Making sense of your neurodivergence

How to write your own story in a world that’s trying to write it for you

Photo by Etienne Girardet on Unsplash

Something I’ve been wrangling with since my diagnosis is ‘what if I’m actually ‘just’ traumatised?’ I've had my fair share of trauma and I’ve done a lot of deep work on myself to heal. But does that somehow make my ADHD diagnosis less valid?

I’ve written about the ADHD imposter before and I reckon most of us neurodivergents have one. You know, they’re responsible for thoughts such as ‘you’re just saying it for attention’ and ‘everybody has a label these days so what makes you so special’.

I could go into the absurdity of those thoughts but I can feel a huge diversion coming so I’ll just leave it at ‘fuck you, imposter’ for now.

But one thought (well more of a barrage of inter-related thoughts) the imposter keeps sneaking under the radar is around this issue of trauma. He’ll (I don’t know why he’s a he but he is, ok?) say things like ‘you’re not neurodivergent, you’re just traumatised’ or ‘you’re just looking for another reason to explain what a fuck-up you are’. Yeah, he can be a real asshole.

And he’s employing a clever trick - one the world seems to be pretty good at right now but us neurospicies seem to be pretty skilled at too - black and white thinking.

He seems to think I can only be either traumatised or neurodivergent. And, of course, he’s got pretty good reason to think so, because the split is perpetuated ‘out there’ too. As a therapist I hear and read about this split a lot - in forums, on social media, in articles in, among colleagues and in trainings. The therapy and/or psychiatric world is confused about it. And if they can’t agree then no wonder the messages they’re squabbling about lose even more nuance as they make their way into the mainstream media.

You see, black and white thinking is a defense mechanism. It’s a place we go to when we feel unsafe. (It’s also much easier for the media to present/sell than the contradictions that often come with being a human but that’s another story!)

The world feels pretty unsafe at the moment too and I think that only compounds the split that happens inside of us.

The neurodivergent community is not safe from this split either (which figures because being neurodivergent in a neurotypical world often feels very unsafe). I often see this manifesting as people either very identified with the medical model (I’m like this because I have a disorder) or with the social model (I’m like this because neurotypical society has traumatised/disabled me). Sadly this can cause huge rifts in a community of people who are often looking for somewhere to belong.

The truth is, no one person, school of thought or model can prove definitively what ADHD, or other neurodiversities, are (or are not). At the same time, a desire for understanding and an aversion to the unknown are pretty common neurospicy traits (another reason why black and white thinking is particularly common in neurodivergent brains).

So many of us are having to do the work of finding our own way to understand. This helps us unpick the internalised ableism that many of us are left with after years of being told, in one way or another, that our differences are a problem. That our innate humanness needs to be somehow justified.

For me, finding a narrative that makes sense is important because it helps me catch and intercept the imposter. It gives me a new way to understand myself outside of his tirade of ‘if you just tried harder you’d be better’ or ‘you’re just broken’.

A big part of the split narrative that exists today is around labels being used as an excuse and my imposter loves hearing that. ‘See! He’ll say, you’re just a lazy waste of space! Told ya!’ But there's a paradox at work here.

You see these shaming voices, in my opinion, play a pretty big part in what the medical model calls executive dysfunction. If your thoughts are attacking you, they become paralysing. It’s hard to do anything when you’re being shamed into believing you’re too useless to do anything.

Instead, armed with understanding, you can start to create your own, new narrative. Now when my imposter attacks, I try to remember that he’s talking a load of shite.

The flip side of the paradox is that when I’m able to be kinder to myself, I often (not always because it’s not black and white!) feel more able to do the thing or things that previously felt impossible.

So, what has all this got to do with trauma? I guess what I’m essentially trying to say is you can be traumatised and neurodivergent. They are not mutually exclusive. And neither is easy or simple to understand and untangle. While you’ll find people saying that neurodivergence is all rooted in trauma, you’ll also find people saying that it’s purely about how our brains are wired.

Whatever you resonate with, whatever helps you feel less shame can only be a good thing. But let’s remember that you can have your truth while somebody else has theirs - otherwise we’re only perpetuating the shame that so many of us already battle with.

Recently life threw me some shit to deal with and I fell into a shame spiral. My imposter was telling me that I shouldn’t feel shit because I’m a therapist. He was trying to convince me that I couldn’t possibly support people with their mental health when struggling with my own and that all the healing work I’ve done must’ve been a waste of time if I found myself struggling.

Yeah, I told you he was an asshole. The fact is, I’m a human. And humaning is hard. Life can be hard.

But specifically with regards to ‘you should feel better after all this healing’ - I saw a Facebook post by the Trauma Geek that was exactly what I needed at that time.

Their work reminded me that as we heal from trauma, often what we find under the mask are more neurodivergent traits. Without our maladaptive coping mechanisms, we’re left closer to our authentic, neurospicy selves but without our old ways of managing.

I’ll give a concrete example - I used to, unconsciously, ‘use’ anxiety to make sure I didn’t forget things, lose things or be late. For most of my adult life I was perpetually early and rarely lost anything. It protected me from the shame I felt every time I lost or forgot something as a young child.

Now, after years of therapy, I lose shit all the time and have started occasionally being late. Why? Because I’m not so anxious any more!

I feel much more accepting of myself but now I have to figure out how to exist in my new-ish neurodivergent identity. And this liminal space is fertile ground for the imposter who feels much safer in a black and white world.

Another very live example - as I jabber on here, I’m not sure if I’m making much sense. Or saying anything of value. An old version of me would’ve spent a lot more time anxiously planning a structure for this post. My imposter is shouting that this post is rubbish, useless, meandering, fluffy.

But that’s partly because understanding ourselves in all of our human-ness - trauma, neurodivergence and the general shit show of existing in a world and life that can be hard for lots of different reasons - isn’t always concrete or linear.

Humans are full of paradoxes and contradictions and as I try to understand myself better, my story changes. Sometimes, heaven forbid, I ramble as I process what it all means for me and the people I work with in my therapy practice.

So, Mr Imposter, yes I have some trauma and yes I’m neurodivergent. And while that can be confusing and more concrete, black and white answers can feel safer, they come at a cost too. For me, that cost is often shame and/or not feeling like I’m able to be myself.

So I’m trying to let myself be messy and imperfect as I continue to gather more information to write and edit my own story.

And I really hope that anyone that’s got this far can find a way to do that for themselves too.