10 Reflections on Neurodivergence

The discovery that you are neurodivergent (ND), that your brain isn’t like the brains around you, can be both incredibly healing and deeply disorienting. If you’ve been through this, you know exactly how it feels. If you haven’t, you cannot possibly imagine it.

Finding out that I am a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP), one of the lesser-known styles of neurodivergence, shook my whole world. It meant that I am fundamentally, irrevocably, biochemically different. It made me question everything I thought I knew about who I was and who everyone else was, and it explained why I had so many feelings and sensations that other people just didn’t seem to have.

It wasn’t long before the rage set in. I had been lied to my whole life. I had been told I was just too sensitive, too emotional, that I need to just get over it. There was just something wrong with me. I found out that unlike me, people with neurotypical (NT) cognition are not living a life of constant mental/emotional exhaustion, anxiety, and overstimulation.

This was the point at which I began to really look how neuro privilege works in our society. From birth we’re conditioned and shamed into behaving in particular ways that a neurotypical society values and rewards. Meanwhile our natural way of thinking, of moving through relationships and through life, is left in shadow, shamed and made wrong. Made into something that needs to be corrected or eradicated for the comfort of the NTs. We need to be palatable to them; we can’t be too much with our intense feelings or our needs but neither can we withdraw and deny them the type of socialization required to deem us normal. And it’s our struggle strike this balance while simultaneously coping with dysregulation, overstimulation, and low executive functioning that keeps us thinking we’re the problem.

For all of you who know this frustrating experience, I have compiled a list of ten reflections on neurodivergence that I have gained from study, training and practice in my therapy room. Some of these insights have been with me over a few years where they’ve been marinating in my brain, and others I learned just a few days ago at a neuro-affirming therapy training held by Dr. Panicha McGuire, a clinician and AuDHDer sharing her wisdom with others in the profession.*

The discoveries on this journey to self are truly endless, but to start us off, here are the gleanings about this ND life that I wish someone had told me long ago: 

(1) There are a lot more styles of neuro-spiciness than you think, and the ones that are well-known became that way because they’re heavily pathologized. Because of neuro-oppression, the diagnostic/medical model only addresses the “dysfunctional” elements of ND, and it regards them as symptoms to be cured. Of course the problem is, we can’t be cured because we’re not sick; our brains just work differently, and we suffer mostly because don’t live in a world that supports them. Have a look at this chart of neurotypes (courtesy of Dr. McGuire), and you’ll quickly learn how many varieties of us are out there. Some of us develop our differences at a young developmental age, and others acquire their differences by having experiences in the world.

All these types have distinct qualities that define them, but what unites them is a shared reservoir of experience that makes us more similar to each other than to NT people. Some types are well-known because of the obvious ways in which they break the rules of social behavior. Others are hidden from public awareness because they camouflage themselves as NT. In my experience, many ND people begin being unaware they are ND in the first place; they just assume they’re NT but failing as a human being because they’re inherently flawed. If this is you, know that we’ve all been there! You are not alone.  

(2) There are measurable biological and chemical differences between the NT and ND brain. For those of you wondering if you are just overdramatizing your own experience or that neurodivergence is a made-up concept, for those who have been manipulated or shamed into think that their differences are nothing more than laziness, softness, or lack of discipline, the science behind neurodivergence is clear. There are neurotransmitters, hormones, and regions of the brain in a ND person that just behave differently, depending on your typology. The amygdala of the autistic brain is larger; the resting dopamine level of the ADHDer is lower. The mirror receptors in an HSP’s brain are overactive, making us more naturally empathetic than other neurotypes. These differences are clear in brain scans and neurological assessments, but this battery of tests and exams are prohibitively expensive for most people, which means we can’t visually see how unique our brains really are. We only experience the phenotype, the visible manifestations of these qualities. Have a look at the neuroscience research about your type, and get familiar with the terminology. The more you learn about how your brain works, the more concrete and comprehensible your ND qualities will be to you. (Besides, most of us love a good deep dive into something interesting, don’t we?)

(3) You can’t really have childhood trauma and grow up to be NT. Maybe this is obvious to some people, but as a survivor of childhood abuse working diligently on her trauma for so many years, it gutted me to learn this. When you experience trauma at that critical stage in which your young brain is developing, it fundamentally and permanently alters your cognition. These adverse experiences literally make you who you are, at least on the level of the nervous system. There is a grief we all have to process at some point when we understand our differences are stable, the realization that we can’t just “fix” what makes our brains ND. There are treatments that mitigate certain maladaptive behaviors, drugs that assist us with functioning, lifestyles that support our brains, and therapeutic relationships that help us work through our understanding of our experience, but none of these solutions could ever make your ND brain resemble a NT brain.

(4) Within neurodivergence, everything is connected. Just as ND development is sometimes tied to childhood trauma, there is a web of branching connections to other experiences from these two points. Conditions like Complex PTSD and Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD) have roots in adverse childhood events. There is evidence that ND is correlated with queerness and divergences in gender expression. It turns out that people with unconventional brains are likely to be unconventional in other ways, too. So much otherness sprouts from the roots of our earliest developmental experiences, and it can be a lonely experience if others around us are not affirming. No wonder we think there’s something wrong with us; the chain of differences that make us who we are render us totally unrelatable to NTs. It’s a short leap from persistent misattunement to self-pathologization.

(5) Neurotypical people actually exist. Okay, so this point is for all my ND clients who (consciously or unconsciously) surround themselves with other neuro-spicy people who have similar experiences, interests, and communication styles, or who have, as one of my clients lovingly calls it, “a touch of the ’Tism.” We are often so much in our insular bubbles with other neuro-oddballs that to some of us it just seems plain impossible that there is even such as thing as NT cognition. And to be honest, it’s existentially unimaginable because we can only ever experience our own brains, and we imagine other people must be having a similar experience of theirs (right?). 

When I explain what characterizes the inner experience of NTs, some of my ND people straight up deny that there are even people like this in the world. NT people do not get stressed out by small talk, and in fact many of them enjoy it. When their bodies are at rest in a bed or chair, they are not really thinking about much. They don’t often replay social interactions and wonder if they were understood or came off weird. They have the mental/emotional bandwidth to put in a full day of work and continue to socialize or do lots of tasks afterwards (rather than melting into a pile of dissociated goo like the rest of us). Their sensory and emotional experiences are often less impactful, more transient. Very few of their daily experiences actually upset them in any meaningful way, and they can often ignore feelings, thoughts, or body sensations without effort. NTs can get a lot done or talk to a lot of people without impairment. They can focus fairly well and sit still in a chair for a long period of time without the need to stim, fidget, or sit inappropriately in the seat. They don’t often overthink themselves into a spiraling rabbit hole of doom. They assume everyone understands them because their cognitive style and mode of expression informs the dominant culture of communication and social interaction; indirect, ambiguous comments or directives doesn’t make them easily anxious or stressed. They aren’t dying of shame when given corrective feedback or constantly lashing themselves internally for being unproductive or lazy. They have a spectrum of emotional experience, but it’s comparatively muted and generally manageable, easily ignored when their attention needs to be directed elsewhere. They can be around all kinds of light, noise, and other stimuli without getting upset. In short… they just aren’t suffering the way we are, which is simultaneously unimaginable and infuriating when you think about what a raw deal we’ve gotten here.

(6) Despite its experiential hardships, neurodiversity is an inherently good thing for the world, just like biodiversity. I would like to give credit to Dr. McGuire for this little gem of wisdom, which I received during her recent training on neurodiversity. Somehow it’s so easy to comprehend that ecosystems thrive with strong biodiversity, but it’s harder to realize that society benefits from having ND people in it. Many of us provide intelligent and novel solutions to problems NT people can’t creatively conceptualize. Others utilize a high degree of empathy to serve as healers, teachers, and helpers of the best kind. Some of us are phenomenal performers under intense pressure, and some of us have such specialized and particular interests that we become the inventors, experts, and innovators society desperately needs to advance itself. Some of us struggle with such intense pain that we develop a depth and inner wisdom which turn us into impactful writers, speakers, artists, and sources of inspiration to others.

I personally believe that ADHDers and their struggle with dopamine is a powerful self-care reminder they live with daily which should really be a consideration for all of us. Why should we do activities we don’t like or care about so much of the time? Why shouldn’t we seek joy and novelty on a regular basis? If nothing else, neurodiversity is a persistent challenge to the ableist lens that dominates our competency-obsessed and productivity-driven capitalist society gone mad. Our worth shouldn’t be determined by how much we can do, how much discomfort we can tolerate, or how well we pantomime NT behavior. Every person’s life has value, and every person’s cognitive experience has something meaningful to contribute to our world, which would be stagnant, monochrome, and hopelessly conventional without ND people in it.

(7) Becoming NT is not the goal, so mask only as necessary. For a long time and in many circles to this day, ND people have been treated as broken people who need to be fixed by parents, doctors, religious leaders, or therapists. For many of us, our obvious differences were embarrassing to our parents, and out of ignorance they turned to shame tactics, medical experts, and other forms of control in an attempt to stamp it out of us early. If we’re different, we shouldn’t be, and if we’re suffering it’s because we’re not “normal.” So it seemed perfectly logical to our child selves that to be acceptable, we must be like the NTs. Fake it ’til you make it, surely it’s just a matter of figuring out the “way” to do it.

Once we understand that no amount of “working on yourself” will make us NT and we truly accept it, we start to realize how misdirected our wishes to be NT truly are. We don’t actually hate our brain differences; we hate how the world treats us for having them. Once we have our differences truly held and affirmed with love and compassion, they don’t seem like such terrible symptoms to be cured. We experience the world in a truly unique way, and once we affirm this in ourselves, the goal of being or appearing as NT as possible fades in importance. What does hold value is having a supportive group of other neuro-spicy humans, people who connect compatibly with our neurotypes. Find that book club, support circle, that interest group of people who just really get you, and invest in those relationships. You will still have to mask in public well enough to get things done in life, but it doesn’t have to be your whole life. Conserve your energy for the right people.

(8) Disabilities reflect flaws within society, not within the self. Here is another jewel of wisdom offered to me by Dr. McGuire. We always identify disabilities with the people who struggle with them, but a disability actually says a lot more about the ways in which society fails to support and accommodate certain types of people. As much as is possible, the environment should be modified, not the quality of the person.

 The truth is, we all deserve to be helped, even if we lack feelings of worthiness to be helped. I often ask my clients a reality-testing question about disabilities. Would it be reasonable to tell a person without the use of their leg that they are just lazy or undisciplined if they cannot walk? Of course not! Yet when you ask yourself if it’s reasonable to expect yourself to get simple tasks done when your brain has no dopamine in it, somehow the answer changes. Because we appear to be able, others expect us to be able, and we in turn expect it of ourselves. But we are all differently able; it’s a spectrum and it can change from day to day or season to season. So why should there be one standard for how people should perform? Any system that requires maximum effort from people every day, all year, and all lifelong is a broken system, an unsustainable machine that is one move away from total collapse. Certain people will just inevitably be left behind in a system like this, and we all know it. But somehow it’s your fault if you’re one of them? This is why questions about internalized ableism fail when reality-tested.

There are societies in the world, historical and contemporary, that handle what we call “mental illness” or “disability” totally differently. There are places where the community holds pain so deeply for its members that negative events do not become traumatic.** There are cultures that see neuro-differences as gifts and talents, where ND people are allowed to be themselves and are accommodated appropriately. There are places where having what we call a disability doesn’t detract from your value as a person or to the whole.

This is the point at which we enter conversations about how to bring disability justice into everyday life and relationships. How can you adjust your home and lifestyle to support your neuro needs? How can you adjust expectations within your relationships and family life to consider differently-abled people in them? What are the routines or habits that you can cut, outsource, or modify so that you don’t have to be burdened with them? No one gets extra points at the end of their lives for doing their chores or planning their meals at their own expense.

(9) Are you stuck in a burnout cycle? Because if you are, there are more consequences than you think. Does this sound familiar? Mask a lot, put in maximum effort, overcommit, then start to feel the burnout, which leads to total social withdrawal and loss of all executive functioning. Then after enough time has passed in crisis/human jelly mode, you get enough energy to start masking again and doing “so well” at meeting everyone’s expectations. This is a burnout cycle, and it's a fundamentally unsustainable way of life. You might think it’s not a big deal to put yourself through this carousel, but your nervous system knows differently. In time comes chronic pain, serious illness, and long periods where we are forced to rest and recover. All of the stress we put on our nervous system has a price, and the consequences stretch further into the future than we imagine.

Here's an example to illustrate my point: I know someone who chronically dissociates; she experienced a lot of childhood trauma and from that point on always leaned on dissociating to get her through the hard times. Now at a young age she’s discovered she has Multiple Sclerosis. I told her, this is not an accident. You’ve been separating your mind from your body for a lifetime, and now your body doesn’t recognize its own nervous system. Now your immune system is attacking your body because it no longer knows you.

There is no way of knowing what future consequences are waiting for us when we borrow against our health to cope with problems in the here and now.*** How much are we robbing from our future selves to live in a daily deluge of stress, sorrow, anger, and pain? We have to think about the long game, and when we’re living in a burnout cycle, we aren’t cleverly compensating for our vulnerabilities; we’re cheating our future selves.

(10) My final reflection is that for some people, medication can really help, and if you’re ND and struggling, it’s worth considering whether it’s right for you. Certainly, I’m not here to suggest that drugs are the answer to all our problems. There are some wonderful alternative supplements and holistic practices to help the ND brain, and for some people this is enough. However, I find that many ND people push themselves to the limit and are almost proud that they aren’t medicated, as though this says something meaningful about them. Yet we have to live in a world full of stressful stimuli that are constantly upsetting our brains, and we have to do this for a lifetime. Will the strategies you’re using sustain you for a lifetime?

So many of us are scared, distrustful, or uninformed about how medication could affect us, and this is natural. Some people just don’t do well on Western medicines. However, I will say from my own recent experience with trying psychiatric medication for the first time is that for some people, it can also change things for the better****. Your nervous system doesn’t have to struggle so hard all the time. Many of us are so used to being low-key depressed or anxious for so long that we don’t even realize how much these symptoms are taking away from our experience!

You also don’t have to be doing “bad enough” to talk to a doctor about meds. People at many different levels of functioning can legitimately benefit from their use. While drugs are not for everyone, I want to release the stigma about them and encourage people to learn more about them. We all deserve to be helped!

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*Credit for some of the information provided in this blog post should be given to Dr. Panicha McGuire, who held a training called “Beyond the DSM: Neurodiversity-Affirming Approaches to ADHD and Autism” on March 14, 2025.

** Think of the society represented in Midsommar, where the villagers experience pain collectively and publicly, where everyone can safely melt down together.

*** Perhaps this isn’t entirely true. There is a fascinating reference guide called Metaphysical Anatomy by Evette Rose that provides explanations of the mental/emotional experiences that correlate to (and perhaps cause!) our physical illnesses and ailments. I’ve found this book to be (painfully) accurate, so I recommend it if you’re interested in finding out what the lower back pain means or why you keep getting that ankle injury. Be warned that this book really does read you your dirt though!

**** As a matter of fact, increased executive functioning from medication is how I’m able to go back to writing these blog posts!