Lindsey Mack's Substack

Lindsey Mack's Substack

Your Brain Isn’t Broken—You’ve Just Been Lied To

How society’s misconceptions have kept you from owning your true neurodivergent power.

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Lindsey Mackereth
Aug 30, 2025
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Photo by Fleur Kaan on Unsplash

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Rewriting the Narrative for the Late Diagnosed

People often ask me: “What are the strengths of neurocomplexity?” And I always start here: look closely at what you’ve been conditioned to see as weakness.

If you were diagnosed late in life—ADHD, autistic, gifted, or all three—you know what it is like to grow up misunderstood. To work twice as hard to seem “normal” while wondering why the world feels like it runs on an operating system you did not get. You were told to calm down, toughen up, focus better, be less sensitive. You were not broken just wired differently. But no one told you that.

You spent years suppressing what made you powerful.

This is your invitation to reclaim it.

This essay is not about coping or masking. It is about flipping the script. The traits you've been taught to minimize—hyperfocus, rigidity, sensory intensity, relentless curiosity—are not flaws. They are evidence of a neurocomplex mind that sees and senses the world differently. And in that difference lies your edge.

Let us explore how these traits—when finally seen clearly—can become the foundations of mastery, creativity, and leadership.


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