This is a book review of Divergent Mind: Thriving in a World That Wasn’t Designed for You by Jenara Nerenberg written by associate therapist Erin Boyle. You can learn more about Erin from this therapist interview, her therapist profile, and her recent guest blog post on working with the body in therapy.
It seems like these days my social media feeds are full of two things: cats (which needs no explanation) and folks sharing about their experiences with autism and ADH. Now, perhaps this is solely my experience (as we all know, the algorithms on those platforms be algorithm-ing), but I can’t help but feel like neurodivergence-awareness is having a real moment. Younger generations are learning about, naming, and embracing their neurotypes and are sharing them with the rest of the world.
If you’ve noticed this too, then you might be curious to learn more. Perhaps you feel, well, seen by some of what you’ve heard (and are feeling neuro-curious), or maybe you feel utterly confused by all of the information out there and are searching for some solid ground. I get it, because I, too, was feeling both neuro-curious and confused, and have been on a journey ever since.
Yes, this has professional relevance to me, but it’s actually a lot more personal than that. You see, I am a Highly Sensitive Person, or HSP for short. Not only that, but my family of origin is neurodiverse (meaning it consists of more than one neurotype), and my current household is also neurodiverse. I’m in the process of devouring anything I can get my hands on that relates in any way to neurodivergences to try and make sense of it all, and I’d love to share one of those resources with you.
Divergent Mind: Thriving in a World That Wasn’t Designed for You by Jenara Nerenberg is a gem of a book that provides a wonderful jumping off point for folks (especially women) who are neuro-curious or who identify as neurodivergent. While most of resources I find tend to be geared toward autism or ADH (or both), Nerenberg covers a much wider swath of the neurodiverse landscape, including autism, ADH, high sensitivity, synesthesia, and sensory processing differences.
What I love about this book is …
that Nerenberg, neurodivergent herself, doesn’t just tell you about these different neurotypes. She unpacks the reasons why women’s experiences of neurodivergences (or mental health in general, for that matter) have been historically overlooked and underrepresented. She takes an affirming stance, showing us the beautiful ways in which neurodivergences are brilliant and useful and adaptive. And, most importantly, Nerenberg centers the stories (and quotes the actual words of) real neurodivergent women.
This is a truly empowering book that helps us see the ways in which the world is structured to make neurodivergent folks feel disabled, and the ways that by cultivating our own awareness, we can help create permission and space for our own needs and the needs of other sensitive, neurodivergent people as well.
Nerenberg writes,
“We all know by now that if workplaces, families, friends, bus drivers, rideshare service drivers, front desk people, and others knew about diverse temperaments, traits, and neurological makeups, then we might be far less anxious interacting with them and much better able to ‘perform.’ And I mean actually do stuff and get stuff done—without crashing, melting down, shutting down, or developing severe migraines. Most of the time we can’t get every person in our ecosystem on board, and so it is partly up to us to figure out our own hacks, best practices, and other activities that help us navigate our days.”
This book is the ultimate permission slip to take our needs seriously, get creative, and advocate for what we need. I hope you find it as inspiring as I did!
One word of caution—the author refers to Asperger’s throughout the book, a term which is both outdated and problematic for a number of reasons. Asperger was a Nazi scientist who harmed and killed autistic people—so there’s a deeply troubling history to that term. Additionally, the term is often used to try and create distance between autistic experiences, as if there are different “levels,” or as if one person could be more or less autistic than another. But actually autism is simply a neurotype. It is true that some autistic folks need different types and levels of support, but a neurotype is a neurotype. That said, it is also true that some people still identify with the term Aspergers, and Nerenberg, as far as I can tell, seems to be using it only in referring to folks who self-identify in that way. Nevertheless, it surprised me enough that I felt it was worth mentioning here.
This book review was written by associate therapist Erin Boyle. You might also want to read: