The Year Our Brains Caught Up With Us

Lately, I’ve been thinking about the early days of COVID. While the news was busy with vaccine rollouts and economic charts, something entirely different was happening in our search bars. Many of us were sitting in our living rooms, typing in variations of the same vulnerable question: Do I have ADHD? Am I autistic?

If you spend any time online, you’ve seen the wave that followed. To a lot of onlookers, it looks like a trend. You hear critics complain about "pathologizing the mundane," blaming TikTok algorithms for making people think that hating small talk or having a messy desk means they are neurodivergent. But I don't think that's what's actually happening. To understand why so many of us are waking up to our brains right now, we have to look past the individual psychology and look at how our lives are actually set up.

I keep coming back to this idea of "scaffolding."

When your brain is wired to process the world uniquely, you get incredibly good at building unconscious, brilliant coping mechanisms to get by in a world that wasn't built for you. As kids, we rely on the structure of the school day. The bell rings, you move. The teacher looks at you, you write. As adults, that scaffolding just gets more complicated. It’s the commute, having colleagues physically around you, a dedicated desk, and that clear boundary between "work self" and "home self." For decades, so many of us stayed afloat because of these external structures. The commute was a mental transition state; the open-plan office was a form of social pressure that kept us on track.

Then, March 2020 happened.

Almost overnight, all of that was ripped away. The boundary between home and work just evaporated. Suddenly, the entire burden of structuring a day fell on our own shoulders. Without a boss walking by or the rhythm of a commute, those of us with lateral, creative, non-linear minds found our coping mechanisms shattered. The invisible machinery that kept our lives running had vanished. When you’re forced to be your own secretary, project manager, and cheerleader in a silent room, everything kind of caves in.

While our physical routines were falling apart, something was happening on our screens.

Historically, medical info was incredibly top-down. If you wanted to know about autism, you read a dry textbook written by an observer describing how a child played with blocks. It was cold, clinical, and focused entirely on what the person couldn't do. But during the isolation of the pandemic, social media algorithms got incredibly smart. If you lingered on a video of someone explaining how they experience deep hyperfocus, or how sensory overload makes grocery shopping feel like a nightmare, the algorithm didn't just show you more of that person. It connected you to an entire community of people who shared your exact sensory profile.

We weren't reading checklists of deficits. We were watching real people share their lived experiences, their strengths, and their daily joys.

It felt like looking in a mirror. The algorithm didn't diagnose anyone, but it did something so much better: it validated a lifetime of unexplained friction. It pointed us toward a community of peers who process the world similar to the way we do.

There’s also an economic side to this that we don't talk about enough.

We live in an economy that heavily penalizes brains that don't fit into a neat, linear box. Decades ago, you could secure a stable, middle-class job with predictable, repetitive labor. Today, the modern workplace demands constant self-marketing, administrative self-management, and intense cognitive flexibility. We are all expected to be our own personal assistants. At the same time, the margin for error has shrunk to basically zero. With housing and basic goods costing what they do, the price of "dropping the ball" is terrifying. Missing a bill, forgetting an appointment, or falling behind on emails isn't just embarrassing anymore. In a high-cost society, it can ruin you financially.

When survival requires a massive amount of linear focus, those of us with creative, intuitive, non-linear minds naturally start looking for answers. A diagnosis isn't just a label. It's a tool for self-understanding and survival. It offers workplace protections, accommodations, and a framework for finally forgiving ourselves.

It’s easy for outsiders to look at this wave of self-discovery and think everyone just wants to feel special. But that feels like a really superficial way to look at a massive cultural shift. When you look at the big picture, this wave of neurodivergent discovery feels less like a trend and more like an inevitability. We are witnessing the moment our social and economic structures became too demanding for the mask to hold. The tipping point has passed, and honestly, I don't think there's any going back to the quiet, lonely struggle of the past. We are finally learning to embrace our brains as they are.

Where do you go from here?

If this got you thinking about your own brain, you might be wondering what your next step is. Everyone's journey looks different, and there’s no single "right" way to figure this stuff out.

If you want formal answers and are interested in exploring a clinical diagnosis to access accommodations or support, you can learn more about my assessment services here.

If you don't feel like you need a formal diagnosis, but you want a supportive, neurodiversity-affirming space to explore your traits, understand your unique sensory needs, and build strategies that actually work for your brain, you can learn about scheduling a consultation. If you're not sure which option feels best for you, you can contact me directly and we can figure it out together!

This post is for general education and perspective-shifting, not a replacement for therapy, diagnosis, or treatment. If you are struggling or trying to navigate a mental health concern, please reach out to a qualified professional who can look at your specific situation. What you read here might offer some comfort, insight, or a new way of looking at things, but it is not therapy. Take what actually clicks for you, leave the rest, and remember that your brain deserves personalized, real-world care.