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Neurodivergent And Disability Definitions
Anxiety
Anxiety is a common human response to perceived threat that only becomes problematic when it is persistent or overwhelming.
Anxiety is a normal, and often adaptive, human experience — the body’s way of mobilizing us for potential threat or challenge. In manageable doses, it can sharpen focus and motivate preparation. Anxiety becomes problematic when that alarm system stays switched on, flooding the body with chronic worry, tension, or avoidance that starts to interfere with daily life. At that point, anxiety shifts from something that helps us respond to life to something that constrains it.
Among Autistic and ADHD people, anxiety is one of the most common mental health conditions. It can arise from a combination of factors: a more sensitive or easily activated nervous system, alongside the cumulative impact of living in a world that frequently misunderstands or invalidates neurodivergent ways of being. In this sense, anxiety isn’t only biological or psychological — it’s also contextual, shaped by the environments a person has to navigate.
Sensory overload can sometimes be mistaken for anxiety, since both may lead to withdrawal, irritability, or shutdown. But they tend to have different roots. Sensory overwhelm arises from external input, while anxiety is more likely to grow out of internal “what if” loops. That same tendency to imagine, anticipate, and analyze is also what fuels creativity and insight. The imaginative, pattern-seeking brain that dreams and innovates can also overanalyze and anticipate. Understanding this duality helps shift the narrative: anxiety is often the flip side of creativity and heightened awareness in a complex world.
ARFID
Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID) is an eating disorder involving persistent food avoidance or restriction.
Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID) is an eating disorder in which someone consistently avoids or limits foods. Unlike other eating disorders, ARFID isn’t driven by body image concerns. Instead, it’s often shaped by factors such as sensory sensitivities, low interest in food, or fear of aversive experiences like choking or vomiting.
Clinicians typically describe three main subtypes of ARFID:
Avoidant (sensory-based) → food avoidance linked to texture, taste, smell, or appearance, which is especially common among Autistic people and often misdiagnosed.
Restrictive (low-interest) → limited intake related to low appetite or little interest in eating.
Aversive (fear-based) → avoidance driven by fear of choking, vomiting, or becoming ill.
For many neurodivergent people, especially Autistic people, recognizing ARFID changes how long-standing food struggles are understood. It’s sometimes mistaken for anorexia, and when that happens, people may receive treatments that are misaligned and can cause harm.
AuDHD
AuDHD is a community-created term used by people who are both Autistic and ADHD to describe how these experiences intersect.
AuDHD is a shorthand used to describe people who are both Autistic and ADHD. It isn’t an official diagnostic label, but a community-created term many people use because it captures lived experience more accurately than either diagnosis alone.
Autism and ADHD overlap in important ways — sensory differences, emotional intensity, executive functioning challenges — but they can also pull in different directions. For example, autism drives a need for predictability while ADHD leans toward novelty-seeking, leaving people feeling tugged between structure and spontaneity.
For many, discovering the term AuDHD brings a sense of relief. It offers language for experiences that can otherwise feel confusing or contradictory, and it opens the door to community with others navigating a similar mix of traits. At its core, AuDHD names the particular way these two neurotypes intersect and shape how a person thinks, feels, and moves through the world.
