Unmasking potential - leaning into my neuro-difference

"People viewed me as a failure, and I felt like one too. But that's because I was being held up against a neuro-typical measuring stick that didn't account for the way I process information, work through problems and deliver outcomes."

I am having more and more conversations in my work with people that identify as neuro-divergent. ADHD seems to have gained in popularity since the pandemic. It may be a coincidence, but I suspect that existing conditions have come more under the spotlight during the lockdown restrictions, causing people to question themselves more and seek out support.

It is reported that 15-20% of the world population is thought to be neuro-divergent, meaning they have a condition such as ADHD, autism spectrum disorder, dyslexia, dyscalculia, dyspraxia or Tourette syndrome.

It was not until much later in my adult life that I recognised my own neuro-divergence (although for years I carried this belief that there must be something wrong with me). How could I be the smartest person in the room, able to process large amounts of information and recognise patterns with relative ease, and at the same time have difficulty remembering the most basic information or struggle with social etiquette?

I can recall an oral exam I did for my music GCSE where I would listen to a musical sequence and be required to hum it back. When it came to the longer string of notes, I had nothing, I could have died of embarrassment! I was a talented musician. I could play music by ear, and attune to the rest of the orchestra, I performed in front of large audiences as a solo artist and as part of an orchestra. But when it came to learning musical scales, or repeating a sequence of notes that I had heard only once, I was hopeless.

It is the same with dancing for me. I am in awe of the dancers and contestants on Strictly Come Dancing. Try to teach me dance steps and I struggle completely. But put on some music, and allow my body to move to the beat and find it's natural rhythm and attune to what is happening in the environment, and I can intuitively pick things up. I think this is why I love silent disco and five rhythms classes. They have helped me to learn to stop trying and start allowing.

I have also been one to easily lose focus, to become distracted from the task in hand, and spend weeks procrastinating, and then days before a deadline, I would spend days locked in my room, not seeing anyone, forgetting to eat, sleep, or shave, and be hyper focused on the the task in hand. I would almost always hit the deadlines and get the grades at uni.

This became a learned behaviour in my work too. There have been moments where I have struggled to focus, and other times where I have been hyper focussed. I would often work long office hours and into the weekend at work, because I had an ability to get into these states of flow and become hyper productive. I think there's a saying, if you want something done, give it to the busiest person in the office. That was invariably me!

In my previous role as a quantity surveyor, whilst I struggled in my early years when it came to measuring and costing the detailed elements of a building, I could easily look at a set of drawings in my later career and give a high level order of cost, or view someone else's cost plan and know quickly if something was missing or out of place, without having to wade through the detail. My brain is trained to spot patterns, not in spite of but because of my neuro-diversity.

It is also true of social situations. My enhanced visual and auditory perception means I can observe things that others cannot see, where there is incongruence, or dissonance, or when someone is being inauthentic. Of course this can be both a gift and a curse. My sensitivity means I can easily absorb other people's energies, which can make social situations exhausting at times, if I do not look after my own energy, and create boundaries for myself.

As I've leaned into my neuro-divergence, instead of trying to mask it, I've learned to embrace my superpowers and play to my strengths. Where there was a part of my brain that may have been underdeveloped (eg memory/word vocabulary), I could draw on one of my superpowers (eg pattern recognition). Our strengths are often there to compensate for our weaknesses.

"Once I truly understood who I was and what I had to offer, everything changed. I learned how to work with my neuro-divergence and wield it as a superpower."

Of course, neuro-diversity, ADHD and autism spectrum disorder in particular, are umbrella terms. From my experience, and from what I have studied in this field, no two people are the same. Often they are at opposite ends of a spectrum, or somewhere in between. So the experiences I have described may be familiar to some, and completely alien to others. But the principal is the same.

It is now well known that all of us have neuro-plasticity. Our brain structures and neuro-circuitary are constantly evolving and developing. If we spend more time on a particular task or activity over a long period of time, our brains will learn to adapt. The way I look at it, we all have parts of ourselves, often our strengths, which can become overused, until they become our weaknesses.

To quote Peter Levine's work with trauma, we can all experience an overcoupling or undercoupling. Somatic experiencing practitioners use a framework known as SIBAM (Sensation, Imagery, Behaviour, Affect, and Meaning) to help with the integration and processing of trauma. The key is to uncouple fear from the biological immobility response so that the response can complete itself.

I am convinced that there is a correlation between neuro-divergence and trauma. Dr Gabor Mate (Scattered Minds) suggests that Attention Deficit Disorder is a reversible impairment and a developmental delay, with origins in infancy. It is rooted in multigenerational family stress and in disturbed social conditions in a stressed society.

As Richard Schwartz might say, (founder of Internal Family Systems Therapy), our parts can sometimes be disruptive or harmful, but once they're unburdened, they return to their essential goodness. And part of the unburdening process is in welcoming all of our parts, as opposed to masking or trying to push them away.

What have I learned about myself on this journey with neuro-diversity? My enhanced visual and auditory perception have gifted me with great listening skills and help me to attune to my clients needs. My pattern recognition ability makes me highly intuitive, to notice other people's blind spots, and cut to the chase, and my ability to think outside the box is great for finding innovative solutions to complex problems.

My life journey has led me through both light and dark places, and those experiences have helped me to understand myself, to unmask my potential, and to embrace my superpowers and to be true to myself. It is my life's work to help others to do the same.