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A review by dhiyanah
Divergent Mind: Thriving in a World That Wasn't Designed for You by Jenara Nerenberg
hopeful
informative
medium-paced
5.0
This was a valuable educational read steeped with helpful perspectives and reference points for those navigating sensory processing differences or recently-realized autism/adhd realities. I was intuitively guided to this title last year, not knowing anything about it at first - some of the previous reviews had put me off reading it but I kept getting nudged back to it.
I read it at the perfect time for me - and being located at a marginalized intersection with very limited access to help, this book was significant to me as an intellectual resource to support me staying hopeful and curious about this big unmasking process I'm living through.
I find that it's most beneficial to read this knowing that: 1) too much of neurodivergence conversation is white/Western/global north centered so it's important to have the capacity to contextualize based on socio-cultural and personal frameworks, 2) everyone has their blindspots - be prepared to receive what works, with intention to empower your truthful resonance from these shares, and compost the rest, 3) the language neurodivergent folks choose to articulate their own realities shouldn't have to follow some kind of clique/hivemind rules and to be honest, this can result in intense semantic clashes (between generational or cross-cultural understandings) - being open to this can admittedly be triggering to those who haven't felt safety in a very long time. Tread carefully.
I'd recommend this text to anyone willing to learn about ND realities, to use the sharings in here to create or update their own authentic self-expression, and for those living and loving ND folks to find shared language/response systems to navigate the world together. This book is a starting point at best - reading more like a series of shares than a process/workbook type - and it's one you can take your time sifting through. Hopefully what you learn here can open up the discernment and hope for more attuned strategies and resources (as I hope it will for me).
I read it at the perfect time for me - and being located at a marginalized intersection with very limited access to help, this book was significant to me as an intellectual resource to support me staying hopeful and curious about this big unmasking process I'm living through.
I find that it's most beneficial to read this knowing that: 1) too much of neurodivergence conversation is white/Western/global north centered so it's important to have the capacity to contextualize based on socio-cultural and personal frameworks, 2) everyone has their blindspots - be prepared to receive what works, with intention to empower your truthful resonance from these shares, and compost the rest, 3) the language neurodivergent folks choose to articulate their own realities shouldn't have to follow some kind of clique/hivemind rules and to be honest, this can result in intense semantic clashes (between generational or cross-cultural understandings) - being open to this can admittedly be triggering to those who haven't felt safety in a very long time. Tread carefully.
I'd recommend this text to anyone willing to learn about ND realities, to use the sharings in here to create or update their own authentic self-expression, and for those living and loving ND folks to find shared language/response systems to navigate the world together. This book is a starting point at best - reading more like a series of shares than a process/workbook type - and it's one you can take your time sifting through. Hopefully what you learn here can open up the discernment and hope for more attuned strategies and resources (as I hope it will for me).