About us

Nadia Rabbaa 

Co-lead/writer 

As a child, all I ever wanted was to understand the world around me. Little did I know that it was symptomatic of the experience of neurodivergent folks. Navigating a neurotypical environment is a strange experience where everything seems foreign and where we are the aliens. Words have been my salvation. Language being a convention, all I had to do was to learn its rope to create bridges between my inner neurodivergent world and the oh so mysterious outside. My boundless curiosity and my passion for storytelling, psychology and political sciences led me to be a journalist, a peacekeeper and an academic.

For me, neurodiversity is pride. It is claiming that nothing is wrong with being atypical. It is reclaiming our otherness. We need to stop pathologizing neurological differences. We are not a disorder; we represent the variety and diversity of humankind. If anything, being neurodivergent makes us uniquely human. My journey around my diagnosis of ADHD, dyspraxia and ASD has been a transformational experience, one filled with grief, confusion, anger and loss. It led me from shame to acceptance, and from pride to advocacy. This project is the result of my journey.

My neurotype made me who I am and I wouldn’t change my brain for the world. I wish the world could see its magic: it’s often messy, it’s often complex and layered and over the top but damn it is beautiful. I see and feel and think so differently but also so intensely. My inner world is vividly creative and can keep me occupied for hours. My love for learning and quiet makes me a voracious solitary reader. I can spend days inside, alone. I am also very chatty : info dumping is my love language. If you are lucky, and if I like you, I will talk your ears out about social justice, intersectionality and peace building. 

The extent to which the speed and intensity of my thought process and delicateness of my sensory system can be overwhelming is neither understood nor accommodated. Living in a neurotypical world is a constant marathon for my brain and puts me in a constant state of angst and burnout. It is a lonely experience to struggle to survive in a world built by and for others who never seem to understand your lived experience. The worst part is getting blamed for the limitations the system is setting up for you and your neuro-kind. Being an advocate is for me an act of survival. I cannot change my brain (not that I want to) but I can try to make the world kinder for my peers.

If I had the means to change one thing, I would change the way the world is designed. I would be the architect of a world where all differences are taken into account and accommodated. Whether with physical, mental or sensory impairments, disabled folks would not have to ask permission not to be harmed by their environment. They would not be limited by the society they live in. Inclusivity would be the norm, not the exception.

Daniel Demmel

Co-lead/web developer

Despite having a degree in economics, I have never used that knowledge. Instead, I became a self-taught web designer and engineer. I have learned those skills via my special interest in computers since childhood. Being introverted, I have managed to get by avoiding to interact too much with people. However, since I have had my two kids – who are as lively and loud as children can be – I simply could not cope any more. I realised that there might be something more going on than simply being an introvert. After a long wait, I got diagnosed with autism at the age of 37. Getting diagnosed granted me access to the neurodiversity community and the unicity of our shared experiences. It opened my eyes to the unnecessary struggles of being disabled in an ableist society. My diagnosis empowered me and set me off on a journey to understand myself that led to this project. 

I would like the world to know that neurodiversity is neither an illness nor a superpower. It means having a brain which works differently than the majority of people. It’s a different combination of capabilities in people’s brains. It means finding it easy to learn a lot of complex and technical concepts, while struggling with noise or understanding why people behave a certain way. My diagnosis helped me understand why and when I needed to take myself out of a situation to prevent a meltdown or shutdown for instance. Autism can not, but mainly should not, be “cured”. 

It’s hard to know how other people experience life – oh, the infamous double empathy problem! – but one thing I don’t think allistic/neurotypical people have is the strange dynamic between hyperfocus and inertia. One minute I can be hyperfocusing on something in a state of absolute flow that I won’t even notice things like thirst or having to go to the bathroom. But if I am interrupted, I will automatically struggle to gather my thoughts and attention due to the anticipation of another interruption. Enter then the unhappy state of autistic inertia, layering levels of procrastination on top of each other…

The world would gain so much by accommodating differences in people’s brains and bodies in order to enable them to get by independently and flourish. The best part is that accommodating various disabilities benefits everyone, as very few people will go through life without experiencing being at least temporarily disabled due to an illness, injury or poor mental health.

Adrian Coto

Photographer / costarican queer visual artist. 

In my family, being outside of the norm was the standard ; we were almost narcissistically proud of being exceptional. Being different for me is shown in the way I relate to the world, the way I think and present myself. Most of the time, I feel like an outsider to the human experience. Most events and most crowds seem unrelatable, as if the world was a movie that could only be watched but not participated in. Intensely relating to things, activities and people I find interesting or welcoming has however always been extremely easy. 

After several years of suspicion, I got diagnosed with ADHD at 37 years old. My diagnosis helped me make sense of my “awkwardness”, as I now understand my lack of interest and no longer label it as laziness. Similarly, I do not find my lack of focus appalling anymore. My brain does things I can neither control nor stop. My relationship with time is unique and probably more troublesome than for most. I also find it extremely difficult to be still for long periods of time and I hate being a spectator of things. My attention is outside of my control, my sleep cycles are off, and I struggle with starting a task, staying on subject or stopping working on something when I am on a deadline or hyper focused. 

I would really like for everyone to know that I have no choice over my neurotype, and regardless of what I would change about myself, this is who I am - I just can not abide by standard expectations of focus, work attention or scheduling. My neurodiversity is not a choice, it is not a disease and it is not a privilege. The world is a bit more difficult for me as it is not made by or for people with my specificity. Despite the enormous level of privilege I have, being different comes with a price. Surviving in a neurotypical world has me exhausted most of the time; I live in a constant state of "controlled delirium" that takes most of my energy. 

To me, changing redistribution of wealth is what would make the world a better place for all, including neurodivergent people, as poverty and discrimination always weighs more on the marginalised. Poverty is the most structural and unavoidable form of marginalisation. The work structures would also need transforming as people should be able to work within the realm of their specific needs and expect a fair compensation for it. Access to prompt and proper healthcare - as disabled folks often need medication, extra time, different empathy, different sorts of explanations - should not be an option but the norm.