Neurodivergent Quotes

There is a sense that a particular neurodivergence does not make people inherently disabled, but they feel disabled because of the generally overstimulating environments of dominant neurotypical culture and settings.

What happens when we stop pathologizing difference?

Society often accepts difference in children, but it’s not ‘acceptance’ so much as it is a confidence that those differences will fade.

why are we then determined to change the child, rather than the world around them? Why do we validate the wrong just because it’s normalised, and ostracise the right just because it’s not?

But walking a path alone for a while longer is better than sharing it with someone who’s going to make that path more difficult.

There are billions of us -- humans everywhere, with access to our own minds and no one else's, tossing one another songs and sentences to bridge the gap.

I'm neurodivergent: for my autistic brain, engaging strangers isn't easy or relaxing.

Many of us who are disabled are not particularly likable or popular in general or amid the abled. Ableism means that we—with our panic attacks, our trauma, our triggers, our nagging need for fat seating or wheelchair access, our crankiness at inaccessibility, again, our staying home—are seen as pains in the ass, not particularly cool or sexy or interesting. Ableism, again, insists on either the supercrip (able to keep up with able-bodied club spaces, meetings, and jobs with little or no access needs) or the pathetic cripple. Ableism and poverty and racism mean that many of us are indeed in bad moods. Psychic difference and neurodivergence also mean that we may be blunt, depressed, or “hard to deal with” by the tenants of an ableist world.

You may have different needs than some folks in your class, but that doesn't make you the ­«wrong» version and other people the «normal» version. You are Selah. And you are not the only one feeling these things.

By the time I entered education in the late 1980s, schools were about as well adapted for my neurotype as a set of stairs is adapted for the use by a Dalek.

Our identities make us who we are, and all aspects of our identities are important, including (maybe even specifically) our disabilities.

When you are sad, you don’t necessarily feel like you are also funny, and sharp, and clever, and kind. But you still are. You don’t have to feel like something to be it.

Depression, bipolar disorder, and other examples of neurodivergence7 are stigmatized because we are unwilling to extend the same care and treatment to our brains that we afford our bodies. If I broke my arm and never went to a see a doctor, not only would I be in extreme pain but the people in my life would be incensed by such a reckless choice. Yet we make statements like “It’s all in your head” all the time, minimizing the experiences of our brains and neglecting their care.

My alphabet hates itself. Like ... imagine someone says, ‘Think outside the box.’ My hyperactive mind creates a sphere and laughs at the box and researches for hours on end how much better spheres are. Then my Autism freaks out that I broke the rules without realising there were any, and wonders why we are supposed to think inside cardboard boxes in the first place. Surely being inside cardboard boxes isn’t comfortable.

But like so many neurodivergent women and girls (and people of color and, really, anyone but cis white men), I internalized the criticisms and carried around a lot of shame while I exhausted myself trying to fit into a world that was not built for my brain.

Guess what? Your brain is part of your body! Why am I yelling this? Because too often we treat our brain as though it’s a separate operating system tucked away in a room we call the skull. Our tendency to divorce our brains from our bodies is one of the sneaky ways in which body shame thrives. Isolating our brains gives us permission to treat them differently. Depression, bipolar disorder, and other examples of neurodivergence7 are stigmatized because we are unwilling to extend the same care and treatment to our brains that we afford our bodies. If I broke my arm and never went to a see a doctor, not only would I be in extreme pain but the people in my life would be incensed by such a reckless choice. Yet we make statements like “It’s all in your head” all the time, minimizing the experiences of our brains and neglecting their care.

Apparently, letters mean you should change. I need to learn a lot of rules instead of going to the park. I like rules. I don't like talking about rules.

Find love in things simply to be in love with them.

Moving is hard. Change is hard. Especially if you’re neurodivergent or have survived trauma.

Sick and disabled and neurodivergent folks aren’t supposed to dream, especially if we are queer and Black or brown—we’re just supposed to be grateful the “normals” let us live.

A diagnosis is not a prediction. It doesn’t tell you what’s possible. It doesn’t change you, your colleague, your child, or your friend. It just opens up tricks and tools to thrive.

Listen to yourself, listen to your mind, listen to your body. What do you need? What do you need to stay away from? You’re the expert on yourself, and it’s important to surround yourself with things that will benefit you.

Functioning labels and Asperger’s syndrome both need to be erased entirely from diagnostic criteria and our vocabulary if we want any chance of a more equal future. They only serve to segregate, label and ultimately harm us.

[Epilepsy] gave her an adversity to fight against. It had shaped her personality, the need to be careful and secretive, and the ability to see things a bit differently from the neurotypical. She granted that this feeling of having a broken brain that required her to be sensitive, to look always inward to survive, might be why she turned artist.

It feels like we’re living in a time where neurodivergence is more broadly understood, or even accepted – with people, learning about the ways conditions like Autism and ADHD have historically been underdiagnosed, or underreported, especially in women.

Disabled Cherokee scholar Qwo-Li Driskill has remarked that in precontact Cherokee, there are many words for people with different kinds of bodies, illnesses, and what would be seen as impairments; none of those words are negative or view those sick or disabled people as defective or not as good as normatively bodied people.9 With the arrival of white settler colonialism, things changed, and not in a good way. For many sick and disabled Black, Indigenous, and brown people under transatlantic enslavement, colonial invasion, and forced labor, there was no such thing as state-funded care. Instead, if we were too sick or disabled to work, we were often killed, sold, or left to die, because we were not making factory or plantation owners money. Sick, disabled, Mad, Deaf, and neurodivergent people’s care and treatment varied according to our race, class, gender, and location, but for the most part, at best, we were able to evade capture and find ways of caring for ourselves or being cared for by our families, nations, or communities—from our Black and brown communities to disabled communities.

People viewing their organization like a machine fail to realize that the machine parts who burn out in the workplace, both NeuroDivergent or NeuroTypical, tend to be some of the most devoted employees. Why? Because to work hard enough to burn out, you have to care about what you’re doing.

Every night I left my bedroom window open on the off-chance Peter Pan would realise he’d forgotten a peculiar little girl, left her in the wrong universe, and come back, take her hand and whisk her away to a world of pirates, pixies and mermaids. Away from her own land, where life was as confusing and difficult as the hardest journey in any fairytale. Day after day, year after year, I sat, wishing, hoping, praying. But Peter didn’t come.

People don’t necessarily realize it when they contribute to the erosion of a child’s self-worth, but kids pay attention to how people treat them, and they get the message loud and clear. I wish I could say it didn’t distort their self-perception and make them more sensitive and insecure, but it does.

growing up you need more than someone who’s, like, mentally programmed to love you. You need your tribe, your people, your sidekicks, and I didn’t have them. I was the lion cub in the desert, the trapped Genie, the hidden-away Quasimodo, but I was without a sidekick to bring me through the middle chapters of my story.

Divergence is nature’s way to expansion.

It must be exhausting to be in your head," Sam told me once. I think what he must have meant was it was exhausting for him to hear about it. I exhausted him.

Stimming is not a bad thing.

As an individual, as a person with the power to affect other people with your words, actions, and expressions every single day, you can give people who see the world differently the gift of accepting who and how they are.

Most of my housemates had ADHD, PTSD, bipolar, autism, or some combination of those. I might have been the only one who didn’t realize I was neurodivergent—that is, not neurotypical. In that house, for the first time since childhood, I didn’t feel like an introvert. I got energy from being around people, because I didn’t feel the need to play a role—I could just be. Stimming was common and accepted. People dressed however they liked. Meltdowns were an occasional part of life, not a big and scary event.

These days, everyone said they were accepting of neurodivergence. In theory. But Jasper knew better. She knew that if the social lines were ever crossed, if the complex and unwritten rules were ever broken, she would be cast out. She had worn the golden girl mask for so long and sometimes it was too frightening to imagine removing it. It splintered her face, it made her eyes tired, it dulled the taste of life, but it was easier to be accepted as a watered-down version of yourself than rejected for who you really were.

Do you find yourself unable to focus in social situations because your mind is distracted by the minutia of these interactions?” he begins. ​I’m too busy thinking about the way someone’s bone structure works when saying these words to actually respond to them, but my therapist takes that as a yes.

I like that I have ten things on the go, all at once. I like that I'm always planning for the next thing. I like that I bring a high energy to my life, that I see it as a challenge. I like that my favourite thing to do on the flight home is to look at the airline route map to pick my next destination.

I always had to pretend back then," he said. "Trying to act the way I was supposed to, to understand what people wanted from me. Alone is not synonymous with lonely. Out in the world, everyone tells you to just be yourself but then punishes you if you are. And yet they are right. Alone I can be myself.

But deficits and disabilities only exist in relation to an environment where some other way of functioning has been chosen as the yardstick. An autistic person - or one with any form of otherness - only becomes an anomaly when she tries to fit in. Beyond any and all contexts, she is complete in herself.

They often took a difficulty I had and turned it into an amusing little anecdote. They would take a deadly seriousness, my seriousness, and turn it into a great laugh that they would then let out into the room. What kind of people were they to do that? The amusing anecdote had sharp edges, flew into me and scratched my soul.

My need to self-regulate was left unattended and silenced. I firmly pushed away what my mind and body desperately needed to do for fear of being further bullied and ridiculed. However, instead of these needs disappearing and me magically becoming ‘normal’, as was so desired by those around me, they turned into pent-up anxiety, depression and dysregulation that would end up bubbling over to the point of meltdowns.

I just mean that she’s different, you know? Not like us. She’s not so good with, hm, how do you say, human interaction and any trappings of decorum or rules. I suppose that’s why she prefers animals to people. Most animals don’t exchange hellos and ask how the other is. They just exist next to one another.” Yetu’s ears and skin perked at the sound of that. Oori preferred animals, did she? “Perfect, then. I’m not human,” said Yetu. Though her foremothers were two-legs, she felt she had very little in common with these strange land walkers, whose teeth were weak and flat. “I am animal.” Suka played with their breath in the back of their throat then pushed it through their mouth—a strange habit of the two-legs. It was too thoughtful to be a sigh. Too calm and content to be a groan. Just a sound, meaningless, as they considered what to say. “Yes, but only animal-ish?” they said, hedging. Yetu didn’t understand what that could mean. She groaned, unable to keep track of it all. Without the vivid images of the rememberings, she was left only with outlines of memories, and even those were waning. Two-legs had specific ways of classifying the world that Yetu didn’t like. She remembered that, at least. They organized the world as two sides of a war, the two-legs in conflict with everything else. The way Suka talked about farming, it was as if they ruled the land and what it produced, as opposed to—they’d just said it themselves—existing alongside it.

[Dora] 'I have often though that I am capable of emotions with a long tail. I am not sure if that makes sense. I do not feel the shock of fear, but I can feel dread--I was scared of the image in the mirror after thinking on it for a while. And while you do not enrage me, per se, I am vexed when I think of the way you treat others.' Elias smiled sharply at that...'Have you ever felt happiness at all, Miss Ettings? Even the sort with a long tail?' Dora settled her chin into her hand. 'I don't know what happiness ought to feel like any more,' she said. 'It is the most elusive feeling of all, I think. But...I feel at peace when I am near Vanessa. She is like a warm lantern to me. I think it must be because she loves me so obviously. When I am around her, I do not need to pretend to be something I am not.

I've been thinking about what you told me Friday night, about having a broken brain, not a broken spirit. And I've been thinking about what it means to be broken, and how we call things broken that aren't - fractured. It made me think about fractals. Do you know what a Mandelbrot Set is? [...] So, a Mandelbrot Set is one kind of fractal. All fractals are self similar, which means they have a pattern that repeats at different levels of magnification. Fractals are infinitely recursive and orderly, but they appear to be chaotic. [...] Mathematicians use fractals to model things that appear to be chaotic but are really accumulations of complex patterns. Fractured things - not broken, because broken implies that there is a normal, when mathematically there isn't. Normal would simply mean easily predictable, like a salt crystal. Fractured things like snowflakes and mountain ranges are more geometrically interesting and require more complex modeling. [...] You are a fractured snowflake, a pattern, repeated in infinite detail in a world full of salt crystals. You're not broken, you're perfect.

On the Training of Doctors is dedicated to everyone in the world that defies conventions. It is dedicated to those that take the chance to be themselves in a world that demands compliance to norms. We dedicate this book to everyone in the queer, BDSM Lifestyler/kinkster, geek/nerd, neurodivergent, pagan, artistic, writing, transgender communities, and any other community that dares to defy the “norms”. There is nothing that takes more courage than to stand up and be yourself when those around us demand that we conform. We refuse to conform. We refuse to comply. We are beautiful and unique. We are never going to go away, and we are going to change the world.

As a community of witches we should be mindful of those who are neurodivergent, and be aware that not all the same techniques and tactics are going to work for everyone in the same manner.

There it was, the one thing Daddy couldn’t buy for her and the only thing Poppy wanted in life—her father’s empire and the family’s respect. This was my in with Poppy because getting ahold of my impulsive behavior was the first thing I mastered upon realizing I was different. Poppy desperately wanted to learn control, and Piya desperately wanted happiness for her only child. No one else could help Poppy in the same way. If anyone were to understand a neurodivergent, it was their own kind.

Our brains are sending sparks in different directions and sometimes they end up in the wrong place, but sometimes they end up in incredible places.

You had trouble answering the phone? You neurodivergent cunt.’ Donnie had been sent on compulsory equalities training after some work catastrophe, where he had been compelled to learn a raft of terms he now used as abuse.

Narrow Stimulation Range: With neurodivergence, you’re either easily underwhelmed or overwhelmed. There’s no balance where you sense enough to hold your interest but not so much that you’re overwhelmed by what’s happening. Low Tolerance for Frustration: You’re probably neurodivergent if you think that trying things once and failing means you should never try again. The reason this happens is that neurodivergent people learn differently from neurotypical ones.

Neurodivergent Checklist Time Blindness: Many neurodivergent people have trouble properly perceiving time as it passes. It either goes by too quickly or slowly. The perception of time depends on the level of stimulation the neurodivergent person is dealing with. It also can vary depending on what you’re focused on. If you’ve ever found yourself unable to account for time, you may be neurodivergent. Executive Dysfunction: This is what you experience when you want to accomplish a task, but despite how hard you try, you cannot see it through. Executive dysfunction happens for various reasons, depending on the type of neurodivergence in question. Still, the point is that this is a common occurrence in neurodivergent people. Task Multiplication: What is task multiplication? It happens when you set off to accomplish one thing but have to do a million other things, even though that wasn’t your original plan. For instance, you may want to sit down to finish some writing, only to notice water on the floor. You get up to grab a mop, and on the way, you notice the laundry you were supposed to drop off at the dry cleaners. Stooping to pick up the bag, you find yourself at eye level with your journal and remember you were supposed to make an entry the previous day, so you’re going to do that now. On and on it goes. Inconsistent Sleep Habits: This depends on what sort of neurodivergence you’re dealing with and if you’ve got comorbid disorders. Most importantly, neurodivergent people sleep more or less than “regular” people. You may also notice that your sleep habits fluctuate a lot. Sometimes you may sleep for eight hours at a stretch for a week, only to suddenly start running on just three hours of sleep. Emotional Dysregulation: With many neurodivergent people, it’s hard to keep emotions in check. Emotional dysregulation occurs in extreme emotions, sudden mood swings, or inappropriate emotional reactions (either not responding to the degree they should or overreacting). Hyperfixation: This also plays out differently depending on the brand of neurodivergence in question. Often, neurodivergent people get very involved in topics or hobbies to the point of what others may think of as obsession. Picking Up on Subtleties but Missing the Obvious: Neurodivergent people may struggle with picking up on things neurotypical people can see easily. At the same time, they are incredibly adept at noticing the subtle things everyone else misses. Sensory Sensitivities: If you’re neurodivergent, you may be unable to ignore your clothes tag scratching your back, have trouble hearing certain sounds, and can’t quite deal with certain textures of clothing, food, and so on. Rejection Sensitivity: Neurodivergent people are often more sensitive to rejection than others due to neurological differences and life experiences. For instance, children with ADHD get much more negative feedback than their peers without ADHD. Neurodivergent people are often rejected to the point where they notice rejection even when it’s not there.

Sie würde ihn in ihr Chaos lassen, etwas, das sie seit Kindheit an versuchte so gut zu verstecken, wie sie nur konnte. Ärzte, Lehrer, Therapeuten kamen an mit Begriffen wie ADHS, sprachen von autistischen Zügen, überlegten ob depressiv oder traumatisiert - Mona nannte es ihr Ich. Und das war in einer so auf Anpassung achtenden Gesellschaft eingesperrt, wie Balthasar es als Gott war.

Or how many of us are just so stressed and overwhelmed by trying to help our kids navigate and manage that it creates its own kind of neurodivergence?

down to the family or person in question. Besides medication and therapy, it is important to have a healthy lifestyle when dealing with ADHD symptoms. It is often recommended that those with ADHD focus on building healthy eating habits, getting in as many vegetables, fruits, and whole grains as they should. Protein should also come from lean sources. Daily physical exercises or routines also help and should be designed with the age and capabilities of the person in mind. It helps to have less time with screens, whether television, cellphones, or any other electronic device. Also, adequate sleep does amazing things for the ADHD mind.

The first category needs to be done, the second needs to be planned for, the third can be delegated, and the final category doesn’t need to be handled. However, with the neurodivergent brain, since there’s no “assistant,” everything winds up on the exec’s desk vying for their attention. As a result, either the wrong thing gets done, or nothing gets done at all.

Trouble Making and Maintaining Eye Contact: Neurodivergent people may not always do well with eye contact. For some, it can appear as though they’re staring right into your soul, which is something not many people are comfortable with. Other neurodivergent people find eye contact distracting and uncomfortable, so they’ll opt to look everywhere but at you. Rich Inner World vs. The Outer World: Neurodivergent people often tend to be in their heads. They feel things more deeply than neurotypical people and tend to think a lot more.

Being Motivated by Shame: Neurodivergent people don’t learn as others do and are shamed for how they learn and their choices in life. So, they discover that shame is a driving force for learning and other accomplishments. This shame isn’t something neurodivergent people are born with. Instead, it’s something that is beaten into them as the years go by, and society continues to tell them they’re broken — which is not true. Stimming: Stimming refers to any action that’s meant to help the neurodivergent person feel stimulated for whatever reason. There are all kinds of stims, from vocal to tactile. Stimming helps to alleviate boredom and to regulate and express emotions as needed. Examples of stimming include throat clicking, finger-snapping, rocking back and forth, running hands through hair, pacing, repeating sounds or words, and so on.

It’s the same for neurodivergent; it’s an umbrella term for anyone who diverges from dominant societal norms; it doesn’t specifically say what our experiences or differences are other than the fact that we simply do diverge. It’s an umbrella term for all the ways we may diverge from the way we think, feel, learn, communicate, behave and function.

Neuro Navigator: A person who may not have a neurodivergent brain, but loves and empowers someone who does. See also: Unconditional love.

For many women with ADHD, we may be able to sit still but we can’t stop moving through our never-ending thoughts.

If a lot of people are suffering because of a few people, why didn’t the majority do something about it a long time ago? Why’d everyone let it get so bad?” “If you drop a lobster in a pot of boiling water,” Zyrha tells him, “it’ll thrash around for its life.” “Wouldn’t we all?” Darrion smirks. “If you drop the lobster in a pot of cool water and slowly raise the temperature, it’ll die without a struggle. It’ll get used to the incremental increases until it’s too late to know it’s dead. You asked how we got here. The temperature had been rising in the Old States for a long time. People were dying left and right without a struggle. A few leaders had control over everything: money, power, the military, health care, schools, utilities, transportation, laws, courts, and the media. They had everything. Everything except the one thing every person in power needs.” “What’s that?” Darrion asks through a strained quiver. “An enemy.” “An enemy,” he repeats. “The question became which one. There were so many to choose from.” Zyrha claps her hands and gives a sarcastic laugh. “Black people. Brown people. Asians. Mexicans. Arabs. Women. The biracial. The multiracial. Old people. Young people. Short people. The overweight, the underweight, the sick, the helpless, the homeless, the unemployed. The asexual, the bisexual, the homosexual, the transgendered. People with special needs. The neurodivergent. Pot-smokers. Immigrants. Socialists. Communists. Atheists. Jews. Muslims. Intellectuals. Influencers. Athletes. Academics. Writers. Pacifists. Celebrities.” Zyrha pauses to draw in a long breath. “They were all contrived of course. They were invented enemies designed to occupy the amygdala—that’s the brain’s fear center—so the prefrontal cortex—the part of the brain responsible for rational thought and good decision-making—wouldn’t take over. Anyway, there’d been a lot of manufactured enemies, and, frankly, they’d been done to death.

Your five-year-old son wanders around his kindergarten classroom distracting other kids. The teacher complains: he can’t sit through her scintillating lessons on the two sounds made by the letter e. When the teacher invites all the kids to sit with her on the rug for a song, he stares out the window, watching a squirrel dance along a branch. She’d like you to take him to be evaluated. And so you do. It’s a good school, and you want the teacher and the administration to like you. You take him to a pediatrician, who tells you it sounds like ADHD. You feel relief. At least you finally know what’s wrong. Commence the interventions, which will transform your son into the attentive student the teacher wants him to be. But obtaining a diagnosis for your kid is not a neutral act. It’s not nothing for a kid to grow up believing there’s something wrong with his brain. Even mental health professionals are more likely to interpret ordinary patient behavior as pathological if they are briefed on the patient’s diagnosis.[15] “A diagnosis is saying that a person does not only have a problem, but is sick,” Dr. Linden said. “One of the side effects that we see is that people learn how difficult their situation is. They didn’t think that before. It’s demoralization.” Nor does our noble societal quest to destigmatize mental illness inoculate an adolescent against the determinism that befalls him—the awareness of a limitation—once the diagnosis is made. Even if Mom has dressed it in happy talk, he gets the gist. He’s been pronounced learning disabled by an occupational therapist and neurodivergent by a neuropsychologist. He no longer has the option to stop being lazy. His sense of efficacy, diminished. A doctor’s official pronouncement means he cannot improve his circumstances on his own. Only science can fix him.[16] Identifying a significant problem is often the right thing to do. Friends who suffered with dyslexia for years have told me that discovering the name for their problem (and the corollary: that no, they weren’t stupid) delivered cascading relief. But I’ve also talked to parents who went diagnosis shopping—in one case, for a perfectly normal preschooler who wouldn’t listen to his mother. Sometimes, the boy would lash out or hit her. It took him forever to put on his shoes. Several neuropsychologists conducted evaluations and decided he was “within normal range.” But the parents kept searching, believing there must be some name for the child’s recalcitrance. They never suspected that, by purchasing a diagnosis, they might also be saddling their son with a new, negative understanding of himself. Bad

I want to start to dream about what transformative justice looks like when someone who causes harm is disabled. I want there to be something - anything - that isn't ableist written about the intersections of neurodivergence or psych disabilities and being someone who's caused harm. Right now, if someone talks about how our psych disabilities or neurodiversity are intertwined in some way with how we've caused harm, either people fall into apologism: "they have psych disabilities, you can't blame them," or we're seen as monsters: "they have THAT disorder, they're toxic, stay away from them." Mostly, it's the latter, and the ableist demonization of people with psych disabilities as killers and monsters leaves no room for us to really talk about what happens when we are Mad and might cause harm. I want something else. I want anti-ableist forms of accountability that don't throw disabled people who cause harm under the bus, into every stereotype about "crazed autistic"/"psychotic"/"multiple personalities abusive killers." Instead, I want us to create accountability recommendations that are accessible to our disabilities and neurodivergence.

Whether you hyperfocus on this book, and listen to it all in the next few hours, or whether it joins a list of unread books and you finally to get round to listening to it in 2034, when you're moving house: we hope that you find value in these pages.

Sometimes I work so hard to keep myself calm all day, just to come home and let out all my feelings at once.

how to stop crying for long enough to eat breakfast / how to stop overreacting / what does it mean to dream about being bitten by a fawn? / how to stop thinking about food / am I neurodivergent? / symptoms of autism / symptoms of adhd / is cheese low fodmap? / I always wanna die sometimes lyrics / virginia woolf suicide note / am I a narcissist? / is it normal to get stretch marks in your 20s? / synonyms for tired / when do the clocks go forward? / leave your scarf in my life poem / papercut definition / grey’s anatomy station 19 watch order / is mercury in retrograde or am i? / skill regression / practise or practice / drawstring trousers / how to burn yarn ends together / types of red leaves / keeping me awake song / biscuits that go with coffee / how many presidents have been assassinated? / how to use somebody as an anchor / is this all a waste of time?

Her public persona has some disadvantages, though. She doesn’t need the pollsters to tell her not everyone wants a neurodivergent assassin as their representative.

But I find being around people so hard. Any people. There's all this noise and light and color and sensation, all the time, and I don't know how to read tone or emotions or jokes or sarcasm or flirting. It's like all the things that everyone else can do automatically, I have to do manually. And I get overwhelmed. Constantly. That's the face you're seeing. It's me, trying to process everything at once.

I'm on the spectrum," I say with a jolt. "Derek and Jack were right." "They were not." Artemis scowls. "That's a euphemism. They don't want to say autistic because they think it's rude. It is not rude." "It's not?" I say distantly, observing my brain shift again. "Nope. People think autism is some kind of error, and it's not. You're not broken or 'disordered,' or whatever they say on their little bits of paper. That just means 'not exactly like me.' Which--" Artemis points at the folder "--I think you'll see is one of the many things Mum wrote in the margins, along with the words go to hell, highlighted in pink. Autism is just a different wiring. You're built in alternative neurological software, from the ground up. Every single part of you. And it's..." "Colorful and loud?" I guess, and Artemis laughs. "I was going to say brilliant," she says. "But, yeah, I'd imagine that too. Although I don't know why anyone is surprised at how the world treats you. This has never really been a planet that embraces difference.

This book does not represent autism, and neither I nor Cassie represent autistic people. We are simply individual voices in a choir of millions of amazing neurodivergent people, all with our own experiences, or own ways of seeing the world, our own ways of existing. I cannot speak for anyone but myself, and I would not want to try. So, whether you enjoyed this book or not, whether you see yourself represented in this story or not, I urge you to seek out other autistic voices. We are beautiful, we are unique, and we are legion.

There is no one disabled future. But in mine, there is guaranteed income, housing, access, food, water, and education for all—or money has been abolished. I get paid to write from my bed. The births of disabled, Autistic, Mad, Neurodivergent, Deaf, and sick kids are celebrated, and there are memorials and healing and reparation sites on every psych ward, institution, nursing home, youth lockup, and “autistic treatment center” where our people have been locked up and abused. Anyone who needs care gets it, with respect and autonomy, not abuse. Caregivers are paid well for the work we do and are often disabled ourselves. Disabled folks are the ones teaching medical school students about our bodies. Schools have been taken apart and remade so that there’s not one idea of “smart” and “stupid,” but many ways of learning. There is a disability justice section in every bookstore and a million examples of sick and disabled and Deaf and autistic and Mad folks thriving. I have a really sick lipstick-red spiral ramp curving around my house. Because it’s beautiful. Because I want it. Because I get to live free. -LEAH

The work was mentally taxing, which was just as well: it prevented Dora from dwelling on her aunt's words. The pile of ugliness at the bottom of her mind was bigger than it had ever been before, pressing dangerously at the surface of her consciousness. Dora knew it was becoming a problem, but she continued to ignore it mostly because she did not know what else to do with it. She could not sob on her pillow as Vanessa might have done, and there was no one about to whom she might turn for comfort--and so she continued her translation, vaguely aware the entire time of the sickness that pressed for her attention.

But for the outcasts like me, the ones who don't fit the box, the only words that remind me I'm human are my own.

Another common narrative that we may come across in our journey towards self-acceptance is that ‘autism is a super power’, and articles online that read ‘Here are 20 super successful people with ADHD’. Although this may make some autistic ADHDers feel positive about themselves initially, it can have an unintended negative impact on others, as we can end up feeling like we can only be accepted by society as neurodivergent if we are the next Albert Einstein.

Divergent Dynamite (The Sonnet) You only know my infinite radiance, you got no clue to my innate hurricane. Day in and day out I struggle autistic, Genius is outcome of a mind broken. There are cracks across my heart, nothing can bar the pouring rays. Light is but suffering harnessed, Genius is brokenness harnessed. There is no end to my exuberance, limits of typicals don't apply to me. I am but an enigma of unbending tenacity, every breath is testament to impossibility. Divergence is nature's way to expansion. Divergent dynamite I, am living evolution.

Genius is outcome of a mind broken.

It was an animal love, like an animal that has been living in an incomprehensible world until one day it encounters another of its kind and understands that it has been applying its comprehension in the wrong place all along.

Here are some other examples of instances of internalized ableism to watch for: Self-doubt: Doubting your abilities solely based on being Autistic, such as thinking, “I can’t handle this task because I’m Autistic.” Apologizing for neurodivergent behaviors: Feeling the need to apologize for behaviors that are natural expressions of neurodivergence, like saying, “Sorry for rambling” or “I’m sorry for being awkward.” Masking or camouflaging: Adopting neurotypical behaviors or suppressing natural Autistic traits in order to fit in—for example, consciously mimicking neurotypical social norms or suppressing stimming.

For many of us, our survivorhood and our neurodivergence are pretty damn intertwined. As disabled TJ workers, we know what it's like to inhabit secret bodymind stories that many turn away from, as "too much", and that knowledge helps us in our TJ work - people trust us with their survivor stories because they can tell we've seen some shit.

To someone unfamiliar with neurodivergence, meltdowns could be seen as temper tantrums, or worse, fits. A spiraling hysteria, the sufferer overcome, just as men used to describe all those women dropping onto chaises, salts shoved at their nostrils to bring them around. Instead of a state of sheer overload—sensory and otherwise. Involuntary, not behavioral, especially in the badly behaved sense. The neurodivergent brain became overtaxed and erupted like a volcano. There was a reason the preferred term was melting down. As in a nuclear reactor.

Both Chris and Cori say that there is a benefit to their both being autistic and synchronizing on the same level, though they are neurodivergent and autistic to different degrees. Cori told me that she thinks that people in her past relationships were likely autistic.

I will no doubt tell that story of great-granddad to my children, maybe they will pass it down further - and essentially that's how all myths were invented. That's why Homer was not one man but many, many storytellers, and why writing isn't about spelling and grammar and pen licences.

We have tied our self-worth to their statements and at some point, we must begin the slow and arduous process of breaking free and seeing that we are more than they said we were.

Trust me when I say there are many different types of intelligence and education. Nobody has them all. Maybe you're a social charmer who can read any room with no formal education or perhaps you're a physics professor who has to wear Velcro shoes and can't read an analogue clock - there really shouldn't be a hierarchy of these skills. One is not cleverer than the others.

Letters will never be able to hold the cacophony that bubbles within me.

Thinking differently has given me the tools to face chaos and failure.

It must be exhausting to be in your head," Sam told me once. I think what he must have meant was it was exhausting for him to hear about it. I exhausted him. -Cackle by Kim Harrison

Fervor of faith is not the problem, bigotry of faith is the problem. Or to put it simply. Religion is not the problem, fundamentalism is the real problem. But we must be aware of what a fundamentalist is. A fundamentalist is not necessarily a person who takes the scripture literally, rather, a fundamentalist is a person who deems their own religion as the only true religion, and all others as heresy. Some fundamentalists do interpret the scripture metaphorically, and still manage to remain a bigot. After all, you see outside, what is inside. So the point is, if you want to see integration in the world, first you gotta irrigate your heart, not your colon, of all division. Until you understand undivision, you won't understand divinity. No sabes unidad, no sabes divinidad. Even if you have never heard of Jesus, even if you have never heard of Buddha, even if you have never heard of Moses and Mohammed, even if you have never heard of Nanak and Naskar, you can still be divine. But if you never treat another person with kindness and dignity, you can never be divine. It's your behavior that makes you religious, not your belief. Besides, even in this day and age, if your belief still keeps raising walls, instead of bringing them down, it's time you seek medical help. Because you see, bigotry is not a legal problem, it is a medical problem, just like alcoholism is a medical problem. Fundamentalism is not a neurodivergence, fundamentalism is a lethal neuropsychiatric condition, which requires immediate medical attention.

Fundamentalism is not a neurodivergence, fundamentalism is a lethal neuropsychiatric condition, which requires immediate medical attention.

That’s the way I’ve always been. It’s hard for me to see any situation as a whole. I feel like I’m always looking at a mass of moving parts, trying to break every tiny piece of experience down and understand it in a methodical way. It’s beautiful but it’s also difficult to interact with people because they expect me to communicate the whole machine and I’m too distracted by the cogs.

We need to find you an outlet that’s going to be healthy and sustainable.” ​I consider these words for a moment. “Like what?” I finally ask, coming up with nothing. ​“Well, you could write,” the bigfoot therapist suggests. “Something creative is a great way to let that illogical side of you come out and play.” ​“Knowing my hyperfocus I’d probably just end up writing hundreds of books expressing every corner of my personality in a deeply intricate catalog of feelings,” I offer with a scoff. ​My therapist doesn’t seem phased.

You see, we’re not hyperactive, just otherworldly energetic. We’re not distractible, just incessantly curious. And yes, we can be impulsive, but some experts believe that creativity is simply impulsivity gone right (and one reason why many believe that Leonardo da Vinci, Vincent van Gogh, and Pablo Picasso all had ADHD).

if a bright child is placed in a supportive, flexible, and challenging classroom environment, we can reduce the negative outcomes classically ascribed to gifted individuals, like perfectionism, anxiety, or underachievement.

Underlying the work we are doing to build connection with our neurodivergent kids is the intent of creating change. We want our kids to be more empowered, independent, and contented in their lives. We want our houses to be calmer and to let down our guard about our children’s success at school. We want harmonious relationships that don’t rely on power struggles and strategic maneuvering to get things done.

Being neurodivergent doesn’t mean a person is broken or needs to be fixed. They need support to access the world around them. The solution to helping someone who needs a wheelchair get up steps isn’t to teach them to walk; it is to build a ramp. The solution for someone who has a disability based on their neurological wiring isn’t to tell them to try harder; it is to build (and help them build for themselves) accommodations that allow them to thrive.

What if gifted kids weren’t required to remain with their same-age peers at school and could be instructed at their cognitive level? How would simply having an appropriate educational setting shift their development?

Recognizing a disability requires us to become comfortable with vulnerability. Self-advocacy begins with recognizing disability without shame. When we give our children permission to recognize their difficulties, we liberate them to ask for accommodations. We empower them to look beyond the status quo and find the solutions that work for them, instead of trying to use the solutions that work for other people. And we provide a framework for self-understanding and self-acceptance that is the key for neurodivergent people of all ages.

ask them to visualize what their life would be like if they weren’t constantly feeling overwhelmed by stress, social anxiety, or disorganization.

the lasting effect of chronically feeling stressed and unsuccessful in the academic setting for many twice-exceptional kids is real.