Deconstructing My Neurodivergent Voice: What AI Taught Me About How I Think

Part 2: When Brand Voice Analysis Became Cognitive Archaeology

Parenthetical layering: 40-50% of complex sentences. Extreme rhythmic variation: 3 to 87 words per sentence. Doubled intensifiers: “very, very” and “LOVED IT LOVED IT LOVED IT!”

These aren’t communication quirks. They’re the linguistic fingerprints of a neurodivergent mind making invisible connections visible.

Week 2 of Sara and Tyler’s AI Agentic Fundamentals course gave me an assignment that seemed straightforward: Analyze your brand voice and create an email assistant that sounds authentically like YOU.

Simple, right? Just document how you write, feed it to an AI, done.

Except… it wasn’t simple at all. It was one of the most uncomfortable, revealing, and ultimately transformative exercises I’ve ever done. Because what started as “analyze your writing style” became something much deeper: forensic archaeology of how my neurodivergent brain actually processes and communicates thought.

And what I discovered changed everything.

The Assignment That Became Self-Discovery

Here’s what Week 2 asked us to do: Take examples of your writing across different contexts (emails, blog posts, professional communications) and analyze the patterns. Then create system instructions for an AI email assistant that captures your authentic voice.

The goal? An AI that doesn’t just write emails FOR you, but writes emails that sound like they came FROM you. That carry your personality, your thinking style, your unique way of communicating.

So I gathered my writing samples. Casual emails to my brother-in-law about AI in banking. Blog posts about my artist’s journey (some from years ago, some recent). Professional communications about UX work. Enthusiastic USTA tennis team captain emails (WAHOO!!!). Vulnerable gratitude reflections. That post I wrote with Claude’s help about neurodivergent minds and AI.

And then I ran it through Tyler’s advanced AI linguistics expert specializing in comprehensive brand voice analysis and emulation guidance to help analyze. The output came out in minutes, not like “oh, I use exclamation points a lot” but a comprehensive FORENSIC analysis. Sentence length distribution. Vocabulary patterns. Punctuation habits. Tonal shifts across contexts. The actual STRUCTURE of how I communicate.

What I found… honestly, it was like seeing my brain mapped out in language patterns.

The Neurodivergent Communication Framework

Here’s what emerged from the analysis (and I’m going to get specific here because the specifics matter):

Parenthetical Layering: 40-50% of my complex sentences include parenthetical asides. Not occasionally. FORTY TO FIFTY PERCENT. In casual writing, it jumps to 60%. In professional contexts, it drops to 20-30% (because I’m actively trying to “sound professional”).

Example from my email to my brother-in-law: “Man I’m actually so jealous cause this is everything that I’m learning and as of right this moment (with the government shutdown and stuff communication and forward movement has halted) so still haven’t been able to start to put into practice what I’ve been learning about.”

See that? The parenthetical aside isn’t decorative. It’s me showing you my THINKING PROCESS in real-time. It’s the context that’s running parallel in my brain while I’m making the main point. It’s how I actually think—multiple streams of thought happening simultaneously.

Extreme Rhythmic Variation: My sentence lengths vary dramatically. Standard deviation of 9.8 to 24.8 words across different contexts. I’ll write a short burst for emphasis (5-10 words: “CHECK!”), then a medium flow for explanation (20-25 words), then a long exploration for complexity (40-60 words with multiple clauses and—you guessed it—parenthetical asides).

This isn’t random. It’s how my brain processes information. Short bursts when something clicks. Medium sentences when I’m explaining. Long, winding explorations when I’m making connections across multiple ideas simultaneously.

Connection-Making Phrases: “I’m noticing parallels between…” “This connects to…” “The relationship between X and Y…” “I see patterns…” These phrases appear in 80%+ of my analytical writing.

Because that’s what my brain DOES. Constantly. Relentlessly. Sometimes exhaustingly. I’m always seeing how things connect, how patterns emerge, how seemingly disparate ideas relate to each other.

Doubled/Tripled Intensifiers: “very, very frustrated,” “VERY, VERY different,” “so, so,” “LOVED IT LOVED IT LOVED IT!” This appears in 30% of my emphatic statements—25% higher than standard English.

You can literally HEAR my voice when you read this. The repetition isn’t just emphasis—it’s oral quality translated to text. It’s how I would actually SAY it if we were talking.

Question Cascades: I open with a genuine question, explore through additional questions, sometimes answer/sometimes leave open, inviting you into my thought process. Frequency: 3-5 questions per 500 words in reflective writing.

Because I’m not lecturing you. I’m thinking ALONGSIDE you. I’m inviting you into the mess of figuring things out, not presenting you with neat conclusions.

The Contextual Adaptation Discovery

But here’s where it gets really interesting (and vulnerable): My voice shifts DRAMATICALLY across different contexts, but it maintains core authenticity throughout.

Maximum Celebratory Energy (tennis team emails): +0.82 sentiment score, 68% positive words, 20-25 ALL CAPS instances, 10-15 exclamation points per 100 words. “WE WON another match!!! WAHOO! We ended up winning 3/5 courts this morning - so FUN!”

Measured Professional Warmth (work communications): +0.54 sentiment, 51% neutral words, 2-3 ALL CAPS instances, 1-2 exclamation points per 100 words. Still warm, still ME, but calibrated for professional context.

Complex Emotional Vulnerability (reflective blog posts): +0.45 sentiment with 18% negative words. This is where I process the hard stuff—the frustration, the overwhelm, the “I am grateful for… BUT…” tension.

Reading through my old blog posts for this analysis was… intense. Posts from 2018 when I was drowning in new motherhood, sleep deprivation, feeling like I was failing at everything. Posts about my artist’s journey—that moment in France when my professor whispered “I would like to see MORE of that” and I was stunned because I thought I’d get reprimanded.

That vulnerability is part of my voice too. The willingness to say “I don’t know” while demonstrating sophisticated analysis. The combination of deep expertise and genuine struggle. The complex sentiment that holds both gratitude and frustration simultaneously.

What I Discovered About How My Brain Communicates

As I was documenting all of this—the parenthetical layering, the rhythmic variation, the connection-making, the contextual shifts—I started seeing something profound:

My “scattered” communication style isn’t scattered at all. It’s COGNITIVE TRANSPARENCY.

Every parenthetical aside? That’s me showing you the parallel processing happening in my brain.

Every question cascade? That’s me inviting you to think alongside me rather than being lectured to.

Every connection-making phrase? That’s me making invisible patterns visible so you can follow my thinking.

Every rhythmic variation? That’s my brain moving between different scales of understanding—the quick insight, the medium explanation, the complex exploration.

This isn’t poor communication. This is sophisticated communication that MODELS a way of thinking. It’s pedagogical. It’s inclusive. It demonstrates that showing your thought process helps others learn.

And suddenly I was making connections (because of course I was—that’s what I do):

Remember Week 1 when I documented my learning style for The Professor? Visual learning, macro-level vision first, pattern-seeking, connection-making across domains?

That cognitive style SHOWS UP in how I communicate. My writing style IS my thinking style made visible through language.

The parenthetical asides = parallel processing The question cascades = iterative thinking
The connection-making phrases = pattern recognition across domains The extreme rhythmic variation = operating at multiple scales simultaneously

My neurodivergent communication patterns aren’t things to “fix” or “manage”—they’re the linguistic expression of exactly the cognitive traits that make me effective at AI collaboration.

The Format Problem (And What It Revealed)

But here’s where Week 2 got uncomfortable in a different way.

I created my detailed brand voice analysis. I fed it to my AI email assistant. I tested it with different scenarios.

And the AI kept producing content in BULLETED FORMAT.

Clean. Organized. Professional-looking. Completely NOT how I actually write.

I write in flowing narratives. Long paragraphs that wind through ideas. Sentences that build on each other, creating momentum through rhythm and connection. Even when I’m being professional, I’m still writing in paragraph form, not bullet points.

The AI was capturing some elements of my voice—the enthusiasm, the connection-making—but missing the fundamental STRUCTURE of how I communicate.

And that’s when I realized something important: Different communication modes serve different purposes.

Bullets are great for clarity, for scannable information, for quick reference. But my natural narrative style serves a different purpose—it creates cognitive intimacy. It invites you into the thinking process. It builds understanding through accumulated context rather than isolated points.

As a UX designer, this hit me hard. How many times have I defaulted to bulleted lists in my design documentation because it “looks more professional”? How many times have I stripped out my natural communication style to fit conventional formats?

And here’s the bigger question: If I needed this level of self-awareness to recognize that my AI assistant was missing something fundamental about my voice… what does that mean for users who DON’T have that level of meta-awareness about their own communication?

The Bridge Between Authentic Voice and Professional Expectations

This connects directly to something my Week 2 feedback asked me to think about: “As a Senior UX Designer with a neurodivergent thinking style, how might you leverage your AI assistant to bridge the gap between your unique cognitive patterns and more traditional communication expectations in professional settings?”

That question sat with me for days.

Because here’s the tension: My neurodivergent communication style is AUTHENTIC. It’s how I actually think. It creates connection and understanding. It invites collaboration.

But professional contexts often expect different formats. Cleaner. More linear. Less… messy.

Could I create “contextual variations” for different stakeholders—clients, team members, executives—that maintain my authentic voice while adapting to their communication preferences?

And here’s the deeper question: SHOULD I?

Because part of me wonders: What if the “messiness” of my neurodivergent communication style is actually VALUABLE in professional contexts? What if showing my thinking process, making connections visible, inviting people to think alongside me—what if that’s exactly what complex problem-solving requires?

What if the issue isn’t that my communication style needs to be “cleaned up”—but that professional communication norms need to expand to accommodate cognitive diversity?

The Meta-Awareness Challenge

Here’s something that kept nagging at me throughout Week 2: I have a LOT of self-awareness about how I communicate. Years of therapy, journaling, reflection. Years of feeling “different” and trying to understand why. Years of being told (directly and indirectly) that I need to be more focused, more linear, more… normal.

That self-awareness let me do this forensic analysis of my own voice. But most people don’t have that level of meta-awareness about their communication patterns.

So how do we design AI systems that help people discover their authentic voice rather than just mimicking whatever they happen to write?

How do we build AI assistants that can say “Hey, I notice you write differently in different contexts—which version feels most authentically YOU?”

How do we create tools that AMPLIFY authentic communication rather than just standardizing it?

What This Means for AI Design in Professional Settings

I keep coming back to my work designing AI for government and defense applications. High-stakes environments where clear communication is literally life-or-death.

But what IS “clear communication” in those contexts?

Is it the clean, bulleted, standardized format? Or is it communication that shows reasoning, makes connections visible, invites critical thinking?

When an intelligence analyst is working with AI to make sense of complex data… do they need AI that produces neat summaries? Or do they need AI that shows its reasoning process, makes connections explicit, invites them to think critically about the outputs?

When a mission planner is using AI to coordinate complex operations… do they need streamlined efficiency? Or do they need transparency about how the AI is making recommendations?

Maybe “clear communication” in high-stakes contexts isn’t about simplification—it’s about COGNITIVE TRANSPARENCY. Showing the thinking. Making the connections visible. Inviting human judgment into the process.

Which is exactly what my neurodivergent communication style does naturally.

The Uncomfortable Validation

Here’s what I’m sitting with at the end of Week 2: For years, I’ve been trying to “fix” my communication style. Make it cleaner. More professional. Less scattered.

And this AI brand voice analysis just told me: Your “scattered” style isn’t scattered. It’s sophisticated cognitive transparency. It’s pattern recognition made visible. It’s parallel processing expressed through language. It’s EXACTLY the kind of communication that complex problem-solving requires.

That’s… validating. And uncomfortable. And empowering. And confusing.

Because if my neurodivergent communication style is actually a STRENGTH… why have I spent so much energy trying to suppress it?

And if AI can help me understand and articulate my authentic voice… what does that mean for all the other neurodivergent people who’ve been told their communication is “wrong”?

The Questions I’m Now Asking

Week 2 left me with even more questions than Week 1 (which is apparently how I know I’m learning something real):

How do we design AI that discovers and amplifies authentic voice rather than standardizing it? The templates and frameworks are helpful, but they can also flatten uniqueness. Where’s the balance?

Should professional communication norms adapt to accommodate cognitive diversity? Or should we keep creating “translation layers” where neurodivergent people code-switch to fit conventional expectations?

What’s lost when we “clean up” neurodivergent communication for professional contexts? The cognitive transparency? The invitation to collaborative thinking? The pattern recognition made visible?

How do we build AI assistants that help people develop meta-awareness about their own communication? Because that self-awareness is powerful, but most people don’t have access to it.

If my communication style IS my thinking style made visible… what does that mean for designing AI interfaces? Should we be designing for different COGNITIVE STYLES, not just different user preferences?

What Week 3 Was About to Teach Me

Understanding my voice was one thing. But could I teach an AI to consistently produce content that sounded authentically like me?

That’s what Week 3 was about: EVALUATION. Systematic, rigorous evaluation with human feedback loops.

And what I discovered was that the gap between “sounds kind of like me” and “sounds EXACTLY like me” is enormous. The difference between generic AI outputs and truly personalized AI? It’s measurable. It’s dramatic. And it requires a skill that almost nobody talks about but that turned out to be the most valuable thing I learned in the entire course.

But that’s a story for Part 3.

For now, I’m sitting with this: My neurodivergent voice—with all its parenthetical layering, rhythmic variation, connection-making, and cognitive transparency—isn’t something to fix. It’s something to understand, amplify, and leverage.

Because if AI is going to enhance human communication rather than standardize it, we need to design systems that work WITH cognitive diversity, not against it.

And maybe—just maybe—the “messy” communication styles we’ve been trying to clean up are exactly what complex problem-solving in the AI era requires.

Stay tuned for Part 3, where I discover that evaluation is everything.

In the spirit of transparency I advocate for in AI development: I worked with Claude to structure and refine these reflections from my Week 2 experience. The insights about my communication patterns, the uncomfortable self-discovery, and the questions about professional communication norms are from my actual brand voice analysis work in Sara and Tyler’s course, with AI assistance in articulating patterns I’m still processing.