Autonomy isn’t about doing everything alone. It’s about choosing who sits beside us. For NeuroDivergent and disabled people, that choice is often taken away, sometimes with the best intentions. Here’s what happens when we aren’t allowed to steer our own lives.

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Question for my Neurodivergent readers & other people with disabilities: Have you ever experienced pushback from people who spoke over you and claimed they knew what was best for you when you were trying to express or advocate for your needs? How did that experience of having your autonomy ignored impact your life and make you feel?

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As a Neurodivergent person (for me, being Neurodivergent means Autism, ADHD, and a few other neurotypes I don’t care to list), one of the things I need most to thrive in life is autonomy.

Neurodivergent is a term that was coined by Kassiane Asasumasu more than 25 years ago (long before I even knew I was Autistic or had other neurotypes – or even what neurotypes were).

Neurodivergent is ‘an umbrella term used to describe individuals whose mind or functioning falls outside dominant societal norms’ (or outside of neuronormativity, a term that was coined by Nick Walker a few years later).

The Neurodivergent Umbrella includes ‘both innate or genetic and acquired conditions.’ This means that while many forms of NeuroDivergence are lifelong, and many people are born NeuroDivergent, there are also types of NeuroDivergence that can be acquired through circumstances or events in life.

Many falsely think the Neurodivergent Umbrella only includes things people are born with (like Autism, ADHD, Dyslexia, etc.). I held this view early on, before I learned otherwise. However, the truth is that the term ‘Neurodivergent‘ was never supposed to exclude people, and those with mental health conditions and acquired forms of Neurodivergence (including traumagenic conditions and personality disorders) were always intended to be part of the Neurodivergent Umbrella.

I’ve even seen people claiming the spectrum of Neurodivergence has ‘become too wide‘ by including people who aren’t born outside of neuronormativity / those with mental health conditions. These people, who want to exclude others from the Neurodivergent Umbrella, miss the point that these differences have been included from the beginning since the term Neurodivergent was coined (even if Autism and ADHD take up most of the space in the conversations around Neurodivergence these days).

If the Neurodivergent Umbrella, including acquired forms of Neurodivergence, makes you uncomfortable, I ask you to sit with that discomfort with curiosity, instead of arguing or getting defensive. This is NOT an invitation to defend your position (that excludes people) here, but a gentle nudge that you have some work to do (as we all do from time to time).

Human brains are complicated and amazingly adaptive. They can also be fragile.

The brains of people can be altered based on experiences that occur in our lives (such as trauma, abuse, and injuries).

People who manage to grow up in circumstances where they are nurtured, experiencing minimal trauma, develop very different brains from those of us who grew up in broken homes or abusive and traumatic situations during those critical developmental periods.

Even as adults, a person’s brain can be forever (or temporarily) altered, causing one’s perception of their emotions, the world around them, or communication abilities to change (PTSD, CPTSD, TBI, Anxiety, and Depression are all conditions that can majorly alter the way a person experiences life – long or short-term).

Additionally, when someone is NeuroDivergent, they are often NeuroDivergent in multiple ways.

Many of us have layers to our NeuroDivergence (or multiple neurotypes).

For example, Autism and ADHD co-occur so frequently that Autistic ADHDers online have coined the term AuDHD to describe the experience of being both Autistic and ADHD at once.

Autism and ADHD are both forms of NeuroDivergence I was born with (which have influenced my perception of the world and my communication from birth).

I also have an anxiety disorder and developmental trauma that I acquired from living in a world where people were cruel and unkind to me (because of being Autistic, ADHD, and misunderstood).

I wasn’t always anxious; I have acquired anxiety.

Both the NeuroDivergence I was born with as well as the NeuroDivergence I have acquired greatly influence my thoughts, actions, and life.

Regardless of whether someone’s brain differences are ones that we are born with or are acquired later in life, permanent or temporary, the more layers we have, the further we diverge from what is considered “average“; often, the more support and autonomy we will likely need to thrive and find safety within systems that were designed by and for neurotypical “norms.”

Also, the more visible our struggles are, the more other people may try to use our struggles and differences against us as ‘evidence‘ to deny our autonomy.

Neurodiversity is all about understanding, humanizing, empowering, and accepting the natural differences between human brains, whether it’s the differences we’re born with (like Autism, ADHD, & dyslexia) or differences we develop in life or as a response to our environment (such as PTSD, CPTSD, and other trauma-based and mental health conditions).

Regardless of how our brain differences originate, what matters is that each brain’s owner experiences the world differently from those around them, because no two humans (even those who share neurotypes) will have the exact same experience of the world.

As someone who falls outside neuronormativity in multiple ways, society hasn’t been designed to naturally consider my needs.

In fact, the way our society is set up often directly conflicts with my needs.

Because of this frequent conflict between my needs and an environment that clashes with those needs, as a Neurodivergent person, autonomy is critical to my survival (because it lets me bend the environment around me so I can meet my most basic human needs).

Unfortunately, because many of my needs are invisible, the people around me haven’t always listened to or believed me when I tried to tell them what I needed.

The Double Empathy Problem (a theory first proposed by Damien Milton) also likely played into this experience, because people often assume the needs, intentions, and capabilities of the people around them based on their own needs, intentions, skills, and experiences.

Until we learn better, especially when we don’t understand neurodiversity and the vast spectrum of human experiences, we’re more prone to assumptions that people communicate like us, have the same needs as we do, and find the same activities to be easy and enjoyable.

When we assume we’re all coming from the same experience, we may also falsely assume the people around us share similar perspectives on the world. However, many factors can shape differences in how we experience and engage with the world around us (including our brains, nervous systems, and lived experiences).

I would guess many, if not most, disabled people have had similar experiences (needing to flex the systems around us so we can get our needs met), and have encountered similar pushback from people who thought they knew what was best for them (despite only observing us from the outside and not knowing what it’s like to be us).

So… what is autonomy?

Autonomy means being in the driver’s seat of our own lives (instead of having other people make choices about what they think we need in life to thrive).

Continuing the car metaphor:

Having autonomy does not mean doing everything by ourselves. Rather, it means we get to decide where we are going in life, what help or supports we need, what route we would like to take, and when, where, or how we decide to ‘pull over‘ to rest from our ‘travels‘.

Other people might help us ‘read the map‘, do maintenance on our ‘vehicles‘, or come along for ‘the ride‘, but with autonomy, we take control, ‘grasping the steering wheel of our own lives‘.

When we have autonomy, we get to say “yes,” “no,” “faster,” “slower,” or decide when it is time to change course (or ask for support).

Autonomy lets us save our energy for what matters to us.

When other people constantly decide our schedules, what we eat, how we dress, or how we do our work, we can be forced to waste huge amounts of mental and physical energy just fighting against things that don’t fit us.

This (having our autonomy denied) can extend further to things like our names, pronouns, and our assigned roles in society. It can show up in workplaces, with bosses that micromanage us, and in medical environments, where we’re denied healthcare or pushed into care against our will (forced institutionalization).

Forcing people with a uterus to give birth against their will is an example of a person’s bodily autonomy being violated by the denial of access to healthcare.

When we grow older, we often gain more autonomy, unless that autonomy is stripped away from us by people who hold power over us. Yet, as children, we often struggle to have autonomy over our lives.

Children are one of our most vulnerable and most oppressed minority groups.

Many adults treat children like property, and some advocate for treating children in ways that would be considered abusive or criminal if they were carried out on adults.

For example, hitting an adult with a belt, wooden spoon, paddle, or at all is considered assault. Your boss can’t smack you without facing legal consequences.

Even though these methods have been proven to be ineffective and traumatizing, many people today still say it’s acceptable to “discipline” kids physically.

Pinning an adult down and making them eat a plate of food they hate would be assault. But adults still sometimes will force kids to “clean their plates” even when they’re full or disgusted.

Reading an adult’s personal texts, emails, or diaries is a serious invasion of privacy. Many parents do this routinely to children, saying things like “my house, my rules.“

Eavesdropping on an adult’s private conversations without consent is illegal in many places, but when children are treated this way, it is more socially acceptable.

Forcing an adult to kiss or hug someone they don’t want to kiss or hug would be sexual harassment. However, adults routinely force children to give hugs and kisses to relatives, ignoring when a child says “no.” Similarly, if you keep tickling an adult after they say “stop,” it’s physical harassment. However, I’ve seen videos online of adults doing the same to kids and laughing as the child begs them to stop.

Shaving an adult’s head or cutting their hair against their will is assault. But kids don’t always have as much say in whether they get their hair cut. Some parents will even cut kids’ hair as a punishment or to humiliate them.

Locking an adult in their bedroom from the outside could be considered abusive and, in many cases, illegal. However, some adults will lock kids in rooms as a “time-out.“

Keeping an adult trapped at home for months on end with no social contact would be a criminal offense. When it is done to children as ‘punishment,’ suddenly it’s not illegal anymore.

Smashing an adult’s phone, gaming console, or favorite item is destruction of property. However, some adults will destroy a kid’s belongings in anger as punishment.

Taking money an adult earned from a job would be theft. However, parents often take money kids earned from chores or part-time jobs as “rent” or punishments.

These are just a few examples, but I could go on and on about the double standards and ways adults strip children of autonomy.  

When young people are stripped of autonomy during critical developmental periods, it can leave them vulnerable to abuse, manipulation, and coercion in adulthood. That is why it is so important that young people (and all of us) have our autonomy preserved whenever possible.

In school and when we are young, preserving autonomy could look like letting young people pace themselves, take breaks as needed, and eat, drink, and use the bathroom when they feel the need (instead of at predetermined breaks the teacher picks).

If we want to get radical, this could also include letting students study topics that interest them and at a pace that suits them, instead of forcing all students to learn the same subjects at the same pace.

My paid subscribers on Patreon (where I offer a pay-what-you-can subscription starting at $ 1/month or $12/year) and Substack have access to the rest of this piece.

The first half of this piece was about the wound. The second half is about the healing.

In the full version, I walk you through:

How to spot when you’re being stripped of autonomy (even when it’s wrapped in “help“) and the harm being raised without autonomy can do to us.

I wrote this part for the version of me who needed to hear it and for anyone else who’s still learning to trust their own voice. If that sounds like you, I’d love to have you on the other side of the paywall.

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This post was written with the assistance of Focused Space (a sponsor of the Neurodivergent Rebel blog).

What is Focused Space?

Focused Space is an ADHD-focused, Neurodiversity affirming, goal‑setting, and online co‑working / body‑doubling platform designed to help people prioritize, stay motivated, and bust through procrastination (and it is something I believe in and personally use every day).

More info:

Learn more about how I use it here!

I get requests (that I mostly ignore) to do brand partnerships all the time, because I don’t want to partner with products unless I actually find them useful and high-quality. I also want to work with brands whose owners and processes align with my personal standards and ethics.

That’s why I’m excited to announce that the Neurodivergent Rebel Blog is officially partnering with Focused Space, and our community members can now get access to Focused Space at a special rate of 20% off forever when you use the code “NEURODIVERGENTREBEL” at checkout via the button below or at get.focused.space/neurodivergentrebel:

Now when you Get Focused Space via the link above you’re getting discounted access to a great tool as while supporting the work I do here at the NeuroDivergent Rebel Blog.

Also, if you ever join a 7am CST wakeup call, or pop into an un-hosted Quiet Owl session on a week day, you might bump into me.

Not sure if Focused Space is for you?

• You can start with a free 14-day trial.
• And because this is an ADHD-friendly app, Focused Space will send you an email reminder 7 days before you are billed, so you can cancel after the first week if it’s not a good fit for you.

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