Hey! So Glad You're Here.

About Us

This organization is based in Wisconsin and was started in order to include neurodivergent females and to make an effort in society to get women diagnosed with their neurodiversity earlier. While boys are typically diagnosed with their differences as children, women usually aren't diagnosed until adulthood and struggle their entire childhoods with no resources. We want to make resources accessible. This is a space where neurodivergent girls and women are able to be safe and talk about their neurodiversity, as well as create events for us to be together and collaborate, with tailored experiences for every individual. Our mission is to raise awareness of feminine neurodiversity and help people see that it isn't negative. There are many reasons by being neurodivergent is a good thing, such as the fact that the neurodiverse tend to be more imaginative. 

​

About the Creator

Hi, I’m Taylor, and I’m the founder of the Female Neurodivergent Resource Organization. I started this nonprofit after my first pageant through the Miss America Organization at fourteen years old. We had to write about a social impact and I realized how passionate I am about raising awareness on neurodiversity in females, and I decided that I wanted to create this organization to help. I have had my fair share of struggles with being a neurodivergent female, such as my symptoms getting pushed aside as a child and having to live without resources until I became a teenager. I don't want anyone else to have to go through the years and hundreds of dollars that it took to just get me diagnosed, much less the struggle to get resources after diagnosis.

​

About Neurodiversity

You may be asking what neurodiversity even is. Well, if you break up the word, you get neuro (brain/mental) and diversity (different/differences). So, neurodiversity is essentially just mental differences. You are considered neurodivergent if you have any of these conditions:

• Autism spectrum disorder

• Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)

• Down syndrome

• Dyscalculia (difficulty with math)

• Dysgraphia (difficulty with writing)

• Dyslexia (difficulty with reading)

• Dyspraxia (difficulty with coordination)

• Intellectual disabilities

• Bipolar disorder

• Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)

• Prader-Willi syndrome

• Sensory processing disorders

• Anxiety

• Social anxiety

• Tourette syndrome

• Williams syndrome

• Meares-Irlen Syndrome

• Hyperlexia

• Synesthesia

There's more than this, but these are the most common. If you are unsure about your neurodiversity, you can take a neurodiversity quiz online. This doesn't count as a diagnosis, but it can help you figure out if you're neurodivergent or not, and you can take your results to your doctor who can refer you to a psychiatrist for a formal diagnosis. However, as a female, this may be more difficult than if you were a male. This is because women were barely included in the studies on neurodivergent disorders, so doctors and psychiatrists tend to look for the symptoms found in males and not females. Males and females have different symptoms for a lot of conditions, so this is a problem. My goal is to get female symptoms to be more generalized and looked for in us.

​

Read my service initiative essay below. It gives more details on what I said above:

​

Neurodivergence in Females

 

Taylor Antony

 

The road to diagnosis for neurodivergent females is long and hard, especially when the female does well in school and doesn’t have behavioral problems. Some of the most common disorders associated with neurodivergence are ADHD, dyslexia, and autism. Almost all studies done on these and other neurodivergent disorders have been done on men and not women, so the standard symptoms are patterned after males. Women were virtually absent from all autism studies, so the symptoms that appear in women aren’t looked for by doctors and educators. A very common sign of autism that almost everyone looks for is when someone acts a lot younger than their age, for example, a five-year-old acting like a three-year-old. However, that’s a symptom that’s really only commonly seen in men. Autism is actually a social disorder, having trouble connecting to social situations and understanding social cues (i.e. what’s right and wrong). For every female diagnosed with autism, 3 to 6 men are. Girls tend to mask their symptoms in an attempt to look normal to society, and often internalize their symptoms. While men tend to externalize their symptoms with disruption and sometimes violence, we women keep our symptoms inside and hide our struggles. Holding all of that in can cause serious problems with our mental health (internal distress, depression, self-harm, etc.). Most women are either misdiagnosed with mental conditions (such as personality disorders or eating disorders) or never diagnosed at all. Most women with ADHD and/or autism don’t get diagnosed until ages 30-40 unless the disorder has caused her to disrupt school, work, or other events. Medical professionals tend to look for a male’s symptoms of neurodiversity in women, although they are very different. Women need to know what’s going on in their brains, as it has been proven that if people understand their challenges and strengths, they have a better chance of success. However, being neurodivergent isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Neurodiverse people tend to be more creative and imaginative, as well as innovative.

 

Although it might not look like it, I’ve struggled with the long road to diagnosis and neurodivergence. It took years of constant work from my mom and over one thousand dollars to just get me diagnosed. My mom had concerns when I was about six years old, but my pediatrician blew her off because I do well in school. I was diagnosed with major depressive disorder with psychotic features and generalized anxiety disorder with panic attacks (which is included in neurodiversity). The years without a diagnosis or information about my own brain were very bad, and I desperately wanted to know what was “wrong” with me. I had no explanation for my sadness, my anxiety, my inability to focus or comprehend what I was reading, or anything else I experienced that wasn’t neurotypical. I want girls to get diagnosed early on so that they don’t have to go through what I and many other women have had to go through.

 

My goal right now if I win is to get information to pediatricians and educators on the different symptoms of neurodiversity in girls. Schools hold early intervention testing, and I want school administrators to send out information to parents on what to look for in their girls. They send out information on what to look for in children in general, but the symptoms that they talk about are generally male symptoms. I want feminine symptoms to be talked about more and for the information to be sent out so that more girls can be diagnosed at younger ages, and not have to suffer for years without their needs being taken care of. I plan to continue doing these pageants as an adult, and if I win then, my long-term goal is to start an organization for neurodivergent females in Wisconsin. If I make it there, I would also like to make it a national organization. Advocacy for neurodivergent females is something that I’m very passionate about.