“Can supplements help with ADHD?”
Yes, and no. Whether supplements can help with your ADHD depends on where the support need is for you when it comes to your dopamine system.
“Can verbal shutdown happen with ADHD?”
ADHD speech difficulties are usually about effort and disorganisation rather than a complete loss of access. You might notice more grammatical errors, mispronounced words, sentences that lose their thread halfway through, or long pauses while you search for a word you know perfectly well.
“Classic “self-care” activities don’t work for me. What am I doing wrong?”
Nothing! Neurodivergent brains need more time to process, decompress, and recharge.
“Do I have to tell people about my diagnosis?”
Your diagnosis is yours. You decide who hears about it and when. This post covers what you’re actually required to share about ADHD or Autism — at work, with the DVLA, with doctors — and what stays entirely with you.
“Does ADHD mean you’re always hyperactive?”
One aspect of ADHD is difficulties in the brain’s impulse self-regulation systems, which in childhood can manifest as movement that’s deemed excessive, but this is neither required for ADHD nor the whole story of what hyperactivity means.
“Doesn’t ADHD mostly affect boys?”
Girls with ADHD are real and underdiagnosed. Population studies show similar rates to boys, but referral bias and different presentations keep girls invisible. ADHD doesn’t discriminate by gender, but diagnostic bias does—people socialized as girls face 4+ year delays in diagnosis.
“Don’t people grow out of ADHD?”
People don’t grow out of ADHD. Symptoms change from external hyperactivity to internal restlessness, and life transitions often unmask previously hidden ADHD.
“How can I recognize when I’m about to make an impulsive decision?”
Impulsive decisions can make us feel powerless. Even if we ignore the possible negative consequences of the decisions, simply feeling that we did something we couldn’t notice “in time” or catch while it was happening can be very vulnerable and disempowering. After the fact, it sometimes feels obvious – ‘duh, this was silly; I made …
“How many people are neurodivergent?”
Around 15–20% of the population is neurodivergent, which is roughly 1 out of 5 — whether they know it or not.
“I didn’t get my ADHD diagnosis. Now what?”
Your ADHD assessment didn’t lead to a diagnosis, but the experiences that led you to seek one are still real. This page is for you if you’ve just received your assessment result and want to know what comes next. Self-understanding, self-compassion, and practical strategies are not conditional on a diagnosis.
“I don’t want to become my label and use my neurodivergence as an excuse”
If you’re worried about this, you’re already not that person. Asking for accommodations (like quiet spaces, reminders, breaks) is self-care and self-advocacy. The difference between advocating for your needs and being manipulative comes down to respect: are you communicating your limits while taking responsibility, or are you demanding others tolerate harmful behaviour?
“I’m afraid of a diagnosis, I don’t want to be fixed!”
Good news: a neurodivergent diagnosis isn’t about fixing you, because you’re not broken. What it actually does is give you a framework to understand how your brain works and what you need – so you can finally stop forcing neurotypical solutions on yourself.
“Is ADHD caused by trauma?”
While ADHD correlates with a higher number of adverse childhood experiences, hundreds of studies show that traumatic experiences are not a causative factor – if anything, it’s the other way around.
“Is ADHD just a lack of willpower?”
You know what needs doing. You want to do it. You still can’t start. In ADHD, that gap is neurological, and willpower was never the missing ingredient.
“Is ADHD just about not being able to pay attention?”
“Is ADHD overdiagnosed?”
No, ADHD is not overdiagnosed. More people are recognised because of better diagnostic criteria, destigmatisation and awareness.
“Is fidgeting and stimming the same thing?”
Fidgeting is similar to stimming, but they serve different purposes. While stimming tends to function as emotional regulation (a way to manage overwhelming feelings or sensory input), fidgeting more often serves focus regulation and energy discharge. The movements might look the same from the outside, but the internal experience and function can be quite different.
“Isn’t everyone ‘a little bit’ ADHD?”
ADHD traits are human traits, but for ADHD brains they show up multiple times a day, not just during stressful patches.
“What can a neurodivergent diagnosis give me if I got this far on my own?”
You’ve developed coping strategies and made it work so far. Hooray! But what’s working today might not work tomorrow — especially when life throws big changes at you like hormonal shifts, job changes, or major life transitions. A diagnosis can give you a baseline understanding of your brain so you can adapt when things change, rather than having to reverse-engineer everything from scratch during a crisis.
“What’s actually happening when I go into verbal shutdown?”
A verbal shutdown might appear to be “nothing” from the outside, but actually, a lot is going on beneath the surface. Language, speech, even just on the technical side, are very complicated, even before you start adding the social layers on top of it (word choices, cadence, implications of tone of voice, non-verbal communication aspects). …
“What’s the difference between being ‘lazy’ and experiencing executive dysfunction?”
Laziness is not simply “not doing” something. A lazy person could do the thing, would have the energy to do so, but chooses not to. And they don’t care about it at all. Lazy people are okay with the task not being done. Their inner monologue isn’t even mentioning the task. Lazy people don’t think …
“What’s the difference between verbal shutdown, selective mutism, and being non-speaking?”
Verbal shutdown, selective mutism and being non-speaking are all experiences that involve not speaking, but they work differently, feel different from the inside, and have different causes.
Verbal shutdown: temporary loss of speech due to overwhelm
Being non-speaking: permanent loss of speech, but not loss of communication
Apraxia: loss of speech due to motor planning difficulties in the brain that provide the movements required to form words
Selective/situational mutism: an anxiety disorder that results in loss of speech consistently in specific contexts
“Why do I do better with a routine?”
Because routine is architecture you can rely on when everything else is wobbly or up in the air.
When you do the same things in the same order, your brain doesn’t have to build the day from scratch. The route is known, the sequence is mapped, all the decisions have already been made, and you are good to go. This frees up precious cognitive resources for the things that actually need your attention.
“Why do I like pressure on my body?”
If you like pressure on your body — heavy blankets, tight hugs, snug clothes — your nervous system is using a regulation strategy it figured out on its own.
“Why do I watch the same show over and over?”
Because your nervous system is doing something smart, so good for you! 🙂
When you rewatch a familiar show, your brain isn’t processing anything new — no plot twists to manage, no unfamiliar characters to track, no sudden shifts in tone to adjust to.
“Why do people fidget when they are hyperactive?”
Fidgeting serves as an involuntary mechanism for self-regulating attention and enhancing alertness, especially during tasks perceived as cognitively demanding (hard to do) or monotonous (i.e. boring and repetitive).
“Why do traditional productivity methods make me feel worse instead of better?”
Traditional productivity methods are tips and tricks designed for people who already have all the resources and opportunity to be productive – they just need fine-tuning. When it comes to executive dysfunction, we need more than an optimal route.
“Why get an ADHD / autism diagnosis just to get a label?”
Whether you like it or not, you already have labels — lazy, scatterbrain, weird, messy — given to you by others. You have probably internalised many of them over the decades, too. The difference with a diagnosis is that this label is one you choose for yourself based on understanding, and not a mean, untrue one imposed on you out of frustration or judgment.
“Will I still be myself after an ADHD / Autism diagnosis?”
You won’t lose yourself – in fact, most people find the opposite happens. As you gain clarity and self-compassion, drop the shame around your struggles, and learn to unmask more, you might discover you’re more yourself than ever before. You’ll finally get to meet the version of yourself that isn’t constantly performing, compensating, or apologising for existing.
“Will people judge me if they learn about my ADHD / Autism?”
People can still be mean, and your worries are valid. But research shows they’re already picking up on more than you think — and that disclosure often improves how they respond, not worsens it.
ADHD
ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) is a lifelong, hereditary neurological condition. A person with ADHD can be inattentive, hyperactive and impulsive in their internal mental processes as well as their outward presentation.
ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) is the previous name of the condition and officially hasn’t been in use since 1987.
ADHD paralysis
ADHD paralysis is a form of executive dysfunction.
It refers to the difficulty in initiating, continuing, or completing tasks, even when the person understands the urgency and importance, and also has the ability to do the task. ADHD paralysis can be triggered by various factors, including overwhelm, anxiety, or the perceived complexity of a task.
alexithymia
Alexithymia is the inability to assign names to feelings, describe them to others or talk about them. It is considered a separate neuropsychological condition but has significant overlaps with autism.
allistic
The term allistic refers to people who are not autistic. Neurodivergent and neurotypical people can both be allistic if they are not autistic.
ARFID
ARFID stands for Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder. It is characterized by highly selective eating habits, often to the point of nutritional deficiency. Unlike anorexia or bulimia, ARFID is not driven by concerns about body image or weight. Instead, it’s typically related to sensory sensitivity, fear of adverse consequences (like choking or vomiting), or a lack of interest in eating.
AuDHD
AuDHD is an unofficial term for co-occurring Autism and ADHD – it is used when someone has both conditions.
auditory stimming
Auditory stimming is a form of self-stimulatory behaviour that involves making sounds with your voice, whether through non-word vocalisations (vocal stimming) or speech-based expressions (verbal stimming). This natural and beneficial form of self-expression helps with emotional regulation, sensory processing, and achieving a sense of comfort and focus.
autism (Autism Spectrum Condition)
Autism is a lifelong, highly heritable neurodevelopmental condition characterised by a brain that processes information more deeply and through fewer channels at once — producing differences in sensory experience, pattern recognition, social communication, and the need for predictability. Autistic people are born autistic. Many autistic adults are identified late in life because their coping strategies, developed over decades without support, can mask the traits that assessors look for. Autism is not an intellectual disability, not a social deficit, and not something a person grows out of — it is a different neurological operating system that has always been there.
autistic burnout
Autistic burnout refers to a state of physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion experienced by autistic people. It is a result of prolonged exposure to overwhelming sensory, social, and cognitive demands, often in an environment that does not accommodate their needs.
autistic direct communication
Direct communication is a pared-down, efficient way of speaking, where the words mean what they mean — no subtext to decode, no softening layer to read past. For many autistic people, this is the default register. It often gets misread as bluntness or aggression, but the directness is usually doing precision work.
autistic speech patterns
Autistic speech patterns are recognisable features of how autistic communication works. They sit in two layers: how speech is built — echolalia (echoing what others say), palilalia (repeating your own words), scripting (planning what you’ll say), verbal stims (using words to stim), and vocal stims (using sounds to stim). And how speech lands — direct communication (saying what you mean), info-dumping (sharing what you love), and reciprocal information sharing (connecting through parallel stories). They are part of the autistic toolkit for making connections and forming social bonds.
body doubling
Body doubling means doing a task or errand with someone else or in the presence of someone else so it’s easier to start or follow through.
Their supportive presence helps create a safe, anchoring environment that makes it easier to start and follow through with tasks — without pressure or judgment.
It is one of the strategies for managing focus and creating a flow for work, even if you feel lost and overwhelmed by executive dysfunction.
co-occurring conditions
Co-occurrence means that certain neurodivergent traits and conditions naturally tend to appear together. When you’re neurodivergent in one way, you’re more likely to experience other forms of neurodivergence too – research shows this happens in up to 70% of cases. These patterns extend beyond just neurodevelopmental differences to include physical health and mental health experiences. Understanding co-occurrence is vital because it helps explain how different aspects of neurodivergence connect, leading to better self-understanding and more effective support. While traditional healthcare often treats conditions separately, recognizing these natural connections can transform how you advocate for your needs and access appropriate care.
cognitive load
Cognitive load refers to the total amount of mental effort being used at any given time.
For neurodivergent people, activities that others might find automatic (like maintaining expected facial expressions or processing background noise) can significantly increase cognitive load.
context switching
Context switching refers to the cognitive process of shifting attention between different tasks or mental states. It involves disengaging from one task and engaging in another, requiring the brain to change its focus, rules, and objectives.
This process can be mentally taxing due to the cognitive load involved in stopping one task and starting another, shifting gears to focus on the new task, and getting accustomed to the new situation with all its stimuli. Frequent context switching and jumping from task to task can lead to a decrease in productivity and efficiency.
curb-cut effect
The curb-cut effect refers to the phenomenon that policies initially created to serve a marginalized group end up serving a much more significant portion of society, benefiting even more people than it was originally designed for.
decision fatigue
Decision fatigue refers to the deteriorating quality of decision-making after a long period of decision-making activity. It means you feel mentally exhausted from making too many choices.
decompressing
Decompressing refers to engaging in activities or behaviours that allow a person to relax, unwind, and alleviate stress or sensory overload.
This term is particularly significant in the neurodivergent community as we often experience heightened sensitivity to environmental stimuli, leading to increased stress and anxiety levels.
Making sure to have time to decompress after especially taxing events is an essential part of self-care.
deep pressure
Deep pressure is a natural sensory need where firm, consistent pressure (like heavy blankets or tight hugs) helps tension melt away from your body. Many people naturally seek this through things like snug clothing or curling up under blankets – it’s your nervous system’s way of finding calm and comfort.
demand avoidance
Demand avoidance means appearing opposed to doing something when it’s perceived as a demand, especially from an authority figure – even if you actually want to do the thing. While it may look like defiance or stubbornness to others, it’s actually an involuntary self-preservation response triggered by threats to autonomy. This response happens automatically, not as a conscious decision to be difficult.
diagnostic criteria
Diagnostic criteria are prerequisites for a diagnosis: in the case of neurodivergence, they are the presentations and traits an assessor is looking for when diagnosing a person with a neurodivergent condition.
dopamine
Dopamine is a neurotransmitter involved in many different functions, including movement, motivation, reward, and pleasure. It is one of the most important neurotransmitters you have to get to know if you want to understand ADHD better.
dopamine system
The dopamine system is the network of neurons, pathways, and chemical machinery that produces, delivers, uses, and recycles dopamine throughout the brain. It’s one of the most-discussed systems in ADHD, and with good reason — differences in how this system works are closely linked to difficulties with motivation, attention, reward, and the ability to sustain effort on tasks that aren’t immediately interesting.
double empathy
The double empathy problem is a concept in neurodiversity studies that suggests a mutual misunderstanding between neurodivergent and neurotypical individuals.
dyscalculia
Dyscalculia is a learning difficulty where a person has difficulty with numbers and mathematics in general.
dysgraphia
Dysgraphia is a learning difficulty characterized by difficulties in writing, handwriting, and spelling. It is a condition that affects the ability to accurately and efficiently express thoughts or ideas through writing. Individuals with dysgraphia may struggle with letter formation, organizing thoughts coherently on paper, maintaining consistent spacing and alignment, and spelling.
dyspraxia
Developmental Coordination Disorder is a neurological condition that affects motor skills and coordination. People with DCD can have trouble with balancing, or tasks that require fine motor skills like tying shoelaces, holding pens or cutlery.
echolalia
Echolalia is a speech pattern where individuals repeat words, phrases, or sounds they have heard. Common in autism, it serves various purposes, including communication, language processing, and emotional expression. Echolalia can be immediate (repeating something just heard) or delayed (using stored phrases from past experiences), and is a valid form of communication that helps many autistic people express themselves and interact with others.
emotional dysregulation
Emotional dysregulation is the inability to regulate the intensity and quality of emotions in order to generate an appropriate emotional response and return to an emotional baseline.
When someone has difficulty regulating their emotions, they are easily overstimulated and they can get upset or overwhelmed easily. On the other hand, they can also have trouble with calming down, relaxing, or decompressing and it takes much effort to regulate their mood.
From the outside, it might look like overreacting. From the inside, it feels like your nervous system is overwhelmed by emotional information your brain is struggling to process and modulate.
executive dysfunction
Executive functions are essential, they help us make plans, stay organized, pay attention, and keep our emotions in check. It plays a big role in making decisions and adapting to new situations.
Executive dysfunction can happen when these processes have a difference or impairment that affects everyday life.
fidgeting
Fidgeting involves small, often unconscious movements—bouncing your leg, tapping your fingers, clicking a pen, doodling, twirling your hair. These movements help regulate focus and discharge energy, particularly for people with ADHD. Fidgeting provides the sensory input your brain needs to stay alert and engaged, especially during tasks that don’t provide enough stimulation on their own. It’s about maintaining the right level of arousal (alertness) to concentrate or releasing restless energy when big movements aren’t possible.
flat affect
Flat affect is an autistic speech pattern that can include fewer facial expressions, reduced eye contact and speech that others might describe as ‘monotone’. While these might be be interpreted as diminished emotional response, they actually reflect a different way of processing and expressing emotions. The intensity can vary with stress or cognitive load, and it often indicates deep focus rather than disinterest.
habituation
Habituation is a biological reaction mechanism where if a non-threatening stimuli keeps repeating, the response to it lowers over time. In neurodivergence, the brain’s reduced capacity for habituation means we can’t “tune out” unimportant stimuli, which leads to sensory difficulties and sensory overwhelm.
high-masking
High-masking refers to a person who is able to mask so efficiently that they ‘pass’ as neurotypical. High-masking is often one of the reasons women go undiagnosed – unfortunately, many assessors completely ignore masking and dismiss the experience of the individual.
hyperactivity
Hyperactivity means a group of traits and is one of the ADHD subtypes. Hyperactivity can present in physical and mental symptoms. Hyperactive traits include fidgeting and other sensory-seeking behaviours, interrupting others when they talk or finishing their sentences for them, impulsive actions and thrill-seeking behaviour (with a reduced sense of danger), having many ideas and blurting them out.
hyperfixation
Hyperfixation is a term often used in the context of neurodivergent individuals, particularly Autistics and ADHDers. It refers to an intense and prolonged focus on a particular subject, topic, or activity, often at the price of excluding everything else.
hyperfocus
Hyperfocus is a cognitive state characterized by an intense concentration and absorption in a particular task or activity to the point of excluding or neglecting other stimuli or responsibilities.
hypersensitivity
Hypersensitivity, also known as sensory over-responsivity, is a condition characterized by an extreme sensitivity or heightened response to sensory stimuli from the environment. Individuals with hypersensitivity may have a seemingly exaggerated reaction to various sensory inputs, such as sound, touch, taste, smell, or visual stimuli. These sensitivities can result in discomfort, distress, or even pain, …
hyposensitivity
Hyposensitivity, also known as sensory underresponsivity, is a condition characterized by a reduced sensitivity or diminished response to sensory stimuli from the environment.
Individuals with hyposensitivity may have difficulty with detecting or processing sensory inputs, such as sound, touch, taste, smell, or visual stimuli. They may require more intense or prolonged sensory stimulation to register and respond to the sensation.
impulsivity
Impulsivity describes a group of traits. In ADHD, it is characterized by a shortened pause between impulse and action: a bright flash that leads immediately to behaviour before you can fully consider it. Impulsivity shows up in different forms: verbal (blurting out, interrupting), emotional (expressing strong feelings immediately), decision-making (choosing immediate rewards over delayed ones), and motor (acting on physical urges).
inattentive
Inattentive traits are a trait cluster that represents one of the ADHD subtypes, also known as the distracted type. Inattentive traits include daydreaming, forgetfulness (not remembering the question while answering, forgetting things at home, following instructions with multiple sub-tasks), and difficulty focusing on a task that’s not engaging enough.
inertia
Inertia is the experience of being unable to start (or stop) an activity despite wanting to. It’s a common neurodivergent experience related to executive function, and not caused by laziness, procrastination or lack of motivation. Like a car without fuel, no amount of pressing the gas pedal will help when the resources needed for action aren’t available.
info dumping
Info dumping is the casual name referring to the act of sharing an extensive amount of information, usually about a subject or topic the person is extremely passionate about.
internalised ableism
Internalised ableism is a psychological construct that refers to the internalisation of negative beliefs, stereotypes, and prejudices about disabilities that are prevalent in society.
It involves self-stigmatization and the development of a negative self-concept based on one’s disability and onboarding negative beliefs said to us by parental figures, teachers, grown-ups and society in general.
interoception
Interoception is the ability to notice and identify feelings inside one’s body, like thirst or hunger. It also includes the ability to notice and regulate temperature changes or notice pain.
intolerance of uncertainty
Intolerance of uncertainty (IU) describes the degree to which a nervous system needs predictability in order to function — not as a preference, but as a genuine operational requirement. When outcomes are unknown or plans unconfirmed, a high-IU nervous system tends to generate contingencies: running through variables, gathering information in advance, and finding it difficult to settle until enough is known. For many autistic and ADHD adults, IU runs at a higher baseline than in the general population, and shows up in everyday experiences like needing to know the plan before you can be present, finding plan changes disproportionately disruptive, or preparing carefully for situations in order to free up bandwidth to actually enjoy them. It’s not about rigidity or control — it’s a nervous system requesting the information it needs to work properly.
justice sensitivity
Justice sensitivity is the heightened awareness of rule violations and inconsistencies, paired with an intense emotional and physiological response. For many neurodivergent people, fairness and consistency function as essential navigational tools when you can’t reliably read social cues or predict what will happen next. When rules are applied inconsistently or stated expectations don’t match actual consequences, your nervous system registers this as a genuine threat to your ability to navigate the world safely. The intensity of your reaction reflects the pattern violation itself, regardless of the moral weight of the situation. Justice sensitivity is morally neutral—it tells you when a rule has been violated, but not whether the rule was good or fair in the first place.
literal thinking
Literal thinking is a precision-oriented processing style common in autistic people, where words, questions, and instructions are interpreted according to their exact meaning rather than their implied or intended meaning. It is one of the most commonly misunderstood autistic traits — both by neurotypical people who assume it means autistic people cannot grasp metaphors or jokes, and by autistic people themselves who dismiss it because they understand figurative language perfectly well. Many autistic adults comprehend metaphors, sarcasm, and idioms with ease, but still respond very precisely to the literal content of questions, miss the unstated social layer attached to a comment, or get stuck on vague terms like “often” that don’t contain enough information for an accurate answer. Literal thinking shows up most clearly when communication leaves gaps that the listener is expected to fill in — and it becomes far less of a factor when the information provided is clear, specific, and explicit.
misophonia
Misophonia is a neurodivergent condition characterized by an intense emotional and physiological response to specific sounds. People with misophonia experience strong negative reactions, such as anger, anxiety, or disgust, when exposed to certain sounds. These sounds can vary from person to person but commonly include chewing, slurping, tapping, or repetitive noises.
neuroaffirming
Neuroaffirming or neuro-affirmative refers to practices, approaches, or environments that recognize and affirm the neurodiversity of society and the neurodivergence of individuals.
neurodivergence
Neurodivergent conditions include ADHD, Autism, OCD, Sensory Processing Disorder and specific learning difficulties, like dyslexia, dyscalculia and dysgraphia.
neurodivergent adaptations
Adaptations or coping mechanisms are adjustments you make for yourself or made for you to create a safe and comfortable environment for you to exist in.
neurodiversity
The word neurodiversity is used to describe a diverse group of individuals with different neurotypes. It includes all humans, though colloquially it is often used for a group of neurodivergent people.
neurospicy
An informal and tongue-in-cheek term for neurodivergence, often used in a funny way.
neurotransmitter
Neurotransmitters are chemicals that help brain cells “talk” to each other, controlling thoughts and feelings. Dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine are all neurotransmitters.
neurotypical
‘Neurotypical’ describes people whose brain functioning follows common patterns, making it easier for them to align with common expectations in areas like processing sensory information, understanding social cues, following conversations and managing everyday tasks.
Most of our current societies are calibrated to neurotypical functioning with narrow margins of error, which can inadvertently disadvantage people whose neurological configurations fall outside the borders of what’s considered ‘typical’.
night terrors
Night terrors are episodes of intense fear during sleep that involve screaming, physical movement, and autonomic arousal (racing heart, rapid breathing, sweating). Unlike nightmares, they occur during non-REM sleep with no memory of the event afterwards.
Night terrors affect both children and adults, with higher prevalence in neurodivergent populations, particularly those with ADHD.
They’re triggered by sleep disruption, stress, hormonal changes, and sometimes medication, reflecting both neurological and environmental factors.
norepinephrine
Norepinephrine (also called noradrenaline) is a neurotransmitter produced by the locus coeruleus in the brainstem. It regulates alertness, attention, arousal, and the stress response, and works alongside dopamine in the prefrontal cortex to support executive function. Your prefrontal cortex needs norepinephrine in an optimal range — too little, and you can’t sustain focus, too much, and the brain shifts to reactive, survival-oriented processing.
In ADHD, norepinephrine signalling is dysregulated, contributing to difficulties with sustained attention, emotional regulation, and the stress response.
object constancy
Object constancy is the notion that you remain connected and aware of items or people even when they are not visible or physically around. Difficulties in object constancy lead to the “out of sight, out of mind” experience, which is very common with ADHD folk. Not to be confused with object permanence, which is a developmental stage in babies, and relates to them believing things genuinely stop existing when not in sight.
palilalia
Palilalia is a form of verbal expression where someone involuntarily repeats their own words or phrases, often with decreasing volume. This natural pattern can help with language processing and self-regulation, particularly during times of stress or when processing complex information.
pattern recognition in autism
Pattern recognition is a thinking style common in autistic people, involving a tendency to notice underlying structures, connections, and regularities across many areas of life — sensory, social, systemic, and practical. Research supports enhanced visual and perceptual pattern detection in autism, and many autistic adults describe this extending into how they solve problems, read people, predict outcomes, and make sense of the world. Pattern recognition varies enormously between individuals in which domains it shows up, and works best when the data is consistent and rule-governed — making it a genuine strength in many contexts, while less effective in the noisy, context-dependent domain of real-time social interaction.
penguin pebbling
In a neurodivergent context, the expression is used to describe a common neurodivergent behaviour of people collecting and giving loved items to others – “this made me think of you, I think you’ll like this, I thought this was pretty and I want you to have it”.
PMDD
PMDD is Premenstrual Disphoric Disorder, and refers to a severe, disabling form of PMS.
proprioception
Proprioception refers to the sensory system that provides information about body position, movement, and spatial orientation without visual input (i.e. knowing where our body parts are without having to look at them).
Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria (RSD)
Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria (RSD) is an intense emotional and physical response to perceived rejection, criticism, or the fear of falling short — experienced by many neurodivergent people. The hot flash of shame, the spiral of “what did I do wrong,” the doomsday scenarios building while the other person is simply answering their front door — these are recognisable experiences for many people who grew up having their authentic selves ignored, dismissed, or misunderstood. RSD is a pattern recognition system shaped by real history, and having language for it means you can begin to watch the reaction rather than be yanked along by it.
restricted repetitive behaviours (RRBs)
Restricted Repetitive Behaviours (RRBs) is the clinical term for a broad group of autistic traits including stimming, echolalia, routines, persistent interests, and sensory sensitivities. Despite the pathologising name, these patterns serve real purposes — self-regulation, cognitive energy conservation, and genuine enjoyment. They are how an autistic nervous system manages a world that doesn’t come with enough predictability built in.