The first time I ever wondered about whether I may be neurodivergent, my then-fiancée and now wife gently asked if I had ever considered that I might have ADHD. She had just watched me melt down after chasing and missing a deadline that I had inevitably underestimated. I was at a new school after years abroad, in a difficult environment, and I was not coping. She’d had a water cooler conversation with a colleague during which said colleague explained that her adult son had recently been recognised as having ADHD. The challenges he had been experiencing were remarkably familiar.
That simple question turned out to be one of the most powerful catalysts for change in my life. I started with an ADHD recognition. Several years later, after a long journey of self-discovery and conversations with the wonderful team from the Neurodiversity Centre, I was recognised as having autism too. More recently we have added a dyspraxia recognition to the mix. The reality is that nothing about my brain or how it worked changed because it was labelled. Not with one label, not with several. However, my perspective and understanding of myself shifted fundamentally and that has been an incredibly meaningful step.
I was 27 when a doctor wrote me a script for the first time, because I had been diagnosed with ADHD. A diagnosis implies something is wrong that needs to be fixed. We diagnose the ill and look for treatments to make it better. I was experiencing challenges and here was the magic pill to make it better. But the magic pill failed. I was not healed and although I was able to sit down and mark for more than 20 minutes at a time, the challenges I experienced did not disappear. Six years later I found myself in a new school, new town, and new environment. I was prepared to really learn about myself. What followed was an intensive eight-week-long conversation that led to my recognition of having both autism and ADHD. This time the goal was not to fix but to understand. A recognition is an acknowledgement and acceptance of a reality that is, whether you understand it or not. I was born with blue eyes. I am right-handed. I have a neurodivergent brain. These are facts about me and not problems to resolve. The term neurodiversity itself was coined by a sociologist, Judy Singer, in her honours thesis in 1998 — not by a clinician trying to name a disorder, but by someone trying to name a form of human variation.
That’s the heart of the recognition vs diagnosis conversation. It matters practically, not just philosophically. Once something is a “disorder” to fix, the whole conversation becomes about correction. How can we fix you so that you meet the cookie-cutter standards of societal expectation? However, if we focus on recognition and understanding, the conversation becomes about adaptation and skill development. What does this particular brain need to do its best work, build its best relationships, live its calmest life? That’s an entirely different set of questions, and personally, I’ve found it far more helpful in my own life. While I do definitely take the meds (we’ll talk about that another time), I have also adapted my routines, my vocabulary and my lifestyle to one that makes sense for a person with my neurodivergent profile.
I had spent my life wondering what was wrong with me. It’s why I wanted to diagnose the problem. The hard reality is that neither a diagnosis nor a formal recognition fixed anything. It just told me the truth about myself and my brain. A truth about what was already there, what had always been there. The truth, it turns out, is a far better place to start than shame.
Different, not less. That’s not a slogan. It’s just accurate.
