This Saturday, October 10, 2026, World Mental Health Day invites us to reflect on what it means to feel supported, accepted, and free to be ourselves. At Minds Matter, LLC, our commitment to person-centered care includes honoring the different ways people think, learn, feel, and experience the world.
In this reflection on neurodiversity, we explore how expectations to “fit in” can shape our sense of belonging and how greater understanding can create more space for authentic self-expression. It begins with a simple question: What if we approached our differences with curiosity and compassion?
Wouldn’t it be great if there was a word that described the differences in how we think about, feel, and sense the world? Well, there is!
According to Harvard Health, neurodiversity is “the idea that people experience and interact with the world around them in many different ways”. The most important part? There is no “right” way of thinking, learning and behaving, and these differences should not be viewed as deficits, but rather, authentic expressions in how each person views and interacts with life.
Neurodiversity is a term that was coined by Australian sociologist Judy Singer in the 1990s. She wrote about it in her honors thesis at the University of Technology Sydney and titled it “Odd People In: The Birth of Community Amongst People on the Autism Spectrum”. Judy proposed viewing neurological differences (such as autism, ADHD, and dyslexia) as a natural form of human variation typically seen in the biodiversity of nature. This challenged the traditional views of seeing differences in biodiversity as medical deficits that need to be cured.
When we shift the burden of being different from the individual to the environment/society, we give the individual the space and capacity to express themselves authentically.
Here is a brief biology lesson to demonstrate why it is so important for us humans to feel safe to express ourselves authentically:
When we hide our true feelings, our brain’s anterior cingulate cortex flags this as an internal conflict. This conflict sometimes causes our body to react as if we are experiencing a real-life conflict or threat, thus flooding the body with cortisol and locking our nervous system into subtle fight/flight/freeze states. If we continue to operate in a space where we constantly monitor our own self-expression (sit still, don’t fidget, don’t speak, say “yes”, be obedient, etc), we exhaust our mental and cognitive stores of energy just on trying to fit in, or pretend to be someone we are not. We take away the energy we need to heal and recover from the cortisol dumps and instead shift our energy to playing pretend.
For some of us, this is something we have learned from a very young age and carry well into adulthood. These same people likely are struggling with autoimmune issues, “mysterious” symptoms related to dysautonomia (dysregulated autonomic nervous system, the part of our nervous system responsible for everything we don’t think about doing, like breathing, heart rate, body temperature, etc), chronic pain, hypermobility, and much more.
It doesn’t help that we are creatures wired for social acceptance to survive. We are a group species. If we are receiving messages like social rejection or loss of belonging, our nervous system responds as if we are in literal danger. This could be because, historically, our odds of survival increased dramatically in groups.
So how do we generate more authentic expressions in our daily lives, especially for us neurodiverse people? Well, the first step, as Michael Jackson once said, starts with the man [person] in the mirror. It is hard to find grace and acceptance for other expressions in living when we are stifling our own. Reflect on moments, whether reoccurring or singular experiences, where you felt rejected, judged, cast aside, or punished when behaving from an authentic place.
For me, this was when I was much younger. In elementary school, I was known for my finger tapping. I love rhythm and would tap my fingers to a random beat throughout the school day to manage stress/overwhelm from all the noises, lights, sounds, and expectations. Teachers did not try accommodating me; instead, I was asked repeatedly to quit tapping. Often, class would come to an abrupt halt and the teacher (and, sometimes, the entire class) would stare at me until the tapping quit.
I don’t tap anymore, but I bounce my leg and pick at my fingers just as much. I traded one stim for others to keep the peace. But at the cost of what? My nervous system, most likely.
I was also the type to find comfort in repeating outfits like clockwork. I found comfort in knowing what I could predict with textures, fit, and colors in my clothing. It didn’t take long for my peers to notice this and gave me lots of grief for it. Again, I adjusted for the sake of acceptance, and felt very, very off for a very long time.
These instances, amongst many others, can be seen as small adjustments in the grand scheme of things. Some might see them as necessary sacrifices that we all make in the name of “keeping the peace”. I argue, however, that these sacrifices don’t have to be made at all.
What if we made it clear that the person is not the problem, but the demands of traditional environments like school and office jobs are simply unrealistic for most of us human beings? Again, leveraging the blame from the individual to the environment, switching from a medical-model approach (I am to blame, therefore I must change) to a neurodiverse approach (I am behaving in a way that makes sense to me and my nervous system, it is the environment that must change).
What then?
I imagine a world full of humans who know themselves, who can listen to their inner voice and understand the complexity of their feelings, and are able to face up to the truth about themselves, no matter how unpleasant it may be. I imagine a world of humans who are so comfortable in their own skin, they find it difficult to find faults in others.
I imagine a world full of diversity in every sense of the word.
So please, take a moment to sit in your skin. Notice what comes up. Are you hungry? Thirsty? Tired? Calm? Take five minutes and meet your needs. Cry, laugh, eat, drink, breathe.
Next, identify an area of your life where you would like to feel more authentic. Maybe it’s at work, or at school, or with your kids. Maybe it’s in the quiet of your own home. Maybe you aren’t quite in a space where authenticity is allowed, to which I say: keep being brave.
The world doesn’t end when we decide to be someone or something else, but living does. Constant adjustments on how we express ourselves leads to a lifetime of chronic discomfort and eventually we learn to tolerate this as our baseline. We behave and interact with people from a place of survival. We perpetuate cycles of rejection and loss through asking others to change for us, because we have accepted the illusion that we are not acceptable.
It’s time to break the cycle, to accept others as they come and challenge our environment, policies and society to change instead.
Every single minute, every moment, is an opportunity to make a new choice. A choice that reflects who you really are.
It’s time to choose.
What will you decide?
Written by Lailani Lemus, CT/BT
