Reclaiming Your Brain: Tending to Your Neurodivergence

In a world scripted with social norms, subtle cues, and connections founded on a target that seems ever moving, it can feel incredibly isolating to think, process, feel, and exist differently. Maybe you were diagnosed with Autism or ADHD as a child, maybe you’ve been recently diagnosed as an adult, or maybe it’s a hunch you’ve had but the formal diagnosis has yet to come. Regardless of where you are there is a place for tenderness as you reclaim your brain.

Tenderness? Reclaiming my brain? How do I do that when I am just trying to get by and not have a meltdown? That is where curiosity takes the driver’s seat. As you navigate all the etches of your brain, lead with curiosity. We are not meant to have everything figured out regardless of neurotype. Leading with curiosity as we self-reflect and seek to understand ourselves offers us a lens from which we can move forward. Stay curious.

Tending to your neurodivergent brain might look like curiously trying new stimming practices, it might look like re-framing a meltdown from something inconvenient and unexpected to instead your brain and body communicating a need.

It may also look like tending to your nervous system by understanding that the neurodivergent nervous system is one that relies on your personal interests and not one motivated by the level of importance of a task or urgency of an item on a to-do list. Your special interests matter more than you may know, there is power to be harnessed in them.

Reclaiming your brain means taking up space and requesting accommodations so you can be your best self (even if you’ve never asked for accommodations before). Feeling drained at the end of the day is not necessarily a sign you’ve achieved a day well spent, it might be a signal that it’s time to tend to and reclaim your beautiful brain.

Affirming mental health counseling can be a part of the process of reclaiming your brain. If you’d like someone to walk alongside you as you understand your neurodivergence (or maybe the neurodivergence of a loved one) you can book with Maggie or one of our clinicians HERE.