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ND Life Experiences
Neurodivergence is subjective: we find each other by relating to each others' descriptions of inner life. Here are some of mine.
The following are a list of experiences that a lot of neurodivergent people have. Note that I’m generalizing here — a lot of these are things that MOST people struggle with, but for folks on e.g. the Autism spectrum or folks with ADHD the struggles are more pronounced and are likely to be a thing that the person actively thinks about every day.
If you relate to one or two of these it may be worth figuring out why — trauma alone can lead to a few of these responses; if you relate to most of them I strongly advise looking more into neurodiversity at large.
Note these are just some notes that I’ve written up. There are SO MANY neurodivergent experiences — take a look here to submit your own and view the submissions of others:
ND Life Experiences
Name
Description
More Information
Alone Time
You need a lot of time alone. It doesn’t mean you don’t love people, value your relationships, whatever — you just have to spend a significant chunk of each day by yourself or you don’t feel right. (You may get this by waiting until everyone goes to bed and then staying up late for a few hours, because...)
Sleep Problems
You have chronic sleep problems. Can’t fall asleep at night, can’t wake up in the morning. Routines don’t help. It’s been your whole life.
Communication Problems
You spend way more effort on being understood (and not being misunderstood, and you understand how and why those are different and both important) than other people tend to. You’ve learned that if you don’t take responsibility for successful communication you can’t assume it has taken place.
Special Interests
You tend to have deep, strong interests. You get interested in a subject and then stay interested in it for days, weeks, months or even years. You can happily spend 8-12 hours indulging in your interest without taking a break, daily. You sometimes worry that there’s something wrong with how intensely you engage with things, and may have been shamed for this.
There are no rows in this table
Huh.
Right?
Doesn’t everyone struggle with that stuff?
To some degree maybe. But as I wrote above if your life revolves around a number of these things then there’s a good chance you’ve got some neurodivergence to explore.
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