Good, Not Damaged: A Highly effective Reframe for Neurodivergence

“It’s not our variations that divide us. It’s our lack of ability to acknowledge, settle for, and rejoice these variations.” ~Audre Lorde

For many of my life, I requested myself a quiet query:

What’s fallacious with me?

I didn’t say it out loud. I didn’t must. It was stitched into how I moved by means of the world — hyperaware, self-correcting, and all the time just a bit out of step. I knew find out how to “go” in the best settings, however by no means with out effort. Beneath all of it, I used to be exhausted by the day by day efficiency of regular.

Trying again, it’s clear the place it began.

I grew up in a house marked by emotional chaos and unpredictability. Like many children with developmental trauma, I turned hypervigilant earlier than I even had phrases for it. I discovered to trace temper shifts, tones of voice, the silences between the phrases. Whereas different children have been absorbing math classes, I used to be studying the room.

In elementary faculty, I wasn’t the loud child or the front-row overachiever. I used to be the quiet one within the center row—not daring sufficient to be in entrance the place individuals may see me, and never defiant sufficient to danger the again, the place the “dangerous children” bought known as out, punished, or ignored. I discovered early that security meant staying within the center: seen sufficient to keep away from hassle, invisible sufficient to not stand out.

I didn’t know what the lesson was. However I knew who the trainer favored and who she didn’t. Who had a tough night time at residence. Who was attempting too laborious. Who had checked out. And who was silently hurting the best way I used to be.

I used to be all the time paying consideration—even when they stated I used to be unfocused—simply not in the best way the trainer needed me to.

I additionally daydreamed. Always. I lived in fantasy worlds that I made up in my head, full with characters, backstories, and dialogue. I wasn’t attempting to keep away from actuality—I used to be attempting to outlive it. And people imagined worlds have been usually kinder than the one I used to be caught in.

So when individuals say issues like, “That baby is so distractible,” I need to pause them.

Generally, what you’re seeing isn’t a dysfunction. Generally, it’s a toddler adapting to a world that feels unsafe.

What We Name Disordered May Simply Be a Totally different Sort of Knowledge

As I bought older, I began to appreciate how most of the issues we pathologize—particularly in girls, neurodivergent people, and trauma survivors—are literally adaptive and even gifted traits. However as a result of they don’t match the dominant mildew of what “wholesome” seems to be like, we name them damaged.

Let me say this clearly: Totally different doesn’t imply disordered. And even when help is required, that doesn’t imply the particular person is missing.

Take ADHD. It’s usually diminished to disorganization or forgetfulness, however for many individuals, it displays fast-paced, pattern-jumping brains that crave stimulation and thrive in high-innovation areas. That very same mind may battle in class however mild up in entrepreneurship, the humanities, disaster work, or tech.

Take nervousness. Sure, it may be overwhelming. However beneath it’s normally a delicate nervous system attuned to power, danger, nuance. In trauma survivors, it usually displays the power to learn between the traces—to sense what’s not being stated, to organize for each doable final result. They preserve themselves and others protected by seeing the dangers earlier than the dangerous factor occurs.

Take autism, particularly in women and girls. What will get labeled as rigidity or social awkwardness may really be deep authenticity, truth-telling, and sensory brilliance in a world filled with noise and social masking.

Even despair is usually a type of knowledge—a physique demanding relaxation, a soul refusing to maintain performing, a nervous system lastly saying “sufficient.”

What Neurodivergence Actually Means

Neurodivergence isn’t one factor. It’s a giant umbrella. It contains circumstances like:

ADHD
Autism
Studying variations (like dyslexia or dyscalculia)
Sensory processing variations
Temper issues (typically)
PTSD and C-PTSD (particularly once they trigger long-term mind adjustments)

For some, it’s hardwired. For others, it’s trauma-shaped. And for many people, it’s each.

In my family, neurodivergence runs deep.

My mom lived with bipolar dysfunction and schizophrenia. My oldest son has ADD and nervousness. My youngest is autistic, has an mental incapacity, and likewise lives with ADHD. I’ve carried advanced PTSD, nervousness, despair—and truthfully, in all probability undiagnosed ADD too.

We’re not damaged. We’re not much less.

We’re a line of deeply delicate, otherwise wired people attempting to outlive in a world that doesn’t all the time acknowledge our type of brilliance.

I do know what it’s to be the outcast.

I watched my mother change into one—judged and misunderstood by her family, dismissed by society as a result of her bipolar and schizophrenia made individuals uncomfortable. I’ve watched my youngest son change into one too. He’s autistic, has an mental incapacity, and ADHD. And I do know—deeply know—that if I hadn’t chosen to worth his wiring, the world may need crushed him. For a short while, it did.

However this child performs the drums like no one’s enterprise.

He’s fiercely protecting, wildly loyal, and extra emotionally intuitive than anybody I’ve ever met.
And each now and again, he’ll say one thing so particular, so unusual, so piercingly true, I swear he’s studying my thoughts — or another person’s.

We don’t discuss this sort of intelligence sufficient. The sort that doesn’t present up on standardized checks or IQ charts, however lives within the bones. Within the music. Within the understanding.

Neurodivergence merely means your mind capabilities in a means that diverges from the norm. That’s not dangerous. That’s important—as a result of the “norm” was by no means constructed with all of us in thoughts.

The Greater Image

We dwell in a tradition that rewards sameness: consideration that stays linear, feelings that keep tidy, studying that occurs on schedule.

However actual life is messier than that. And actual persons are extra advanced.

A number of the strongest thinkers, healers, leaders, and artists I do know dwell with labels that might’ve sidelined them in the event that they hadn’t discovered to translate their variations into energy.

Totally different doesn’t take away from the dialog. It provides to it.

And the following time you surprise if one thing is “fallacious” with you, pause.

What if that a part of you isn’t damaged?

What if it’s simply misunderstood?

What if it’s attempting to point out you one thing the world forgot find out how to hear?