Re-writing your past after a neurodivergent diagnosis

My first driving instructor looked at me with wide eyes and just said "what are you doing?", and I said "well I'm trying to drive, isn't that what we're here for?". I did fire him fairly soon after that, because let's just say panic and bafflement weren't the teaching approaches that lead to my best efforts. But it took me a really long time to learn, like I don't even know how many lessons. 

It reminded me of being the only pupil they nearly failed on cycling proficiency in primary school, because I repeatedly fell off my bike when trying to stick my hand out to indicate (they passed me in the end, I think perhaps out of pity?).

It's only since my dyspraxia (DCD) diagnosis that these events started to make more sense (and the adhd/ autism was probably part of it too). Most people find learning to drive challenging, but I had a whole load of extra challenges that I didn't know were there.

What were the hidden neurodivergent challenges at play?

• Combining visual and spatial information with movement is difficult, leading to challenges judging gaps between cars or getting the angles right for parking. 
• Predicting and evaluating movement requires conscious and effortful processing, and with mixed results. This can lead to more steering corrections and wobbly control (I do recall wobbling all the way down an empty road just before the driving instructor’s incredulous question).
• Skills take longer to become automatic, especially when needing to do multiple challenging processes at once. Driving requires the coordination of many complex processes at once, and a dyspraxic person might find driving challenging and tiring for longer (it was years after I passed my test that I stopped dreading driving and felt more relaxed in the car).

How this relates to all late-diagnosed neurodivergence

The point here is less about driving, or even dyspraxia, and more about what happens when you don’t know what you’re dealing with.

When you’ve had a neurodivergent diagnosis (or realisation) later in life, you have a whole host of experiences to re-categorise.

I remember feeling shame about my struggles learning to drive, and about various embarrassing driving moments I’ve had since then when other people were in the car. Misjudging the timing on a roundabout, doing a 57 point turn and still banging into a wall etc. I’m actually not a bad driver all-in-all but let’s just say I still have my moments, and I may be waiting a very long time to change lane rather than risk it when I can’t gauge the distance.

I feel different about it now that I realise what I was actually dealing with. It wasn’t just me being ‘a bit dim’ or crap or whatever else I might have thought about myself at the time. With the accurate information on my side, I actually feel really proud of myself.

I overcame a lot of challenges to get through that test. I scraped together the funds for a lot more lessons than I thought I’d need. I dealt with a whole heap of anxiety and confusion and I found a way through.

The shame cycle of unidentified neurodivergence

When you’re neurodivergent and you don’t know it, your brain will diligently come up with the only feasible explanations it can find for your struggles. And because you’re missing some absolutely vital information about how your brain and body work, the usual explanation is ‘there’s something wrong with me’. It tends to go deep into an identity level shame, which gets so habitual and reinforced that you barely notice it’s there anymore. What starts on the surface as various versions of ‘maybe I’m stupid’, ‘I’m bad at this’, ‘I’m clumsy’, ‘I’m slow’... gradually becomes a not-even-verbal, deeply rooted knowing of ‘I am bad’.

When I hear people flippantly dismiss neurodivergence, or say things like ‘well, everyone’s a bit neurodivergent’ or ‘who cares about having a label’, I wish they could fully understand this process where a neurodivergent diagnosis provides the most monumental opportunity to move from existing in shame and confusion, to becoming self-compassionate and confident. I truly think if people could truly know what that’s like, they’d be a bit more open to the value and importance that a diagnosis has held for some of us.

The neuroscience of building self-esteem after a later-in-life diagnosis

The driving example for me is just one small thing in a sea of other examples. Because unidentified neurodivergence touches every single area of your life in one way or another. Whilst this previously meant a seemingly impenetrable wall of challenges, with no explanations to be found, it eventually became an uplift from all angles. A gradual re-assessment and re-construction of my life and my worth.

The part that takes conscious work (and often some support) is that move from shame into self-compassion. I think some of it can happen almost automatically: the new explanation has been found and - phew - it finally makes sense. There’s nothing wrong with me. 

There are some layers that take more effort, because that shame reaction has been a long time in the making. It’s been repeatedly reinforced in your brain, so it happens automatically before any conscious thought kicks in. A new-found self-compassion takes time and practice to form its own neural pathways, and even more time and practice to be unconsciously selected instead of the more familiar old response.

The good news is that we can change these patterns through repetition. Even if you don’t manage to feel differently in the moment, even going back over old memories or more recent moments will help. 

When you recall a memory and assign it with new meaning - meeting it with self-understanding rather than shame - you are practicing a new response. Over time that new response will become more familiar, and therefore quicker and more automatic. Eventually your brain can start to select this new neural pattern over the old one. It’s ok if it takes time, and it’s ok if you need support with it (I know I have). 

Even if it takes years, you’re now on the trajectory of a new sense of self rather than totally stuck in the mismatches and confusion of the past. 

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Sources:

• Subara-Zukic et al. 2022, Behavioral and neurophysiological correlates of DCD (Frontiers in Psychology)
• de Oliveira and Wann 2011, regulating speed and coping with distraction
• de Oliveira and Wann, maintaining control and avoiding hazards
• Kirby, Sugden and Edwards 2011, driving behaviour in young adults with DCD
• Piretti et al. 2023, The neural signatures of shame, embarrassment and guilt (Brain Sciences)
• Longe et al. 2010, Having a word with yourself: neural correlates of self-criticism and self-reassurance (NeuroImage)

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