How to bridge the gap between the two worlds 🌉

Neurodivergent people’s brains work differently; they communicate, behave and think in ways that aren’t considered conventional. In a lot of friendships and relationships, these differences can create misunderstandings, cause fights and simply put, make it harder to maintain that relationship with the other person. (Believe me, I’ve been there)

In these situations, awareness about neurodivergence is the most helpful but as a society we still have work to do here so it often involves going to the effort of researching the person’s condition and understanding how their brain works.

Neurodiversity, at its core, means a different way of experiencing the world around you. Many different disorders and conditions from autism, ADHD, OCD to PTSD, BPD and bipolar fall under this umbrella of neurodivergence and all of them differ from each other. These can include differences in sensory processing, thinking, feeling, behaviours and more.

Each neurodivergent person experiences these different traits to different degrees; for example, an autistic person might have more sensory sensitivities but not have many repetitive behaviours while another autistic person might not have any problems with crowds but will eat basically the same food every day. There is no one size fits all approach to neurodivergence; two people having the same disorder might be nothing alike, as everyone experiences these traits differently.

Neurodivergence is still an active area of research; we don’t know nearly enough about all these conditions and what we can do as a society to support people who fall under this umbrella. Thus, it is vital to, firstly, only use trustworthy sites and the latest research to get educated about this topic and avoid misinformation. For example, functioning labels are now a thing of the past and have been found to be inaccurate and harmful.

Some sites I would recommend would be Harvard Health Publishing, Cleveland Clinic, the Stanford Neurodiversity Project and (a bit unconventional) social media creators who make content to raise awareness about how they experience their conditions. For me, social media creators are one of the best options as they can ‘humanise’ these conditions instead of using highly technical language and can highlight their personal experiences.

Secondly, nobody will know better how a person’s brain works than that person; ask your neurodivergent friend! The best way to be able to accommodate for your friend is by simply asking them about how you can make social gatherings, hangouts, parties, studying together, etc. more comfortable for them.

Lastly, neurodivergent people often feel misunderstood, alone and the need to ‘mask’ their traits in order to appear normal. If you have a neurodivergent friend, it is on you to treat them with kindness and respect, accommodate for them (may include preferences in communication styles like texting or talking face-to-face, needing predictability in plans or needing breaks, etc.) and to actually listen to them and respect their boundaries.

Thank you for reading and have a great day!💖