S2 EP 22 - Growing Up Neurodivergent: Karma Chameleon
4/10/202617 min
You can be smart, creative, and deeply caring and still walk through life feeling like you’re getting “thrown to the curb.” That ache hits a lot of neurodivergent adults, especially when old childhood labels keep playing on loop: too sensitive, too emotional, too intense, too distracted, so much potential if you could just… I’m busting those cognitive distortions and telling a truer story about neurodiversity, ADHD, autism, giftedness, and what it’s like when your brain takes in more than the room expects.
We start with a memory from childhood that’s equal parts funny and revealing...
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsSuzanne M. Swain· Host0:00
[upbeat music] Well, hello everybody, and it is a beautiful day to bust a few cognitive distortions. How's it going? My name is Suzanne M. Swain, EDS, LMSW, and welcome to the Middle School Mary Poppins Podcast. I'm sitting here with my little buddy, mixed breed albino friend, Lieutenant Steve. Say hi, Steve. He says hi. Anyway, so we're sitting here today, and I am thinking a lot about growing up neurodivergent and what that means. And as an adult or something, you know, moderately resembling an adult, I think about what it's like to, you know, get out of school and not have people talk to you about being ner- neurodivergent, and you have to cope throughout the day with being, say, ADHD or autistic or, or, or, or, or all the way down the spectrum of divergence. Now, I do believe that the divergent will in fact survive the apocalypse. However, it's hard to be neurodivergent, isn't it? I mean, yesterday I was going through some things, and I realized, you know, during a meeting that I get thrown to the curb a lot like a piece of trash. Does that happen to y'all? Do you feel like people just throw you away like you have no value? Well, I just, I think we need to change the narrative, you know? I think we need to change this and realize that the neurodivergent adult has a lot more power than the neurodivergent child.