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

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There is a lot of discussion around HSP, with no mention of the harmful and incorrect things Elaine Aron has said about autism. I know that most of my audience isn't as passionate about psychology as I am so I understand if you don't understand why I love this book which is totally fair. This book is powerful, much-needed for our times, and Jenara Nerenberg offers a unique blend of personal, scientific, and societal analysis. 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.

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. It ends up feeling really "White Feminist" to spend so much time speaking about gender and gender alone.I'm not a woman, but since I spent my first 18 years of my life perceived in all my offline social spheres as a girl, my experiences from then are more like late-diagnosed autistic women's than late-diagnosed autistic men's. When it comes to women, sensory processing differences are often overlooked, masked, or mistaken for something else entirely. As a result, potentially millions live with undiagnosed or misdiagnosed neurodivergences, and the misidentification leads to depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, and shame. It contains a lot of suggestions that are probably very helpful for autistic people who do work "normal" jobs, for making their workspace more comfortable.

I bought the book hoping for lots of ideas of how to manage life in this world however it seemed more of a book about why and how we should advocate for change. I feel that the author collected a lot of stories from women that were closer to her economic social circles, which is fine, but I’m very much a working class woman who was looking for more help navigating the struggles I have within my social class, which I didn’t find in this book.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? Divergent Mind is a long-overdue, much-needed answer for women who have a deep sense that they are “different. It was comforting to read about others that cope with similar experiences on a daily basis however I really would like more advice on how to actually deal with it.

Also a large focus is on highly successful entrepreneurial individuals, further alienating the average high functioning autist. 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. This book is geared towards late-diagnosed autistic women who are able to have a "normal" job, given sufficient sensory and social accommodations. American psychiatry has increasingly taught our society to think that people can be divided into two categories: those who are 'normal' and those who are 'not normal.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. To access your ebook(s) after purchasing, you can download the free Glose app or read instantly on your browser by logging into Glose. 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. As a result, potentially millions live with undiagnosed neuro-divergences, obscured by anxiety and depression. 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.

Nerenberg also offers us a path forward, describing practical changes in how we communicate, how we design our surroundings, and how we can better support divergent minds. ACT Contact / FAQ About Events / Videos Merch / Subs Sign in/up Divergent Mind : Thriving in a World That Wasn't Designed for You Nerenberg, Jenara More by this author. I loved that Nerenberg explained all of the ways the brain functions out of the norm and how to deal with this. Jenara Nerenberg’s wide-ranging Divergent Mind asks and answers these and other essential questions, offering a vision for how individuals and society can take better advantage of the many ways in which we are human. I'll start with the actual writing itself: definitely needed more editing, topics do not flow well into one another, and the surface level coverage of too many topics ends up feeling disorganized altogether.People that may be in a different socioeconomic group, differing sexualities or gender identities (those of us socialized as women, but no longer identifying as women), or women of color. Unmasking is something that has many more risks for autistic Black women and autistic women of color than for autistic white women. 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. 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.