When I lived in LA, I frequently encountered something I called “California nice.”
Strangers would chat with me at ice cream shops, supermarkets, beaches—almost anywhere. They were often warm, open, casual, and easygoing. They talked as though we already knew each other.
And honestly? It was lovely.
But as a neurodivergent, I learned quickly that friendliness didn’t always mean openness to friendship.
Someone might say, “We should totally hang out sometime,” and I would think, Ah. So we are absolutely not going to hang out.
Maybe they meant it, and maybe they didn’t. But I had no reliable way of knowing, so I treated it as social decoration: pleasant, but not necessarily meaningful.
The Confusion of Social Grooming
Many neurodivergents encounter some version of “California nice,” whether or not they live anywhere near California.
People smile, ask questions, say kind things, and perform warmth.
Often, it’s hard to know whether these social cues reflect genuine interest or simply ritualistic responses. Sometimes it’s just the social currency of the moment.
For autistic and ADHD people, this can be incredibly confusing. We may wonder: Is this person actually interested in me? Are they inviting closeness, or just being polite? Can I be myself here, or will that be “too much”?
The stakes can feel high because opening up to the wrong person can be painful.
Maybe we share too much too soon, start talking passionately about a special interest, or be direct, intense, blunt, darkly funny, or emotionally honest before the other person is ready.
And suddenly, what felt like connection becomes distance.
Try the Relay Race Approach
One helpful strategy is to treat conversation like a relay race.
In a relay race, you don’t hold onto the baton forever. You run your stretch, then pass it on.
Conversation can work the same way.
You share a little. They share a little. You ask something. They respond.
You offer one small piece of yourself. Then you pause and see what they do with it.
Think teaspoons, not tablespoons.
Instead of pouring out your whole inner world at once, you offer small amounts and watch for reciprocity. Do they ask follow-up questions? Do they share something personal too? Do they seem curious, comfortable, and engaged?
The key here is to pace revealing who you are so you can gather information and protect your nervous system.
Pacing Can Create Safety
For many neurodivergents, social success is about finding ways to connect that don’t require abandoning ourselves.
Pacing gives us room to notice whether someone is capable of meeting us with curiosity, respect, and care. It helps us avoid the painful experience of offering vulnerability to people who only meant to exchange politeness.
And when someone does respond warmly—when they pick up the baton and pass it back—that’s useful information.
That may be someone worth getting to know.
Wrap Up
Navigating neurotypical social niceties can feel like trying to decode a language where half the words are implied and the rules keep changing.
But with social pacing, we can move more gently, protect ourselves from unnecessary hurt, and still leave space for real connection.
Have you ever struggled to tell the difference between friendliness and genuine friendship?
Essy Knopf is a therapist who likes to explore what it means to be neurodivergent and queer. Subscribe to get all new posts sent directly to your inbox.
From an early age, many autistic and ADHD people learn to see themselves through a lens of lack.
We interrupt without meaning to—and spend the rest of the day wondering if we annoyed someone. We need three alarms to get out the door and still somehow leave our coffee on the kitchen counter. We become intensely excited about a topic, only to watch someone’s eyes glaze over halfway through our explanation.
We cry when we’re overwhelmed. Or shut down completely. We forget what we came into the room for. We miss the hidden meaning everyone else seemed to catch.
And often, we’re told these differences are problems.
By the time many of us discover we’re neurodivergent, we’ve already internalized years of criticism, misunderstanding, and pressure to be someone else. We’ve learned to mask, compensate, and apologize for taking up space.
But what if we’ve been looking through the wrong lens all along?
What Is Neurodivergent Cultural Wealth?
I use the term neurodivergent cultural wealth to describe the knowledge, adaptation, perspective, and wisdom that autistic and ADHD communities develop while navigating a world that often misunderstands them.
The concept is inspired by educational researcher Tara Yosso’s Community Cultural Wealth framework, which challenged the assumption that marginalized communities lack valuable forms of knowledge and resources.
Similarly, neurodivergent cultural wealth invites us to question the idea that autistic and ADHD people should primarily be understood through deficits, impairments, or limitations.
Instead, it asks a different question: What knowledge emerges from living a neurodivergent life?
What forms of wisdom are passed between members of neurodivergent communities?
What strengths develop through years of adaptation, self-discovery, and resistance?
These are the questions at the heart of neurodivergent cultural wealth.
The Problem With Deficit-Based Thinking
Much of society still views autism and ADHD through a deficit-based framework.
Schools, workplaces, healthcare systems, and even mental health services often focus on what neurodivergent people cannot do rather than what they contribute.
This perspective obscures neurodivergent cultural wealth by treating difference as deficiency.
When every challenge is highlighted while every adaptation goes unnoticed, it’s easy to overlook the remarkable forms of knowledge that autistic and ADHD people develop throughout their lives.
Knowledge Born From Adaptation
Yet neurodivergent communities have never been defined solely by struggle.
For generations, autistic and ADHD people have been adapting to environments that weren’t built with us in mind. We’ve learned to navigate sensory overload in fluorescent-lit classrooms. To survive workplaces that reward social performance over actual competence. To decode unwritten social rules that everyone else seemed to receive a handbook for.
And in the process, we’ve developed knowledge.
For example, many neurodivergent people become skilled observers. When social interactions don’t come naturally, you pay attention and look for patterns.
You begin paying attention to things many people take for granted. Sometimes it’s tone of voice. Sometimes it’s routines, social patterns, inconsistencies, or unspoken expectations.
You learn things most people never have to think about.
Similarly, many of us become experts in our own minds.
When everyday tasks seem inexplicably difficult, you start asking questions.
Why can I spend six hours researching a niche topic but struggle to answer an email?
Why does a crowded restaurant leave me exhausted?
Why do certain sounds feel unbearable?
Why does a change in routine throw off my entire day?
Years spent wrestling with these questions often lead to a level of self-understanding that isn’t always appreciated by the wider world.
This is neurodivergent cultural wealth: the knowledge that emerges from living a neurodivergent life.
The Wisdom of Community
But that knowledge isn’t developed in isolation.
One of the most powerful aspects of neurodivergent cultural wealth is what happens when neurodivergent people find one another.
Spend enough time in autistic and ADHD spaces and you’ll notice something remarkable.
Someone mentions struggling to brush their teeth consistently, and suddenly a dozen people are sharing workarounds.
Another person talks about sensory overwhelm, and others immediately understand without needing an explanation.
A third admits they’re exhausted from masking, and instead of judgment, they’re met with recognition.
What emerges from these conversations is collective wisdom.
Knowledge gets passed from one person to another. Strategies are shared. Language develops. Experiences that once felt isolating suddenly make sense.
Many of us spend years believing we’re the only ones who think a certain way.
Community reveals otherwise.
Seeing the World Differently
Neurodivergent cultural wealth also shows up in the questions we ask.
Living outside the norm often gives you a different vantage point from which to view the world.
You start noticing assumptions that others take for granted.
Why should eye contact determine whether someone is trustworthy?
Why is small talk considered a prerequisite for connection?
Why is productivity treated as a measure of human worth?
Why are some forms of communication considered valid while others are dismissed?
These questions are the product of seeing the world from a different angle.
And sometimes that different angle reveals things that everyone else has overlooked.
Beyond Deficits and Limitations
None of this means autism and ADHD are free from challenges.
Many neurodivergent people experience significant disability. Executive dysfunction, sensory sensitivities, burnout, social misunderstanding, and co-occurring mental health challenges can have a profound impact on daily life.
Recognizing neurodivergent cultural wealth isn’t about denying those realities.
Rather, it’s about refusing to let them tell the whole story.
Because when we focus exclusively on deficits, we miss something important.
We miss the resilience required to keep showing up in spaces that weren’t designed for us.
We miss the creativity involved in finding alternative ways of learning, working, and communicating.
We miss the insights that emerge from seeing the world differently.
And we miss the knowledge that neurodivergent communities have been generating and sharing all along.
Wrap Up
For much of our lives, many of us have been taught to ask: “What’s wrong with me?”
Neurodivergent cultural wealth invites a different question: “What have I learned from living this life?”
“What wisdom have I gained?
“What strengths, perspectives, and forms of knowledge have emerged because of my neurodivergence?
The answers may be far richer than we’ve been led to believe.
Essy Knopf is a therapist who likes to explore what it means to be neurodivergent and queer. Subscribe to get all new posts sent directly to your inbox.
A lot of neurodivergent people spend years being told their struggles exist entirely inside them.
The environment disappears from the conversation.
A child overwhelmed by noise becomes “disruptive.”
An exhausted employee becomes “unmotivated.”
A shutdown becomes “noncompliance.”
A person communicating directly becomes “rude.”
The context surrounding the behavior often gets ignored.
But many neurodivergent people are navigating chronic sensory stress, masking, social monitoring, unpredictability, exclusion, and nervous-system exhaustion long before they ever enter a therapist’s office or classroom.
Part of the problem is that many systems confuse functioning with well-being.
Someone may look successful while living in constant hypervigilance.
They may appear socially skilled while suppressing confusion, sensory pain, exhaustion, or panic every day.
They may be praised for coping while burning out.
After enough conversations like these, I put together Principles of Neuroaffirming Care to explore these ideas more directly.
“Outward functioning can hide enormous internal strain.”
“What gets labeled ‘high functioning’ is sometimes a person surviving through relentless self-suppression.”
“The goal is not to produce more compliant neurodivergent people.”
Many neurodivergent people learned early that acceptance depended on becoming easier for other people to manage.
So they adapted, rehearsing conversations beforehand.
Forced themselves through overwhelming environments Learned to hide distress or stopped asking for help.
Became perfectionists because mistakes often led to humiliation.
Those survival strategies can become so automatic that people stop recognizing how much effort everyday life actually requires.
Neuroaffirming care means taking those realities seriously.
It means recognizing that distress often makes sense once the environment is taken seriously too.
It means understanding that a person should not have to override their nervous system just to be treated with patience, dignity, or respect.
And it means shifting the goal of support away from normalizing people and toward helping them build lives that are sustainable, accessible, and fully their own.
Essy Knopf is a therapist who likes to explore what it means to be neurodivergent and queer. Subscribe to get all new posts sent directly to your inbox.
For many people, birthdays are about celebration. But for many autistics and ADHDers, they can also become reminders of how fragile connection can sometimes feel.
A birthday is rarely just about getting older. It’s about belonging. About having people to mark the occasion with. And when your relationships have often been transitory, inconsistent, or shaped by years of masking and social exhaustion, birthdays can bring complicated emotions to the surface.
Many neurodivergent people grow up feeling like outsiders. Some prefer solitude because social interaction is draining. Others want connection deeply, but struggle with social anxiety, fear of rejection, or the exhausting pressure to perform neurotypical social norms.
Then there’s friendship drift—the phenomenon where relationships fade once the shared environment that held them together disappears. School ends. Jobs change. People move away. Communication slowly becomes less frequent until one day you realize someone important is no longer part of your life.
This experience isn’t exclusive to neurodivergent people, but it can feel especially intense for those of us who already struggle to find a sense of community or social ease.
Birthdays can become reminders of the people who used to be there. The friendships that faded. The community you wish you had. Or the version of yourself that believed connection would someday become easier.
At the same time, many neurodivergent people genuinely need solitude to recharge. That tension—wanting connection while also feeling overwhelmed by it—can create a confusing emotional push-pull that others may not fully understand.
But birthdays don’t have to look conventional to be meaningful.
Sometimes celebration is quiet. For example: a favorite comfort meal, a walk in nature, time spent with one safe person, or a peaceful evening without demands or masking.
That still counts as celebrating your life.
If birthdays feel emotionally complicated for you, you’re far from alone. Neurodivergent loneliness is real and shaped by experiences that often go unseen by others.
What has your experience with birthdays been like? Have they felt joyful, lonely, overwhelming, or all three at once? Share your thoughts in the comments.
Essy Knopf is a therapist who likes to explore what it means to be neurodivergent and queer. Subscribe to get all new posts sent directly to your inbox.
Over the years, I’ve worked with a lot of neurodivergent people carrying the same fear: that their struggles meant something was fundamentally wrong with them.
They spent years being treated like their differences were problems to fix, hide, overcome, or apologize for.
People pushing themselves to exhaustion trying to seem “normal.”
People becoming experts at looking “fine.”
People hiding overwhelm, confusion, sensory pain, emotional intensity, or support needs because they were afraid of how others would react.
After enough conversations like these, I started writing something that eventually became The Neurodivergent Manifesto.
Part of it reads:
“We are not failed neurotypical people.”
“A person can struggle and still deserve dignity.”
“We deserve lives that do not require self-erasure.”
A lot of neurodivergent people learn early that authenticity comes with consequences.
As a result, they adapt.
They monitor themselves constantly. Rehearse conversations. Hide stress. Push through overload. Suppress needs. Become whoever other people seem most comfortable with.
And after doing that long enough, many end up carrying a deep sense of shame without fully realizing where it came from.
The problem was never simply being different, but rather existing in environments where difference was treated like failure.
Essy Knopf is a therapist who likes to explore what it means to be neurodivergent and queer. Subscribe to get all new posts sent directly to your inbox.
A lot of relationships slowly break down because crucial conversations never happen.
Needs go unspoken. Expectations remain unclear. Hurt feelings are sensed but never addressed, while frustration and emotional distance build beneath the surface.
This can be especially true in neurodivergent relationships, where communication styles may differ significantly. One person may communicate directly and literally, while the other relies more on tone, implication, or indirect emotional cues.
As a result, both people may believe they’re being clear while still misunderstanding each other completely.
This dynamic is often linked to what’s known as the double empathy problem: the idea that communication breakdowns happen both ways between neurodivergent and neurotypical people, rather than one person simply “failing” socially.
For many neurodivergent people, conflict itself can feel overwhelming. Fear of rejection, criticism, or emotional invalidation may lead us to avoid difficult conversations altogether. We might people-please, withdraw, or hope the tension simply disappears on its own.
But unspoken problems rarely stay small.
This is where explicit communication becomes so important. Saying things clearly and openly can reduce confusion and prevent resentment from growing in the background.
Sometimes that means saying:
“When you went quiet earlier, I started worrying you were upset with me. Was that the case?”
“I’m sensing tension between us, and I’d rather talk about it than make assumptions.”
“I need clearer communication right now because I’m struggling to read between the lines.”
“When plans change suddenly, I feel anxious and disconnected. Can you give me more warning next time?”
“I know you may not have intended it this way, but I felt hurt by what happened.”
“I’m feeling emotionally overwhelmed and need reassurance that we’re okay.”
“Can we talk about what each of us expects here instead of assuming we’re on the same page?”
“I’m avoiding this conversation because I’m scared of conflict, but I still think it’s important we have it.”
These conversations may feel vulnerable, especially if past experiences taught us that honesty leads to conflict or shame. That said, vulnerability also creates the possibility for understanding and repair.
Through explicit communication, we can create enough clarity and safety that both people feel seen, heard, and emotionally understood.
Healthy relationships likewise often depend less on mind-reading and more on the willingness to communicate openly and compassionately. The conversations we avoid are sometimes the very ones that could bring us closer together.
Have you experienced communication mismatches in relationships?
Essy Knopf is a therapist who likes to explore what it means to be neurodivergent and queer. Subscribe to get all new posts sent directly to your inbox.
For many neurodivergent people, relationships can feel confusing, intense, or emotionally exhausting. We may crave closeness while also fearing rejection, criticism, abandonment, or emotional overwhelm.
Often, this begins early in life.
Growing up autistic or ADHD in a world that doesn’t always understand neurodivergence can leave lasting emotional impacts. Repeated experiences of invalidation, exclusion, bullying, or inconsistency can shape the way we connect with other people. Over time, this may contribute to insecure attachment patterns.
Some people become anxiously attached, constantly seeking reassurance and closeness. Others become avoidant, learning to rely only on themselves because connection no longer feels emotionally safe. Some experience a mixture of both.
This can create painful relationship dynamics. For example, an anxiously attached person may repeatedly pursue emotionally unavailable partners, mistaking the emotional highs and lows for genuine love or connection.
But emotional intensity is not the same thing as emotional safety.
The encouraging reality is that attachment can change. Healing is possible through what psychologists sometimes call “earned secure attachment,” developing a stronger sense of trust and safety through positive, consistent relationships over time.
And those relationships don’t always have to be romantic.
For many neurodivergent people, healing starts with a therapist, a close friend, a family member, or even a pet. Animals especially can offer a form of connection that feels steady, accepting, and emotionally grounding.
Consistent care matters. Safe relationships slowly teach the nervous system that connection does not always lead to shame, abandonment, or rejection.
Those experiences cumulatively can reshape how we relate to ourselves and to others.
Healing neurodivergent attachment wounds doesn’t happen overnight. But with enough safe, supportive experiences, it is possible to feel more secure, connected, and emotionally grounded in relationships.
Have you had a person—or even a pet—who helped you feel safer and more secure over time?
Essy Knopf is a therapist who likes to explore what it means to be neurodivergent and queer. Subscribe to get all new posts sent directly to your inbox.
One of the lesser-discussed challenges of ADHD and autism is dopamine dysregulation.
Many neurodivergent people live with brains that struggle to maintain consistent dopamine levels, which can create an ongoing need for stimulation, novelty, or emotional engagement.
This often happens after work, during weekends, or anytime structure suddenly disappears. Once the external demands stop, neurodivergent individuals can be left feeeling flat, understimulated, emotionally depleted, or even mildly depressed.
To cope with dopamine dysregulation, many people instinctively seek fast sources of stimulation. This might look like binge eating sugar or carbs, marathon gaming sessions, doom-scrolling social media, impulse shopping, or endlessly consuming content online.
These behaviors are often attempts to regulate a nervous system struggling with dopamine dysregulation.
One healthier approach comes from cognitive behavioral therapy, specifically a strategy called behavioral activation. The idea is that engaging in activities that create a sense of mastery and pleasure can improve mood and reduce depressive symptoms.
For neurodivergent folks, this can be especially powerful when the activity directly addresses dopamine dysregulation by providing meaningful stimulation.
This is where special interests and passions become important. Writing, art, music, coding, puzzles, Lego builds, crafting, researching niche topics, or creating content online can all help regulate dopamine levels in a sustainable way.
These activities work because they provide both pleasure through stimulation and enjoyment, and mastery through progress, accomplishment, and skill-building.
That combination can help counter the emotional crashes associated with dopamine dysregulation.
Importantly, these activities do not need to be massive or energy-intensive. In fact, the best tools for managing dopamine dysregulation are often small, repeatable, and easy to engage with consistently.
A 20-minute creative session, practicing a song, organizing a collection, or working on a passion project may provide enough stimulation to shift the nervous system out of a slump.
Many autistic and ADHD individuals are taught to feel ashamed of their intense interests. But in reality, these passions may serve an important self-regulation function. Special interests can help stabilize mood and soothe the effects of dopamine dysregulation in ways neurotypical people may not fully understand.
While dopamine dysregulation can make everyday life feel emotionally exhausting for autistic and ADHD individuals, understanding what your brain is actually seeking can help you respond with compassion rather than shame.
What activities help you manage dopamine dysregulation? Are there special interests or hobbies that reliably pull you out of a slump? I’d love to hear your experiences in the comments.
Essy Knopf is a therapist who likes to explore what it means to be neurodivergent and queer. Subscribe to get all new posts sent directly to your inbox.
When people hear the word accessibility, they often think of ramps, elevators, wheelchair access, and accessible parking spaces. These accommodations are essential—but they’re also only part of the picture.
What often gets overlooked are the needs of people with invisible disabilities, including autistic and ADHD individuals.
You can walk into a space that appears inclusive on paper and still find yourself completely shut out of the experience.
Maybe the room acoustics are terrible, making it impossible to hear someone speaking. Maybe multiple conversations happening at once create sensory overload. Maybe fluorescent lighting feels physically painful. Maybe there’s no quiet space to decompress when things become overwhelming.
For someone with auditory processing challenges, ADHD, autism, sensory sensitivities—or a combination of these—these barriers can make participation exhausting.
I recently found myself in a community setting that was technically accessible. It had clear accommodations for physical disabilities, which was genuinely great to see.
But every time someone spoke into a microphone, they stood too far away for their voice to be heard clearly. Instead of hearing words, I heard muffled echoes and background noise.
Then came the social portion of the event, which was crowded, loud, and acoustically chaotic.
I wanted connection. I wanted community.
Pexels/Ekaterina Belinskaya
Instead, I found myself overwhelmed and frustrated.
And this is where many institutions miss the mark: accessibility often focuses on what can be easily seen while ignoring what can’t.
Essy Knopf is a therapist who likes to explore what it means to be neurodivergent and queer. Subscribe to get all new posts sent directly to your inbox.
One of the more confusing realities of being neurodivergent is realizing you can genuinely enjoy people while also feeling completely depleted by them.
For years, I interpreted this contradiction as a personality flaw.
I’d spend large chunks of my week surrounded by people—clients, classmates, colleagues, friends, family members—and often enjoy those interactions. I like meaningful conversations. I value community. I want connection.
And yet there would inevitably come a point where even the smallest social interaction would begin to feel unbearable.
A text message would come through and I’d feel irritated.
Someone would try making small talk and I’d immediately want to escape.
I’d attend a social event with every intention of staying, only to find myself mentally planning my exit within the first hour.
At my worst, even making eye contact can feel like too much effort.
This used to leave me feeling ashamed.
How could I claim to care about people while simultaneously feeling so overwhelmed by them?
Was I antisocial? Selfish? Secretly a misanthrope?
The answer, I eventually realized, was much simpler: my neurodivergent social battery was depleted.
For many autistics and ADHDers, social interaction involves far more effort than others realize.
We may be masking our natural communication style. We may be monitoring our facial expressions to appear engaged. We may be suppressing stims, navigating sensory overwhelm, interpreting vague social cues, and carefully filtering our words to avoid being misunderstood.
And when life already demands constant interaction—whether through work, school, caregiving responsibilities, friendships, or community obligations—our social battery can burn out quickly.
This is where things can feel especially frustrating.
Many neurodivergent people genuinely want connection. We may want close friendships, romantic relationships, community spaces, and meaningful conversations.
But wanting connection doesn’t mean we always have the capacity for it. That distinction matters.
Unfortunately, many of us compare ourselves to neurotypical people who seem able to maintain packed social calendars with little visible effort. They work full-time, attend gatherings, reply to messages instantly, maintain friendships, and somehow still seem energized.
Meanwhile, we may need an entire weekend alone just to feel remotely functional again. That comparison can trigger intense shame.
We tell ourselves we should push harder. Stay longer. Be more available. Try harder to seem engaged.
But shaming yourself into social performance rarely works. It usually just accelerates burnout.
Learning to respect your social limits can feel deeply uncomfortable, especially if you’ve spent years measuring your worth through productivity or availability.
Sometimes respecting your needs looks like leaving an event early. Sometimes it means declining invitations.
Sometimes it means spending your weekend gaming, reading, lying in bed, or sitting in complete silence while your nervous system recalibrates.
That isn’t laziness or avoidance, but self-awareness. And the more you honor your limits, the more sustainable connection becomes.
Have you ever found yourself craving connection while also feeling completely overwhelmed by people?
What helps you recharge when your neurodivergent social battery runs low?
Essy Knopf is a therapist who likes to explore what it means to be neurodivergent and queer. Subscribe to get all new posts sent directly to your inbox.
