Becoming What You Needed

Many neurodivergent adults are doing something quietly brave.

They are learning skills now that were never modeled, taught, or supported when they were young. Skills like rest. Emotional awareness. Pausing before reacting. Listening to their body instead of overriding it.

And often, they’re learning these things while carrying a deep, unnamed grief:
Why didn’t anyone help me with this sooner?

There is no blame in that question. Only honesty.

Growing up neurodivergent often meant being praised for coping rather than cared for. For adapting. For not being “too much.” Many learned early that their nervous system responses were inconvenient, dramatic, or wrong. So they learned to manage themselves quietly. To push through discomfort. To disconnect from their needs to belong.

Those strategies worked, until they didn’t.

As adults, the cost often shows up as chronic stress, burnout, anxiety, health issues, or a constant feeling of being on edge. Because your nervous system has been carrying the weight alone for a very long time.

Learning regulation later in life can feel awkward. Even embarrassing. You might catch yourself thinking, Why is this so hard for me? or Other people seem to do this naturally.

But regulation is not a personality trait. It’s a skill. And like any skill, it depends on practice, support, and safety.

You are not behind. You are beginning.

Reparenting regulation doesn’t mean treating yourself like a child. It means offering yourself the things your nervous system always needed: patience, predictability, kindness, and choice.

It looks like noticing when you’re overwhelmed and responding with care instead of criticism. It looks like letting rest be restorative instead of earned. It looks like choosing environments and relationships that don’t require constant masking or self-abandonment.

It’s less about fixing yourself and more about finally listening.

If you’re a parent reading this, it may stir something tender. Many parents of neurodivergent kids are doing the work in both directions, supporting their children while re-learning regulation themselves.

There is no failure in that. There is deep courage.

When you model self-compassion, repair, and responsiveness, you’re giving your child something powerful: permission to be human without shame.

This series was never about mastery or control. It was about understanding. About recognizing that nervous systems develop in context, and that many neurodivergent people grew up without the support their bodies needed.

Healing, in this sense, is not becoming “normal.”
It’s becoming safe enough to be yourself.

If there is one thing to take with you, let it be this:

You don’t need to override your nervous system to heal.
You don’t need to force calm or discipline your way into regulation.
You don’t need to become someone else.

You just need to meet yourself with the same compassion you’ve always extended outward.

That, in itself, is regulation.

Honoring your healing and rooting for your growth.
Anique
Founder, Sanctum & Soil