Neurodiversity Affirmative Care

Neurodiversity refers to the natural and valuable biodiversity of human neurology: we have different ways of communicating, processing information and emotions, experiencing our sensory environments, and generally existing in the world.

Kassiane Asasumasu coined the term neurodivergent to refer to people whose functioning diverges from societal norms. Neurodivergence includes mental health challenges and mental illness, neurological conditions, learning differences, genetic and acquired neurological conditions, brains that have changed as a result of trauma or injury, and sensory processing differences.

These differences can and do impact our personal lives in ways that are challenging, exhausting, and at times debilitating because of pressures to meet neuronormative expectations. Our traits can also be sources of creativity, resilience, depth, and transformative potential. Divergence does not need to be pathologized and different does not need to mean deficit or disordered. All people, regardless of how their bodyminds function, deserve respect, agency to make choices about their own lives, freedom to safely move, learn, and express in their own ways, and access to social and material resources and support.

Beyond affirmation:

commitments & practices for my work with neurodivergent folks

  • Honoring and celebrating differences rather than focusing on behavior modifications that reinforce conformity

  • You are the expert of your own experience

  • Learning and joining in your ways of communicating, moving, and processing

  • Collectively grieving past and present losses, struggles, and limitations

  • Reclaiming strengths, skills, and talents

  • Identifying and exploring systemic, interpersonal, and internalized ableism, and processing complex trauma of surviving past and ongoing ableism

  • Honoring masking as an adaptive survival strategy and/or processing the impacts of not being able to mask

  • Empowering you to learn about, understand, and advocate for your needs and preferences

  • Emphasizing environmental changes and accommodations rather than “overcoming” or “pushing through” your struggles

  • Writing letters in support of accommodation requests

  • Recognizing the additional impacts of other intersecting oppressions