Thoughts from The Den

I am neurodivergent. I grew up in household with other neurodivergent people, and I have bred myself a neurodivergent family. I also have been working with neurodivergence for 15 years. I am fully immersed! Talking about neurodivergence is an everyday occurrence for me, so I throw the word ‘neurodivergent’ around like I’m saying the word ‘bread’, or ‘leg’, or some other word that would be taken for granted as part of everyone’s vocabulary. 

However, I was asked recently what it meant, and I was reminded that it is very much not a part of everyone’s world, and not a term that everyone understands. So, what is neurodivergence?

It is based on the premise that there is a ‘typical’ way in which the human brain works, and there are brains that ‘diverge’ from the typical. Anyone whose brain works differently from the ‘typical’ is neurodivergent. This could be for a variety of reasons, including (but not limited to), they are dyslexic, autistic, adhd, have Tourette’s, have a stammer, or even that they have had a brain injury. There are many ways in which our brain processing can ‘diverge’ from the typical.

This is an important premise to understand, because for the most part, our world is set up according to the way a ‘typical’ brain processes information and stimuli. It can be really difficult for anyone, whether they have a ‘typical’ brain or a ‘divergent’ one, to understand that someone else experiences the world differently to them. We think that the world just is the way that it is. That is not the case. The sky is blue because of the way our brain processes the information received through the eye, not because it is blue. One person likes the smell of fresh cut grass and another hates it, because of the way their brains process and categorise the information received through the nose, not because fresh cut grass objectively has a good or bad smell.

Neurodivergent people can experience the world extremely differently to neurotypical people. Things that are easy, and comfortable, and just ‘normal’ for a ‘typical’ brain can be really hard, uncomfortable, and feel just ‘wrong’ to a ‘divergent’ brain. This can include every day experiences such as lighting in the work place, the feel of a uniform, or the crowding in a supermarket. ‘Typical’ brains may experience some irritation about these things, but are usually able to manage, and for the most part would not even notice them. A neurodivergent brain however, may experience these as overwhelming and/or unbearable. The lights might literally hurt their eyes, the uniform might literally hurt their skin, and the crowd might make them feel so physically trapped that they can’t breathe. And this is just one aspect of life that can be processed differently, neurodivergence can impact all aspects of life; getting things done, experiencing emotion, going to places, interacting with people, managing demands, understanding communication, politics, justice, power and more and more and more! It is a different experience of the world.

On top of this, we have to recognise that all neurodivergent people are different. There is not one way that all neurodivergent people experience the world, it is different for everyone. Some will process particular sensations more intensely, others will feel emotions more deeply, some might need a deadline while others will be repelled by one.

At the heart of understanding neurodivergence is a deep understanding that, actually, everyone is different from everyone else. People will be different from us in ways that we have never even considered, they will experience the world in ways that we couldn’t imagine, and to support people to have equal opportunity to access and interact with the world, we need to be open to recognising that things are not always the way they seem to us.