🧠What it means to have grown up neurodivergent in a neurotypical world
Growing up neurodivergent meant your brain's natural way of processing the world was constantly treated as a problem to fix rather than a difference to understand and accommodate.
You may have spent your childhood learning to perform neurotypicality like a second language, studying other people's facial expressions and social cues while your own natural responses were labeled as wrong or inappropriate. Your sensory experiences, attention patterns, and communication style were pathologized instead of recognized as valid ways of being human. You learned to mask your authentic self so thoroughly that you sometimes lost track of who you really were beneath all the adaptations.
You may have developed an exhausting hyperawareness of your own behavior, constantly monitoring for signs that your neurodivergence might be showing in ways others would judge. The energy required to maintain expected levels of eye contact, small talk, and sensory tolerance often left you depleted in ways that neurotypical people never had to consider. Your extraordinary abilities in certain areas went unrecognized while your challenges were magnified and medicalized.