i think a lot of undiagnosed neurodivergent people spend their lives trying to live authentically, facing rejection, then trying to conform unsuccessfully - now that neurodiversity is less stigmatized, getting diagnosed feels like a weight off your shoulders because you understand that you werenāt just āunexplainably weird / bad / wrongā, you have a condition that can be ātreatedā / āsymptomsā can be mitigated, and instead of shooting in the dark trying to change things about yourself until youāre accepted, you can work in a specific direction to get some kind of support towards living more authentically because you know something about yourself you didnāt know before
i think that youāre right and ultimately autism, adhd, etc. are names for sets of characteristics that are different from an arbitrary norm set by white supremacy and capitalism, but coming to terms with that takes some time when those conditions exerted such pressure on you and you didnāt know you could discount the system because you didnāt know it applied to you. i feel like at least for me, after getting over the frustration of being undiagnosed with adhd (which is different than autism specifically) it became a less meaningful part of my identity, but that couldnāt happen until i processed how much of my life was informed by that fact without me even knowing
Mar 28, 2024
Related Recs
š§
i feel like because neurodivergence is still not largely understood on a cultural level, there aren't a lot of resources or representation that could've served as a signal for me as a child. now that i've come to terms with the way i navigate the world, i wonder if the grief i feel is normal. its like a sadness for the me i could've been, had i and others been aware, and this odd sense of urgency which overcomes my usual executive dysfunction. and compels me to find some assistance that can hopefully nake my life easier or at least more manageable. im in the process of giving myself grace for what i percieved as laziness and have now come to realize is probably adhd. my finam word is that we should be more mindful and accepting, as a society, of how neurodivergence presents itself from person to person, as there is no monolith, especially as it pertains to women and girls, those of which are highly skilled at masking thier behaviors.
Mar 11, 2025
š«
i donāt have autism i donāt think, but i do have adhd, social anxiety, and dysthymia. i also am not accepted or supported by my parents when it comes to my queerness (which isnāt neurodivergence lol, but it often comes up when i think about āwhat life could be likeā).
i often would get stuck thinking about how much more successful in life i would be had i been supported in the beginning. if only i had been taken to a therapist when i first asked for support, or maybe had my parents been more open minded about lgbtq ppl.. maybe i wouldnāt have anxiety about the smallest things, or depressive episodes where i canāt get out of bed the entire day. maybe i would be the son they could show off to their friends.
this type of thinking kind of consumed me for the majority of last year, as i was getting used to living outside of my parentsā house. i was very depressed and often fantasized about what it would be like if things were different. however, earlier this year, i think i realized that staying in this mindset really held me back. i was thinking āwhat ifā about things that i now (as an independent adult) have a moderate amount of control over!! i could become the support and acceptance i was seeking.
it also really helped me to shift my thinking on my own neurodivergence. i often thought of it as one of my biggest obstacles (which it can be at times). but when you learn the right coping mechanisms and ignore what society deems as ānormalā, it can be a little more manageable. for me, iām very sensitive to noise and lighting. wearing my noise canceling headphones (even in public where i feel most insecure about wearing them, and while i do chores) and making sure thereās no overhead lighting has helped me sm in terms of productivity and living happily in general. remembering that normal doesnāt really exist and there are no rules to living, has kind of opened me up to a whole new world that i didnāt know was possible for me. living is actually awesome sauce, when there is no one in ur ear telling u ur ārudeā or āweirdā or āannoyingā or āawkwardā for living in a way that is most comfortable for u.
the ppl who turned away from u and hurt u just because u are autistic, were simply not meant to be in ur life!!! they obviously couldnāt handle ur autistic swag. know that u r the normal one for just living ur life, and ppl who try to bring others down or judge unnecessarily are the weird ones.. also society is not built to support everyone, so plz dont judge urself for having to find joy through unconventional avenues. that is a reflection on societal expectations and how flawed our society is, not on u!
anyways i hope maybe this helps a little. š«¶š ty for reading my essay and sorry if it sounds so motivational speech core. it just makes me sad when i see ppl who have similar negative thoughts as i do when it comes to this stuff RAAAAAAHHFFFRRR š¤š¤š¤š¤š¤š¤š¤š¦š¦š¦š¦š¦š¦
š¦
š¦
Mar 18, 2025
š
Meeting people in large group settings definitely helps, i find theres a very natural pull feeling to people that are similar to me and its wayyy more noticeable when im not hanging out with people who ive known forever.
Turns out almost everything i thought was unique to me could be distilled into a list of š«symptomsš«.
Ive alway seen myself as a drifter/chameleon type, i think my brain just resents ever being able to be defined or labelled or categorized.
That was disjointed but hope that helps, maybe that made sense to you and you are a little more understood now :))
Jul 18, 2024
Top Recs from @alaiyo
Mar 23, 2024
a treatise on the attention economy - checked it out on libby and got through it over the course of a work day, a lot of really interesting social and cultural explorations about how time itself is the final frontier of hypercapitalism and what decommodification of our attention and time should look like
the book starts with a story about the oldest redwood tree in oakland and how the only reason itās still standing is bc itās unmillable, and how being uncommercializable is essential to our survival. it ends with an exploration of alt social media platforms (mostly p2p ones) and what keeping the good parts of the social internet and rejecting the bad ones should look like
all in all a super valuable read; my only nitpick with the book is that odell isnāt just charting the attention economy but also attempting to āsolveā it and relate it back to broader concepts about labor and social organizing, but her background is in the arts which leads to some really wonderful references to drive the points home while also missing some critical racial + socioeconomic analyses that one would expect (or at least really appreciate) from the book she promises to deliver in the introduction. but this does also make the book easier to read which is good because everyone should definitely engage with what she has to say
will definitely be revisiting
Mar 25, 2024
