“It isn’t our variations that divide us. It’s our incapability to acknowledge, settle for, and rejoice these variations.” ~Audre Lorde
For many of my life, I requested myself a quiet query:
What’s flawed with me?
I didn’t say it out loud. I didn’t must. It was stitched into how I moved by the world — hyperaware, self-correcting, and all the time just a bit out of step. I knew tips on how to “go” in the appropriate settings, however by no means with out effort. Beneath all of it, I used to be exhausted by the each day efficiency of regular.
Wanting again, it’s clear the place it began.
I grew up in a house marked by emotional chaos and unpredictability. Like many youngsters with developmental trauma, I grew to become hypervigilant earlier than I even had phrases for it. I realized to trace temper shifts, tones of voice, the silences between the phrases. Whereas different youngsters had 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 threat the again, the place the “dangerous youngsters” received referred to as out, punished, or ignored. I realized early that security meant staying within the center: seen sufficient to keep away from bother, 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 house. Who was making an attempt 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 mentioned I used to be unfocused—simply not in the best way the trainer needed me to.
I additionally daydreamed. Consistently. I lived in fantasy worlds that I made up in my head, full with characters, backstories, and dialogue. I wasn’t making an attempt to keep away from actuality—I used to be making an attempt to outlive it. And people imagined worlds had been typically kinder than the one I used to be caught in.
So when individuals say issues like, “That youngster is so distractible,” I wish 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 Would possibly Simply Be a Completely different Type of Knowledge
As I received older, I began to appreciate how most of the issues we pathologize—particularly in girls, neurodivergent of us, 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” appears like, we name them damaged.
Let me say this clearly: Completely different doesn’t imply disordered. And even when assist is required, that doesn’t imply the particular person is missing.
Take ADHD. It’s typically lowered 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 wrestle in class however gentle 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, threat, nuance. In trauma survivors, it typically displays the power to learn between the traces—to sense what’s not being mentioned, to arrange for each doable consequence. They hold themselves and others secure 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 melancholy 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 (generally)
- 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 in addition lives with ADHD. I’ve carried advanced PTSD, nervousness, melancholy—and actually, most likely undiagnosed ADD too.
We’re not damaged. We’re not much less.
We’re a line of deeply delicate, in another way wired people making an attempt 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 develop 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 develop 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 might 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 every so often, 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 speak about this type of intelligence sufficient. The sort that doesn’t present up on standardized exams or IQ charts, however lives within the bones. Within the music. Within the figuring out.
Neurodivergence merely means your mind features in a manner 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 stay 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.
Among the strongest thinkers, healers, leaders, and artists I do know stay with labels that might’ve sidelined them in the event that they hadn’t realized to translate their variations into energy.
Completely different doesn’t take away from the dialog. It provides to it.
And the subsequent time you marvel if one thing is “flawed” with you, pause.
What if that a part of you isn’t damaged?
What if it’s simply misunderstood?
What if it’s making an attempt to point out you one thing the world forgot tips on how to hear?
About Allison Briggs
Allison Jeanette Briggs is a therapist, author, and speaker specializing in serving to girls heal from codependency, childhood trauma, and emotional neglect. She blends psychological perception with religious depth to information purchasers and readers towards self-trust, boundaries, and genuine connection. Allison is the writer of the upcoming memoir On Being Actual: Therapeutic the Codependent Coronary heart of a Lady and shares reflections on therapeutic, resilience, and interior freedom at on-being-real.com.
