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From Diagnosed to Defined?

Rethinking Neurodivergence in a World Obsessed with Labels

Have you ever stopped to ask what it really means to be “normal”?

In the rising wave of neurodiversity advocacy, it’s become common to celebrate diagnoses like ADHD, autism, OCD, and BPD as empowering tools for self-understanding. And in many ways, they can be — for some, a diagnosis is a relief, a mirror, a roadmap that finally makes things make sense. But even as these terms gain traction in social media bios and school support plans, we need to pause and ask: are we liberating ourselves, or building new cages?




As Gabor Maté and Daniel Maté write in The Myth of Normal, what we’ve accepted as “normal” may actually be a distortion — shaped more by social pressure than human truth. Our systems have become faster, harsher, more fragmented. Especially in education and economics, it’s less about nurturing the whole child and more about productivity, standardisation, and performance. The cracks in this system don’t create neurodivergence — they reveal it. What was always there is now brought to the surface by a world that no longer accommodates difference with grace.

In South Africa, these cracks are even wider. Getting a formal diagnosis can cost anywhere between R6,000 and R15,000, and for many families — particularly in marginalised communities — those numbers are insurmountable. Public systems are overwhelmed, underfunded, and painfully slow. I’ve seen this from the inside. As a teacher with over seven years of classroom experience, I’ve witnessed the strain on children, educators, and caregivers alike. The pressure is real, and the support is not equally distributed.

So we find ourselves in a paradox: diagnoses can be helpful frameworks, yet they are born of systems that are often reactive, limited, and pathologising. And while many embrace labels as part of an identity, these same labels can entrench a damaging binary — the “neurotypical” vs. the “neurodivergent.” The standard vs. the deviation.

What began as a movement for inclusion now risks becoming another sorting mechanism — a new way to "other" people. Labels can bring relief and connection, but they can also box us in, shaping how we see ourselves and how we are seen by others. Even within gender and identity spaces, we’re seeing a similar pattern: the more rigidly we define ourselves by terms that were meant to liberate us, the more we risk losing the fluidity and freedom they once promised.

This doesn’t mean we throw out labels entirely. For many, they’re vital stepping stones. But we do need to hold them lightly. We need to create more spaces — in homes, schools, and communities — where kids and parents alike can breathe beyond diagnosis. Where whole-person learning is the foundation. Where self-awareness is fostered not just through testing, but through embodiment, creativity, play, regulation, and connection.

That’s where my work comes in. Through holistic education programs designed with compassion, evidence, and real-life classroom experience, I aim to bridge the gap — between the medical and the mindful, between systems and souls. I support families navigating this terrain with tools that honour the whole child — not just their labels, but their light, their needs, their way of being in the world.

So if you’re feeling overwhelmed by the current noise — the media pushback, the soaring diagnosis rates, the guilt, the costs, the contradictions — know this: you’re not alone. You’re not imagining it. The system is under strain, and so are we. But there is another way.




Together, we can imagine — and build — education systems rooted not in conformity, but in coherence. Not in control, but in compassion. Not in diagnosing what’s wrong, but in nurturing what’s real.

 
 
 

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