A strengths-based exploration by 🟠 the neurovision group

Introduction

This article is Part 4 of a 12-part series exploring the lived reality of neurodivergence, not as deficit, but as a blueprint for strengths, creativity, innovation and depth.

One of the most confusing and often painful parts of being neurodivergent is this:

People see your intelligence.
People see your talent.
People see your capability.
But they don’t see the invisible barrier between your mind and your ability to start, plan, organise or complete certain tasks.

From the outside, it looks inconsistent.
Inside, it feels like hitting an invisible wall.

This disconnect is one of the most misunderstood experiences in autism and ADHD, and one of the most important to reframe.

Some neurodivergent experiences are subtle.
This… is not one of them.

One of the most baffling, painful and wildly misunderstood parts of being ND is our executive function differences.

What people can’t see is the invisible gap between your mind and your ability to start, plan, organise, or complete certain tasks.

From the outside it looks inconsistent.
From the inside it feels like slamming into a transparent wall only you can see.

It is not a character flaw.
It’s a neurological mismatch between how your brain thinks… and how the world expects you to function.

The disconnect is real, and it’s not the insult people assume it is

You can redesign a whole project in your head on the walk home.
You can decode a complex emotional mess in a single conversation.
You can connect dots no one else even noticed.

And then… you try to ring the GP.

Your brain: absolutely not.

The gap between intellect and executive function is so universal in autism and ADHD that it might as well be our unofficial mascot.

From the inside it feels like:

• having a season ticket to all your ideas, but the turnstile jams
• owning a Ferrari with a slightly unpredictable starter motor
• watching the “go” button flash while your whole system says “not today”
• knowing exactly what needs doing, yet sitting motionless as guilt stacks up like unopened post
• being visibly bright… yet unable to “just book the bloody dentist”

It’s not laziness.
It’s not attitude.
It’s not failure.

It’s simply a brain whose “I know” and “I go” circuits sometimes forget to hold hands.

Executive function is the conductor… and sometimes it goes missing

Think of executive function as the orchestra conductor.

In neurotypical brains, the conductor turns up on time, baton polished, ready for work.

In ND brains?

Sometimes the conductor legs it to the pub.
Sometimes it starts conducting drum and bass when everyone else expected Elgar.
Sometimes it shows up halfway through the second act wearing sunglasses and carrying snacks.

Dopamine isn’t a steady drip; it’s tidal.
Transitions take triple the energy.
Masking, sensory load, stress, poor sleep, too much noise, they all drain the battery before you’ve even opened the task.

And when the system is stretched, executive function is the first department to dim the lights.

It’s not misbehaviour.
It’s bandwidth.

The gap isn’t closed by force; it’s bridged by design

Here’s what actually helps now:

• The “micro-step hack.”
  Make the first step comically tiny:
  “Stand up.”
  “Open the NHS app.”
  “Put trainers by the door.”
  Your brain can’t argue with something that small, momentum slides in quietly.

• Body-doubling.
  A mate on FaceTime folding laundry while you fold yours?
  Suddenly you’re functional again.
  Magic.

• Novelty.
  New café, new playlist, new pen, new notepad (who can relate to the new pad delight!?)
  If dopamine had a love language, this would be it.

• Ride the wave when it hits.
  If the rare 3 a.m. clarity arrives, cancel everything else and surf.
  That’s not chaos, that’s optimal operating conditions.

• Rename the struggle.
  I stopped calling it procrastination.
  Now I call it:
  “Waiting for viable launch conditions.”
  Instantly feels less like failure, more like aviation.

The gap was never about ability.
It was always about access.

Your brain isn’t malfunctioning. It’s mis-housed.

If you’ve ever been told you’re “too clever to struggle with that”, you’re not a paradox, you’re a high-spec system trying to run on an operating environment built for dial-up.

You were never the problem.
The fluorescent-lit, open-plan, nine-to-five world is simply not calibrated for the way your brilliance works.

And when you finally give your brain the environment, tools, pacing and understanding it deserves?

Nothing thinks, builds, creates, solves, imagines or perceives quite like you.

A toast to the gloriously inconsistent legends we are

Our community is full of people who:

• can redesign an entire company strategy in the shower
  but need a 45-minute pep talk to open the NHS app
• have been called “genius” and “lazy” in the same afternoon, possibly in the same sentence
• know the solution to every complex problem except “what’s for dinner?”
• greet the rare 3 a.m. hyperfocus surge like New Year’s Eve
  (because we just rewrote reality and it feels fantastic)

We are spectacularly built.
Just not always built for Tuesdays.

Come sit with the rest of us intermittently functional miracles

If you’ve ever thought,
“Hmmm… I’ve spent my whole life being told to just push harder,”
you’re in exactly the right place.

In the All Kinds of Minds community:

No one asks why you haven’t “just done it yet”.
No one prescribes yoga and positive vibes.
We will, however, send the perfect meme, nod knowingly and maybe body-double you all the way to your dentist appointment.

The kettle’s on.
The lights are dim.
And the only executive function required is clicking this link:

👉 Join All Kinds of Minds community (free, zero pressure, maximum understanding)

See you in there, you magnificent, intermittently functional legend.

Part 5 up next - Social hangover. 

If there is one experience that neurodivergent people often recognise instantly, even before diagnosis, it’s the social hangover.