now be framed as “neurodivergent fatigue”. What had seemed suspicious could now be reinterpreted as “sensory overload”. And just like that, she became untouchable.
This was not just vulnerability – it was the performance of it. And sometimes you have to perform, exacerbate, put on a show, amplify just in order for your divergent needs or disabilities to be taken seriously. But here, difference was used as a defence mechanism rather than an honest admission. The label became not just a descriptor, but a get-out-of-scrutiny-free card. And this is not new. It’s in workplaces, in activism, in supposed “safe spaces” where certain identities are leveraged not to build trust, but to manipulate it.
The Game Is Neurological
What The Celebrity Traitors reveals is that every closed system becomes a lab for power dynamics. And those dynamics aren’t just about charisma or alliances. They’re cognitive. What we saw wasn’t just gameplay – it was neuro-play™. Every contestant brought with them a specific way of thinking, processing, adapting. Their wiring was their strategy. And that wiring gets either rewarded or punished based on how well it aligns with the system’s unwritten rules.
There is a particular cognitive pattern – sometimes seen in people who identify as AuDHD – that allows them to survive, even thrive, in systems built on ambiguity, allegiance, and adaptation. And that pattern, in certain contexts, can be deployed strategically – even harmfully – especially when paired with power or proximity to power.
Why Some Brains Survive the System
Cat Burns thrived because her neurotype enables rapid mirroring, emotional mimicry, and camouflage. She is neurologically able to read social energy and adjust accordingly. In a system designed to reward deception, deflection, adaptability, and the consolidation of soft power, that kind of neuro-adaptability is a significant advantage – and is why she made such a good Traitor.
Kate Garraway, by contrast, approached the game with journalistic wiring: she’s neurologically trained to observe, gather information, stay open to evidence. That kind of cognitive neutrality doesn’t endear you to people. It makes you look detached in a game that rewards emotional allegiance.
Then there’s Stephen Fry and David Olusoga – classic analytically-trained types. Rational thinkers. Logic-wielders. Their questions threaten the room not because either of them is loud or abrasive, but because they critically assess and look for answers.
Acting vs Adapting
When Mark said the game isn’t about skill but personality, he was partly right. But more accurately, it’s about neurology. About how your brain has been wired – through training, trauma, temperament – to handle ambiguity, pressure, trust, and betrayal. Actors are trained to inhabit a persona. This doesn’t mean they are that person. And in an environment like The Celebrity Traitors, that kind of temporary adoption of a personality or the affectation of it isn’t enough.
Because the system isn’t asking for role-play – it’s demanding neurological adaptation. Constantly. Fluidly. Without pause. On the show, and in the workplace, the line between role and reality is thin. If you’re not neurologically wired to blend instinctively, the mask slips. It’s therefore not about whether you can act – it’s about whether you can live inside the lie without getting sick from it. Unless you’re someone who fully inhabits a new persona to the point of identity collapse – the Jared-Leto-method-immersive-personality-consuming-fully-submerged kind of person – you can’t just “act” your way through it.
In a neurological pressure cooker like The Celebrity Traitors and the modern workplace, not everyone’s brain can thrive like that. Even skilled performers will falter if they aren’t neurologically fluent in adaptation under pressure. And to adopt a whole neurology – without having the “nature or nurture” – is not only unsustainable, it’s nigh impossible.
Difference as Deception
There are neurodivergent people who are neurologically equipped to survive these systems – able to blend and beguile, diffuse and disarm – not always by choice, but by wiring. They can do no other. And their vulnerability feels real – because in some ways, it is – even when it’s being meticulously weaponised.
But if you’ve ever been on the other side of that armour, the recipient of that camouflage… If you’ve been accused, gaslit, or shut down by someone who hides behind diagnosis while deploying manipulation… Or had someone smile sweetly, and quietly sell you out – all while reminding you how hard things are for them… You know how devastating these dynamics can be.
It sounds cruel to question someone’s neurodivergence, or how they use it. Especially because being different (in any way) from “the norm” is hard – and that’s why this needs to be talked about. Because neurodivergence doesn’t always equal innocence. And this isn’t about doubting the diagnosis. It’s about observing the deployment. Neurodivergent people – like all people – develop mechanisms to survive. But those mechanisms can hurt others, especially when they go unchecked.
It's important to recognise the difference between someone who discloses neurodivergence to build understanding – and someone who uses it to shut down accountability. Between difference as truth, and difference as tactic. Especially when people are punished precisely for not being able to mask. For not shapeshifting. For not adapting their personality to whatever room they find themselves in.
Not All Performance Is Performance
I’m pleased for Cat that someone like her, particularly with her intersections, was empowered and put in a position where she could thrive. Had she been a Faithful in that environment, I don’t think she would have fared as well as she did. But the Traitors weren’t chosen at random and, from what we could see, their selection had nothing to do with their interview responses. Even just for “entertainment” purposes, those who could be (and were) good Traitors were picked by the producers.
If we’re looking at what makes someone a good Traitor, then The Celebrity Traitors shows us – beautifully, even while brutally – that cognitive wiring is strategy™. And some strategies are rewarded. Even when they hurt people – and then hide behind sensitivity or “authenticity”. Even when their real fragility becomes a means of silence and control. Even when they end up reinforcing the very dynamics they claim to disrupt.
And once you see it – on screen or off – in meetings, in mediation rooms... Once you experience it up close and learn that just because someone plays the game well doesn’t mean they’re playing with integrity – you stop being impressed.
And I for one am just not clapping anymore.
