As you may have noticed when reading my posts (which I appreciate very much, by the way 🧡), mental health, introversion, the different types of human behaviour and personality traits, as well as personal development/growth are all subjects I’m more than a little bit interested in. Without exception, every book I’ve read – or should I say managed to read (focus is hard to come by) – in the past couple of years was about at least one of the aforementioned subjects. My Instagram algorithm has been meticulously trained to almost exclusively show me content regarding my favourite interests, so whenever I end up doom-scrolling, I am in fact consuming media that not only interests me but also teaches me things.
The newest addition to my favourite interests is neurodivergence.
Little did I know, when I started devouring the first book on the subject (Divergent Mind: Thriving in a World That Wasn’t Designed for You by Jenara Nerenberg, followed closely by Unmasking Autism by Dr Devon Price), that it would not only resonate with me, but also change entirely how I see myself and the people around me.
This post has been brewing for a while as I first had to wrap my head around this new information and give it a little spin “in the real world”, AKA my day-to-day life. The final push for me finally gathering the courage to put my thoughts into writing was discovering that a dear friend of mine (you might even say, a twin – if you know, you know 😉) has not only been down the same path but also wrapped her thoughts about it beautifully in a social media post, which helped me with the missing pieces for my post.
The first thing that came with discovering that many of my struggles may come down to neurodivergence was relief:
I am different.
There’s a reason why I experience certain things differently than other people.
There’s a reason why, no matter how many times I expose myself to situations, they do not become less challenging.
The feeling of relief was closely followed by frustration:
How come nobody ever picked up on the fact that I’m different?
Why was I constantly expected to act differently (better, stronger, less scared and/or sensitive), even as a child?
Then (self-)doubt crept in, mostly since I manage to function in my day-to-day life (meaning that I appear “normal”):
Am I only imagining this so that I have a reason/something to blame for my “personal failures”?
I stayed with this mix of feelings for a while and kept on reading more about neurodivergent traits and learning many interesting things in the process, many of which made so much sense for me it hurt. I cried many times – tears of anger, frustration, relief, but also loneliness. Finding out that I am in fact wired differently, which is something that every single authority figure in my life has tried to “beat out of me” for as long as I can remember, not only confirms the feeling of being different, in the wrong place, around the wrong people… that I almost always carry around with me, but it also confirms that the loneliness I often feel because most people – even when they try really hard to understand (thank you for that 🧡) – simply don’t feel the same way I do and will therefore never know just how difficult it can be to be me.*
Besides the loneliness, there has also been sadness about the fact that, even though it is nice to finally know why my struggles are what they are, they will always be there. I cannot overcome them. I have to let go of the image of how I thought (/hoped) my life could be if I just put in enough effort and of the belief that one day everything will be easier.
In retrospect, many of my previous posts contain elements and even the wording of a person with neurodivergent traits, even though I knew close to nothing about neurodivergence (and shockingly little about autism) until a few months ago. My desire to write about the difficulties I’ve previously encountered stems from my wish to educate people about the fact that not everyone experiences life according to “the norm” on the one hand, and my need to make sense of what is happening to me on the other hand, hopefully making some of my readers feel understood at the same time.
In previous posts (and in my everyday life), I’ve often used the word overwhelm to describe my experience. However, what causes me to feel overwhelmed is not, as I had (judgingly) previously thought, my complete inability to handle even the least uneventful tasks in life without feeling exhausted and stressed afterwards, but rather the fact that I am prone to sensory overload and therefore become overstimulated much more quickly than the average Joe**.
This is just one of many examples that illustrates how my mindset is slowly shifting from self-blame to being kinder to myself and finally accepting that my limits are different from other people’s.
At the same time, I’m slowly learning to turn my back on those who perpetuate the harmful narrative that I’ve held on to for so long myself (come on, just do it, what’s the harm; I should have known you’re not going to come/that’s so typical of you; why can’t you just make an effort for once; I can manage, why can’t you?, and – the all-time Luxembourgish classic – “féier keng op!“) and to advocate for and be honest (to myself and others) about my needs.
While this is a huge first step which will probably make me feel happier and more balanced in the long run, it is not an easy one. The picture of what my life should look like and of the things I should be enjoying has been engraved into the depths of my conscience – yup, a lifetime of conditioning will do that to a person.
It can be difficult for me to know the difference between liking the idea of something and liking the actual thing, just like it can be tricky to know if I’m being myself or the mask.
In my last session, I told my therapist that occasionally, I’m not sure if the person I’m being in a given situation is in fact (authentic) me or if I’m being whom I think I need to be (e. g. my work persona). She replied that it is not uncommon for people to have different personae, depending on the setting they’re in (work environment vs. private life for instance). She also added that the question I often ask myself when I feel like I’m getting lost somewhere between (authentic) me and the mask is in fact a very philosophical one: who am I?
She believes that I am in fact all these versions of myself: every single one of them is a part of who I am. And I think this is another beautiful realisation on the road towards self-acceptance; every part of me is valid and not only okay, but also good enough – there is no need to further increase the pressure on the “unmasking process” by giving myself a hard time about not being authentic enough.
I’m not sure what I’ll be doing with this newfound realisation that many of my experiences are common within the neurodivergent community just yet, but I will definitely continue to cut myself some slack. I will learn to know my limits and to make room and ask for the adjustments I may need to make it through in one piece. I will also probably tell people no a lot more than I used to (and I hope that those who matter to me will not be discouraged by this 🧡).
* I am not writing this for anyone to pity me. I just wish it was easier for me and the people like me to live in a world that is literally not made for those that diverge from what is considered normal.
** No offence to Joes or people that consider themselves average intended!
Carrot Days 