Like most of us, I was largely unaware of neurodiversity until an autoimmune diagnosis at 36. Until then, I had assumed everyone experienced the frequencies and emotions of others somewhat similarly to myself. It took several years into my healing journey before I started trusting my experience was different.

In truth, the first profound realisation had already happened much earlier, when I was 17. Something deep moved through me — far more intense than what my friends described after encountering DMT. It wasn’t just enlightenment. I felt a deep sense of loneliness with what I had experienced.

Back then, I had no language for integration or healing and was fercly skeptical of spirituality, so I concluded there was something wrong with me. I thought I was too sensitive, too fragile to handle what had awakened within me.

Had I had understood neurodivergence at the time — that different nervous systems require different approaches, that unique wiring calls for unique paths — I might not have buried this story for twenty years. Shame kept it hidden: the discovery of my gifts arriving through a then-obscure scheduled shamanic medicine felt like proof I was broken, not blessed.