Six Weeks of Being Seen: A Personal Reflection on Neurodiversity and Belonging
Neurodiversity didn’t arrive in my life as a neat label or a sudden revelation. It arrived slowly. Gently. Then all at once. A lifetime of responses, rhythms, and ways of sensing the world began to make sense. My ability to hyperfocus so deeply that hours dissolve. My need for sensory harmony — candlelight over strip lighting, playlists curated like love letters, spaces that feel warm and safe rather than bright yellow restaurants that make my nervous system want to run before I’ve drank my first drink. My brain that sometimes refuses to reply to emails because it would rather write a blog about how wonderful it is to be neurodiverse…
or teach an oxytocin-inducing yoga class with people I love…
or dream, imagine, create —
instead of managing my diary or doing my bookkeeping.
I see streams of solutions all at once — multiple outcomes, layered futures, possibilities unfolding simultaneously. My mind moves quickly and widely, connecting dots before I realise I’m doing it. It is a gift, bringing creativity, vision, and insight, and it also means I am constantly generating ideas. I love starting new projects — the spark of something not-yet-formed, the energy of possibility, the sense of building something meaningful from nothing. In a world that prefers linear thinking and tidy answers, this way of seeing can be overwhelming as well as generative.
I live with social anxiety that can be quietly crippling, which is why movement often speaks more clearly to me than words ever could. Dancing, especially. My body understands things before my mind catches up. My proprioceptive system knows instinctively that dancing is almost always the answer. Yoga asana does the same work — grounding me, organising my thoughts, giving my nervous system something solid to rest in. Visualising poetry feels more regulating than staring at spreadsheets and trying to force my brain into shapes it resists.
Adventure and travel aren’t luxuries for me; they are lifelines. Inspiration keeps me well, alive, and connected to myself. Solitude on a mountain edge can be as regulating and necessary as human touch is to me, each offering something different but equally vital. My front room, however cosy, is not always where my nervous system thrives — sometimes it needs space, horizon, and movement to feel safe again.
Belonging, Safety, and Intensity
I feel safest in the communities I have slowly, deliberately built — spaces where I don’t have to explain myself. Networking events? Small talk? School gates? Walking into a room of strangers and pretending to be fine? Every part of my nervous system wants to turn around and leave.
Former partners have called me “intense” as a criticism. For years, I tried to soften that intensity — to dilute myself. Now, I’m leaning into it. More and more. I understand now that I am able to do this alone, and enjoy it fully. My intensity doesn’t mean I’m broken. It means I’m alive.
I am not crazy — I am deeply, wildly alive. Free. Healthy. Living by my own rules. No boss. No permission slips. No asking for holiday days. Just making it up as I go along —and inviting those who want to come with me along for the ride.
Those who don’t? That’s okay too. We are all free to make our own choices.
The Power of the Sharing Circles
Over the last six weeks at the Neurodiversity Sharing Circles at SunFyr Barns, funded by the National Lottery through the Freedom Wellbeing Project CIC, something quietly radical has unfolded.
Together, we have not only named what is hard — we have remembered what is extraordinary.
Yes, we spoke about exhaustion, overwhelm, masking, shame, intensity, and anxiety. But we also reclaimed something that is too often lost in clinical narratives of neurodiversity: our brilliance.
Across the circles, we witnessed again and again the gifts of neurodivergent minds:
the ability to see patterns others miss
deep, sustained focus and devotion to what matters
fierce empathy and moral clarity
creativity that doesn’t follow rules but reshapes them
emotional intelligence that feels vast and nuanced
intuition, sensitivity, and a profound attunement to people, places, and systems
We began to notice something important together.
What the world often calls too much is, in fact, a depth of perception.
What is labelled difficult is often honesty without disguise.
What gets dismissed as intensity is frequently care, passion, and aliveness.
More than anything, we felt seen — and with that came a sense of being heard and held.
Not only in what we struggle with, but in our capacity to feel deeply, to love fiercely, to imagine differently, and to contribute meaningfully in ways that don’t always fit conventional systems.
In the parent sessions, this same brilliance was present.
We spoke about the exhaustion of navigating school systems not designed for difference, and the emotional labour of advocating again and again for children whose stories diverge from the expected path. We talked about family lives that require constant adaptation, creativity, and fierce, enduring love. Alongside the frustration, there was pride — pride in children who experience the world vividly, pride in minds that ask better questions, and pride in families learning to honour difference rather than erase it.
We returned often to the importance of environment. How neurodivergent people must consciously shape their sensory worlds, and how self-care for us is not indulgent or optional. It is foundational. It is survival.
A Place to Be Fully Ourselves
The Neurodiversity Sharing Circles at SunFyr Barns, just outside Norwich in Norfolk, were created to meet a clear need: spaces that don’t pathologise difference, rush healing, or demand performance. Spaces where neurodivergent adults and parents — including those living with autism and ADHD — can simply be.
Not to fix ourselves. Not to explain ourselves. Not to mask.
But to sit in candlelit rooms, in nervous systems that thrive on rhythm, honesty, creativity, and depth.
At SunFyr Barns, the environment was shaped intentionally, because for neurodiverse people, space is never neutral. Light, sound, pacing, warmth, and welcome all matter. Here, sensory regulation wasn’t an afterthought, belonging wasn’t conditional, and authenticity wasn’t risky.
This wasn’t therapy. It wasn’t coaching. It was community. And for many, it was the first time they had been in a space where their neurodivergence was not managed, minimised, or merely tolerated — but recognised as valuable, intelligent, and whole.
In a world that still asks neurodivergent people to adapt endlessly — particularly within education systems, workplaces, and healthcare — spaces like this matter deeply.
Gratitude
I have gained so much personally from these six weeks, and I know others have too.
Nearly 50 individuals showed up across the Neurodiversity Sharing Circles at SunFyr Barns. Some came once or twice. Some came every week. Every single presence mattered.
This has been one of the most meaningful community wellbeing projects I have ever developed and facilitated in Norfolk.
To everyone who came:
You are amazing.
You are not crazy.
And please remember —
You are not alone.
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