ADHD, Autism, Mental Health, Neurodiversity, PTSD, Relationships, RSD, Shame, Sleep
Every so often, a new term takes the stage in neurodiversity discourse. Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria. Revenge Bedtime Procrastination. Pathological Demand Avoidance. Time Agnosia.
And every time, the same debate erupts: Are we creating helpful frameworks for understanding, or are we just pathologising normal human experiences? Are we giving people language to describe their reality, or are we encouraging them to pathologise themselves? And don’t we have enough words already for the exact same things?
I think we’re asking the wrong question.
In this article, I’m looking at why words matter, why some of us don’t relate to certain terms when expressed in a certain way, and why having a choice of words matters more than we might think.
Who am I to bring this up?
As a specialist neurodiversity therapist and coach with a hybrid model, I work with people who are self-identified, formally diagnosed and sometimes, wrongly diagnosed. My practice includes everyone from people who’ve known they were autistic or ADHD since childhood to those who’ve only just begun to suspect it in their fifties or sixties. Some have ‘paperwork’. Others have nothing but a growing certainty that the explanations they’ve been given for their struggles don’t quite fit.
What I’ve learnt from working with this diverse group is that the question isn’t whether we need more or less language around neurodivergence. The question is whether people have access to language that actually helps them understand their own experience.
Because I see this repeatedly: people who can struggle with something for decades, develop elaborate coping mechanisms, damage relationships, lose jobs, and still not have words for what’s happening to them. And then they encounter a term (maybe on social media, maybe in therapy, maybe in a random conversation) and suddenly their entire history makes sense.
That’s not pathologizing or self diagnosing or wanting attention. It’s not wanting to be special, it’s recognition. And we all know that recognition is the beginning of everything.
Why Terms Like RSD, Revenge Bedtime Procrastination and the Five Fs Matter
Let me be clear: the experiences these terms describe aren’t new. People have always struggled with intense emotional responses to perceived rejection. People have always stayed up too late as a form of reclaiming control. People have always responded to threat in varied ways beyond just fight or flight.
What’s new is having specific, accessible language for these patterns. And that matters more than you might think.
Take Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria (RSD). For years, many of my clients described experiencing what they thought was ‘just being too sensitive’ or my family say “I’m the emotional one”’ They were repeatedly told to develop thicker skin, to not take things so personally, to stop being so dramatic.
But when someone with ADHD or autism encounters the term RSD, something shifts. The physical pain they feel when someone seems disappointed in them isn’t a character flaw. The panic that floods their system when they think they’ve made a social misstep isn’t weakness. The days spent ruminating and immobilised over a brief critical comment isn’t a choice.
It’s a neurological difference in how their brain processes perceived rejection. And knowing that changes everything.
One client said to me: ‘I spent three decades thinking I was broken. Then I learnt about RSD and realised I was just wired differently. Those are not the same thing.’
Or consider Revenge Bedtime Procrastination, the tendency to stay up late despite being exhausted, sacrificing sleep to reclaim personal time. Before this term existed, people just thought they had poor sleep hygiene or lacked discipline.
But when you frame it as revenge (reclaiming autonomy after a day of having no control over your time), it becomes something else entirely. It’s not laziness. It’s not self-sabotage. It’s a response to feeling like your life isn’t your own during waking hours.
And suddenly, the solution isn’t just ‘go to bed earlier.’ It’s examining whether you have enough genuine autonomy during your day. It’s looking at whether your evenings are the only time you feel like yourself. It’s recognising that the problem might not be your bedtime, but everything that comes before it.
Then there’s the expansion of Fight or Flight into the Five Fs: Fight, Flight, Freeze, Fawn, and Fib. For decades, we talked about stress responses as if there were only two options. But many neurodivergent people (particularly those who’ve experienced trauma or have been socialised to be accommodating) never identified with fight or flight.
They froze. They people-pleased. They fibbed to avoid conflict (and felt awful for doing it). And they thought something was wrong with them because their stress response didn’t match what they’d been taught was ‘normal.’
Having language for freeze (shutdown, dissociation, immobilisation), fawn (excessive people-pleasing, loss of boundaries), and fib (lying to escape perceived danger) means people can finally recognise their own patterns. They can understand why they go silent in conflict, why they say yes when they mean no, why they make up elaborate stories to avoid disappointing someone.
These aren’t character flaws. They’re survival strategies. And naming them as such is both validating and clarifying.
What I See in My Practice
In my work, I watch the power of naming play out constantly, where some people lament there being yet more labels to ‘blame’ how we are on.
But if the language we offer doesn’t fit someone’s lived experience, it becomes another form of misunderstanding, another way they don’t belong.
Why Some People Need Analogies, Updated Terms, or Different Ways of Seeing
There isn’t one correct way to describe any neurodivergent experience. There are multiple valid ways, and different people will connect with different frameworks.
Some people respond to clinical terminology. They want the medical language, the diagnostic criteria, the research citations. Having a term like ‘executive dysfunction’ that ties to peer-reviewed studies make their experience feel legitimate and taken seriously.
Other people find clinical language cold and alienating. They need metaphors and analogies. They want to hear that their brain is like a filing cabinet where all the files fell out, or like a computer with too many tabs open, or like a radio that picks up every station at once. Let’s face it, when most of it were given clinical labels we sure as heck weren’t told what to do with them anyway.
Some people prefer newer, community-generated language that feels more accurate to lived experience. Terms like ‘spiky profile’ (having significant strengths and weaknesses rather than consistent ability across domains) or ‘demand avoidance’ (not just defiance, but a nervous system response to perceived pressure) emerged from the community because existing language wasn’t capturing what people actually experienced.
Others prefer traditional diagnostic categories because they carry weight in professional settings, they’re recognised by medical systems, and they come with established support frameworks.
None of these preferences are wrong. They’re just different ways of making sense of the same underlying realities.
The problem isn’t that we have too many terms. The problem is when we insist there should only be one way to talk about these experiences, or when we dismiss someone’s need for language that actually resonates with them.
The Real Question We Should Be Asking
So instead of asking ‘do we need more or less language around neurodiversity?’ maybe we should be asking: Does this language help someone understand themselves better? Does it reduce shame? Does it open up possibilities for support or accommodation?
If the answer is yes, then the language is useful, regardless of whether it’s new, old, clinical, colloquial, diagnostic, or descriptive.
Language is deeply personal. What unlocks understanding for one person might feel completely wrong for another. And instead of rolling our eyes whenever a new term emerges, maybe we should embrace that there are a hundred ways to see the same things.
Because somewhere, someone is encountering that term for the first time and thinking: ‘Oh. That’s what’s been happening to me. I’m not alone in this. There’s a name for it.’
And that moment of recognition? That’s everything.
Key Takeaways
New terminology for neurodivergent experiences provides frameworks that shift patterns from character flaws to neurological differences. Terms like RSD, Revenge Bedtime Procrastination, and the Five Fs give people language to understand struggles they’ve faced for years. Different people connect with different language (clinical, metaphorical, community-generated, or traditional) and all preferences are valid. When someone finds language that helps them recognise their own experience, it reduces shame and opens possibilities for support. Instead of debating whether we need more or less language, we should ensure people have access to whatever words help them understand themselves.
If you’re struggling to understand your own neurodivergent experience, if the language you’ve encountered so far doesn’t quite fit, if you’re looking for ways to describe what’s happening to you that feel true rather than clinical or dismissive, then neurodiversity coaching in London can really help. Sometimes what you need isn’t a diagnosis or a label. Sometimes what you need is just the right words to finally recognise yourself, if you’re ready to support yourself book a free consultation with me here, I’d love to help you.