How to Thrive When Your Brain is Different

For decades, experts classified people as having “normal” or “abnormal” brains depending on certain traits. Conditions such as autism, synesthesia, and sensory processing disorder are considered “abnormal.” Several years ago, Jenara Nerenberg, a Harvard and Berkeley-educated writer, entrepreneur, and mother, realized that type of binary thinking is flawed and miscategorizes many people, especially women. She went on to found The Neurodiversity Project, an organization that supports the neurodivergent community, and to write “Divergent Mind: Thriving in a World That Wasn’t Designed For You.” In her new book, Nerenberg presents a new way to understand neurodiversity and how it presents differently in women. She also challenges widely accepted misperceptions of neurodivergent traits. We talk with Nerenberg about her new book, The Neurodiversity Project, and her most recent venture, The Interracial Project.