neurodivergence: unsimplified
the need for sitting with complexity, acknowledging the messiness & uncovering co-existing truths
We are complex beings and being neurodivergent only adds to that complexity.
But in a society that tries to sum us up within social identities that don’t often speak to the whole truths of the realities of our lives, we’re also asked to see our neurodivergent conditions as these separate entities not impacted by (or can impact) how we’re forced to be in society either. Then when we don’t meet the expectations or the assessment checklist criteria, we’re told that we must be the problem, leaving us believing that in some way we are inherently flawed.
[ID: A Black femme with a short afro and black glasses, wearing a peach top with black polka dots, sits within a leafy area. They are looking down, almost as if questioning what they’re doing. Their laptop is open, along with a book called “The Memo” that’s opened in their hands. This image makes me think of how we’re all trying to keep up with the memo we’re given but question what it’s asking of us and whether this is really what we want to be doing for ourselves]
There is no middle ground, no yes that’s true and so is this, when we’re forced to fit into categories of right or wrong, good or bad. There becomes no choice for us but to ignore, deny, and hide those parts of us that fall within the grey area or that stand in the gaps, unacknowledged and/or marginalised by society. To cope, our brains learn to avoid and ignore almost every uncomfortable sensation that comes from our body trying to tell us that our truths matter and our needs deserve to be met too. We learn to simplify who we are and our experiences, reducing possibilities for doing differently and showing up as ourselves.
I think a lot about the appeal of either-or thinking on neurodivergent brains. There’s a sense of security in thinking that an answer could be as clear as this or that, right or wrong and if we can find that right answer, then we’ll be good enough too. But with this kind of thinking, we learn that the only truth is the one that society puts before us. When we don’t see the stories that share neurodivergent conditions from multiply marginalised people and communities, we fail to see the whole truth and the multiple truths that can exist at the same time, expanding our vision further into the greyness of experience and the possibilities for support for all of us. When we don’t see other coexisting truths or even how our truths differ from what we’ve been taught by society, we can’t always see the messiness and imperfections of who we are.
We struggle to see and accept our humanity.
Our bodies have learned that to be different is scary, dangerous and wrong in this society. When we experience uncomfortable sensations in our bodies, our minds work hard to help us avoid them through things like distraction or dissociation. We start to blindly follow social discourses like they are our truths, even when what we feel in our bodies keeps telling us they’re wrong. But since our brains want to keep us safe from these sensations we end up fighting them, or numbing from them, finding ways to ignore facing the messiness of our existence, using unhelpful habits keeping us from telling or living in our truths where it makes others uncomfortable, and believing that the complexity of who we can be summed up into clear binaries and absolutes that can conform to the expectations of white supremacy society.
When we come up against discomfort because we sense that there might be something that we can’t do, don’t want to do (for whatever reasons) or even don’t understand (but feel we can’t ask for help), we end up procrastinating, stuck or overwhelmed (all fancy ways of saying in freeze response). We can’t find (or accept) our way to go from what we’re feeling to what we believe is expected. We’ve learned that it’s an either-or situation that we're facing: do the thing or we’re bad, not good enough, a failure… you get the idea.
And herein lies the problem…
There are so many reasons why we might not be able to get the thing done. There are so many ways that we may feel blocked from doing the thing. There are so many other options that might be possible besides the one way that one way we’ve been told to do the thing. There are so many biases, stereotypes and other isms that impact what we might expect to do the thing, or what we might believe we’re capable of in attempting to do the thing too.
But all these complexities are never considered when we grow up learning that things must be a certain way or they’re wrong. Wrong is something that we’ve learned is dangerous and since we have a brain that is primed to respond in ways that mirror a traumatised brain, we’re always on the lookout for danger. We’re hyper-alert for any problems that might come up (either real or perceived), so we’re not focused on what is happening right now, we’re still bouncing between past and future, connecting all that we sense, hear or experience to other possible threats we’ve known.
I think a big struggle with prioritising, organising and other self-management skills comes from continuously being in a state of hypervigilance, ready to react at a moment's notice. Pausing, so we can try to connect with our thinking brain and reason out what’s the problem, becomes a mammoth task. Not to mention we’ve also got weak emotional regulation skills too, and depending on our social identities and who we’re with, the environment and the expectations of the thing we’re trying to accomplish, our ability to emotionally regulate can become a deciding factor on our success too.
For many neurodivergent people, we’ve learned to look to others to try and understand what we need to do to be “safe” in the world by avoiding the discomfort of not fitting in and learning to do what is expected of us.
Only we never feel quite safe enough.
The discomfort we’ve worked so hard to avoid keeps showing up, especially when we’re in a society that teaches us that so much is at stake when we can’t conform to meet its expectations (while it continuously shifts the goalposts making sure that we never do). But experiencing “safe enough” comes from listening to the inner knowing of our bodies and relearning to meet our needs as much as we can. It comes from accepting the grey areas of our lives and all that makes us different from societal norms and expectations. It comes from leaning into the co-existing truths of our identities and what it means to be ourselves.
It comes from seeing our humanity and choosing to live within its complexities.
u 🎯
i read 🔂
times ∞
want ur insight 2 ripple across universe exponentially
ur insight + care via all our somatic + narrative therapy work continues 2 ripple through my whole soul & biological human body counterpart - nervous system espesh- in a way that IS PHYSICALLY HEALING ME in ways i FEEL
i know they're not false temp hope/brain tricks cos of how infuriatingly
fleeting
tiny
imperceptible
not intentionally repeatable
not in our conscious control -
neither the timing nor the impact
SO FRICKIN' … MYSTERIOUS
& YET SO SO SO SO SO (IN MY HINDSIGHT, IN YOUR PATIENT, LONG TERM, WISE, UN-EGOTISTIC FORESIGHT THAT PLANTS SEEDS & LETS THEM DO THEIR THING MONTHS, YEARS IN ADVANCE- AND NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVEN GIVES VIBE OF 'TOLD YOU SO' EVEN THOUGH I OFTEN WANN SAY THAT TO ME ON YOUR BEHALF SANDRA)
ALIGNED WITH WHAT SANDRA SAYS
SANDRA U R MORE ALIGNED WITH THE MYSTRIES OF THE MATRIX THAN ANY HUMaM]N bean or system i've eveer come across so ty 4 existing & helping us all integrate our mysteries more than we ever coule've dreqamt without ur help!!!! V MUCH CENTRAL PART OF THI S IS UR SUBSTAKC SELF REFLECTIONS COS THEY LTERALLY SHOW NOT LECTURE WHAT UR TALKING ABT FROM. UR OWN PRESENCE.
So we can be miserable n v together teeheee i've heard it does love company!!!
(and sit in it bettee=r and worse then better - BUILDING CAPACITY - AGAIN SANDRA WISDOM EMBODYING VIA SANDRA TEACHING oishi is deliriously stressed at this point tryna articulate the truth so stops here)