Neurodiversity: My Late Diagnosis and The Importance of Being Aware of Barriers That People Might Face.

image from:https://wcag.com/blog/digital-accessibility-and-neurodiversity/

Last year, I was officially diagnosed with ADHD and since then it’s been a journey of learning about myself and my brain through a different lens all the while mourning my entire life up until that diagnosis. Up until that point, I was not given the key or tools to live life the way my brain needs me to. Up until that point, I was trying to live in an allistic world with a neurodivergent brain and it was near impossible and it caused me a great deal of pain. I suspect in actuality, I have AuDHD and whilst I decided a diagnosis for autism isn’t necessary at this moment in time as it isn’t detrimental to my way of living, it enables me to understand my brain a little better.

I’m grateful for my diagnosis every day but I think back to my life pre-diagnosis and it is no wonder my formative years were as painful as they were. It’s so frustrating having a neurodivergent brain because our brains are so sensitive to stimulus and it can cause such a visceral reaction to things that are seemingly so small. It creates limitations in certain situations where even though you so deeply want to be there, your brain shuts down and struggles to function.

It’s frustrating when I get such big feelings over such small things. Why do I break down in floods of tears when plans suddenly change abruptly? Why do I struggle to focus and be present in a room when there’s too much uncontrolled noise to a point where the room starts spinning, I start hyperventilating and I feel like I’m going to pass out? Why is it when I get overstimulated, it sometimes takes days and days isolating in my room for me to recover? Why is it that I was doing a degree I lost my love for and instead of just 'getting on with it' and pushing through, why did I quit in my third year? Why is it I can't read a 150 paged set text in the curriculum yet when it is a 600 paged book I'm interested in, I can finish it in mere hours? All these questions I had that I just accepted as character flaws (apart from the reading thing...I accepted that as a superpower) and that maybe I was just weird. In actuality, I'm just neurodivergent.

I get told I’m really articulate often and I think that’s because I learnt from a really young age that if I don’t master the ability to communicate through the use of words and to say things as clear and accurate as possible that it left room for people to misconstrue what I’m trying to convey. That's because the way I externalise things may not act in conjunction to how I actually feel. For example, my tone, body language and facial expression often don't reflect what I'm truly feeling on the inside. These weren't things I could control but with words, that was something I could learn to manipulate the best I can so people might understand. I think it's because I felt very isolated in the way I experienced life and because I had no explanation or community that I could relate to that I felt like I constantly had to explain myself. Often so much of what I felt was inexplicable because no words strung together ever felt good enough. The diagnosis meant I can finally be like ‘Okay, I’m like this because I’m neurodivergent. My brain just works differently’ but up until March 2023, the reasoning of ‘I don’t know’ was simply not good enough.

Whilst in some aspects, understanding makes it easier to manage life, by no means is a life being neurodivergent easy. ADHD in particular is often linked with dopamine deficiency which explains why I was able to hyper focus and read extremely quickly when its a book I enjoyed versus a book I was made to read due to a degree I didn't care for. This part of ADHD in particular had led to a lot of risky and bad decisions in order to chase that dopamine. It's really challenging when your brain struggles to do menial tasks on a daily basis simply because we get nothing out of it and we just have to. In my earlier life, simple tasks like making my bed or tidying my room were extremely difficult things to do and the fact these are things I do every day or regularly is something I'm extremely proud of because they're not easy for me and it took years of effort to get to where I am now. The same way my body is now wired to wake up around 9am or earlier and it is an extreme triumph that I celebrate everyday because growing up, my inability to fall asleep due to racing thoughts meant that waking up for school came with extreme difficulty every day. These little things I celebrate often are things that some people may never think about enough to notice or celebrate.

My point is, people with disabilities are faced with barriers every single day over things that other people may never think about You don’t realise the significant barriers people face in their everyday lives until you’re privy to them. Making more neurodivergent friendships and actively talking about our struggles both past and present whilst validating each other’s experience without needing to explain has been extremely healing. However, every neurodiverse brain is different so in the way some of our barriers are the similar, some are very different and it is so important to consistently have these conversations because the more I’m aware of others’ barriers, the more I can work to make sure things are inclusive and accessible as possible to those around me. I’ve recently met someone with a physical disability who has a whole different set of barriers that I have not experienced. I am listening and taking in their experience and listening to the barriers they face because it is so important for us who are able bodied to be aware of such.

This diagnosis has improved my quality of life and I am learning so much about myself and the neurodivergent community around me. Having a neurodiverse brain has caused a lot of frustration and pain but

it's also one of the fundamental things that make me, me and I have learned to do things that made living life a lot easier. It has given me the ability to do certain things that I'm really proud of and being neurodivergent, if we are one thing for sure, we are resilient. Even though we are living in a system that does everything it could to make sure we don't succeed, we do our best every day and so I guess it's important that we try and educate ourselves on the barriers people face even if they are not our own because at the end of the day, everyone have their own set of struggles and sometimes if it means making one simple adjustment or simply understanding that other people face challenges we may never face ourselves, making the world a more inclusive and accessible place can greatly change people's quality of life.

Nicole x