Divergent Mind: Thriving in a World That Wasn't Designed for You

by Jenara Nerenberg

I was depressed, confused, anxious, tired, and plagued with a persistent feeling of inadequacy and the feeling that somehow I wasn’t myself.

Masking refers to an unconscious or conscious effort to hide and cover one’s own self from the world, as an attempt to accommodate others and coexist.

When society is not equipped to hold an accurate mirror up to you, you end up interpreting your reflection according to available lenses, structures, and terminology. But they’re often wrong and misleading, or, worse, harmful.

neurodiversity, which means recognizing and celebrating the diversity of brain makeups instead of pathologizing some as “normal” and others as “abnormal.”

Sensitivity implies a certain heightened reaction to external stimuli—experiences, noise, chatter, others’ emotional expression, sound, light, or other environmental changes.

It is interesting to note that all five of these neurodivergences—HSP, ADHD, autism, SPD, and synesthesia—often imply some version of “melting down” emotionally—adult tantrums, quick-appearing migraines, outbursts of anger—because of sensory overload.

Words, language, definitions, and framing all act as power conductors—they let in meaning, set boundaries, keep unwanted implications out, and generally empower or disempower. When we think about our choice and use of the phrase mental illness, for example, we have to stop ourselves and ask some questions. Who came up with this term and when? Was it a man? A scientist, pastor, plumber, farmer? What else was happening at the time the words were being employed? Was there slavery? Child marriage? Lobotomies?

History, language, context, and power are deep determinants of who gets framed as “normal” or “wrong.” Sensitivity and sensitive women in particular have been no exception. The history of language within medicine and science has corrupted our notion and felt sense of what it means to be sensitive and thereby pathologized sensitivity and created an epidemic of shame among some of humanity’s most gifted individuals. Let the reeducation begin.

The defining characteristic of HSP is a depth of processing—taking time to perceive and process external and internal input, be it sound, light, feelings, or new information and explanations.

They tend to excel in psychology, writing, art, and music and as entrepreneurs. Because their nervous systems are more attuned to subtleties in the environment, they excel in perception, detecting nuances, and understanding others.

In her groundbreaking book Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick, Maya Dusenbery writes: “While their numbers have increased since the early nineties, when federal law began requiring women and racial minorities to be included in research funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), we are still feeling the legacy of years of foundational research conducted on men, with the assumption that it could be extrapolated to women.” Dusenbery exposed this crisis in the context of people with autoimmune conditions, two-thirds of whom are women. Little research on women is being funded, and doctors are often clueless as to how to treat women with, for instance, chronic fatigue or fibromyalgia.

Multiple researchers, psychologists, and scientists told me this over and over—that women are systematically left out of research studies in favor of obtaining streamlined, publishable results that otherwise risk being tainted by the presence of women and their hormones.

And the female midwives were the ones who were able to hold her and rock her when she fell to the ground sobbing with sadness for the grieving mothers and their babies. “That felt really natural for me to be in an empathic response with my patients,” she tells me, “and yet everything in the system teaches you to shut that down. We’re taught from the beginning to not feel, don’t take it on, don’t talk about yourself, don’t let anybody see how their experience is affecting you, be detached. And that way you can make rational, competent decisions and do your job.”

“My response was very normal—it was perfectly appropriate to have a fifteen-minute break so that I could feel what I was feeling and let it move through me. My body couldn’t handle stuffing all that trauma.”

“Our entire culture is so sick,” Rankin tells me, “whether you’re talking about the media, legal system, politics, education, or health.” Rankin underscores how out of balance we’ve become about suppressing and minimizing sensitivity. But she also acknowledges that how we operate and function and interact are not set in stone; human beings are teachable, and there are other ways of living.

For neurodivergent people, what extra information are they perceiving or sensing that neurotypical people are not?

“Sometimes it is our own parochialism, our own narrow frame of reference, that provides the biggest obstacle,” he writes.

This is essential to flipping the script on sensitivity and neurodivergence—that is, thinking about the modifications we can make to how our world operates rather than to the individuals who make up our world.

One time her neighbor even took time to explain to her how people warm up, slowly get to the point, ask questions, and then gently move away.

She wants interactions to be clear, direct, and efficient.

ADHD is not a deficit of attention, but rather a challenge of regulating it at will or on demand. People with ADHD often have too much attention—just not at the “socially acceptable” times or situations found in our highly regimented and structured societies.

I am sensitive to sounds.

I often feel lethargic and slow in starting my day.

I often bump into things or develop bruises that I cannot recall.

There is a sense that a particular neurodivergence does not make people inherently disabled, but they feel disabled because of the generally overstimulating environments of dominant neurotypical culture and settings.

The invisibility comes with autonomy, May-Benson tells me, explaining that adults simply avoid situations that make them uncomfortable, whereas children can’t.

There is also the term asynchronous development, which refers to exceptional growth and talent in some areas of life or study but delay in others. For some, this may be more along the lines of what’s called “twice exceptional,” where a person experiences both giftedness and autism, ADHD, or dyslexia, for example.

Feeling at home for me means being able to sink into a space beyond my own body, a kind of oneness with a room or place or even person.