Why do neurodivergent people need meaning so much?
My friend and I were sitting and talking about work. We both have AuDHD, and both of us have tried different employment formats — office, remote, contract, freelance. And at some point she said: “I just physically cannot do meaningless things.”
I laughed. Because I’m the same way.
Then we started digging into why, exactly. Why is meaning for us not an optional “it would be nice,” but something more like a basic need? And we came across a very interesting idea. That for neurodivergent people, Maslow’s pyramid seems to be upside down.
🧠 The same pyramid, but upside down
Look at the picture. In Maslow’s classical version, the broad base is physiological needs: food, sleep, even the toilet. The logic is: survival first, everything else afterward. And only at the very top do we have the need for knowledge and self-actualization.
What this looks like in practice
- A person doesn’t just go to work, but finds in it a way to express their values and unique skills.
- Instead of conforming to other people’s expectations (for example, parents’ or society’s), a person listens to their true desires and needs.
- The focus shifts from external rewards (money, praise) to inner growth and creation.
How is this different from self-realization?
These terms are often used as synonyms, but there is an important distinction between them:
- Self-actualization is the process of unfolding one’s potential, developing the mind, creativity, and character.
- Self-realization is the concrete result of that process (a written book, a built house, a completed project).
Meaning, creativity, problem-solving, learning new things. A dessert reserved only for those who have handled everything else.
Someone on the internet flipped it and turned it into an ADHD meme. Seemingly just a joke. But the comments exploded, because it hit the mark.
One user wrote something like this: “People with ADHD start with self-actualization and then try to get to their basic needs. Or they just forget about them, because they’re so far from where we are.”
This is not a philosophical concept of “meaning is more important than food.” This is our neurodivergent nervous system, which runs on interest.
Hyperfocus mutes physiology. In a state of interest, our brain literally does not receive bodily signals, or receives them but does not prioritize them. Eight hours on a task that has grabbed you, and suddenly you realize: you haven’t eaten, drunk, or gotten up. This is reduced interoception — the ability to feel and recognize signals from your own body — combined with a brain that has thrown all its resources at “the interesting thing.” 🙈
The interest-based nervous system does the rest. Our nervous system is activated by interest, novelty, challenge — not by “I HAVE TO.” This means that the signal “eat something” competes with the signal “here’s an interesting task” and loses.
And as a result, the foundation collapses. Chronic sleep deprivation, irregular eating, dehydration, ignoring pain and fatigue — all of this accumulates. And then we wonder why we function poorly, why everything slips through our hands, and why we have no energy for anything. It’s just that the foundation of our pyramid hasn’t been properly maintained for a long time.
That’s why in therapy we work, among other things, on automating basic needs. We don’t learn to feel hunger, because that may not work (although we still try to notice signals like dizziness and irritability). Rather, the emphasis is on building a system that will remind you to eat, even if your brain is in hyperfocus. Alarms to drink water, meals scheduled like meetings in a calendar. Body-based practices that help notice bodily signals before they turn into a meltdown.
Why meaning comes first
Here’s what it looks like from the inside. You get a good job. Stable, remote, decent pay. Formally, all the lower levels of the pyramid are covered. But something is wrong — your brain literally refuses to start doing the tasks, and you want to do anything at all except this good job. You force yourself, but it’s like pushing a car with your hands. It’s possible, but not for long, and soon you get tired.
And then you take on a project that genuinely interests you and don’t move for several hours, forget to eat, lose track of time.
Dr. William Dodson, an ADHD specialist, described the concept of an interest-based nervous system — a nervous system oriented around interest. Unlike a neurotypical one, ours is activated by four things: interest, challenge, novelty, urgency. Or personal significance, i.e. meaning.
If that isn’t there, dopamine says “Adieu”! The neurotransmitter responsible for moving toward a goal and anticipating the result simply is not produced in the necessary amount.
The autistic angle: meaning is logic
With autism, another layer is added. And here it’s important to be more precise, because the word “meaning” often sounds like something lofty — values, calling, purpose.
In reality, for us meaning is often about the logic of the process.
Our brain is constantly, automatically, in the background building cause-and-effect chains. This is called systems thinking: we see structures, connections, and the logic of processes where others simply take things for granted. And every action passes through an internal filter: why is this needed? what does this achieve? is there a shorter path to the same goal?
If an action doesn’t fit, the brain rejects it like a bug in the code. Plus, with autism we usually have much less energy because of constant sensory overload and the effort spent on masking. And spending the last of that energy on illogical and meaningless work — Absolutely not! I don’t have spare energy for that.
It is also very important for us that the people we live with, are friends with, and work with share our values. And when ASD and ADHD are both present, we are usually less inclined toward conformity and hierarchy, and our values and morals often differ from the majority’s. And we can be very uncompromising when it comes to following these rules; often they matter to us more than staying in a job where we see injustice or do not feel that our competence and suggestions are being taken into account.
“Go to the stand-up just to be seen” is illogical. “Write the report in this specific format because that’s how it’s always been done” is illogical if the format is inconvenient. “Be available from 9 to 6 even if all the tasks are already done” is illogical.
And here is what matters: we cannot simply decide to ignore this filter. We do not know how to do something “just because we have to” if the “have to” has no clear justification. This is a feature of our brain’s architecture. 😔
With AuDHD, this is a volatile combination: a systems-oriented brain that sees illogicality everywhere, plus a nervous system that does not release dopamine for boring and uninteresting things. Together, this means that work without meaning is not just boring and hard for us. Our organism resists it, and often it becomes physically impossible in the long term.
Why this hurts so much in employment 😔
A traditional work environment is built for a neurotypical brain. There is a lot of “do it because that’s the norm”: certain hours, certain reporting formats, small talk by the coffee machine, meetings for the sake of meetings, hierarchical rituals.
For our brain, each such item is a separate energy expense. Allostatic load — the cumulative stress of chronic adaptation to an environment that was never designed for you — grows unnoticed. And then suddenly you realize you are squeezed dry.
And one more thing. When your hyperfocus — the ability to immerse yourself in a task for hours and produce a result that would take someone else a week — goes into someone else’s project, into a product that does not belong to you, for profit that is not yours, the brain feels it. The connection between effort and value is broken.
That is why 54% of neurodivergent entrepreneurs say that they started their own business not because they dreamed of it, but because employment turned out to be physically impossible for them (Barclays / Entrepreneurs Network, 2024).
📖 What to do with this knowledge
First, the fact that you cannot do meaningless things is a neurobiological trait, not a character defect. Your brain works this way.
Second, stop wasting energy fighting this and start building the environment around yourself, instead of forcing yourself to fit the environment. Look for tasks that have clear logic. Remove unnecessary steps where possible. Do not agree to “that’s just how it’s done” without an explanation of why.
Third, understand that your ability to see illogicality and rebel against it is not a problem that needs fixing. In tasks where you need to build processes, find errors in a system, create something from scratch — it is a superpower, a genuinely valuable resource!
We just need an environment where you can ask “why?” and get an answer, where you have the opportunity to change something for the better. Where meaning is not at the top of the pyramid after everything else has been covered, but at the very foundation from which everything else begins.
So when people tell us, “First find a stable job, and then think about meaning,” that is advice built on a logic that is upside down for us. It is roughly like saying: “First learn to breathe properly, and then we’ll give you air.”