Flavours of Neurodiversity: My Unique Recipe

When receiving coaching, I was told a very powerful saying: “If you’ve met one neurodivergent person, you’ve met one neurodivergent person.” While simple, it holds a profound truth. Neurodivergence isn't a sliding scale of "more or less" of a single diagnosis. Rather, it operates like a multi-dimensional spice cabinet. We all have completely different recipes of strengths, processing styles, and challenges.

"Just because two people share the exact same 'ADHD' or 'Autism' label doesn't mean their brains operate similarly. One person's superpower can be another's severe friction point."

Even identical twins, sharing the same genetics, often differ in traits like handedness due to subtle biological variations during development—such as the direction of cilia rotation in the embryo. Understanding these characteristics is the first step toward self-acceptance and successful habit-building. I can’t change my neurodivergent wiring, but I can dramatically improve how I interact with the world by understanding my unique "profile."

Case Study: The Myth of the "Standard" ADHD Brain

To illustrate how vastly different neurodiversity can look, consider how two people with the same clinical ADHD diagnosis can have completely opposite profiles:

My Personal Recipe

For a long time, I thought Autism was my only "flavour." However, after my ADHD diagnosis, I discovered that ADHD patterns played a much more significant role in my executive function challenges than I realized. Here is a case study of how these overlapping "flavours" combine in my personal experience, and the targeted strategies I use to manage them:

ADHD & ASD (The Tug-of-War)

Impact: These are the "base" of my profile. They represent a constant internal tug-of-war. My ADHD craves novelty, spontaneity, and stimulation, while my Autism demands routine, sameness, and predictable structure. ADHD struggles with starting a task, while Autistic rigidity makes transitions highly stressful.

Management: I use targeted movement to regulate my nervous system. By scheduling high-focus cognitive tasks immediately after specific physical exercise, I create a natural "hack" that disengages my transition blocks.

Prosopagnosia (Face Blindness)

Impact: I have significant trouble recognizing people if they change their appearance (new glasses, different hair). This makes live-action movies very difficult to follow, as I lose track of characters between scenes. Interestingly, research suggests that the exaggerated features in animation make cartoons much more accessible for people with recognition challenges.

Management: I prefer animated content over live-action. In social settings, I am completely open with people about my difficulty with faces, which completely removes the anxiety of accidentally "forgetting" someone I've met before.

Aphantasia (The Blind Mind's Eye)

Impact: I cannot visualize images in my mind. When I close my eyes, there is only darkness. This makes traditional visual mindfulness advice (like "picturing a stream") completely useless and frustrating for me.

Management: I rely on logic, written checklists, and physical anchors rather than visual imagination. For mindfulness, I skip visualization entirely and focus on non-visual body scans and physical sensations.

Working Memory & Gut-Brain Axis

Impact: Working memory is a constant daily hurdle, heavily impacted by physical stress, sleep quality, and immune responses.

Management: I treat my neurology holistically. Managing my "gut-brain" axis through strict diet (avoiding fructans) and regular movement reduces systemic inflammation, directly lifting the brain fog that makes my memory issues worse.

Self-compassion begins when you stop measuring your brain against a neurotypical standard—or even another neurodivergent person's standard. Once you understand your unique recipe of spices, you can stop fighting your hardware and start designing the specific recipe of strategies that help you thrive.

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