The Link Between Trauma, Neurodivergence, & Capitalism
This article is part of the transcript from Lila's episode on the podcast Nervous System Care & Healing, created by Liz Zhou, a neurodivergent therapist of color.
Liz Zhou: Today we have with us Lila Low Beinart, LPC, LMHC. Lila is a neurodiversity educator, consultant, licensed psychotherapist, and the founder of Divergent Paths Counseling.
As a multiply neurodivergent queer woman and a former pharmaceutical chemist and dharma bum, Lila brings a powerful blend of professional expertise and rich lived experience to her work.
She is a pioneer in neurodiversity affirming care, training clinical, corporate, and school settings to move beyond awareness and toward a true systemic change. Her presentations have been described as "stellar," "heartful," and "the real deal," beautifully weaving together clinical expertise, paradigm shifting care, and deep human connection.
So Lila, thank you so much for being here.
Lila Low-Beinart: It's an honor. Thanks for having me.
Liz Zhou: So to get us started, could you tell us what brought you to this work and why do you do this work?
Lila Low-Beinart: Yeah, this work is deeply personal to me. I was an undiagnosed, neurodivergent person going through therapy. And while my therapist had the best intentions - they were really trying to be there for me. Unfortunately, they actually weren't so helpful for me in the long run. In fact, I have some trauma from my therapy experiences before I realized I was neurodivergent.
And that's what brought me to grad school, to becoming a therapist, to specializing in neurodivergent people, because I wanted to be the therapist that would actually support and help heal some of those trauma wounds that a lot of us as neurodivergent people have.
And then I realized, wait a second, I can be of more benefit to neurodivergent people if I'm actually training other therapists how to provide affirming, effective, compassionate care to the people who just like me need that therapeutic support in order to thrive and not just survive in this world.
Liz Zhou: That is - well that's amazing that you took that experience that was so unaffirming, and even traumatizing and harmful, and then use that to kind of create something different that would benefit other fellow neurodivergent folks, and then eventually spreading that even further to train other clinicians, which just continues to spread that seed and expand the impact.
Yeah, and I think it is unfortunately common that neurodivergent folks, or folks with marginalized identities, experience that a place that they would hope to receive care actually ends up being harmful and oppressive in some ways. So I know we're gonna get all into that, but thank you for sharing your story and how personal this is for you.
Lila Low-Beinart: Of course.
Liz Zhou: Maybe we can start with like, what are the pathology paradigms and what are the neurodiversity affirming paradigms, and how would you describe that to folks?
Lila Low-Beinart: Yeah, so the pathology paradigm is the paradigm that we're all living in. A good equivalent to think of - it's the water we're swimming in like racism is the water we're swimming in in the US. It's like that. And we're what the pathology paradigm says is just like racism says that BIPOC people are bad, unworthy in some way. The pathology paradigm says neurodivergent people are bad or unworthy in some way.
But because we're in this medicalized system, we do this extra little step in the pathology paradigm, saying not just that neurodivergent people are bad, but we're abnormal or unhealthy in some way. And these are words, these are sentiments you can look for and you see them everywhere. Okay, we have to cure autism. Autism is a disease and it must be cured. Rather than what the neurodiversity paradigm says is that being neurodivergent is an identity.
And rather than curing it, we need to create a world where it's accommodated, where as a neurodivergent person, I don't experience a lack of belonging for being different than neurotypical people. But in fact, I feel uniquely celebrated for being myself, just like every person should.
And so the neurodiversity paradigm says that there is no abnormal way of being. It says that cognitive diversity is natural, just like biological diversity is natural. It says that all the benefits of diversity can be seen with neurodiversity, just like with racial or gender diversity. If we didn't have any women, we'd be missing out on a lot of diversity there.
And the most important piece here with the neurodiversity paradigm is that the shift from the individual is broken, to the system isn't built for neurodivergent people. So just to give a concrete example, I'm autistic, I can get overwhelmed by loud noises. There are not a lot of restaurants I can go to where I can have a meal without then having to recover afterwards. Or for another autistic person, they might have a meltdown if they're going to most restaurants because it's so overwhelming. So following the neurodiversity paradigm would be: let's create spaces where I get to be as an autistic person without being harmed.
Liz Zhou: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's such a good example of how common these barriers can be. Where everyday things can become inaccessible or sensory overwhelming for a neurodivergent nervous system, an autistic nervous system. I relate to this so much as I'm an autistic person myself.
And I think it's such a flip to go from like, there must be something wrong with me or why am I so affected or like too sensitive - that's a very common thing for a lot of neurodivergent folks - to actually seeing like, the waters we're swimming in are wet. There's something in the environment, lots of things in the environment that structurally prevent us from participating fully in life or in society.
And yeah, like kind of asking a different question. Like what can we change systemically rather than how can I force myself to change, even though we've seen that can really harm people to try to change innately who they are or how their nervous system is wired.
Lila Low-Beinart: Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, and I might bring that example into the therapy room too, what this might look like in the therapy room. You know, I experienced therapists who were just entrenched in the pathology paradigm without even knowing. They didn't know there was another paradigm. And so what they would do is they would try to fix me. They'd be like, "Well, this thing about you is broken. You're too sensitive."
I'd been called manipulative once by a therapist because they told me that, yeah, my affect didn't match what I was describing. So she interpreted that as me trying to manipulate her into feeling bad for me. So that's an example of the pathology paradigm.
Liz Zhou: Wow.
Lila Low-Beinart: Putting these interpretations about how I'm wrong, rather than, this is just different. I was describing what was going on, but my affect didn't match what she thought was “correct”.
So coming from the neurodiversity paradigm, she might be like, I hear you're saying you're really having a hard day. I notice that's maybe not as much on your face. What's that like for you?
Or better yet, probably just don't even mention it. Just believe me that what I'm saying is happening because I'm the expert on my own experience. That would be an example of the neurodiversity and the pathology paradigms in the therapy room.
Liz Zhou: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. And it feels hard to hear that example that happened. Especially in that space where there is an inherent power imbalance or like someone is in a role of power and then they're kind of telling you what your experience is and telling you who what you are rather than believing you as you are.
So I'm wondering, like, cause clearly there are so many ways that like actually shifting into a neurodiversity affirming paradigm is challenging for folks because we're so used to this default of the pathology around us and the waters - so I'm wondering if you could share, like, where do you see people getting stuck when they're trying to shift that lens from pathology to affirming?
Lila Low-Beinart: Yeah, yeah. So there's a few ways I see this happening. The first one is, you know, if it's the waters we're swimming in, if we're surrounded by other people in the pathology paradigm, it's gonna be really hard for us to shift from the pathology to the neurodiversity for two main reasons. One, we're just not getting those ideas, you know, in our world. We're not learning from other people.
But the second one being if we shift what we're seeing, but the people around us don't, we're gonna feel, you know, a lack of belonging or estranged, or we're gonna start feeling angry towards other people. There's a lot of relational difficulties that can arise when we don't have a community of other people trying to make this shift as well.
So that would be one of the main blocks that I see. Another block that I see is, you know, if someone's job is entrenched in the pathology paradigm, you know, shifting to the neurodiversity paradigm is gonna maybe impact your income or impact yeah, your safety and security in this capitalist world where we require to have a job to be okay.
And then the last one is just internalized ableism itself.
It’s that voice that all of us, especially neurodivergent people, but all of us in the US and in industrialized countries have, that tells us we're broken, we're bad, there's something wrong with us. The shame that comes up can be related to capitalism. If I only had more, then I would be okay, if I only had more money, more objects, more friends. And then when we believe those voices, instead of saying, wait a second, maybe I'm not the problem here.
Maybe I'm a human just like every other human. And maybe the problem here is the system around me, is the environment around me that's been created by these capitalist neuronormative expectations.
Just again, like we wouldn't blame a woman for being a woman who is having difficulty getting promoted because of patriarchy. We wouldn't blame an autistic person for having difficulty going to a restaurant because the restaurant isn't built for them. So those are three of the biggest blocks I see.
Liz Zhou: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I hear in that like the importance of community and having continuing to be able to feel a sense of belonging even as we like, deconstruct the status quo. And then also that it's also like that change and kind of deconstruction needs to start from within by acknowledging how internalized ableism impacts us and shapes our automatic thoughts and behaviors and actually relearning a different way. So it's really a whole world shift to step into a more affirming lens. So externally, can we have a community that holds that change with us, and then how do we work with that internally? Yeah.
I'm wondering if you could share - whether it's in the trainings you do for clinician communities or just observations personally or the work you do with clients, I guess what that internal and external deconstruction can look like. And I just think about the importance of like letting there be time and space to make that change, or also like the emotions that can come up as we're realizing certain things about like…I know for myself there's kind of waves of grief or even frustration and anger that can come up in that deconstruction process. Hopefully landing at a place of more self-compassion, self-acceptance, belonging, connection. But it can be a nonlinear path to get there. So I'm curious what you've seen and experienced.
Lila Low-Beinart: Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's nonlinear. I feel like I can call in a few things, and then you're kind of going between them all. You might start with learning what is a neurodiversity paradigm, what is a pathology paradigm, because first we need to build a scaffolding to even notice it.
Liz Zhou: Yes.
Lila Low-Beinart: So that might be reading a book, or attending a training, or a course, or talking to people around you who love talking about this topic. So that's more the didactic, the intellectual. First you put it in your brain, like what am I looking for? Then, like you said, Liz, you bring it down into, okay, okay, so actually, you know, people expecting me to make eye contact and thinking that me not making eye contact means I don't want to talk to them. That's not a me problem.
I don't have to make more eye contact. I need a world where I'm allowed to look wherever I want and people don't make assumptions about what that means. And then that realization has to go down and be like, whoa, okay, how do I feel? Realizing I'm not the problem that the system isn't built for me. And like you named, there's a variety of feelings. It usually ends in grief. Like, gosh, it really hurts and sucks that I don't live in a world that's built for me.
And there might be all the other feelings that go with that. You know, the five stages of grief, including anger, including confusion. A lot of people are just very confused, and that confusion can feel very uncomfortable for a lot of folks. And then for you know, clinicians and especially maybe more neurotypical clinicians, where you actually lose privilege by doing this work. By beginning to notice the ways that you were given privilege that you didn't earn just by being neurotypical.
I often see in those folks there's this more intellectual understanding for a while until you're starting to really get it in the neurodivergent people around you, and then you start to have more of those grief-related feelings. But I've noticed it usually takes longer and requires more work because it doesn't impact you directly as your neurotype.
Liz Zhou: Right. And that's a really interesting point. I hadn't thought about it that way, that like perhaps the the deconditioning and unlearning for a someone who thinks they're neurotypical but then realizes they're neurodivergent versus someone who is maybe more in that neurotypical end of the spectrum as they're like, yeah, that is still what I am.
Yeah, that would be a bit of a different journey, but hopefully arriving at a similar place of simply more compassion and understanding and curiosity.
Lila Low-Beinart: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, there's you know, as a as a high masking autistic person, which is why I was late diagnosed,
For me, it was very relieving to realize I was neurodivergent and to do that work of unmasking and embracing the neurodiversity paradigm. For some folks, but I've lost privilege as I've done this because I don't act as neurotypical now. Like I'm still I still pass as a neurotypical person for the most part, but I don't as often. There are times and places and moments where I'm not passing anymore. and that is a way that I've lost some privilege by doing this work.
So that is also something that you know I've had to grieve, and people have to grieve if they choose to go down this path. But I'll say on the other side of the grief is a deep connection to myself and the joy of authentically being myself in relationship, fully being seen, learning how to care for myself. So I don't want to say it just ends at the grief, it keeps going to wonderful things on the other side.
Liz Zhou: Yes. Yeah, yeah. And this is just making me reflect on pieces of my own experience of the unmasking and the relearning and I'm reflecting on how like as things are reorganizing, maybe losing that privilege of passing as neurotypical all the time to actually gaining some more connection and authentic authenticity within oneself. So it can feel a bit like that - I don't want to say trade-off because it's not like one for one, but that something feels like it's being lost, other things are coming in that feel maybe more aligned and important.
I've also noticed that it's kind of like being able to have a secure base of connection where the unmasking is safe, feels safe and good. And for me that can that can look like my partnership, my closer relationships, people whom I feel other neurodivergent, people whom I feel safe to unmask around fully, like being able to come back to that home base can make it easier for me to go out in the world and experiment with “why don't I try unmasking?” in that new context or like actually that's a place where I might try to maybe pass as more neurotypical because it's actually a bit easier to do that than to absorb the impact of people reacting to the unmasking. And that's something I can do because I have that privilege and ability to be able to pass compared to maybe a lower masking neurodivergent person. But all that to say is it’s such a journey and there are all these different choices we make at different stages in the journey.
Lila Low-Beinart: Yeah, yeah. And I'm glad you named that, Liz, that we're talking as both like high masking autistic people and some people can't mask and don't have that privilege and experience a lot more discrimination and ableism because of that.
And in the therapy room, both of us can experience discrimination in different ways. If you're low masking, you might be more obviously trying to be fixed. Like, okay, if you can just do this behavior, you're going to be "more normal," "more healthy". For high maskers, it's more subtle in the therapy room where you might be experiencing that discrimination without realizing it.
It might be more in the, you know, I expect you to be a certain way and when you're different than that, the therapist is having reactions or trying to control you back into this way that their expectations are. So I just wanted to name those experiences that, you know, your listeners might have in the therapy room.
Liz Zhou: Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. Such a good point that it can look different ways and be difficult in different ways, but all coming from that similar thread of ableism.
That also kind of brings up another question I hear a lot from folks that I feel like I navigate all the time, which is, you know, there's the neurodivergent experience and neurotype, and then there's also the impacts of trauma. And sometimes I will joke with my neurodivergent clinician friends that like the Venn diagram of trauma and neurodivergence is essentially a circle because so many, let's say, like autistic, ADHD, kind of sensory neurodivergent folks, they they are that neurotype, but they also experience trauma just inherently because they're living in a world that doesn't accommodate that that type of nervous system.
So then it can be hard to tease out, like, okay, what of what am I seeing here that's coming from the trauma? And what are we seeing and experiencing that comes more from that innate wiring of the brain? So I would be curious, how do you navigate this question? And like, how do you see trauma maybe looking different in sensory neurodivergent folks versus neurotypical folks?
Lila Low-Beinart: Yeah, so in my training, when I talk to clinicians about this, I'm like, okay, if I were to put this really simply, what are we actually doing when we sit with a neurodivergent client in therapy? We're doing trauma work. This is all trauma work because we're not trying to fix the neurodivergence. We're trying to help this person recover their mental health where they may be suffering because of all of the effects of trauma.
In a capitalist society, we are all experiencing trauma to some degree. Just the notion that our very livelihood depends on being able-bodied enough to get work in the US. To me, that's a trauma. I feel that every single day that I have to work in order to put food in my mouth. It's stressful. There's all sorts of traumas, family trauma.
Neurodivergent people experience all of those too. And then there's the added traumas that neurotypical people don't experience. For sensory neurodivergent folks, that might be the trauma of not belonging. There's no assumed belonging there in a way. A lot of neurotypical people get that. There might be the trauma of misattunement. If you have family members, teachers around you that are neurotypical and you're neurodivergent and they just don't get you. That's the microaggression of a paper cut in the same place over and over and over again.
Each one might be small, but when you put it in the same place, it creates a big gaping wound for people. There can be the trauma of sensory overload. Just walking down your street in a city might be overwhelming. Being in a school is really overwhelming for a lot of people. These are all traumas, along with many more, that neurodivergent people only experience for the most part.
And any good therapy, you know, from either side has to be naming, noticing, addressing, talking about these traumas in order for someone to heal from them and then learn how to care for themselves in a world that isn't built for them.
Liz Zhou: Yeah. It feels a bit heavy to acknowledge all that. As I'm hearing, I'm like, yeah, that is a lot. It’s a lot to just feel like the waters that were in like, these weren't for me. And so okay, so kind of a naming and acknowledging it is the first step.
And then in terms of kind of moving through that - yeah, I'm just kind of pausing, like kind of wondering here what I guess how we want to talk about what that looks like. It's so individual. I'll hand it over to you. What are you kind of seeing, observing?
Lila Low-Beinart: Yeah, again, there's the first step is just seeing it, is building a scaffolding. A lot of the clients in the room with me don't even recognize they have all of this trauma because they're like, well, it doesn't impact that person, so it's not trauma. And that makes a lot of sense because we're taught trauma is an event. It's like a specific thing that happened, like an earthquake or a parent that beat you. But trauma is really not the external thing, it's how it's encoded in the nervous system.
I like the definition of trauma of, you know, an experience, an energy, an emotion that gets stuck in your body and wasn't able to be processed through because you didn't have the capacity. And so for highly sensitive people, that just happens much more frequently than it does for non-highly sensitive people. And so again, that first step is building the scaffolding, even recognizing, okay, I'm highly sensitive. This is trauma.
And then it's like the question of okay, do I want to work with this? Is this something I want to work with, or do I want to stay in the pathology paradigm? Like continuing not to see these as traumas, continuing to, you know, try to get that neurotypical privilege by putting blinders on. That's a question that every person has to answer for themselves, and there's no right answer. Then when someone's maybe decided to continue working with it, then the trauma work really looks individual.
I found that really parts-based work, so IFS or TIST, which is trauma-informed stabilization treatment created by Janina Fisher. Those are two really great modalities I found for supporting neurodivergent people with trauma. Also, for some folks, more somatic-based work works as well. And then I personally use a contemplative approach, which comes out of secularized Buddhist psychology. It's not a trauma modality per se, but I found it really helps create space around the trauma. So instead of feeling like you are the trauma, it's like, there's so much more of me around it. So I find it really complements trauma work.
Liz Zhou: Mm. That does sound spacious, just to allow there to be space so it's not just the trauma. It’s like that's not the only thing, but rather that and awareness of what's around it. Yeah. Gosh, and I'm thinking too about that nuanced approach of navigating and addressing the trauma responses, if someone feels ready and available to do that. And then also making sure it's not pushing into like, okay, well, as the trauma responses resolve and or maybe change the way they're expressed in the nervous system, making sure that we're we're then not veering into like changing the innate traits of a person.
And I wonder if for maybe, sticking with the example of mental health clinicians, to the untrained eye or the person who hasn't deconstructed that fully yet, that it can maybe be unclear what is the trauma response and that's showing up maybe as like fight or flight in the nervous system or a certain type of energy that someone moves with and what is innate to their neurology that we're not trying to change. And yeah, I've seen your diagram kind of graphs on that which are so fascinating that when we think about autistic traits or ADHD traits, there is a version of that trait that is kind of in its full authentic expression, can be in a version of let's say like health and well being. And there are versions of that traits when layered with trauma, it can feel burdensome or distressing to that individual. So yeah, would you mind kind of unpacking that with us, because I think that's such a nuance that gets missed a lot.
Lila Low-Beinart: Yes. A hundred percent. So I want to start by saying that there is no checklist where you can be like, this is autistic traits and this is autistic trauma, because it really is gonna look individual for everyone. And so there is an exploration that each individual does, that in therapy the therapist can guide the client on, you know, what is more of a trait here? What is more of a trauma? And I can tell you there you won't even know in the moment too. That is like an unfolding experience for someone's entire journey. So with that caveat I'll say that you know the traits and traumas can be - sometimes they seem very obvious and sometimes it's paradoxical. So for example, a trait of being autistic is being really highly sensitive. A more trauma response is having meltdowns all the time. Like I might have a meltdown if I get overwhelmed by something sensory, but if I'm having meltdowns all the time over things that are happening in my environment that aren't actually overwhelming to me, but they're being triggered by all the times I have been overwhelmed and gone into meltdown, that might be more of a trauma response. Meltdowns are still gonna happen. There's nothing wrong with a meltdown. It's just if it's happening a lot, the impact might feel like this is just too many meltdowns for me in a week. It's exhausting.
So that's kind of a more straightforward one. A less straightforward one might be…an autistic trait for someone might be not really liking making eye contact. The autistic trauma response might be, I'm gonna force myself to make eye contact.
So that's those ones are more likely to be missed by therapists because they're seemingly, you know, the more “healthy” way that this person's showing up, but in fact it's taking a lot of effort and someone's doing it out of the fear that they're gonna lose belonging rather than because they genuinely want to. Yeah.
Liz Zhou: Yeah. Mm. Yeah. I appreciate those examples. It's reminding me as I've been in my journey of yeah, kind of shifting, unmasking in all the different ways. I've noticed like in my at home environment where I feel most safe, I tend to now like stim and especially like verbally stim more just in random moments. And it's something I wouldn't have even allowed myself to do even in a private home environment.
Like years ago, just because of like, that feeling of like that's weird, or like people are gonna - like the roommates are gonna think that's weird, back when I had roommates. And to be at a place now where it's like, no, this is kind of my natural expression, letting it come out, versus I'm gonna hold in that stimming impulse, but then have a downstream effect later of feeling dysregulated or more on edge. One small version of that for me, like you said, is just allowing myself to not make as much eye contact, and not giving myself a hard time about it, but just understanding that my style of connecting is gonna look different than maybe a non-autistic person - or another autistic person, because we're all quite different too.
Lila Low-Beinart: Yeah. I think that's a really helpful way of looking. You know, we kind of have two nervous system states. If we're really shut down, that's an indication there's a lot of trauma. If it's like, wow, it's really hard for me to do the things that are important to me, it's really hard for me to connect with people, that's an indication there's trauma. And then there's what you're describing, that more hyper vigilant state of even when I'm by myself in my own house, there's this fear that I'm doing it wrong or being weird or bad in some way.
And moving to this place of you know, this is my authentic self without as much of the baggage of trauma - I had never experienced that, so I didn't know it was possible. So a lot of you listening might not even have ever experienced that in your life. If you're a highly sensitive person who was experiencing trauma as soon as you were born from literally the lights in the hospital and the noises in the hospital.
So I'll just describe a little bit of what that's like. So you maybe have a flag post you can move towards. It's like you were describing, Liz, okay, what am I gonna do here? So for example, on this podcast, for those of you listening, I've got this latte, decaf latte that I've made for myself. And I'm thinking - there's a part of me thinking, is it okay to to drink this when we're doing a video recorded podcast?
And then I'm like, you know what, this is really helping me regulate. And that's what's important. I'm gonna do this because I'm connected to myself and I know what I need. I've got a blanket on, I've got everything I need here to feel like I'm taking care of myself. And rather than getting worried about what others think and then not taking care of myself and getting dysregulated, I'm prioritizing my own self-care and my wellness.
And being able to get to that place is maybe a place where you've got less trauma and more just the neurodivergent self that you are.
Liz Zhou: Yeah, that's something I really appreciate too when I've seen other people be unmasked in their own unique way. I think it reminds and inspires me, like, look, Lila's making herself comfortable, so why can't I? And then there can be a ripple effect if the unmasking is maybe visible to others. and sometimes it's maybe less visible, but it still has that internal impact.
Yeah, and also this is an example of how it can seem simple, like even a simple thing like enjoying my drink on a video call, like that there can be so much complexity and like unpacking that goes behind something that seems so simple.
Lila Low-Beinart: Yeah, a hundred percent.
Liz Zhou: So one of the questions that I'm excited to talk through is this idea of capitalist disablement. These are terms that I haven't heard put in this way until we talked about the theme for this podcast. Lila, could you tell us what capitalist disablement looks like? How could someone recognize it in themselves? And why is this why is that relevant to like our conversation today?
The rest of the conversation will be coming in another blog post soon!
About Lila Low-Beinart
Lila is the founder of Divergent Paths Counseling, where she offers neurodiversity-affirming therapy and training.
She specializes in working with autistic, ADHDer, and gifted/2e girls/women and gender expansive folxs, using contemplative, parts-work, and somatic approaches to support clients experiencing depression, executive dysfunction, trauma, and relationship difficulties.
Her specialized trainings for mental health providers go beyond professional development, challenging the 'trance of normal' to foster deeper compassion and more effective support for neurodivergent clients. She also provides tailored workshops and speaking engagements to help organizations create neurodivergent-friendly environments.
To learn more about Lila and her therapy offerings and trainings, visit her website at DivergentPathsCounseling.com.
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