Which came first the chicken or the egg?

Exploring Aspects of Innate vs. Acquired Neurodivergence

Growing up as a 1980s, latch-key Gen-Xer from an alcoholic, co-dependent family, I used to think that most of my differences and relationship problems came from my dysfunctional home life. Now, as a recently, late-diagnosed Autistic ADHDer (AuDHD) who also has complex trauma, I wonder which came first–the chicken or the egg. That is, am I who I am more due to my innate neurodivergence, or my acquired neurodivergence? Perhaps, I will never truly know. But, in this post, I will explore the various sides of this question including innate and acquired neurodivergence.

Innate Neurodivergence

Both autism and ADHD are considered highly genetic and highly-heritable, neurodevelopmental differences.¹²³  This means that these different neurotypes run in families and are more likely than not both innate and inherent to the person. By the way, according to a 2020 study, approximately 15-20% of the population is considered neurodivergent.⁷

“Many forms of neurodivergence are an innate part of how the brain develops and functions. While these differences may go unrecognized or undiagnosed in childhood, that doesn't mean they were not there and suddenly appeared in adulthood.”⁴

These innate differences express themselves uniquely in the neurodivergent person. That is, a neurodivergent person’s experience of the world, their way of thinking, their creative expression, their way of relating to others, and more may be unique because they have a significantly different brain from the neurotypical person.⁵⁶ 

Growing up, I felt different from a very young age. I felt that I couldn’t relate well with others, many times had challenges expressing, explaining, and communicating my opinions and perspectives (frequently, my perspectives were misunderstood or unappreciated), and I also had uniquely different interests from my peers growing up. For example, I didn’t know how to interact and play with other children well, usually, I would boss other kids around and tell them what I wanted them to do, if they didn’t follow my lead, I would get upset and have a meltdown. As a child, I was usually called “bossy” and “inflexible.” Additionally, my parents told me that I was very active–hyperactive–as a young child and a “motor-mouth” who only stopped talking and asking questions when I was asleep. This was especially true when I was under the age of 5.

Additionally, in school, I would always have a “divergent” viewpoint and play the “devil’s advocate”. Starting in third grade, many of my teachers didn’t appreciate my perspective which usually caused the conversation to go in the “wrong” direction–at least according to the teacher. I can’t tell you how often I was told to stay after school for detention because I said something in class that either the teacher didn’t appreciate, or I told a peer in class what I really thought which was taken to be either “rude” or “unkind”. In my opinion, the comment I made was a fact as I understood it and I had a difficult time with “niceties.” By the time I entered seventh grade after we moved to a different state, I began to highly mask and camouflage my true impulses, feelings, and traits—I’ll speak about this later in future articles. Finally, I could spend hours alone on my special interests without getting bored or losing focus. 

Now, I used to think the reason for this was that I was growing up as an only child of immigrant parents with a different cultural expression who was mainly around adults and didn’t socialize much with other kids. I also thought that I was just a unique, creative thinker. Heck, my parents even called me “little professor” because I would go around asking lots of curious questions and talking about my special interests incessantly and with passion. By the way, as an adult, I eventually became a college professor, and given a chance, I could talk for hours (at least about my area of interest). The same is not true in interpersonal and intimate conversations. In fact, I usually have the greatest difficulty navigating personal relationships.

Now, going back to my childhood, my parents had their own differences too. My father preferred to be alone, he focused on either work or his special interest (usually gambling and sports) and self-medicated his general and social anxieties with both nicotine and alcohol. My father also had his strong preferences and liked things to be “just so” and would have a rage fit if things were out of place (or different from what he expected) and things weren’t how he wanted them to be. Additionally, he didn’t like to socialize, mainly kept to himself, and had very strong opinions–and thought that he was not only an expert in everything, but always had the best solution and answer to anything and everything despite having limited knowledge about the actual topic. 

My mother had her own differences too including being nicknamed “Zoom, Zoom” or “The energizer bunny” by her co-workers because she was always busy, speedy, and moving. She had a difficult time sitting still and always had the need to be doing something. Perhaps, we could even say that she could have been considered a bit hyperactive at times.  Was this due to her own processing of trauma, perhaps an innate quality she expressed from an early age, or maybe a combination of both? We may never know the full answer, but it ultimately doesn’t matter.

In my opinion, both of my parents expressed some different qualities of neurodivergence. It would be unfair of me to try to diagnose them but suffice it to say, I can see myself in the way my parents both acted and how they preferred to be both with themselves, each other, and others around them.  I’ve picked up a combination of my parents’ traits and expressions in the world which others have told me are not neurotypical.

Additionally, I personally experienced many sensory processing issues from a very young age which is also very common for many people with neurodivergence. For example, light, especially sunlight, was always too bright; my eyes would tear up and hurt going outside on a sunny day. Also, various noises were too loud and felt offensive.  I would cover my ears often complaining of the noise volume. Textures were too rough including shirt tags and sock seams which felt horrible and led me to have emotional meltdowns. Additionally, food textures especially certain soft and squishy textures made me want to gag. As a result, I avoided eating and was considered a very picky eater. My parents would get frustrated with me and make me sit at the dinner table for what seemed like hours even after everyone else was finished because I refused to eat my dinner. Moreover, I even had lots of skin sensitivities to various soaps, laundry detergents, and other cleaning products. My parents were always getting different products, taking me to the doctor, or treating my rashes, hives, and other skin reactions with home remedies.  By the way, researchers published a 2021 research study in which they “…present epidemiological evidence linking allergic diseases and neurodevelopmental disorders such as ADHD and ASD, evaluate the shared factors of allergic diseases and altered neurodevelopment, and discuss potential mechanisms underlying the comorbidity.” In other words, they show that there is a strong link between allergies and innate neurodivergence.

Suffice it to say, as for me, I was a handful for my parents and my experience of the world was innately not typical.

Acquired Neurodivergence

“Neurodivergence in the brain is characterized as differences in brain structure resulting in changes in behavior, emotional processing, cognitive processing, sensory processing, and other factors having to do with how we use our nervous systems.”⁸

According to various sources and studies, an individual can acquire neurodivergence from various different causes including traumatic brain injury, stroke, dementia, Alzheimer’s, and even trauma. 

In the New York Times bestselling book, “The Body Keeps The Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma,” Bessel Van Der Kolk discusses how fMRI studies show structural changes to the brain due to trauma. In other words, the brains of people who have experienced trauma are different from those who have not. These structural differences can account for differences in how a person processes their environment and as a result how they respond to it as well. Hence, they will have differences in how they use their nervous system and consequently are considered neurodivergent.

This insight was huge for me to learn because there is extensive personal and intergenerational trauma in my family. According to a 2021 study,

“Intergenerational trauma increases lifetime susceptibility to depression and is a major risk factor for developing multiple neuropsychiatric disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and schizophrenia.”

Both sets of my Polish Catholic grandparents lived through World War II and were directly involved in the war. While my maternal grandparents were prisoners at Buchenwald concentration camp⁹, my paternal grandparents and their young family lived in war-torn Poland throughout the entire war. 

In 1946, a year after the war ended, both of my parents were born into a newly organized communist Polish state. Not only did their parents’ generation have the trauma of war, but now they had the continued fear and ongoing trauma of living in a highly regulated and militarized communist state led by Stalin and later other Soviet communist leaders.¹⁰

It was within this environment and to highly traumatized parents and communities that my parents were born, raised, and grew up around. My paternal grandfather was a very strict man who expected obedience and wasn’t afraid to use violence to get it. My father had shared with me many instances of him witnessing and being the recipient of domestic violence at the hands of his father up until he was around 16 years old. In other words, until my father himself was as big and strong (or even stronger) as his father. On the other hand, my maternal grandfather avoided physical abuse, yet was emotionally distant, strict, and verbally abusive too. 

In each of my parents’ families of origin, they both experienced a stressful environment that shaped their way of understanding themselves and how they relate and expect to relate in relationship to others and the world around them.

After my parents met and married, they immigrated to the United States about a year before I was born in 1973. I can just imagine the amount of stress that they both experienced with all the different changes and transitions they both experienced. Each of my parents had to adjust to a new culture, and new language while living thousands of miles away from their families. My father did have some family already living in the US including his sister, brother-in-law, and niece. However, my mother had no family or friends that she knew locally. Later in life, she told me those were some of the loneliest and hardest times she could remember.

To cope with their lot, Eastern Europeans, especially Poles, have been known for consuming lots of alcohol. My father was no exception. For most of my childhood and adolescence, I mostly remember my father being unavailable because he was either working, drinking, or recovering. When he drank, he wasn’t a pleasant person to be around. In fact, we had an unspoken rule at home to leave my father alone when he was drinking or else. This mainly played out with my parents arguing and fighting which seemed like it occurred all the time. Their fights would get physical on many occasions and I would witness or hear my mother get battered by my father almost on a daily basis. And, if I “misbehaved” I too would receive punishment from my father’s hand or belt.

Outside of my family of origin, there were many other sources of trauma that had a direct impression on me growing up including four years of daily bullying at school as a young child from the age of 9 to 12 including verbal and physical abuse from my peers, teachers punishing me for my “acting out” behavior including having me stand in the corner of the classroom with my back to everyone. If that wasn’t enough, I later survived an adult man’s rageful slapping of my face at the age of 11 from which I had a displaced cervical vertebra in my neck and his hand imprinted on my cheek for three days, also watching my mother threatened with a knife to her throat, and being home alone when an intruder broke down the front door, came into our apartment, and destroyed some of our property literally within several feet of me while I pretended to be asleep without any means of me calling anyone to help me. Luckily, the intruder didn’t directly hurt me. Unfortunately, the feelings of helplessness and hopelessness from these and other traumatic events have stayed with me for over 40 years.

The Chicken or the Egg?

The age-old question of nature versus nurture in contributing to my development as a neurodivergent person is an interesting one. For sure, I know that both have played an important role in my development and expression of who I am.  Yet, when it comes to areas of greatest challenge and limitation in my life, I firmly believe it is the complex trauma that has had the biggest negative impact on my growth and development. 

Certainly, as an innately neurodivergent person, my impulsivity, hyperactivity, communication differences, and misreading of cues have and still do contribute to both relationship and life problems and challenges. And yet, as my wife has told me many times, “David, you’re the last one to the party. Everyone already knows you’re not neurotypical and they still accept and like you.” Certainly, that may be true and I also don’t want to minimize the pain and challenge I’ve experienced due to my innate neurodivergence. However, I believe the major factor that repeatedly causes the greatest pain point in my life and relationships, currently, is mostly related to my complex trauma and its aftereffects.

According to Amanda Marples, author of the article, “What's the Relationship Between Neurodiversity and Trauma?”, Marples writes,

“Trauma and neurodiversity go hand in hand, sadly. Despite that, it is not a well-researched area. What we do know, is that people with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are three times as likely to be exposed to trauma, and 80% of adults with ADHD report trauma experiences.”¹¹ 

Of course, these are only best estimates. Personally, I believe the numbers are going to be unfortunately much higher. Even though it’s anecdotal, nearly every neurodivergent person I talk to describes having experienced and lived through trauma—including complex trauma.

In future articles, I’ll write more specifically about my experiences with complex trauma. But, for now, at least, I am certain that my thinking, interpreting, expressing, and experiencing myself, others, and the world around me has much to do with the combination of both innate and acquired neurodivergence. Who I am today is an amalgam of both my biology and the environment and social structure I grew up in. In other words, all of the above.

Does this article resonate with you? I’d love to read your comments.

Thank you for reading and engaging with my post. Through this process of exploration and expression, I find it empowering to voice my reality and share it with you.  These days, I mostly accept and love myself for who I am. Discovering and getting diagnosed as neurodivergent has been positive; for the first time in my life, I feel that life makes more sense. My deepest hope is that my story can help you and others better accept and love yourself more too.

Endnotes

1. https://www.mountsinai.org/about/newsroom/2022/study-identifies-genes-strongly-linked-to-autism-and-neurodevelopmental-disorders

2.  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5818813/

3.  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7046577/

4. https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-neurodivergence-and-what-does-it-mean-to-be-neurodivergent-5196627

5.  https://www.spectrumnews.org/news/brain-structure-changes-in-autism-explained/

6.  https://www.uclahealth.org/news/brain-changes-autism-are-far-more-sweeping-previously-known

7.  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7732033/

8.  https://michigancrs.com/neurodiversity/can-trauma-cause-neurodivergence/

9.  https://www.buchenwald.de/en/geschichte/chronologie/konzentrationslager

10.  https://communistcrimes.org/en/countries/poland

11.  https://welldoing.org/article/whats-the-relationship-neurodiveristy-trauma