Why This Practice Exists
The Cortex Collective was not created from a single qualification, role or life experience.
It emerged from the intersection of three perspectives that, over time, kept leading me back to the same observations and questions.
The first was lived neurodivergent experience.
Like many late-diagnosed neurodivergent adults, I spent years trying to understand why some aspects of life seemed to require significantly more effort than they appeared to for other people. Long before I had language for concepts such as masking, burnout, nervous system overwhelm or environmental mismatch, I was living them.
The second was education.
During sixteen years as a teacher, I worked with many students whose distress, differences and support needs were often viewed through behavioural, academic or compliance-based lenses. I became increasingly interested in what sat underneath the behaviours people could see, and why some students continued to struggle even when multiple supports and interventions were in place.
The third was counselling and neurodivergent support.
Throughout my seven years as a counsellor with lived experience, I worked alongside many individuals who were struggling to adapt to environments that did not align with their nervous systems, communication styles, sensory needs or ways of processing the world.
Over time, this can create a profound sense of disconnection — from themselves, from others, and from the belief that they are somehow "getting life right".
For many, there is a looming, ever-growing sense of drowning; a feeling that they are somehow failing at things that appear effortless for everyone else, despite often working far harder than those around them realise.
At the same time, this is not the whole story.
Throughout my life and career, I have also seen immense creativity, insight, determination, humour, passion and innovative thinking that so often accompany neurodivergence. I have seen people notice patterns others miss, approach problems from entirely different angles and bring extraordinary depth, authenticity and curiosity to the world around them.
The purpose of this philosophy is not to portray neurodivergence as a collection of difficulties. Rather, it is to explore what can happen when strengths are repeatedly overlooked, misunderstood or forced to operate within environments that were never designed with them in mind.
I have also become increasingly aware of how often distress is misunderstood.
Behaviour is frequently treated as the problem.
The person becomes the problem.
The focus shifts to changing, managing or fixing the individual, while insufficient attention is given to the environments, expectations and systems surrounding them. Over time, this can create a growing sense of despair as the realisation begins to take hold that nobody is really hearing what they are trying to communicate.
This philosophy was shaped by my growing belief that many of the struggles experienced by neurodivergent people cannot be fully understood in isolation from the context in which they occur.
What struck me most was how often the conversation focused on changing the person rather than understanding the context in which their difficulties were occurring.
Again and again, I found myself asking different questions.
What if the behaviour makes sense?
What if the distress is understandable?
What if the problem is not the person, but the environment they are being asked to function within?
From these experiences and questions, The Cortex Collective grew.
The ideas explored throughout these pages are not presented as universal truths. They are reflections shaped by lived experience, professional experience and years of observing what happens when neurodivergent people are genuinely understood — and what happens when they are not.
My hope is that these reflections offer a different lens through which to view neurodivergence, support and the human beings at the centre of both.
You may agree with some of these ideas and disagree with others. My intention is not to provide answers, but to encourage curiosity, reflection and perhaps a different way of looking at experiences that are often reduced to behaviour, diagnosis or deficit.
Beyond Behaviour
One of the patterns I have observed repeatedly throughout my career is how quickly behaviour becomes the focus.
A child is struggling to go to school.
A teenager is withdrawing.
An adult is overwhelmed, exhausted or struggling to cope.
The conversation often centres on what needs to change within the individual. The behaviour becomes the problem to solve.
Whilst behaviour can provide important information, I do not believe it can be fully understood in isolation from the context in which it occurs.
Too often, the focus becomes fixing the individual's behaviour without adequately examining whether the environment itself is compatible with that person's nervous system, sensory profile, communication style, capacity or support needs.
In many cases, distress is not occurring because the person is failing the environment, but because the environment is repeatedly failing the person.
This concept of environmental mismatch sits at the core of much of my thinking.
Environmental mismatch occurs when a person is expected to function within environments, systems or expectations that are fundamentally at odds with how their nervous system operates. Over time, maintaining that mismatch requires significant adaptation. People may learn to mask, become perfectionistic, prioritise the needs of others above their own or push themselves far beyond sustainable limits in an effort to cope. For many, the eventual result is burnout.
A nervous system under chronic environmental mismatch will eventually show signs of distress, and this distress can manifest in many different ways.
I believe behaviour makes far more sense when it is viewed as communication rather than simply compliance or non-compliance.
Behaviour often communicates what a person cannot yet express, does not have the words to explain, or may not fully understand themselves. It may communicate overwhelm, anxiety, sensory distress, uncertainty, fear, frustration, exhaustion or unmet needs.
When behaviour is treated solely as something to be managed, reduced or eliminated, the message can be missed entirely.
This does not mean that expectations, boundaries, skill development or personal responsibility are unimportant. However, I believe meaningful support requires looking beyond behaviour alone and considering the broader relationship between the individual and the environments they are being asked to function within.
A person may be doing everything that is asked of them whilst paying an enormous internal cost.
Looking beyond behaviour creates space to better understand that cost, recognise environmental mismatch and identify supports that are more sustainable in the long term.
Distress vs Defiance
One of the most significant shifts in my own thinking has been learning to look beyond assumptions of defiance and ask whether distress may be present instead.
This is not to suggest that every behaviour is caused by distress. However, I do believe we are often quicker to assume defiance than to consider what might be happening underneath.
Many neurodivergent people spend years being described as oppositional, resistant, avoidant, unmotivated or difficult when, underneath, they are overwhelmed, anxious, confused, exhausted or struggling to meet demands that exceed their current capacity.
From the outside, distress and defiance can sometimes look remarkably similar. Both may involve refusal, emotional reactions, withdrawal, avoidance or saying no.
The difference lies in what is happening underneath.
I did not arrive at this idea theoretically.
I watched it happen.
As a teacher, I remember working with an autistic teenager who was frequently described as difficult, defiant and resistant. He was intelligent, creative and capable, yet much of the conversation surrounding him focused on behavioural incidents, missed expectations and his perceived inability to socially adapt to the world around him.
After he completed a project particularly well, I sent a positive note home to his mother.
She called me in tears.
Her response was simple:
"No one ever sends those."
What she usually received were reports about what had gone wrong.
In that moment, I was struck by how easily behaviour can become the entire story.
A young person can become so strongly associated with their difficulties that their strengths, efforts and successes gradually disappear from view. Behaviour had become so important that people had stopped seeing the human being underneath it.
When distress is repeatedly interpreted as defiance, support can unintentionally become focused on increasing compliance rather than understanding what is driving the response in the first place.
This is one of the reasons I believe curiosity should come before correction.
Some of the most important conversations begin when we stop asking:
"What consequence should follow this behaviour?"
and start asking:
"What is making this difficult right now?"
The Cost of Chronic Understanding
I think one of the most overlooked aspects of neurodivergence is the cumulative impact of being misunderstood.
Not once.
Not occasionally.
But repeatedly, over years or decades.
Many neurodivergent people grow up receiving messages that they are lazy, dramatic, too sensitive, disorganised, difficult, immature or simply not trying hard enough. Even when these messages are not stated directly, they are often implied through repeated corrections, criticism, exclusion or the persistent feeling that everybody else seems to have access to a rulebook that they somehow missed.
Over time, those messages can become internalised. People begin to question themselves, doubt their own experiences and assume their struggles are personal failings rather than understandable responses to environments that may not be meeting their needs.
Many learn to adapt in whatever ways they can. Some become experts at masking, some become chronic people-pleasers and others push themselves far beyond sustainable limits in an effort to cope. In the process, it is common for people to become increasingly disconnected from their own needs.
The cost of chronic misunderstanding is not simply emotional.
It can shape identity, self-worth, relationships, confidence and a person's ability to trust their own experiences.
One of the most powerful things I have witnessed is what happens when someone finally feels understood.
Understood without judgement, analysis or correction.
For many people, that moment is far more significant than others realise.
The Impact of Late Diagnosis: The Invisible Cost of Being Missed
For me, one of the most confronting aspects of late diagnosis was realising how much of my life had been shaped by a story that was never true.
I spent years believing the wrong story about myself.
I absorbed messages about who I should be, how I should behave and what I needed to change in order to be accepted. Over time, those messages became so familiar that I stopped questioning them. It became easier to believe that something was wrong with me than to consider that the explanation itself might be wrong.
Most, if not all, late-diagnosed neurodivergent adults carry some degree of trauma.
Not because neurodivergence itself is inherently traumatic, but because of what can happen when a person spends years navigating a world that repeatedly misunderstands, invalidates or overlooks their needs.
Many people reach adulthood having spent decades masking distress, suppressing needs, questioning their own experiences and trying to become someone they were never meant to be. Over time, these experiences can leave deep and lasting impacts on a person's nervous system, sense of identity and relationship with themselves.
This is one of the reasons late diagnosis can feel so emotionally complex.
For many late-diagnosed neurodivergent adults, diagnosis is not simply the discovery of something new. It is the re-examination of a lifetime of experiences through an entirely different lens. Experiences that were once interpreted as personal failings can suddenly begin to make sense in a way they never did before.
Burnout, overwhelm, chronic exhaustion, difficulties with relationships, the effort required to mask and the constant feeling of being out of step with others often take on a very different meaning when viewed through a neurodivergent lens.
Many people spend decades believing they are lazy, broken, failing, too sensitive, too emotional, too intense or simply not trying hard enough. When diagnosis arrives, it can challenge those beliefs in ways that are both liberating and deeply confronting.
For many women in particular, the journey towards diagnosis is rarely straightforward.
Some spend years searching for answers and accumulating diagnoses that only partially explain their experiences. Anxiety disorders, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, eating disorders, personality disorders and trauma-related diagnoses may all become part of the story.
Sometimes these diagnoses reflect genuine co-occurring experiences. Sometimes they represent attempts to understand neurodivergent traits through frameworks that do not fully fit.
People can spend years trying to understand themselves through explanations that never quite account for the whole picture. Each new explanation can reinforce the belief that the problem lies within the individual rather than in the absence of an explanation that genuinely fits.
One of the more complex aspects of late diagnosis is realising how many adaptations have become invisible.
When masking begins in childhood and continues for decades, it can stop feeling like something you do and start feeling like who you are. Many people become so skilled at monitoring themselves, suppressing needs, anticipating the expectations of others and adjusting their behaviour to fit in that they no longer recognise these processes as adaptations. They simply become normal.
This can make the process of self-discovery particularly challenging. There are people in their thirties, forties, fifties and beyond who are only just beginning to ask questions about who they actually are beneath the layers of adaptation.
Most, if not all, late-diagnosed neurodivergent adults carry some degree of regret.
Like many people, I found myself looking back at periods of my life and wondering how different things may have been with earlier understanding and support.
I had wanted to become a veterinarian for as long as I could remember. Yet by the time I reached university, I was already struggling in ways I did not understand.
Throughout Years 11 and 12, I regularly missed the first half of the school day because I was lying awake until three or four o'clock in the morning, unable to sleep. Despite this, I somehow managed to achieve the scores required to gain entry to The University of Melbourne, largely through an ability to absorb enormous amounts of information at the last minute and cram for exams.
From the outside, that looked like success.
What nobody could see was how difficult it had been to get there.
When I arrived at university, I found myself spending chemistry practicals planning pub crawls with my lab partner rather than paying attention to the experiment in front of me. I spent huge amounts of energy worrying about how I presented myself, acutely aware that I was one of the few students who had not come from a private school background.
I would fall asleep on the grass between classes, regularly miss tutorials and often tune out completely during lectures, absorbing very little of what was being taught.
At one point, I was asked to leave a mathematics lecture held in a 200-seat auditorium after laughing loudly partway through. I can still remember the long walk down the steps towards the exit and the looks of disapproval from the serious science students around me.
At the time, however, all I could see was someone who was letting people down.
Looking back now, I can see a very different story. I can see that I was constantly seeking stimulation and dopamine in an attempt to regulate. I can see that I was masking harder and harder, trying to appear as though I was coping whilst becoming increasingly overwhelmed behind the scenes.
I do not see laziness, lack of effort or wasted potential.
I see unsupported ADHD.
I see delayed sleep phase disorder.
I see a nervous system struggling to meet demands without the understanding, accommodations or support it needed.
I see unsupported neurodivergence.
That realisation can be incredibly validating, but it can also bring profound sadness for the opportunities, support and understanding that may have changed the course of a person's life.
For me, one of the most unexpected emotions was anger.
Not simple anger, but a complicated mixture of grief, confusion, validation, regret and injustice that was often difficult to untangle.
Part of that anger came from realising how much responsibility had ultimately fallen on me. I was the one who had to discover I was autistic. I was the one who had to pursue answers. I was the one who had to make sense of experiences that had shaped my life for decades.
At the same time, I found myself looking around and wondering how so many people had missed what now seemed obvious.
When I shared my diagnoses with friends, many were more surprised by the autism than the ADHD. Some responded with variations of, "Well, of course you are."
That reaction was deeply confronting.
It felt as though other people had been seeing something entirely different to the person I believed I was presenting to the world.
For many people, late diagnosis can create an uncomfortable tension between relief and anger. Relief that there is finally an explanation, and anger that the explanation took so long to arrive.
There can be anger at missed opportunities, years spent trying to solve the wrong problem, outdated diagnostic frameworks and support systems that continue to lag behind the realities of neurodivergent lives. There can also be anger at the expectation that people should simply absorb a life-changing diagnosis and move on, despite the profound identity upheaval that often follows.
Diagnosis is not experienced as positive news by everybody.
For some people, it brings enormous relief. Some find having a label deeply validating and cathartic, finally providing language for experiences that may never have fully made sense before. Others dislike labels altogether and experience diagnosis as confronting, unsettling or difficult to integrate into their sense of self.
For some people, diagnosis can feel profoundly unsafe.
A diagnosis may bring clarity, but it can also create fears about being judged, treated differently, viewed as less capable or no longer being seen in the same way by the people around them. For those who have spent years working hard to mask their differences, diagnosis can feel less like an explanation and more like a potential threat to acceptance, belonging and identity.
A diagnosis does not arrive in a vacuum. It arrives within a society that continues to hold many misconceptions about neurodivergence.
Some people worry they will be judged differently. Others fear they will be viewed as less capable, less competent or somehow less than they were the day before receiving the diagnosis. Some worry about how partners, family members, employers or friends may respond.
These fears are not unfounded. Many of us grew up with narrow and often inaccurate representations of autism and ADHD. Popular culture has historically portrayed neurodivergence through limited stereotypes, leaving many people with little understanding of the diversity that actually exists within neurodivergent communities.
For some, diagnosis can therefore create an identity earthquake.
The explanation may finally fit, yet everything feels uncertain at the same time. Long-held beliefs about who you are begin to shift. Relationships, memories, strengths, difficulties and life experiences are suddenly viewed through an entirely different lens.
The diagnosis itself may only take a few hours.
Making sense of what it means can take years.
Receiving a diagnosis may answer important questions, but it rarely resolves the grief, regret, identity reconstruction and trauma that can accompany decades of misunderstanding.
In many ways, diagnosis is not the end of the journey.
For many people, it is the beginning of a completely different one.
Systems Fatigue
Exhaustion is an old friend of mine.
This page is not really about exhaustion.
It is about power.
More specifically, it is about autonomy, and what happens when people repeatedly lose it.
This page is really about power, or perhaps more accurately, what happens when people repeatedly lose power over their own lives. The exhaustion is the symptom, the trauma is often the consequence, and the deeper issue is the gradual erosion of autonomy that can occur when people are repeatedly forced to engage with systems that do not work for their brains.
When I use the word "systems", I am referring to the structures, organisations and services that people interact with throughout their lives. This may include schools, healthcare providers, disability services, workplaces, government agencies, utility providers, financial institutions and support systems.
These systems play an important role in providing support, opportunities and resources. However, most were designed by neurotypical thinkers for neurotypical users. The assumptions built into them often reflect neurotypical communication styles, processing speeds, organisational skills and ways of interacting with the world.
For those who fit those assumptions, the barriers may be largely invisible. For others, navigating systems can require a significant amount of additional effort, planning and adaptation.
I have personally become increasingly aware of the difference between systems that describe themselves as inclusive and systems that are genuinely accessible.
Many organisations now speak the language of inclusion, diversity and accessibility. Whilst these intentions may be genuine, my experience has been that true inclusion requires far more than good intentions.
A system is not inclusive simply because it says it is.
It is inclusive when people with different communication styles, processing needs, sensory profiles and support requirements can successfully access it without experiencing unnecessary barriers.
I recently encountered this myself when trying to contact a large service provider. On previous occasions, I had navigated their phone system without difficulty using structured menu options. Without warning, those options had been removed. Instead, callers were required to verbally explain the reason for their call to an AI system so they could be directed appropriately.
On the surface, this may seem like a minor inconvenience.
For me, it was anything but.
As someone with delayed auditory processing, ADHD and a brain that often has hundreds of thoughts competing for attention simultaneously, being asked to immediately formulate a concise verbal summary of my problem whilst under pressure was incredibly difficult.
The system assumed that everybody could quickly organise their thoughts, verbally communicate them and tolerate the demands of a phone interaction.
That assumption was wrong.
After multiple attempts, I became increasingly dysregulated, frustrated and overwhelmed.
The issue was never my capability. The issue was the mismatch between what the system required and how my brain functions.
Unfortunately, experiences like this are not uncommon.
What often goes unrecognised is the impact these experiences can have on a person's confidence, self-esteem and willingness to remain autonomous.
For me, experiences like this can leave me questioning myself, despite knowing intellectually that the problem is not a lack of intelligence or capability.
The difference is not intelligence.
The difference is accessibility.
When these same systems previously offered structured options, I could navigate them successfully. When those options disappeared and were replaced with communication demands that did not align with how my brain processes information, my ability to access the service changed with them.
That is not a personal failure.
When systems repeatedly require people to communicate, process information or advocate for themselves in ways that do not align with their needs, the responsibility for adaptation falls back onto the individual.
The person is expected to change.
The system remains largely unchanged.
Over time, this creates more than fatigue. It creates a gradual loss of autonomy as people learn that access often depends on their ability to function in ways that do not align with how their brains work.
In many ways, systems fatigue is simply environmental mismatch at a structural level.
It is also where heavy masking often begins.
Many neurodivergent people become highly skilled at hiding confusion, frustration, overwhelm and uncertainty because previous experiences have taught them that these responses may be judged negatively.
Over time, appearing capable can become more important than feeling supported. Asking for help may begin to feel unsafe, whilst pushing harder and compensating for difficulties becomes the default response. Although these strategies can be effective in the short term, they often come at a significant personal cost.
What is often interpreted as coping may actually be adaptation, masking or survival.
This is also where systems trauma begins.
Repeated experiences of feeling unheard, dismissed, misunderstood or unable to successfully navigate important systems can leave lasting impacts. People may begin approaching appointments, meetings, phone calls or administrative tasks with anxiety long before anything has happened. Not because they are unwilling to engage, but because previous experiences have taught them that engagement may come at a cost.
Healthcare settings are one example. Emergency departments are often fast-paced, unpredictable, sensory-intense environments that place significant communication demands on people at precisely the time they may be least able to meet them. Yet there is often limited recognition of how neurodivergence can influence communication, information processing, sensory tolerance, interoception and emotional regulation under these conditions.
As somebody with severe asthma, I have experienced this repeatedly throughout my life. Emergency departments can be overwhelming from a sensory perspective, but what I find particularly challenging is how heavily they often rely on assumptions about how distress should look and how symptoms should be communicated.
For example, pain is frequently assessed using numerical rating scales, yet poor interoception can make it difficult to accurately quantify internal experiences in ways that others expect. Likewise, many neurodivergent people develop highly independent or stoic coping styles after years of managing difficulties on their own. The result is that significant distress may not always look the way healthcare professionals expect it to look.
When systems rely heavily on standardised assumptions about communication, pain, distress or emotional expression, some people can find themselves feeling misunderstood at precisely the moments they most need support.
This is not unique to my experience. I have worked alongside many neurodivergent people who describe medical experiences as deeply distressing, not because of the treatment itself, but because they felt unheard, misinterpreted or unable to effectively communicate their needs whilst under significant pressure.
Many people are not simply carrying the practical burden of navigating systems.
They are carrying the emotional burden of previous interactions with those systems.
They are carrying memories of not being believed.
Of having to prove their needs.
Of being told to try harder.
Of having their difficulties interpreted as a lack of effort rather than a mismatch between themselves and the system.
Of having genuine questions mistaken for a lack of understanding.
I have lost count of the number of times I have asked "why?" and had people assume I was confused. In reality, I understood perfectly well what they were saying. I was asking because their explanation did not make sense.
The assumption that a person is struggling to understand can be just as damaging as the assumption that they are not trying hard enough.
Both communicate the same underlying message:
The problem is you.
When repeated often enough, many people eventually start believing it.
This is one of the reasons I believe support should aim not only to build capacity, but also to reduce unnecessary burden wherever possible.
Whilst no single professional can remove every barrier, meaningful support can sometimes come from helping people feel less alone in the process. It can come from reducing the amount of translation required, recognising the effort that has already been expended and helping people develop the confidence, understanding and support required to navigate systems more effectively themselves.
At the same time, I believe the broader goal should be bigger than individual adaptation.
True inclusion requires systems themselves to evolve. It requires organisations, schools, workplaces and service providers to recognise that accessibility is not achieved by asking people to work harder, but by creating environments that accommodate a wider range of human needs.
Sometimes the most valuable support is not asking people to do more.
Sometimes it is helping them carry less.
Why Safety Changes Everything
One of the most significant shifts in my understanding of neurodivergence has been recognising the profound impact that safety has on a person's ability to function, learn, connect and thrive.
Physical safety is fundamental to human survival. However, what has received far less attention until relatively recently is the importance of nervous system safety, particularly for neurodivergent people.
Nervous system safety extends beyond physical protection. It includes the experience of feeling accepted, understood, respected and able to exist without constantly anticipating judgement, criticism, rejection or misunderstanding. It also includes protection from emotional harm and environments that create ongoing sensory overwhelm.
I often see people being judged according to how they function when they feel least safe. Children are assessed when they are overwhelmed. Teenagers are criticised when they are dysregulated. Adults are often evaluated during periods of burnout, exhaustion or significant stress.
Yet these moments rarely reflect a person's full capacity.
A nervous system focused on survival has fewer resources available for learning, emotional regulation, social connection, problem-solving and growth. This is not a reflection of character, intelligence or motivation. It is simply how nervous systems operate under stress, particularly when that stress has been present for years or even decades.
One of the things I have come to understand is that many neurodivergent people spend so much of their lives adapting to environments that do not feel safe that the adaptations themselves can become invisible.
Over time, many people become so accustomed to masking, monitoring themselves and protecting the parts of themselves that feel different that genuine vulnerability begins to feel unsafe.
Walls are built for good reasons.
They protect against judgement, rejection, criticism and misunderstanding.
Yet those same walls can create another kind of loneliness.
The longing to be understood often remains, but very few people are allowed close enough to see what is underneath.
Many neurodivergent people find themselves caught in this painful contradiction: desperately wanting to be known and understood whilst simultaneously feeling unable to fully reveal the parts of themselves they most want others to understand.
The result can be a profound sense of disconnection. Not because meaningful connection is unwanted, but because years of adaptation have taught the nervous system that being fully seen may not be safe.
One of the reasons safety matters so much is because of its relationship with masking.
For many neurodivergent people, masking begins so early in life that it can be difficult to distinguish where the mask ends and the person begins. It is often spoken about as though it is simply a social skill, but my experience has been that masking is far more complex than that.
At its core, masking is a protective strategy.
It develops in response to environments where being authentic feels unsafe, where differences are noticed and judged, or where acceptance appears conditional upon behaving in ways that are considered more acceptable to others.
Many strong maskers become exceptionally skilled observers of human behaviour. They learn how to read a room, anticipate reactions, adjust their presentation and perform versions of themselves that are more likely to be accepted. In many ways, I believe some of the strongest maskers would make exceptional actors. The difference is that actors usually get to leave the stage.
For many neurodivergent people, the performance continues for years or even decades.
Research suggests that intellectual strengths, strong language skills and hyperverbal communication can make masking particularly effective. Whilst these abilities can create opportunities, they can also contribute to people being overlooked, misunderstood or diagnosed much later in life because the effort involved remains largely invisible.
This is one of the reasons I sometimes struggle when people suggest that somebody should simply "unmask".
To me, that can be a little like asking someone to stand naked in the middle of Times Square.
Masking is not usually abandoned because somebody decides to stop. It begins to soften when safety is present.
Safety creates the conditions that make authenticity possible.
Safety also plays an important role in nervous system regulation.
All humans engage in activities that help them regulate stress, emotions and nervous system arousal, although many people rarely think about these processes consciously. Some regulate through movement, hobbies, exercise, spending time with loved ones, watching television or interacting with animals.
For many neurodivergent people, however, regulation often requires more deliberate attention. Nervous systems that are highly sensitive to sensory information, social demands, uncertainty or environmental stressors may require more frequent opportunities to regulate throughout the day.
This is one of the reasons self-regulatory behaviours, including stimming, can be so important. These behaviours are often misunderstood because they may appear unusual to others. Yet many serve an important nervous system function. The challenge is that people are often discouraged from using the very strategies that help them feel regulated, particularly when those strategies are viewed as socially unacceptable or "different".
Regulation can also look very different from one person to the next. Some people regulate best through connection and co-regulation with trusted people. Others regulate best through solitude, quiet environments or reduced demands. There is no single right way to regulate. The important question is not whether a strategy looks typical, but whether it helps the person feel safer, calmer and more able to engage with the world around them.
It allows people to express needs without immediately preparing for criticism. It allows people to communicate honestly without anticipating judgement. It creates space to make choices that align with personal values rather than external expectations.
Authenticity is not about revealing everything to everyone. Nor is it about abandoning every adaptation that has helped a person navigate the world.
For me, authenticity is about increasing alignment between how a person experiences themselves internally and how they are able to exist externally. It is the experience of needing less performance, less self-monitoring and less protection.
When people feel genuinely safe, many discover that they no longer need to spend quite so much energy managing how they are perceived. They can become more curious, more spontaneous and more connected to the parts of themselves that have often been hidden away for protection.
In my experience, safety is not what happens after authenticity.
Safety is what makes authenticity possible in the first place.
I have repeatedly experienced, both professionally and personally, what happens when safety is present.
People become more willing to take risks, ask questions and express needs. They recover from mistakes more easily and spend less energy monitoring themselves. Instead of focusing on survival, they are able to engage more fully with learning, relationships and the world around them.
Importantly, safety should not be confused with the absence of expectations.
People can still be challenged, encouraged to grow and supported to develop new skills within environments that feel safe. In fact, meaningful growth is often more likely to occur when people feel safe enough to experiment, make mistakes and learn without fear of judgement.
Too often, support focuses on changing behaviour without adequately considering whether the environment itself feels safe for the person expected to function within it.
My experience has been that when safety increases, many of the behaviours people are most concerned about begin to make more sense. Sometimes they reduce. Sometimes they change. Sometimes they reveal needs that were hidden underneath them all along.
Safety is not optional. It is a foundational cornerstone of human psychology.
When people feel safe, they are far more likely to access the parts of themselves that allow them to learn, connect, adapt and grow.
When people can access safety, they are far more able to become who they want and need to be.
Autonomy, Dignity & Collaboration
Too often, support becomes something that is done to people rather than with them.
Professionals may have expertise in particular fields, but every person remains the expert in their own lived experience. Collaboration means recognising that meaningful understanding is more likely to emerge when different perspectives are welcomed, respected and explored with curiosity.
This feels particularly important within neurodivergent communities.
Many neurodivergent people spend years being observed, assessed, interpreted and spoken about by others. In the process, they may also be misunderstood, misrepresented or have assumptions made about them based on behaviour rather than communication. Their experiences are often filtered through the perspectives of teachers, parents, professionals, employers or support systems, sometimes with very little opportunity to contribute their own understanding of what is happening.
Over time, this can create the sense that other people know more about your experience than you do.
And yet, lived experience matters.
Not because it replaces professional knowledge, but because it provides a perspective that no assessment, report or observation can fully capture.
A professional may understand a diagnosis, a framework or a body of research. That does not automatically mean they understand the person sitting in front of them.
The most meaningful understanding often emerges when professional knowledge and lived experience inform one another, rather than one being given greater authority than the other.
Communication differences are often framed as though they exist entirely within the neurodivergent person. The expectation is frequently that they should learn to communicate more effectively, adapt more successfully and become easier for others to understand.
Meaningful communication requires effort, curiosity and adaptation from both people. I do not believe neurodivergent people should be left carrying the entire burden of translation.
When one person is expected to do all of the adapting whilst the other makes little effort to understand their perspective, the relationship can quickly become unequal. Genuine communication requires a willingness from both people to move towards one another.
For me, curiosity is one of the clearest expressions of respect. Curiosity communicates that another person's thoughts, feelings and experiences are worth understanding rather than assuming. It creates space for learning, flexibility and genuine collaboration. Without curiosity, it becomes very easy to replace understanding with assumptions.
Autonomy and dignity matter because they acknowledge a person's right to have a voice in their own life. This includes the right to express preferences, communicate needs, set boundaries, disagree respectfully and contribute to decisions that affect them.
It also means recognising that support should not be measured solely by compliance.
Compliance and wellbeing are not the same thing.
A person can appear cooperative whilst experiencing significant distress. They can meet expectations whilst paying an enormous internal cost. Looking compliant tells us very little about whether somebody feels safe, understood or genuinely supported.
When people feel heard, respected and included, they are often more willing to engage, explore new perspectives and participate in meaningful change. Not because somebody has convinced them to, but because they feel safe enough to contribute their own voice.
For me, collaboration is ultimately about creating space for different forms of knowledge and experience to contribute to the conversation.
It is the belief that people should be listened to rather than spoken for, understood rather than assumed, and included rather than managed.
When people are treated with autonomy, dignity and genuine curiosity, support becomes something very different. It becomes a partnership rather than a process, and in my experience that is where some of the most meaningful change occurs.
What I Wish More Professionals Understood
Throughout my career, I have worked from multiple perspectives: as a teacher, as a counsellor, as a neurodivergent support professional and as a neurodivergent person.
Each perspective has taught me something different, but there are a handful of observations that I find myself returning to again and again.
I wish more professionals felt comfortable becoming curious before becoming corrective.
Behaviour makes far more sense when viewed in context.
I rarely find myself wondering what is wrong with a person. I am much more interested in understanding what is happening around them, what demands are being placed upon them, what supports may be missing and whether their behaviour might be communicating something important.
Over the years, I have become increasingly aware of how often neurodivergent people are viewed through lenses of behaviour, compliance, performance or productivity. Whilst these things can provide useful information, they rarely tell the whole story.
I wish more professionals understood the cumulative impact of chronic misunderstanding.
Many neurodivergent people have spent years adapting to environments that were never designed with them in mind. By the time they arrive in our offices, classrooms or services, they may already be carrying significant shame, exhaustion, self-doubt and anxiety.
What can sometimes look like resistance, avoidance, disengagement or lack of motivation may have far more to do with previous experiences than a lack of willingness to participate.
I wish more professionals understood how difficult it can be to repeatedly explain and justify experiences that are deeply personal.
For many neurodivergent individuals and families, seeking support requires enormous vulnerability.
It is not easy to continually revisit struggles, advocate for needs or disclose experiences that have previously been dismissed, minimised or misunderstood.
The emotional impact of these experiences is often underestimated.
I wish more professionals understood that communication difficulties do not necessarily reflect a lack of insight, self-awareness or understanding.
Many neurodivergent people spend years knowing exactly what they are experiencing whilst struggling to communicate it in ways that others immediately understand. This can become particularly difficult during periods of stress, sensory overwhelm, illness, pain or strong emotion.
When communication breaks down under these conditions, it can be easy for others to assume the person lacks insight, is being uncooperative or does not understand what is happening.
In reality, they may understand their experience extremely well and simply be struggling to communicate it in that moment.
The challenge is not always understanding what is happening. Sometimes the challenge is communicating effectively whilst a nervous system is under significant pressure.
I wish more professionals understood that high achievement does not necessarily mean a person is coping.
Some of the individuals who appear the most capable on the surface may be carrying extraordinary levels of stress underneath.
Success can hide struggle in much the same way that compliance can hide distress.
When outcomes become the primary focus, it can be easy to overlook the effort, exhaustion and adaptation required to achieve them.
I wish more professionals understood that lived experience has value.
Professional knowledge, research and clinical expertise are all important.
However, I do not believe these forms of knowledge should replace the voices of the people actually living the experience.
Some of the most important things I have learned about neurodivergence have come directly from neurodivergent people themselves.
I wish more professionals understood the power of helping someone feel genuinely seen.
Many neurodivergent people spend years feeling analysed, interpreted or spoken about.
They become accustomed to having their experiences explained through frameworks created by others.
Whilst these frameworks can be useful, they are not a substitute for listening.
In my experience, some of the most meaningful moments in support occur when a person feels understood rather than assessed, heard rather than interpreted and accepted rather than corrected.
Sometimes the most valuable thing we can offer another human being is not an intervention, strategy or explanation.
It is the experience of feeling genuinely understood.
Because when people feel genuinely understood, there is often less masking, less explaining and more space to simply be themselves.