CPTSD And NeuroDivergence
Kojo Sarfo, if you’re unfamiliar, is a doctor, comedian and content creator. Recently he stated his belief that all people that have a neurodivergent condition that are late diagnosed likely have CPTSD.
There a huge reason for that. As an Autistic, ADHD, AuDHD person, you have a different experience of the world from the neurotypical people around you. We’re both human, we’re both in the same spot on the planet, but we are not experiencing it the same way. The differences are cognitive, sensory… The way these two humans experience the world is different but so is the way they experience each other. Gen-Z way overidentifies as neurodivergent but prior to that, neurodivergence in any form accounted for roughly 15 percent of the total population. Neurodivergence covers a wide range of things from ADHD to Autism to Dyslexia.
When we look at that percentage, 15 percent… That becomes an indicator that says we are a margin as neurodivergent people, but then inside of that margin we fall even farther out into the edges. Eight-five percent of the world doesn’t experience the world the way that you do… They don’t experience you the way the you do, or in the way that you intend and sometimes not in the way that you actually need. This is their world. It isn’t really built for you. That does not make your wrong. That does not make you damaged. It does mean that in order to fit into the world at large, you have to invest some serious amounts of energy that neurotypical people do not. If you’re diagnosed early, and the people in your world learn about what makes you different, and the different needs you have that make you feel safe, and cared for in a meaningful way, the impact of your neurodiversity may not be a major one. The world, at least at home, flexed toward your needs.
When Home Doesn’t Flex
Late diagnosed neurodivergent people often don’t know that we are neurodivergent, or how we are different from the world around us. We collide with the world around us at full speed, we don’t understand, we get hurt and we learn to fake it to smooth the turbulence. That faking is the energy expenditure that causes CPTSD over long periods of time. You may learn to fake a behavior, even though you don’t understand it, you just see it and mimic it because it makes the turbulence of a parent who doesn’t understand you settle. You mimic it because of a teacher who doesn’t like the way your personality shows up in their classroom, or the way you do the math compared to the method they teach. It’s a constant layer between you and the rest of the world that requires energy to hold up.
When that is happening 24/7, at home, at school, at work, and you’re camouflaging your neurodivergence to keep the peace or to fit in… It takes a major toll over the years. You compress your real self inward and you start to lose track of who you are… It causes depression, anxiety, burnout which can manifest in behavioral rebellion and a host of other ways.
But here’s the important part… You don’t know you’re different… They don’t know how you’re different.
No one here meant to hurt us.
We didn’t mean to hurt ourselves.
May 2025
Experiencing the machine
A year ago. I experienced exactly this. I got to see the mechanism by living inside it, living through it. I’ve always know I was different, I saw the world through a different set of glasses, but I’m normal enough to ready simply as cynical, brooding, dark maybe. I’m some of those things and none of those things at the same time. At the time I’d been depressed for decades, anxiety mounting for decades and even though health care providers meant well and put me on pills for this and that they never delivered relief as promised and honestly, at times they made certain issues far worse. Those medications are designed around generalized presentations of depression and anxiety, not around the long-term compression effects of undiagnosed neurodivergence. They are believed to correct chemical imbalances in the brain which results in a sunnier, less depressed, less anxious disposition. That only works if you have a chemical imbalance in the first place, which I did not. What I had was compression damage that I didn’t realize I had yet.
The Healthcare Gap
The nursing shortage is no joke, there are only 24 hours in a day and there are 8 billion people on this planet and only a hand-full of them are doctors… As a result of that, your doctor, has precious few minutes to spend getting to know you during your appointments. They use labs and tests to bridge knowledge gaps as best they can, but medicine as a whole, has stopped being about the patient in front of you in many ways and has become a more abstracted practice that relies on clinical population averages which you need to meet to the “healthy” badge. When prescribing anti-depressants they use a relatively short questionnaire, no lab test to see if your brain chemicals are actually imbalanced, just a strongly agree, somewhat agree type survey.
Have you ever tried to understand a person in 10 questions? Have you ever played 20 questions?
There’s a reason the game is challenging. It’s hard to describe anything in 20 data points and still preserve the shape of that thing. Typically if you only have 20 data points to describe something, especially something as complex as a person’s mental state… You’re going to flatten the hell out of that person.
I wasn’t depressed, I felt depressed… I wasn’t anxious, I felt anxious… Those are all different things. Those are things that get flattened in a short survey.
ColorFul Windows
The year before, I’d written a short 5 track release called Color EP. The goal of that release was to be as honest as I could get about how I really feel about the world, myself, my life… I did it too well. The me that I had constructed to fill all the gaps between me and the world I didn’t understand??? It cracked… and something new came leaking through. A stain around the edges of memories, a whole new sensory profile to the moment that I’d never noticed before and I finally saw that something… was wrong. More than a little wrong. Something I thought I understood for decades, my childhood, was slightly ajar. That new feeling loaded itself into my world like molten lead, burning through everything and adding this weight I couldn’t define until finally I asked my doctor for help. She put me on Wellbutrin which made me feel great at first… But after about fifteen days on it, I was paranoid of losing the people I love, I was paranoid that I’m not enough to hold my world together, not enough to stay for.
People that oversimplify their interface with the world will say… “Oh man, you just needed to build self confidence.”
Take that simple shit elsewhere.
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