July 21, 2026
A newsletter for neurodivergent professionals and the workplace culture we're building — real talk, no polish, no gatekeeping.
Where Your “Superpowers” Actually Come From
We hear it constantly in neurodivergent circles: “It’s not a disorder, it’s a superpower.” Hyperfocus. Pattern recognition. The ability to notice what everyone else missed. And it’s not wrong — a recent workforce study found that employers themselves report seeing these traits show up on the job: the majority noted hyperfocus in their neurodivergent employees, along with high rates of creativity, innovative thinking, and detail processing.
But here’s the part that gets skipped in the LinkedIn-friendly version of this story: most of these “powers” didn’t arrive because someone’s brain is simply built different in a convenient way. They were built. Often under pressure.
Hyper-vigilant attention to detail, for a lot of us, didn’t start as a gift. It started as a survival skill — reading a room for danger, tracking a parent’s or teacher’s mood before it turned, double- and triple-checking work because being wrong once carried a cost that didn’t feel proportional to the mistake. The ability to become instantly, deeply competent at a new task? Sometimes that’s raw curiosity. Sometimes it’s what happens when you spent years having to prove you belonged somewhere, so “good enough” was never actually an option.
This isn’t a reason to throw the “superpower” framing out. It’s a reason to hold it honestly. A strength that grew out of trauma or adaptation is still a real strength — it still works, it still produces results, people still value it. But it’s also allowed to be tiring. It’s allowed to have a cost that doesn’t show up on the résumé. Naming where a strength came from isn’t the same as taking it away from you.
There’s a useful distinction happening in the research right now, too. A recent U.S. survey on neurodiversity at work found that awareness has grown, but a real gap remains between employees who say they’re neurodivergent and how much support or accommodation actually reaches them day to day. Strengths get celebrated a lot more easily than needs get accommodated. Both are part of the same person.
So if you’ve built something real out of what used to just be survival — attention to detail, the ability to read people, the drive to master a skill fast because you had to — that’s worth being proud of. It’s also worth being honest about. You’re allowed to keep the strength and grieve where it came from at the same time.
Source: iOH (Association of Occupational Health and Wellbeing Professionals), “Advancing Neurodiversity in the Workplace” (Feb. 2026); Understood.org, 2026 Neurodiversity at Work Survey (May 2026).
I’ve been thinking a lot about where my own “superpowers” actually came from.
I can walk into almost any situation and figure out what someone needs, then go learn whatever I need to learn to get it to them. I like to joke that I’m basically a Master Builder—like in the Lego movies, the ones who can look at a pile of random pieces and see exactly what it’s supposed to become. Hand me a problem I’ve never touched before, and I will figure it out, piece by piece, until it works.
I also notice details other people walk right past. And I can sit down with almost anyone—a stranger, a client, someone having a rough day—and within a few minutes they feel like I see them. Not performed interest. The real thing.
For a long time, I thought those were just… personality. Things I was good at. It’s taken me a while, and a late autism diagnosis, to realize a lot of that came from somewhere. The detail-tracking didn’t start as a party trick—it started because I learned early that missing something small could cost me. The fast-learning thing isn’t just curiosity—some of it is years of needing to prove, over and over, that I belonged in the room. Even the way I talk to people—reading them, making them feel seen—I think some of that came from a kid who got very good at reading rooms because it wasn’t always safe not to.
None of that makes the strengths less real. I use all of it, every day, in Becoming. But I don’t think we do each other any favors when we only tell the highlight-reel version of neurodivergent (ND) superpowers—the part where it’s all gift and no origin story. I’d rather be honest: yeah, this is a strength. It’s also armor I built a long time ago, and I’m still figuring out which parts I still need and which parts I get to finally put down.
What are your neurodivergent superpowers?
If any of that sounds familiar—if your “strength” also came from somewhere you didn’t choose—I’d genuinely love to hear about it. Join the Becoming Facebook page and look for the “What Are Your ND Superpowers?” post and comment your ND superpowers.
We are becoming more—super!
~Alex
Founder & Chief Neurodivergent
Becoming partners with Autism On the Go, a peer-led nonprofit for neurodivergent adults. All AOG events and resources are free — no diagnosis required, no cost, ever. Whether you’re autistic, neurodivergent, or just curious about what that might mean for you, there’s a seat for you.
Thursday, July 23 — 9:00 PM ET
Thursday Group: Weekly Autistic Adult Meetup
Open to Autistic adults (18+), those on the spectrum, and anyone exploring their identity. Casual, ongoing space for open and honest conversation on whatever’s relevant to lived experience. No topic requirement, no diagnosis required.
Thursday, July 30 — 7:00 PM ET
Hear From Each Other
A space where all neurotypes — Autistic, Allistic, neurodivergent, neurotypical — come together to share and listen. Each month features a speaker who is Autistic or on the spectrum, sharing their personal story.
Full AOG calendar: https://autismonthego.org/calendar-of-events/
Sign up for groups: https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/sl/TDjZ07N/AOG
