Neurodiversity: What’s in your backpack?

I think most of us have come across the concept of invisible privilege at some point in our life. Have you considered that your neurotypical friends, family, and colleagues enjoy a kind of privilege that you may not have access to as someone with ADHD? Sometimes we like to think about privilege as an invisible backpack we all carry and our privilege fills it with tools or resources that inform how we navigate our world (e.g. money, appearance, gender, ethnicity, to name a few). 

Imagine you are about to venture out into the world on a typical day and you have your “privilege backpack” all ready to go. What are your neurotypical peeps carrying in their backpack that you aren’t? Perhaps they have an internal clock to help them know what time it is, and how quickly time is passing? They likely have a top-of-the-line scheduler that directly links to their brain, giving them an intuitive sense of what things need to be accomplished on any given day. What about a pause button they can press when they get emotionally triggered - they can slow things down and adjust their reaction, or better yet, they have an extra layer they can apply that allows them to have a “thicker skin” when it comes to feeling hurt. They probably have some high-performance brakes they can apply when they need to direct their attention to one particular task. You, on the other hand, may have brakes that are more of the bicycle variety, but with a Ferrari engine for a brain - no match for those itty bitty bicycle brakes.