Divergent Mind: Thriving in a World That Wasn't Designed for You

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But it has become common knowledge in autistic advocacy that training cops about autism hasn't resulted in cops treating Black autistic people any better.

Between a flawed system that focuses on younger, male populations, and the fact that girls are conditioned from a young age to blend in, women often don’t learn about their neurological differences until they are adults, if at all. To start, the author looked at neurodivergences with the most limited view: from the lens of a white cishet woman from a financially privileged background with pretty much no effort to look outside that narrow view. As other reviewers have complained, the author is way too generous with generalizations and focuses on highly successful women who are diagnosed later in life. I was very much looking forward to reading this, as the premise is laudable/something I am selfishly interested in, and I was extremely disappointed afterward. The framing of most neurodivergent traits as positive differences is nice, but glosses over the struggles of people who have higher support needs.This book left me wondering who exactly this book was written for, the individual neurodivergent, or for those who have the power to enact systemic change? The whole book came across, again, as well-meaning, but overall pretty oblivious to neurodivergency (and life in general) outside the bounds of cis-het, affluent whiteness. Also a large focus is on highly successful entrepreneurial individuals, further alienating the average high functioning autist. Her inclusion of Samantha Craft's list of ways that autism can present in women was instrumental for me to recognize it in myself, and am now working to get psychological testing. I picked this up because as an autistic woman, I'm always looking for new books about neurodiversity, but I was honestly quite disappointed.

For example there are a lot of interviews about women who work in tech or academia who have found their niche within their company and it has brought out the best in them and their neurodivergencies. Absolutely useless to the individual, and only addressed white collar corporate culture, completely ignoring blue and pink collar work, and offered absolutely no practical advice for the neurodivergent individual working in environments that are controlled at a level far higher than the individual location.My hope is that this thought process continues to push society to think outside the box - less Dustin Hoffman's "Rain Man" or even Jim Parsons' Sheldon and more nuanced (and not necessarily male). Since the book is about Gender and neurodivergence, I don't expect a deep dive on Race and ADHD/Autism however given how recently this work was published I find the sparse mentioning of race to be inadequate. Between a flawed system that focuses on diagnosing younger, male populations, and the fact that girls are conditioned from a young age to blend in and conform to gender expectations, women often don’t learn about their neurological differences until they are adults, if at all.

Her suggestions for advocating and accommodating for yourself include up and moving to quieter, less stressful neighborhoods; quitting your job; going to the doctor and therapist and psychiatrist and specialist regularly; how to make the offices of corporate America and Silicon Valley more accommodating…essentially, it’s some pretty “meh” advice for people who have money, access to healthcare, and work for companies like Verizon and other big tech companies or architecture firms or universities. Her clients and previous speaking engagements include the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Tahirih Justice Center, Park Day School, OZY Media, the Aspen Ideas Festival, and others. She even mentions the show Atypical at one point (a show that has been criticized for the way it presents autism) to make a point when she could have easily found real-world stories that highlight the danger autistic people face when encountering the police. As a result, potentially millions live with undiagnosed or misdiagnosed neurodivergences, and the misidentification leads to depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, and shame.Mirror Neurons are a staple of bonding and evolution, if you don't have mirror neurons firing off you gonna have big problems. Mostly it’s an overgeneralization/simplifications of other, better books that the author herself mentions in the text and that I myself have read.

It isn't a "new study", as one of the back blurbs describes it - not in the sense of a scientific study. While some of the earlier chapters in the book gave helpful definitions for different neurodivergencies, I recommend looking into other sources like, you know, Google and Instagram for the same exact information that’s most likely presented in a less privileged manner. I agree with a lot of people who are slightly put off with this book because it doesn’t really dive deep enough into different types of neurodivergent women who fall into these spectrums.

Sharing real stories from women with high sensitivity, ADHD, autism, misophonia, dyslexia, SPD and more, Nerenberg explores how these brain variances present differently in women and dispels widely-held misconceptions (for example, it’s not that autistic people lack sensitivity and empathy, they have an overwhelming excess of it). It ends up feeling really "White Feminist" to spend so much time speaking about gender and gender alone. I think this would be useful for someone who is completely new to any of the forms of neurodivergence contained within the book, but otherwise this isn’t that great.