Capitalism and Neurodivergence – Engineered to Mask

If you are neurodivergent, you have likely spent a lifetime trying to figure out why basic daily life feels so relentlessly exhausting. We are routinely taught by society to view our burnout, overwhelm, sensory overload, and executive function challenges as personal failures—proof that we are somehow “broken” or simply “not trying hard enough.”

Title after title in self-help and psychology tells us how to “fix” ourselves, but rarely do we examine the matrix we live in and hold it to account.

The struggle you feel isn’t proof that you are failing, flawed, or incapable. It is the natural friction between a unique, sensitive human mind and body, and a hyper-capitalist world that wasn’t just built without neurodivergent people in mind—it was engineered in a way that actively forces us to mask our natural ways of being just to survive.

The Historical Roots: Galton and the Pathology Paradigm

We have endured decades of neuronormative domination, rooted in the creation of “cognitive normality” by Francis Galton in the 19th century. As the father of the pathology paradigm, Galton championed the belief that a single, standardized, highly compliant neurotype represents human perfection, while all divergent ways of thinking are biological flaws to be eradicated, cured, or forced to mask.

Galton’s “ideal mind” emerged at the height of the Industrial Revolution, providing the exact “scientific” logic that early industrial capitalism needed to maximize profit and standardize the workforce. Capitalism required interchangeable workers, and Galton’s pathology paradigm provided the mathematical tool to define who was “fit” to work and who was “defective.”

Neurodivergent people fell outside of Galton’s artificial net from the very beginning.

The Moving Target of Capitalist Neuronormativity

Capitalism has always operated with a neurological “in-group” and “out-group,” the boundaries of which shift in relation to perceived productive potential. Disablement, pathologization, oppression, and alienation occur through the very heart of capitalist logic.

The bandwidth of neuronormativity is not fixed; it is a moving target determined by economic demands. Today, the baseline for everyday functioning has skyrocketed. The door of what is considered a functional neurotypical mind hasn’t just narrowed—it has become hyper-specific and unforgiving.

I believe it is this economic acceleration that accounts for the skyrocketing rates of ADHD, Autism, and executive dysfunction diagnoses. The environment itself has become hostile toward divergent minds and bodies. As the room for human variation narrows, more and more of us are falling through the net because environmental demands have become so extreme that our masking strategies can no longer bridge the gap.

Macro-Level Strain and the Erosion of Safety

We do not live or process our emotions in a vacuum. Beyond the workplace, there is a pervasive collective anxiety right now. News headlines are dominated by geopolitical instability, global conflicts, and intense public debate over immigration and public resources.

This environment creates a widespread feeling that the foundational systems we rely on—healthcare, housing, the economy, and social cohesion—are under intense strain or near breaking point, eroding our background sense of safety.

From a psychotherapeutic and sociological perspective, it is critical to look at how this macro-level stress lands directly on our individual nervous systems—especially neurodivergent nervous systems. This constant background stress and instability, combined with the relentless pressure to mask, is burning people out.

Therapy Beyond the Individual

Traditional therapy often focuses almost exclusively on the individual—your internal thoughts, your coping mechanisms, or your personal history. While past experiences certainly shape who you are, people are born, grow, and die within a culture and a society.

As a psychotherapist, it is vital to me that I account for the broader social, economic, and political context in which we all live and work. It is essential that therapy moves beyond the individual. If we don’t consider the real-world context in which people live, therapy risks merely helping to maintain an unlivable social order—or worse, converting social oppression into individual pathology.

I believe a meaningful and effective therapy holds space for both the individual and the world they live in.

Jayne Wynne. Certified Transactional Analyst Psychotherapist. Working with individuals and couples. Specializing in anxiety, depression, abuse, relationships, ADHD and Autism. Exeter & Online.

Chapman, R. (2023). Empire of normality: Neurodiversity and capitalism. Pluto Press.

Fisher, M. (2009). Capitalist realism: Is there no alternative? Zero Books.

Ksenija Popadic Mihailovic & Dejan Mihailovic. The Social Matrix of Globalization. Transactional Analysis Journal Vol. 34. No.4, October 2004