Thank you so much, Amanda, for creating and nurturing this community. It can be really hard to find ND friends in the real world. I have exactly one ND close real-world friend, a brillant recording engineer, artist, and chef who's also dyslexic. We connected because we were both sitting out a pickup beach volleyball game!
Thank you for the mention, Amanda! One of the key ideas in disability advocacy is that people with disabilities are all in this together. While in one sense, neurodiverse people may or may not identify as having a disability, owning a disability identity provides access to the civil rights laws that protect people with disabilities. It also provides a place in the very diverse community of people with disabilities who support each other. ❤️
I relate so much to this, even an adult. I think this is especially common when a person is good at language. There's a cultural assumption that if you can communicate well, then you can do everything well. I see this as being especially true in the US.
I think one of the struggles for autistic people (well, this autistic person, anyway), is that there are times when I can do most things well. I somehow gather resources from somewhere and beat physical reality into submission. I used to be able to do that for long periods of time.
Then, there are other times when the coffers are empty. I can't even perform basic tasks. The older I get, the more often I experience this. It's partly because I've stopped masking as much, and partly because I'm somehow less physically capable of forcing excellence out of myself. I don't know. Maybe my synapses got so burned out they died.
I do have this sense that I don’t know how to stop normalizing myself. That all my information about how to function is built on observations that only ever pit me as the person doing it “wrong” or poorly and the neurotypical person as the one who is in the right. I know what you mean about the feeling of not striving for excellence anymore, mask or no mask. These days I’m chipping away at my source material for what excellence really is.
Just picture that "I'm in this picture and I don't like it" meme, because that's exactly how I felt after reading that opening sentence.
I think part of the reason my neurodivergence stayed hidden for as long as it did (diagnosed autistic at 29) is because I was fortunate enough to go to "gifted" schools, which are absolute hotbeds for 2e kids. My parents thought I had no problems making friends...because, in retrospect, all of those friends were probably also autistic or ADHDers. I had a lot of trouble in college when I lost that bubble that I got to grow up in, and some part of me is still searching for the adult version...
Thank you for this Amanda. Just this week I was struggling to explain the challenges of writing to my son's(he is 2E) teacher. He excels in so many ways that they really struggle to understand why writing is so hard for him. It gets chalked up to he doesn't like writing and so he tries to do the least amount of work. But he actually does like writing and writes beautiful stories, he just struggles so much with the way he is expected to write at school.
I missed the thread. However, I relate so much to this! I've only realized now, in my 40s, that the reason I took to writing in the first place was because speaking and communicating were so difficult. I felt most able to express my true self on the page.
"An array of content designed to inspire, teach and connect." Your work does exactly that. Thank you for being you, for sharing, and for building a community. <3<3
I'm a neurodiverse writer and I thank you for writing this.
Thank you so much, Amanda, for creating and nurturing this community. It can be really hard to find ND friends in the real world. I have exactly one ND close real-world friend, a brillant recording engineer, artist, and chef who's also dyslexic. We connected because we were both sitting out a pickup beach volleyball game!
Thank you for the mention, Amanda! One of the key ideas in disability advocacy is that people with disabilities are all in this together. While in one sense, neurodiverse people may or may not identify as having a disability, owning a disability identity provides access to the civil rights laws that protect people with disabilities. It also provides a place in the very diverse community of people with disabilities who support each other. ❤️
I relate so much to this, even an adult. I think this is especially common when a person is good at language. There's a cultural assumption that if you can communicate well, then you can do everything well. I see this as being especially true in the US.
I think one of the struggles for autistic people (well, this autistic person, anyway), is that there are times when I can do most things well. I somehow gather resources from somewhere and beat physical reality into submission. I used to be able to do that for long periods of time.
Then, there are other times when the coffers are empty. I can't even perform basic tasks. The older I get, the more often I experience this. It's partly because I've stopped masking as much, and partly because I'm somehow less physically capable of forcing excellence out of myself. I don't know. Maybe my synapses got so burned out they died.
I do have this sense that I don’t know how to stop normalizing myself. That all my information about how to function is built on observations that only ever pit me as the person doing it “wrong” or poorly and the neurotypical person as the one who is in the right. I know what you mean about the feeling of not striving for excellence anymore, mask or no mask. These days I’m chipping away at my source material for what excellence really is.
That's a good point. Excellence is subjective, and it's usually defined by neurotypical standards.
Just picture that "I'm in this picture and I don't like it" meme, because that's exactly how I felt after reading that opening sentence.
I think part of the reason my neurodivergence stayed hidden for as long as it did (diagnosed autistic at 29) is because I was fortunate enough to go to "gifted" schools, which are absolute hotbeds for 2e kids. My parents thought I had no problems making friends...because, in retrospect, all of those friends were probably also autistic or ADHDers. I had a lot of trouble in college when I lost that bubble that I got to grow up in, and some part of me is still searching for the adult version...
Thank you for sharing this wonderful piece on neurodiversity and writing.
Thank you for this Amanda. Just this week I was struggling to explain the challenges of writing to my son's(he is 2E) teacher. He excels in so many ways that they really struggle to understand why writing is so hard for him. It gets chalked up to he doesn't like writing and so he tries to do the least amount of work. But he actually does like writing and writes beautiful stories, he just struggles so much with the way he is expected to write at school.
I missed the thread. However, I relate so much to this! I've only realized now, in my 40s, that the reason I took to writing in the first place was because speaking and communicating were so difficult. I felt most able to express my true self on the page.
Happy that you are here 😊
"An array of content designed to inspire, teach and connect." Your work does exactly that. Thank you for being you, for sharing, and for building a community. <3<3
Thankful to be catching up on your substack today.
It’s nice to see you ‘round these parts, ma’am. ;)