Why Neurodivergent Traits and Environment Matter More Than The Label

BY TISHAN COWAN AND LAUREN QUINN

Conversations about neurodivergence are everywhere. Online and in person, on TV shows and podcasts, in TikToks and magazines. Pay enough attention, and you’re bound to start to wonder:

What is neurodivergence? Is it ADHD, ASD, AuDHD, OCD, PTSD, dyslexia, sensory processing disorder?

Is it a disorder? A disability? An identity? 

Is it a problem to be treated and cured, or merely a misunderstood, naturally occurring difference? 

Is it an asset or a liability – or both?

Why does the same diagnosis look so different in each individual person?

If navigating neurodivergence in 2025 feels chaotic and confusing, it’s not just you. We’re in the midst of a great cultural and clinical shift in our understanding of how neurodivergence works, what it looks like, who has it – and how we live with it.

First, there’s the huge surge in diagnoses. ASD diagnoses are up 175% in the last 10 years, while ADHD diagnoses in adult women nearly doubled just between 2020 and 2022. More than 50% of Gen Z now self-identifies as neurodivergent.

Meanwhile, discussions of neurodivergence have exploded on social media, bringing more awareness into the cultural conversation. This has bolstered a neurodiversity movement – and spurred controversy. People are self-diagnosing on social media and podcasts, eliciting strong reactions from trained medical professionals. This clash raises the question: are social media users spreading misinformation, or are clinicians gatekeeping identification? Is it identity performance or merely people finding their community? 

Why is the path of discovery so controversial? 

Does the value of the clinical industry play a role? The global market for neurodivergent diagnosis and treatment currently clocks at $71 billion and is expected to double by 2033. With providers charging $2000-6000 for evaluation, the cost of clinical diagnosis is out of reach for many Americans. Where else are they supposed to get answers other than social media?

Compounding the issue of cost, the diagnostic process itself is challenging and ever-changing, as experts expand their understanding of neurodiversity and who it impacts. This process leaves vast swaths of grey for people to navigate, including:

• Misdiagnoses: Up to 25% of adults who are diagnosed – and 33% of women – report receiving a prior incorrect psychiatric diagnosis, with women frequently misdiagnosed as bipolar. 
• Overlapping co-morbidities and symptoms: While clinical practice pushes toward diagnoses, the boundaries between neurodivergent labels are not fixed, and often overlap and coexist. Case in point: prior to 2013, doctors could not diagnose people with both ADHD and autism – although we now know that 50-70% of individuals with ASD also have ADHD. A recent New York Times feature revealed new thinking that neurodivergence doesn’t sit in strict diagnostic categories but in an ever-shifting continuum of traits, which manifest differently in various environments. Indeed, some researchers have begun to favor the term “spectrum of neurodevelopmental disorders” over specific diagnoses. 
• Sensory sensitivity & dysregulation: Despite its prevalence, neither the current DSM nor the CDC take sensory traits into account. While emotional dysregulation is 1 of the 6 key criteria to meet an ADHD diagnosis in Europe, the American DSM lists it as an “associated feature.” 

Even the word “neurodivergence” itself encapsulates the wide range of individualized combinations of diagnoses and traits. 

Is this why, for so many of us, getting to the right diagnosis is just the beginning? Why the real work often starts after the clinical label is affixed? 

Amidst this landscape, those of us who do pursue formal diagnosis face another conundrum: what to do about it. Take medication? Subscribe to a lifetime of costly therapy? Get the right planner? Ask for workplace accommodations that could really help – and risk becoming more stigmatized? 

With all of the clinical and research-based expertise, why isn’t there a central, evidence-based consensus on how to build a lifestyle for neurodivergence? If there were, we would see a clear pathway forward and people thriving after diagnosis. Instead, we are still struggling to survive. 

Why isn’t there a What To Expect When You’re Neurodivergent?

There is no single answer to any of these questions because there is no one kind of neurodivergence. It is too nuanced, too specific, too personal to each of us. There is no quick fix for living in a world that doesn’t authentically reflect how you see, experience, and move through it. 

With all this is swirling in the cultural and clinical zeitgeist, we still have to live our daily lives. The clock doesn’t stop while we wait for research and clinical trials to tell us the plan. We don’t just want to white-knuckle and mask our way through the day – we want a purposeful, fulfilling day-to-day existence.

So how do we actually do this? 

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When I was diagnosed with late-stage ADHD at 40, my life finally made sense – but not at first. 

I’d always felt like an actor playing at life. I was constantly looking for who had the script. No matter how hard I tried to play the part, I always forgot my lines. 

Despite all the markings of success – career, husband, kids, house – by the time I hit 40, the stress of constantly performing was causing me to unravel. I found myself in the middle of a full-fledged breakdown.

I began to seek out an answer. Initially, this came in the form of a diagnosis: first, ADHD; then, bipolar; then oops, back to ADHD – and oh, by the way, autism too, and it turns out I was never bipolar.

Five years later, I finally received a correct diagnosis. Now, I thought, I’d finally get the right script and my life would fall into place.

But that’s not what happened. I discovered my diagnosis was only the start. It helped me to understand why I experienced life the way I did and how to meet the bare minimum of existence. The problem was: getting by wasn’t enough.

I wanted more. 

If diagnosis doesn’t solve why is the label so important?

Perhaps because labels and identity are crucial to our self-understanding and where we fit within social constructs. Before diagnosis, many of us were labeled as lazy, disruptive, rude, weird. These labels explained how our natural behavior didn’t fit the expectations of our environments and community.  

So when we receive a diagnosis of ADHD or autism, we step into a better label, one that helps to explain why we are the way we are. Perhaps it takes some of the shame away.

But it’s still a label. Diagnoses can improve upon other negative labels we have received and provide direction, but not guaranteed solutions. This was both my frustration and motivation.

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I set out to find answers myself – my own path to the life I wanted. 

Despite working with psychiatrists and psychologists, the support offered felt more like triage, bandaging me up so I could go out into the world and battle again. 

The real breakthrough came in listening to the lived experiences and unfiltered stories of other people with similar traits on TikTok. The traits they shared were way more complex and nuanced than a simple label. And even better, their experiences gave me real solutions.

Through these stories, I realized that while I had AuDHD, it was my sensitivity to various sounds that was undermining my day-to-day life. I lived in an open-concept house with two young children and a barking dog. No wonder I was on the verge of tears every night. I wasn’t bipolar; I just needed earplugs – and to move to a ranch-style home, like the one I live in now. 

Designing my life around this one seemingly small sensitivity was the unlock I’d been looking for. 

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If diagnosis tells you what the problem is, and therapists tell you how the problem has affected you, what helps you actually improve your daily life? 

We believe the answer lies in understanding your phenotype. Phenotype refers to how your innate traits – observable characteristics like hair and eye color, and also behavior and personality attributes such as communication, cognition, and sensorium – interact with your environment. 

Your phenotype can tell you more about how to build a thriving life than your diagnosis. A 2024 study in JCPP Advances argues that neurodivergence is part of a broader phenotype of variation across the whole population – meaning that you can’t isolate traits with specific diagnoses. They twist, overlap, intersect; they change throughout our lives and in the different environments in which we move. They are part of an overall phenotypic structure that spans across a vast array of diagnostic labels.

It’s therefore crucial for us to understand what triggers each one of us. Is it the constant noise of open cubicles or the overhead fluorescent lighting of an office? Is it the sounds echoing off the walls of an open-concept house? Is it the smells and heat of a subway or the visual rapid pressure of crowds coming towards you in an airport? 

The key to designing a manageable neurodivergent daily existence is understanding your specific traits, level of sensitivity, and predictable triggers in any chosen environment.  

A trait is a trait, neither positive nor negative. The judgment comes from expectations around how that trait integrates or responds to its environment.

We at Motley Bloom partnered with experts in the field to identify some of the key traits and behaviors that contribute to a neurodivergent phenotype. Some appear in clinical definitions, while others we found through connecting the lived experiences and stories of our community. 

Sensorium

Out of all the traits, these seem to be the ones that most alter our day-to-day existence: sound, tactile, visual, smell, and taste. One study by Case Western Reserve University shows that neurodivergent individuals process 40% more information than their neurotypical peers – which means heightened awareness through our senses. Whether at work, travel, or even home, sounds, lighting, and smells can trigger us and make it harder to focus. On the flip side, seeking out sounds and smells we like can activate and stimulate our brains to release dopamine, providing a calming or happy effect.

Regulation

We can’t always control every environment we move through. As we navigate spaces not built for us, we often face triggers that are over-stimulating and find ourselves in a state of overwhelm. The overwhelm/regulation cycle becomes part of our hard wiring. So how do we regulate to get ourselves back into balance?  The stimulation of weights, pressure, or movement can physically help bring our body back into balance and calm the mind.  

Stimming

Our brains are wired for joy. Understanding what stimulates us is the key to regulating our environments and helping us do the mundane, everyday tasks we find so boring. We are not talking fidget spinners. We need to find ways to uplevel everyday tasks we might otherwise avoid, such as putting away laundry, doing written work, or paying bills. Playing our go-to music or lighting our favorite scented candle can bring in the dopamine hit we need to get the job done.

Communication

Most neurodivergent people experience the feeling of being misunderstood due to non-linear or literal communication. For some, it’s perplexing that others don’t say exactly what they mean. Others take the long path and some diversions to get to the end of a story. Knowing how you communicate and socially interact with others will help you find people who get you. 

Organization 

It’s no secret that our brains work differently than other people’s. Creative, visual-spatial, pattern-recognition, object impermanence, color, symbols, and pattern recognition are some of the ways in which our minds store and organize information. Most systems aren’t designed for alternate ways of thinking so we are always having to adapt – which let’s be honest, is exhausting. By redefining and establishing new norms of organization, we can build systems and processes that work for us.

These are the pieces of the neurodivergent puzzle that often get overlooked, misdiagnosed, or simply ignored. Yet when it comes to our daily lives, they matter most. 

Learning to work skillfully with our traits doesn’t just help us avoid burnout but also taps into our strengths and enables us to connect with others who share a similar experience. 

We are at the dawn of our understanding of neurodivergence. Diagnosis and labels will only get us so far. While the researchers and scientists will continue to explore and discover, we need to focus on what we do today.   

Building community with each other and learning how we are designing our lives around shared traits will get us the rest of the way.  

Rather than fixing ourselves, let’s love ourselves, our labels, our traits. Accept what makes us different, what others don’t get.

Let’s build a life around those traits, one that works for us, Let’s dream big, live loud, and be unalike together.

When we put our creativity, hyperfocus, and problem-solving traits to work, together as a community, we might just create the world we’ve always wanted to live in.