What It Means to Have a Neurodivergent Brain — And Why That’s Not a Bad Thing

My podcast interview with Kit Slocum felt the most personal of many I’ve conducted. Maybe because she’s a neurodiversity coach who works with people like me — and she happens to be neurodivergent herself. Perhaps that’s why I kept saying “that’s me!” so often during the interview.Kit is the Neurodiversity Lead at Flown (flown.com), a platform built around something called body doubling — which I’ll explain later in this article — and she also does one-on-one ADHD coaching. When I saw her high energy-glowing picture on Flown’s website at 3 a.m. during one of my sleepless nights, I just knew she was the right person to have on the show.I spoke a great deal on the podcast because Kit was gracious enough to let me share my own stories, and she related to them. That doesn’t happen every day.Growing Up Neurodivergent in the 1960sI went to grammar school in the 1960s. Strict Catholic school. Uniforms. Nuns with rulers. And if you weren’t paying attention — or if your brain just didn’t work the way others did — you suffered for it. Literally. You didn’t get picked for teams, and you got a ruler cracked on your desk or your hand by a nun who had zero patience for a kid who couldn’t sit still and focus. For me, it was any attempt at math that humiliated me, and a nun who shook her head in disbelief when she saw my feeble answers instead of offering me help.I didn’t know at the time that I was neurodivergent with two of my monikers being ADHD and GAD (Generalized anxiety disorder). Nobody did. What I knew was that I felt different, I felt ashamed, and somewhere along the way I started calling myself stupid because there was no other explanation for my ineptitude. That label stuck with me for a very long time. If I’m being honest, it still sneaks back in sometimes.I barely graduated high school, then didn’t go to college until seven years later because my experience had been so bad I never wanted to see a classroom again. When I finally went back as an adult, things were different. I was motivated. I had maturity. I eventually earned an MBA — though I’ll tell you, online schooling was the game changer for me. Working at my own pace, without the pressure of everyone around me and strict unforgiving teachers, made all the difference.My son is also neurodivergent. When he was young, we were fortunate to live in a part of New York state that provided at home services. When he grew older, people told us, “Don’t put him in inclusion (teacher-assisted classes). Once he’s in, he’ll never come out.” We ignored that advice. He graduated from two colleges. I think about that often when someone tells me what a neurodivergent person can or can’t do when given the proper support.From “Something’s Wrong with You” to “Your Brain Is Different — Not Broken”Kit brought up something I had heard previously from another neurodiversity person and that is there’s a difference between what she calls the pathology paradigm and the neurodiversity paradigm. When I heard what she said, it reaffirmed conclusions about myself.From my experience, neurodivergence was treated as something to be fixed. ADHD, autism, dyslexia — these were seen as defects that needed to be corrected so you could fit into the status quo. That’s the pathology paradigm. And if you grew up in it, you know exactly how much damage it can do.The neurodiversity paradigm says something different. It says our brains aren’t wrong — they’re just different. There’s no one “correct” brain. Kit used a beautiful analogy: eye color. Blue eyes, brown eyes, green eyes — they’re all beautiful. But if you have blue eyes, you might be more sensitive to sunlight and need darker sunglasses. That doesn’t mean your eyes are broken. It just means you need a different kind of support. That’s all.She also talked about a pattern she sees often in her clients — mostly folks in their mid-40s to 60s — when they receive a late diagnosis. Some feel relief. Finally, it makes sense. But others experience a kind of grief: Who could I have been if I had known this sooner? If someone had supported me properly? It’s a retroactive grief for the version of yourself that never got the chance. I used to do that to myself. I would use a parade of “what ifs”. Today, I realize my growth occurred a harder way, but it happened and I am grateful. I wonder if a lot of people listening will feel that way too.Let me back up and explain Flown, because it consists of a process that initiated that very thought, “Where would I have been if I had this growing up?” And that process is called body doubling.Body doubling is the practice of working alongside another person — not necessarily talking, not necessarily collaborating, just being present together. For many people with ADHD, working completely alone leads to distraction, avoidance, and paralysis. But having someone else in the room (or on screen) can make an ...