You Don’t Own Neurodivergence – A Continuation and Clarification.

Part 2 of a two-part series from the forthcoming book, "The New Normal" by Dr Miriam

If Part 1 disrupted the narrative, then let this be the naming of what came after. The misreadings. The misdiagnoses. The myth of merit. The exhaustion of being brilliant and still invisible. This is what happens when people rewrite your truth, and then ask you to be grateful for it.

If Part 1 was about disruption, this one is about the residue, what’s left behind after the narrative breaks open. The ache. The aftermath. The awareness.

Because the system didn’t just misname us. It erased the possibility of us. It framed our fluency as inauthentic. Our insight as manipulation. Our functioning as proof we didn’t need help.

The Late Diagnosis Is Not the Beginning

Let’s say this clearly: You were not found. You were finally recognised.

You were not late. The system was delayed. You were not difficult. The framework was narrow. You were not invisible. They were untrained.

Diagnosis didn’t start your story. It interrupted the gaslighting. It didn’t offer clarity—it confirmed what you already knew.

And it didn’t come with an apology. Not for the years of self-doubt. Not for the burnout. Not for the labels you swallowed to survive—too dramatic, too moody, too sharp, too loud.

The Burden of Being Believable

You want to know why they missed you? Because you made it easy. You made it bearable. You made yourself palatable enough not to provoke intervention.

You were articulate. You were high-achieving. You could smile and make a joke.

And when you named your struggles, you used the kind of language that made people more curious about your vocabulary than your pain.

You were clear, and clarity in a marginalised body is often treated with suspicion.

When Truth Is Too Well-Spoken to Be Taken Seriously

You weren’t overlooked because you were unclear. You were overlooked because you were fluent in your own suffering. And when you describe your pain too precisely, too eloquently, they call it exaggeration. They call it overanalysis. They call it drama.

So you learned to say less. To speak gently. To ask small. And still, they questioned you.

You Were Always There

You were not too complicated. You were too nuanced for their lens. You were not hiding. You were adapting in plain sight. You didn’t go undetected. You were disregarded.

The checklist failed you. The professional didn’t listen. The framework wasn’t made with your culture, gender, body, or language in mind.

You were left out—not because you didn’t qualify, but because the criteria was never built to recognise you.

No More Grateful Diagnoses

Stop thanking the system for finally seeing you. Stop explaining your survival like it was a problem. You don’t owe softness to the structures that broke you. You don’t owe humility for knowing yourself before they did. You are not a recent discovery. You are a long-overlooked truth. And no—you don’t own neurodivergence. But neither do they. We do. We always did. And now, we say it out loud.