The Gift and Grit of Hypersensitivity and Why Neurodiversity Matters

Written by Fanny Elizaga, Certified Trauma Centered Neuro-Coach, Mindfulness Trainer

What if the very traits society labels as “too much” are actually signs of profound insight and untapped wisdom? In this powerful exploration, Fanny Elizaga dives into the misunderstood world of hypersensitivity and neurodivergence, highlighting voices like Temple Grandin’s and examining how our discomfort with difference often masks a deeper truth. Far from being a burden, neurodivergent experiences can act as early-warning systems, revealing the cultural blind spots we all need to address.

Woman with red hair and freckles stares into the camera. Background features a chalkboard with faint text. Bright, neutral setting.

“Weird.” “Oddball.” “Freak.”

Growing up, she heard every insult on the spectrum.

When she walked down the hallway of junior high school, kids called her “tape recorder.” They were alluding to her tendency to perseverate, or repeat a thought or remark after the stimulus that prompted it.

Up until the age of three and a half, she didn’t speak. A psychiatrist predicted she would never talk. He recommended that her parents commit their daughter to an institution for life.

Sixty years after that diagnosis, Time Magazine named Temple Grandin one of its 100 most influential people in the world.

In 2022, she celebrated 30 years of teaching and research as a professor of animal science at Colorado State University. She’s authored and co-authored nearly 20 books for adults and children, including Animals Make Us Human, The Unwritten Rules ofi Social Relationships, and Autism and Education.

Different, not less

Temple Grandin has a different kind of brain.

The integrity of the fibers in Temple’s left inferior frontal gyrus, an area partly responsible for language, has always been weaker.

Her early tendency towards non-verbalism, however, emerged not entirely from a deficiency in neural connections. Pathways in her left precuneus, a region involved in episodic memory and visuospatial processing, prove more abundant than in most brains.

Temple thinks in pictures, a trait that has given her remarkable insight into animal cognition.

“Words are like a second language to me,” she writes. “I translate both spoken and written words into full-color movies, complete with sound, which runs like a VCR tape in my head.” ₁

When people talk, Temple instantly translates their words into images. She builds entire systems in her imagination. Like animals, she is hyper aware of small, sensory details in her environment, a gift that enables her to excel at working with details.

Like many neurodivergent individuals, Temple’s unique wiring also generates uncomfortably high levels of anxiety. On both sides of her brain, Temple possesses an uncommonly large amygdala, an area responsible for processing emotionally-relevant sensory information. ₂

Like those living with PTSD and OCD, she experiences acute sensory processing challenges. When overstimulated, she senses “a tidal wave of dentist drills, sandpaper, and awful cologne.”

In college, discomfort emanating those symptoms led her to invent a “hug machine”—two hinged sideboards with thick soft padding that delivered deep pressure evenly on both sides of her body. Inspired by the “squeeze chutes” for the cattle that she first saw at her aunt’s ranch in Arizona, Temple’s “hug machine” settled her nervous system. Devices modeled on her innovation have since offered countless individuals on the autism spectrum a reliable method to self-soothe.

At the time, nevertheless, Temple struggled to convince administration, let alone her college roommate, that her revolutionary instrument was not a contraption to satisfy her sexual deviance but a legitimate form of therapy for hypersensitivity.

Woman with closed eyes smiles while wearing black headphones, set against a blurred green background, conveying relaxation.

Everyday discrimination

While my brain is not like Temple’s, my work has introduced me to dozens of children on the autism spectrum. I live with ADHD, which comes with its own set of sensory processing challenges. Experimenting with methods to settle hypersensitivity and hyperactivity has turned into my bread and butter.

Unfortunately, everyday prejudice is common for the neurodiverse. The physiological effects of even the subtlest forms of social exclusion can exacerbate symptoms of acute anxiety for anyone living with autism, PTSD, ADHD, dyslexia, OCD, synesthesia, dyspraxia, and other mental health conditions.

If you’re neurodivergent, you may be familiar with this vicious cycle.

Imagine you’re walking down an aisle of a Walmart. Fluorescent lights flickering above you flip the first switch. You feel a little overstimulated, but you’ve got this. You reach for your sunglasses and slip them on subtly. The lights dim in your visual cortex, and your amygdala turns down the volume of its high alert system.

Then a cacophony from the speaker hits. It echoes through the aisles of your cranium at twice the intensity it does for everyone els.. You fumble for your noise-canceling earbuds. You nudge the buds in just soon enough to decrease the decibel.

A guy bumps into you from behind. In your limbic system, another lever lifts. You jolt. Turn around.

Your face, without speaking, probably says something like: “Get the bleep away from me!” But your executive function, that voice of reason, has been hijacked. You can’t help the way you come across. You’re no longer completely in control of your emotions, let alone your facial expressions.

He sneers at you, or so you think. But you can hardly make out what he’s saying. You tug your scarf around your chin, hoping it might temporarily disguise whatever impulse to fight, freeze, or flee has washed over you. By mistake, you knock over a display of mega jars of multivitamins.

Heads turn.

In their gaze, your body tenses.

A lady leers, muttering something under her breath. You swear you heard a teenage girl say “crazy.”

All you want is an exit, but you’ve lost your bearings. The nerves on your skin are crackling, the scent of bad cologne is wafting, and sandpaper is scraping along your spine.

By now, you figure even if you don’t experience a panic attack, you’ll end up late to your dentist appointment. The receptionist may roll her eyes; it’s happened before. Under the hot lamps with a hygienist's tools buzzing in your ear, you know that a state of dysregulation may come rushing back.

Despite your best efforts, the red alarm is blaring in your hypothalamus. You’re a child again. Helpless. Misunderstood.

Canaries in the coal mine

While the above example of social exclusion is relatively mild, for neurodiverse individuals, it’s hard to escape. As Ludmila N. Praslova writes in The Canary Code: A Guide to Neurodiversity, Dignity, and Intersectional Belonging at Work, “despite all the business case research, advancing neuro inclusion at work is hard. Excruciatingly hard.”

Belonging at Work, “despite all the business case research, advancing neuroinclusion at work is hard. Excruciatingly hard.”

Praslova documents the irony of attending a conference on inclusion and struggling to find accommodations for her noise sensitivity: “…the music in the hotel lobby was torturous—a loud, pulsating, painful assault to my senses.” Praslova had to walk around the building to the back entrance. Noise makes her “physically sick,” but when she brought up the issue, the organizers didn’t think to accommodate. When you don’t have sensory sensitivities, it’s difficult to understand. ₃

As Uraina Clark, Evan Miller and Rachel Hedge uncover in their research on the effects of social discrimination on the brain, “psychological stress on neural functions is well documented, with evidence of significant effects on the amygdala — a neural region that is central to psychosocial functions.”

Exposure to discrimination is associated with increases in neuropsychological symptoms, including depression, anxiety, and PTSD-related symptoms. The amygdala is also affected by the symptoms of all those disorders, suggesting that the vicious cycle of hyperstimulation and discrimination is real.

“Frequent exposure to ‘everyday’ forms of discrimination (i.e., relatively minor social mistreatment) is associated with observable differences in brain function,” Clark et al. conclude. The data “suggest that social social discrimination affects brain function in a manner that is similar to, but still distinct from, other types of psychological stressors.” ₄

Human beings are naturally and necessarily social, which means that even when social discrimination involves subtle, sometimes conflicting social cues, those with brain differences often experience “physiological effects that are equal to or greater than those that occur in overt discrimination.” ₅

However, Praslova sees the hidden gift in what all too often feels like a burden for the neurodiverse.

Just like coal miners used a canary throughout most of the 20th century to sense dangerous levels of carbon-monoxide before it became deadly, the sensitivity inherent in those of us who are neurodivergen can help point out areas of our culture, schools, and workplaces that may need subtle adjustments. A lack of fairness impacts people with sensitive nervous systems before it affects others.

So the next time you witness someone with autism perseverating, hear a colleague with PTSD complain about the intensity of the overhead lights, or receive a request from a person with ADHD to turn down the music—thank them. The more we listen to people with hypersensitivity, the more comfortable we’ll make the world for all people and animals alike.

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Read more from Fanny Elizaga

Fanny Elizaga, Certified Trauma Centered Neuro-Coach, Mindfulness Trainer

Fanny Elizaga is an occupational therapist, certified Neuro-Coach, and trauma-informed mindfulness trainer. Over the years, she has embraced her passion for learning and applying holistic modalities for mind-body healing in her personal and professional life. Fanny is also a Reiki master practitioner and certified instructor in the art of Qi-Gong. Fanny inspires, empowers, and educates her clients by teaching brain-enhancing tools for self-improvement, expanding out of their comfort zone, and thriving. Fanny is also the founder and trainer of Neuro-Wellness Academy; she is genuinely passionate about creating content and courses based on practical brain science for wellness, resilience, personal transformation.

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