Neurodiversity Quotes

“My room is the safest place my body has. My mind doesn’t really have a safe place.”
― Anna Whateley

“People who are not autistic tell themselves stories. They fill in the gaps of the people they meet, often with information that isn't correct. It's why they like horror so much. It's why they get so easily scared. They see a ghost and the ghost doesn't need to do a thing. They will complete the story, they will scare themselves.”
― Elle McNicoll, Keedie

“Therapy that is focused on battling “irrational beliefs,” such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), doesn’t work as well on Autistic people as it does on neurotypicals. One reason for that is many of the fears and inhibitions of Autistic people are often entirely reasonable, and rooted in a lifetime of painful experiences. We tend to be pretty rational people, and many of us are already inclined to analyze our thoughts and feelings very closely (sometimes excessively so). Autistics don’t need cognitive behavioral training to help us not be ruled by our emotions. In fact, most of us have been browbeaten into ignoring our feelings too much.”
― Devon Price, Unmasking Autism: Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity

“A diagnosis is not a prediction. It doesn’t tell you what’s possible. It doesn’t change you, your colleague, your child, or your friend. It just opens up tricks and tools to thrive.”
― Jolene Stockman, Notes for Neuro Navigators: The Allies' Quick-Start Guide to Championing Neurodivergent Brains

“E' un meccanismo di sopravvivenza che chi è come me conosce anche troppo bene: quando si comincia a comprendere che la maggior parte dei problemi e degli ostacoli percepiti come insormontabili sono il risultato di una dissonanza tra sé e il resto del mondo, nella maggior parte dei casi si comincia a imitare gli altri, a conformarsi.
Nell'autismo questo tentativo frequente di conformità al gruppo di appartenenza viene definito masking, indossare una maschera che copre interamente il volto. Col tempo ne crei una per il lavoro, un'altra per le uscite con gli amici, una per le relazioni affettive. Osservi quello che fanno gli altri, cerchi di imitarne i comportamenti, quel modo di ridere a battute che a te sembrano insignificanti, oppure l'andatura, la prosodia. Ma il discorso vale anche se da adolescente scopri che invece delle ragazze ti piacciono i compagni di scuola, quegli stessi ragazzi che invece manifestano la loro eterosessualità con esuberanza spesso facendo in tua presenza commenti terribili contro chiunque abbia un orientamento differente dal loro.
Indossi la maschera se percepisci il tuo genere diverso da quel lo che la società si aspetta tu debba sentire, oppure se non se felice della vita che hai. Quando sei con gli altri, sei gli altri.
Poi torni nella solitudine della tua camera e a volte quella maschera si è talmente appiccicata sul tuo volto che non viene via del tutto; col tempo nemmeno ricordi più chi sei, cosa ti faceva emozionare.”
― Fabrizio Acanfora, In altre parole. Dizionario minimo di diversità

“My pronoun is people,
I'm divergent, yet invincible.
I am straight, I am queer;
I am civilian, I am seer.
Spirit of life, I - am universal!

Call me disabled or differently able,
Call me collective or individual.
Fleshly forms I've got plenty,
All run by same love and liberty -
Culture supreme is inclusion.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Yaralardan Yangın Doğar: Explorers of Night are Emperors of Dawn

“As an individual, as a person with the power to affect other people with your words, actions, and expressions every single day, you can give people who see the world differently the gift of accepting who and how they are.”
― Jolene Stockman, Notes for Neuro Navigators: The Allies' Quick-Start Guide to Championing Neurodivergent Brains

“We are acceptable humans as is, not once we stop having ADHD. You do not need to be fixed because you are not a broken version of normal.”
― Jessica McCabe, How to ADHD: An Insider's Guide to Working with Your Brain

“I like that I have ten things on the go, all at once. I like that I'm always planning for the next thing. I like that I bring a high energy to my life, that I see it as a challenge. I like that my favourite thing to do on the flight home is to look at the airline route map to pick my next destination.”
― Emilie Pine, Notes To Self

“But deficits and disabilities only exist in relation to an environment where some other way of functioning has been chosen as the yardstick. An autistic person - or one with any form of otherness - only becomes an anomaly when she tries to fit in. Beyond any and all contexts, she is complete in herself.”
― Clara Tornvall, Autisterna: om kvinnor på spektrat

“Some people are just meant to be these loud, happy sounds. They wake other people up. And some will cover their ears. Others will find the sound inside themselvese because they've heard yours.”
― Elle McNicoll, Keedie

“If the rest of the world says you're obnoxious or stupid or just not braining right, loving yourself is an act of rebellion, which is beautiful but exhausting, especially if you're a little kid.”
― Paris Hilton, Paris: The Memoir

“As soon as I gave up caring, everything got easier.”
― Elle McNicoll, Show Us Who You Are

“I actually realise that I don't care if they're all finding me strange.

They don't have what we have. And I feel sorry for them.”
― Elle McNicoll, Show Us Who You Are

“There's a reason why we're different. You and me. Why we're made this way. And it's for us to decide. It's none of their business.”
― Elle McNicoll, Show Us Who You Are

“Divergence is nature’s way to expansion.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Divine Refugee

“Quando ho capito che le differenze che vedevo nascere in me rappresentavano (incomprensibilmente) solo problemi, ho deciso che forse sarebbe stato più saggio non mostrarle al mondo. Con grande dolore, perché erano parte di me.
È proprio lì che è nata l'ambivalenza del mio sentimento verso l'idea di diversità: da un lato l'ho sempre considerata come la cosa più naturale del mondo, siamo tuttə diversə, le differenze sono quello che rendono il mondo un posto in cui valga la pena vivere e per questo vanno tutelate e rispettate. D'altra parte ho cominciato a soffrire al pensiero che proprio questa varietà, questa idea così complessa e quasi indefinibile, dovesse essere a sua volta infilata in una categoria e, secondo i metodi utilizzati per definire la normalità, suddivisa in tante altre piccole categorie.
Oggi so che questa mia insofferenza verso la tassonomizzazione della diversità nelle sue molteplici espressioni ha a che fare con la convinzione - che fino a poco tempo fa era un'idea senza nome - che la diversità sia intersezionale; non mi è mai piaciuto dover definire la diversità solo in quanto opposta alla normalità, perché utilizzando questo sistema sarà sempre qualcosa di inferiore. Se non siamo in grado di definire la diversità come un concetto autonomo e non necessariamente come contrario di normalità, non riusciremo a liberarla dallo stigma sociale. Altrimenti l'inclusione resterà sempre un processo che parte dalla normalità - percepita come la cosa giusta - e investe una diversità tutto sommato passiva, desiderosa di entrare a far parte del club delle persone sane, normali, di quelle che non vengono additate come difettose o strane. È questa l'idea di diversità che non mi piace, una diversità dipendente dall'idea di una normalità che, paradossalmente, è inesistente in natura.”
― Fabrizio Acanfora, In altre parole. Dizionario minimo di diversità

“E si rimane per sempre quello che, a un dato momento, si è deciso che dovevi essere. Non c'è rielaborazione possibile: le persone devono essere ben catalogate, marchiate a vita.
Almeno, però, fatemi un favore: non venitemi a dire che non è possibile; perché il dolore, la solitudine, la difficoltà nel sentirmi diverso da voi, li ho portati dentro da solo, quasi sempre in silenzio. La fatica di sembrare normale in modo che voi poteste stare tranquilli, l'ho fatta da solo.
Adesso sono stanco, mi sono reso conto che non c'è bisogno di vergognarsi, nel sentirsi diverso. Ora ho deciso che io, tutto sommato, a questa normalità che distrugge il pianeta in cui vive, che odia chiunque manifesti delle differenze; a questa normalità che tenta di annientare il pensiero critico e aspira a una beata mediocrità, non voglio più assomigliarci.”
― Fabrizio Acanfora, Eccentrico: Autismo e Asperger in un saggio autobiografico

“An adulthood diagnosis of ADHD can be, among other things, physically dizzying, and that I once feared 'never beginning to live’ now feels completely legitimate. However, I am learning that my fear was borne of the assumption that ‘truly living’ is something ‘other’ than what I experience, and it isn’t.’
- Katy Fraser, Talking in Diamonds”
― Katy Fraser , Talking in Diamonds

“Identifying as neurodivergent isn't just another label; it's also an identity, it's a reclamation, it's a song. When we call ourselves neurodivergent, we are reclaiming our differences that society calls abnormal or wrong. When we call ourselves neurodivergent, we are challenging you to consider what 'normal' actually means and perhaps even realize that maybe our normal isn't your normal. When we call ourselves neurodivergent, we are rejecting the concept of disorders.”
― Sonny Jane Wise, We're All Neurodiverse

“What is madness if not everything that science has not yet managed to prove?”
― Jeff Beamish, No, You're Crazy

“Actually, the more I think about it, the more I figure that a lot of the cons of autism are not really caused by autism, but by how other people react to it.”
― Libby Scott, Can You See Me?

“NeuroDiversity is the next frontier in Diversity & Inclusion. If your D&I program doesn't take all NeuroDivergent people into account, it's already obsolete.”
― Lyric Rivera, Workplace NeuroDiversity Rising: NeuroDiversity = ALL Brains NeuroDivergent and NeuroTypical working together & supporting each other

“But it isn't easy to kick the culture fit habit. It's slippery and has many faces. In Chapter 8, we will cover a range of prevalent cognitive biases that obstruct attempts to embrace diversity of all kinds, and culture fit wears most of them in one form or another among its disguises.”
― Dr. Maureen Dunne, Author, The Neurodiversity Edge

“Given what we now understand about the fundamental processes underlying AI, you can't get out of Flatland by simply building an infinite number of two-dimensional ladders infinitely fast. They will move faster and more competently within the boundaries of linear rationality than any human is capable of. But they will always be bound within the confines of that map.”
― Dr. Maureen Dunne, Author, The Neurodiversity Edge

“Yet the autistic woman is not masking with the intention of being deceitful. Her true self is invisible even to her own person. She is masking to fit in, and doing so unconsciously. Often, she doesn't even understand that she has been camouflaging herself until she gets her diagnosis. Before that, she thinks her struggle is everyone else's, too. At least, that's what it was like for me.”
― Clara Tornvall, Autisterna: om kvinnor på spektrat

“If you see anyone trying to narrow the definition of neuroqueer and trying to police who gets to use the tern, feel free to tell them that I said to stop acting like a fucking cop. The world needs more queering and fewer cops.”
― Nick Walker, Neuroqueer Heresies: Notes on the Neurodiversity Paradigm, Autistic Empowerment, and Postnormal Possibilities

“Don't let a condition define you, son."

"Okay, Dad," Adrien says sarcastically. "I won't let my brain, you know—the most important, central organ we all have—I won't let that define me. I'll be defined by my pancreas instead.”
― Elle McNicoll, Show Us Who You Are

“Divergent Dynamite
(The Sonnet)

You only know my infinite radiance,
you got no clue to my innate hurricane.
Day in and day out I struggle autistic,
Genius is outcome of a mind broken.

There are cracks across my heart,
nothing can bar the pouring rays.
Light is but suffering harnessed,
Genius is brokenness harnessed.

There is no end to my exuberance,
limits of typicals don't apply to me.
I am but an enigma of unbending tenacity,
every breath is testament to impossibility.

Divergence is nature's way to expansion.
Divergent dynamite I, am living evolution.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Divine Refugee

“Genius is outcome of a mind broken.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Divine Refugee