🪐 How I First Met Neurodiversity

Photo by Peter Burdon on Unsplash

I didn’t meet neurodiversity in a textbook or through a diagnosis. I met it through people. Through shared moments. Through experiences that quietly, powerfully changed me.

I was young and curious. I thought I was there to offer help — to support with tasks, be patient, play games. But instead, I was invited into a different rhythm of the world.

My first real encounter came as a young volunteer in Thessaloniki, at a special education school in Evosmos. Each child there taught me something no classroom ever had. 

Later, I volunteered at the School for the Blind, also in Thessaloniki. It was there I truly realized: sensory experience is a universe of its own — and we each live in slightly different galaxies. I learned to slow down. To listen with more than my ears. To feel what didn’t need to be said.

Then came Endynamei — a neurodivergent team of dancers, artists, and actors. Their performances weren’t just art. They were language. Expression in its rawest, most beautiful form. No barriers. No pretending. Just movement, color, emotion — each one a truth of its own.

There were moments of intensity — sensory meltdowns, overwhelm, confusion. But also, clarity. Honesty. Kindness without pretense. I began to see how the world wasn’t built for these individuals — how much they had to adapt, mask, and struggle just to be accepted.

As time passed, I started noticing similar patterns in adults around me — and even in myself. The constant mental noise. Emotional waves that felt too big or too fast. A deep craving for calm, structure, and clarity. The exhaustion that followed social interactions.

I began to read, to listen more closely. I found voices in books, videos, and online spaces describing what it’s like to live in a neurodivergent world — one shaped by ADHD, autism, anxiety, sensory sensitivities.

Slowly, I stopped seeing neurodiversity as something that lived only in “special” spaces. I saw it in everyday life. In creative friends. In anxious conversations. In the way some people fidget, forget, or hyperfocus for hours. In the way others feel the world so deeply it hurts — and heals.

My journey with neurodiversity isn’t about labeling or fixing. It’s about noticing. Deepening understanding. Making room for different ways of being, sensing, thinking, feeling.

This story is still unfolding. But I carry all these people and moments with me. They taught me that neurodiversity isn’t something to fix — it’s something to honor. To respect. To create space for.

With Elli