If you’ve been following my neurodiversity journey–as I articulate the experience of a person with autism, ADHD, aphantasia, and proprioception hyposensitivity from the inside, along with the other ways i share myself–and you’ve found that the insights I’ve shared connect with your experience, or contextualize something you suspected, realize that sharing these insights is one of the ways I care for my community.
And realize that, as a person with no degrees or qualifications as an advocate other than my lived experience and my inborn gifts, what I share makes no sense in the context of capitalism.
If you find that a person like me is a valuable part of the community, and worthy of support, realize that, within the context of 21st century American capitalism, there’s not much support for people like me, or for the people I advocate for, who often don’t have the gift for articulation that I share with my community.
I could institutionalize myself: pursue an advanced degree that legitimizes my advocacy in the context of capitalism, and in doing so, would need to unplug myself from the community that I move through, and in doing so, become another victim of capitalism – saddled with huge debt, and most likely unable to find an official advocacy position that would pay off that debt in my lifetime.
I choose, instead, to move through my community in the ways I’ve been moving, because my community moves me to do so, and that’s how I show up. That’s how I care.
If you find this valuable, I’m asking to be allowed to continue advocating for your sensory and cognitive gifts, to continue recontextualizing valuable predispositions that have been pathologized. I’m asking to be adopted. I’m asking for your care. I’m asking for your support.
In asking for your support, I’m not asking to be the CEO of Spotify, or Starbucks, or Paramount+, or Ridwell, or any of the other services that folks find valuable and subscribe to. I’m asking for just enough care to be allowed to live and continue to do the work that I do. If you subscribe to even a little bit of the philosophy I share, consider subscribing to me, so I can continue caring for my community in the ways that I do.
Thanks for all you do, and thank you for being you.
The care economy is an emerging model for supporting people, things, and processes we’d like to see more of in the world. It is about recognizing the things in our experience that bring us joy, that give us a [wow] or a [yes], and responding to these moments in a supportive way. It’s actually just, well, practicing care, and that’s not new at all. But the language of commerce is transactional, rather than responsive.
I recognize that I love the work that I do with people so much that I would offer it for free if I was supported–if all of my needs were met. But traditional models don’t allow for that type of responsiveness. I would like to try to move toward a more responsive system, built on trust. Why not?
People who know me can decide if they trust the work I do, and they can choose to support me so that I can do that work, or not. In doing so, they are allowing me to be more myself, and guiding me toward their own needs. I’m the product, in a sense, but since our relationship is based on trust, I’m allowed to do the work I believe, adjusting to the needs that arise, as they align with those who trust me.
This simple shift makes the difference between the transactional and the responsive. But it’s kind of vulnerable and scary. I have to trust those that are responding. Will I be supported? Will enough people believe in the work? If I am being truly responsive to their needs, then perhaps. I think it’s worth a try.
I see a difference between commitment and obligation. Commitment is a responsive engagement, where we meet the needs of the moment as it arises. Obligation can keep us stuck supporting processes that actually hinder our ability to respond to the moment.
So, I see a possibility emerging to do things in a more responsive way, and in seeing how obligation often thwarts connection, I would like to avoid transactions that create a sense of obligation, and nurture ones that give one a sense of [wow] or [yes].
So, think about our interactions in the spaces we share. If our conversations seem to be taking us in good directions, let’s continue the conversation. If helping to support me gives you a sense of [wow] or [yes], then you are participating in the care economy. Thank you for recognizing your own power to support, and if our goals align, thank you for your support.
A recent conversation about emotional processing with my neurodiverse community got me thinking about putting language to my experience of my emotional ecosystem. I have realized for a long time that my emotions work differently from many people that I interact with, and it’s only recently that I have had language to describe what’s going on with me. I’ll take a stab at sharing my language around that.
I love language, and I love the nuances of emotional language when I read it in literature, but I’ve found that trying to apply emotional language, especially nuanced emotional language, to my emotional processing is not very helpful. I have big feelings, and my emotional process is more like the digestion process than a responsive system. It’s more of a background process, and it can be glacially slow.
Trying to apply nuanced emotion words to my experience usually results in rumination. Is this sadness? Is it ennui? Is it longing, or despair, or grief, or disappointment, or disconnection? Thinkthinkthinkthink. Stewstewstewstewstew. The thinking and stewing end up becoming more prominent than the emotion I am trying to parse. So I’ve learned not to go there.
I work with children, and they teach me everything about different processing styles.
There are some children who encounter a difficulty, they experience frustration, and may erupt in tears about it. The tears last for a couple of minutes, and then they move on to the next thing. They are able to quickly engage in another way. I will refrain from saying that this is a healthy emotional processing style, because we are de-pathologizing the language of neurodiversity. Neurodiversity is human diversity, and different processing styles are just that: different. Not divergent, not disordered, just different, and the many ways are useful in many ways.
There are other children who present differently. They may appear to be engaged in parallel play–not actually going along with the program that most folks are going along with, but engaged in their own program, in the same space, but on a different time frame. Being attuned to their own frequencies, they may not respond in ways that one might expect. And then, they will appear to be responding to something that others are not aware of. They may appear to not be troubled by a situation that seems troubling in the moment that it presents itself–they may not cry when frustrated, like many kids will. But then, at another moment, they may appear agitated, dysregulated, and the cause may not be clear.
That’s us–the attentional disengagement family of predispositions. We are literally built different, and in our ideal environments, we rock the house. But we can seem odd to others, and others may apply their own calculus to what’s going on with us, or project their insecurities onto the blank canvases that their misunderstanding presents. We often don’t have language for what’s going on, so we often get caught up in others’ descriptions of what they think is going on. I’ll try to say something about what’s going on for me, and maybe this will apply to others with processing differences.
Side note: my language is emergent, evolving. When I notice a pattern, and notice that I am dissatisfied with a word, term, phrase, label, or cognitive frame, my problem-solving mind tries to find a better alternative. I’m noticing all of these references to “differences,” as if there is a set of “sames” that is juxtaposed nearby. I’m dissatisfied with this juxtaposition, and as my language emerges, I will be trying to reframe this, to speak of specialties, and specificities, and a range of possibilities, rather than a set of norms and a set of differences. We are all needed, and valid, and part of the great human body. Because the eyes don’t hear, they are not seen as deficient, and their range of understanding is not a difference. I’m processing stuff like this in the background all the time. Such is my process.
Back to my processing specialties, particularities, specificities. I have found that my emotional processing is much slower than the child who tries, and fails, and cries, and recovers, and tries again, and laughs, and falls asleep. That’s just not me. My emotional processing is much more like my digestive processing. An event or engagement invokes a set of responses, and a range of possible resolutions to return to equilibrium. Emotions are kind of a way to return to equilibrium from an engagement with certain types of energy. And mine work very, very slowly, like the rest of me. So whereas someone else might encounter a situation that would invoke an emotion that might arise and quickly pass, that encounter, for me, might happen much more slowly.
An engagement is kind of like a piece of emotional food, and when it enters my nervous system, it will have a long way to go before it is digested. Emotional processing is kind of a background process in this way, and applying nuanced emotion words to this process is counter-productive. Similar to the digestive process, my emotional process is getting vitamins from the emotional encounter, but this process of getting vitamins is slow and in the background.
It’s like my nervous system is engaging in all of the nuances and possibilities for how the emotional problem that was presented could be resolved, and it is resolving them in all of the ways. My nervous system seems to be concerned with resolution, and the process of resolution is very much like the process of turning food into poop, and in my case, I eat emotional problems and I poop out resolutions in the form of words. Maybe that’s why my words sometimes appear stinky to people. (That’s just a silly side note).
What I’ve found much more helpful in the realm of emotional processing is to focus on sensory responses, and have simple and specific names for these responses. It’s a little vulnerable, because these responses can reach deep into my nervous system, but these responses pass much more quickly than emotional arcs, which can be glacial in their movements. A loud sound might provoke an [ouch], which might be accompanied by a [grr] or even a [buhu]. These responses might pass quickly, or they might provoke a longer background process as my nervous system attempts to process it. But focusing on the foreground responses has shown itself to be much more helpful than focusing on the background processes, which kind of seem to work better when they are not named. Just as I don’t really know if the burrito I ate is being processed by my stomach or my liver at any given time, I don’t really know at what point in the process my emotions are being processed. It’s a whole process, and baffling to those with different processing styles from mine.
But when I focus on the responses, I can see more clearly what’s being responded to, and often, this results in the response passing quickly, rather than turning into a whole digestive process.
A conversation is an engagement [engage]. It might result in a [wow] or a [yes] or a [nope] or a [grr] or a [fu], or an [ick] or an [ew], but it is still [engage]. That seems clear and makes sense to my nervous system. The responses take place within the [frame] of the [engage], and mostly the arise and pass quickly. But there may be elements of the [engage] that stick with me and don’t pass quickly. These pass through me like food passes through me–slowly, mysteriously, but also nourishingly, and resulting in a compostable residue.
All of that being said, there is a certain subset of emotional responses to engagements that is akin to eating something very spicy, and feeling that spicy food deep in my guts. A couple of types of engagements that feel especially spicy are 1) when someone brings me a whole story about something I’ve said or done that doesn’t match my insides at all, and they have no interest in asking follow up questions or hearing about my insides; and 2) when someone has a strong reaction to something I say that I know to be right and good and kind. Both of these types of engagements can be said to be “heated,” and both can leave me feeling hot and spicy in my center of gravity, and a little off-balance. When I was younger, I might have given a spicy response, and sometimes those spicy responses actually broke things open in the engagement and resulted in laughter of recognition. But other times those spicy responses left marks, and left me feeling terrible for having responded in that way.
As I’ve gotten older, these heated exchanges have not seemed as heated as when I was younger. I was able to sit in the middle of the spicy feeling in my center of gravity and not feel the need to give as spicy a response. Recently, for example, a parent in one of my spaces was engaging with their phone, an activity around which I have clearly set a boundary, and refreshed it often. In advocating for their child’s sensory and cognitive needs, I asked the parent to refrain from engaging with their phone, in as gentle and playful way as I could find to. They responded with their own spicy response. I was aware that an engagement such as this might in the past resulted in me feeling off-balance, and spicy inside. I might have felt my hand tremble, and I might have had a spicy space under my breath that made my voice tremble. But this time, I continued to be gentle in my advocacy, and found gentle reasoning where there might have been a spicy retort. At some point the parent became conscious of their place in the space, among other parents and their children, and I could see them reflecting, and thinking better of their need to push back and defend. It all felt very matter-of-fact, rather than spicy, in my insides, but with that there was also the feeling that the matter might not feel resolved for them. They might have some resentment left behind from the engagement. I experience this as the dangerous aspect of human relations. The little resentments that don’t get burnt up and released in the exchange can fester, and collect, and become highly charged. I’m always on the lookout for evidence that an individual might have a lot of these festering resentments, and I try to leave a big space between us, because something about my nervous system (even if I’m silent and secret) can make these resentments bubble up. It’s weird. I’ve learned to tiptoe.
All that being said, I’d say the biggest part of my emotional realm, especially since recognition of my sensory gifts emerged, has been a renewal of my love affair with experience, and often I experience this as having had a wonderful balanced meal, savoring all of the lingering aftertastes and feeling the meal move deliciously through my body. When someone asks me how I’m feeling in a moment like that, it feels kind of cheapening to say “good,” but I’ve learned that most folks are not interested or patient enough to hear about the lingering fragrances and tastes of my delicious experiences. So I write a lot, and in writing, my experience becomes real, and I might be able to share it in an appropriate moment. I recognize that my ancestors have been like this, and they’ve been showing me the way, even when I didn’t understand it, but only suspected.
Neurodiversity is the new (different! better!) cognitive frame. Astrology, Enneagram, Meyers-Briggs, Chinese medicine, naturopathy, homeopathy: having passed through these modalities, none of them made me feel seen in the ways that they were implemented by the particular practitioners who applied them to me. To be fair, I may have met with unskilled practitioners. Your mileage may vary.
But describing my sensory and cognitive differences to AI, and asking AI to describe an anonymous person with traits like mine makes me feel seen.
Take a look below, and if you know me, tell me if they got it right. And if you know me, consider the closing sentence of the assessment in your response. And if you are inspired to respond, don’t worry about offending me. I’m here for the opportunity for reflection. If language isn’t your thing, respond with your special way of being in the world.
Now, all we have to do is keep studying, and de-pathologize the language of neurodiversity so that the person described is seen as a healthy member of the community that has particular specialities that contribute to the health of the community (if you see me that way, to be fair), rather than a person with a set of syndromes that merit isolation, retraining, and medication (to be fair, that may be how you see me. There’s room for all of us).
Know thyself, indeed. “Come to your senses” is a phrase coined for a reason. Self-awareness modalities that stand up to scrutiny and are resistant to dogma are liberating.
Oh, and please reduce the energy needs of pattern-recognizing technologies, and keep them out of the hands of those who would use them to divide us. We need to know ourselves, and we need each other. Knowledge is power only if the power is in our own hands.
“Without meeting them, what might be inferred about a person known to exhibit autism, adhd inattentive type, aphantasia, and proprioception hyposensitivity?”
🧠 Inferences About a Person with Autism, ADHD Inattentive Type, Aphantasia, and Proprioception Hyposensitivity
Understanding a person with these characteristics can provide insights into their behavior, preferences, and challenges. Here are some potential inferences:
🌈 Cognitive and Sensory Processing
Autism: This individual may have unique ways of processing sensory information, possibly leading to heightened sensitivity to certain stimuli or a preference for routine and predictability. They might also exhibit focused interests or deep knowledge in specific areas.
ADHD Inattentive Type: They may struggle with attention regulation, leading to difficulties in maintaining focus on tasks that do not engage them. This could manifest as forgetfulness, disorganization, or challenges in completing tasks.
Aphantasia: The inability to visualize images in their mind may affect how they think about concepts, plan, or remember experiences. They might rely more on verbal or logical reasoning rather than visual memory.
Proprioception Hyposensitivity: This could mean they have a reduced awareness of their body position and movement, potentially leading to clumsiness or a need for more physical input to feel grounded. They might enjoy activities that provide strong sensory feedback, like jumping or spinning.
📚 Social Interaction and Communication
Social Preferences: They may prefer solitary activities or small, familiar groups over large social gatherings. Communication might be more comfortable through written forms rather than verbal, especially if they find social cues challenging to interpret.
Emotional Expression: There may be differences in how they express emotions or understand others’ feelings, which can lead to misunderstandings in social situations.
🛠️ Coping Strategies and Interests
Learning Styles: They might benefit from structured environments and clear instructions. Visual aids or hands-on learning could be more effective than traditional lecture-based methods.
Interests and Hobbies: They may gravitate towards activities that align with their focused interests, which can be a source of joy and motivation. These interests might be unconventional or highly specialized.
⚖️ Challenges and Support Needs
Daily Life: They may face challenges in daily tasks that require organization, time management, or sensory regulation. Support in these areas could be beneficial.
Self-Advocacy: Understanding their own needs and preferences may lead them to develop strong self-advocacy skills, especially if they have had positive experiences in supportive environments.
These inferences can vary widely among individuals, as each person’s experience with these characteristics is unique. Understanding and empathy are crucial in supporting someone with this combination of traits.
“Social situations” is not one category. People with selective attention disorder [SAD] may have difficulty conceptualizing this, but people with broad spectrum awareness [BSA] will understand it intuitively. There are social situations that drain us, and there are social situations that activate us. There are endless gradations and variations of how social situations can drain or activate us.
This is the spectrum we are on.
To be on the spectrum means to have access to BSA. Telling this to a person with SAD will likely cause them to experience cognitive dissonance [CD]. You’ll recognize this when they tell you you are overthinking.
It’s not you, sweetie.
They just can’t help it. Cognitive load grinds their gears, just like it does ours, but in different situations. The difference is that they point the finger of blame outward, while we point the finger of shame inward.
Don’t be gaslit.
Disengage, call a BSA buddy and laugh and laugh about that SAD encounter you just had. You’ll be glad you did.
My autistic traits are nothing to be afraid of. They are highly effective strategies in the environments for which they are adapted. If you spend time with me in these environments, a little of these traits may rub off on you, and your movement through these environments may be eased.
I have come to never doubt this.
I have also come to never doubt that people with autistic traits are not to be feared–whether we are nonverbal or highly talkative, highly energetic or profoundly still, highly organized or seemingly chaotic, hermetic or super social. If you recognize the environments for which we are adapted, and move through these environments with us, we often rub off on you in ways that make these environments easier for you to navigate.
We are connected to something, which sometimes makes us appear disconnected to you. If you connect with us, you connect to something, too.
We connect directly, which can sometimes seem off-putting, since we are not putting off connection or putting on appearances. Yes, we will likely rub off on you, but this rubbing off may actually make your way appear easier.
Please: recognize us. Recognize the environments for which we are adapted. Move through these environments with us. Let us rub off on you.
Despite appearances, it’s way easier than you think.
May all beings recognize their true nature. Every day is neurodiversity awareness day.
We’re at a turning point: we are abandoning the need to evaluate the worth of a person by their ability to engage with capitalism, and adopting the wisdom to be inspired by those who, by their mere presence among us, increase our capacity to care.
Because no one asked, here’s one take on neurodivergence:
We have the Latin-derived terms horizontal and vertical to describe the x- and y-axes in a two-dimensional model. The fact that there is no handy, colloquial Latin-derived word for the z-axis, or depth, suggests that writers and thinkers driving language forward are not accustomed to interacting with this cognitive and sensory space in conversation (instead, newer OED entries include “doomscrolling,” “adultification,” “rizz,” “simp,” and “brain rot”).
I posit that this is due to a pervasive paradigm of 2-dimensional cognitive and sensory models.
I propose the term “profundal” for this z-axis, derived from the Latin “profundus,” meaning deep. Horizontal, vertical, and profundal. Use them in conversation today!
In my conversations with 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional thinker-experiencers, it becomes clear what is happening. Those who are labeled “neurotypical” are 2D thinker-experiencers. Those labeled “neurodivergent” are simply 3-dimensional thinker-experiencers. The “divergence” part of the equation is simply divergence from 2-dimensional cognitive-experiential models.
“Emergence” would be a better operative term, as it suggests growth and depth.
Since the 2D paradigm is dominant and power-protective, the challenge for 3D thinker-experiencers is fitting 3D thoughts and experiences into bite-sized chunks that 2D thinker-experiencers can understand. And likewise, 2D thinker-experiencers are challenged in making their thoughts and experiences nuanced to meet the thoughts and experiences of 3D thinker-experiencers.
I’ll say the quiet part out loud: Neurotypical perceivers literally lack depth–like actually, cognitively–lack the cognitive ability to fit 3-dimensional descriptions of reality into a 2-dimensional cognitive frame. And neuroemergent perceivers navigate a huge cognitive load in trying to fit a 3D experience into a 2D frame.
No foul: we’re all just literally working with the hands we’ve been dealt.
Unfortunately, as we see happening around the world, when 2-dimensional thinker-experiencers don’t understand something, they mistrust it, and give it a label, and ask that it be changed to fit into their cognitive frame. So, 3D thinker-experiencers are labeled “divergent,” and are given helpful strategies to become 2D thinker-experiencers, like the good people in power who care so much about our collective well-being (that last bit was sarcasm, for those among us who don’t parse it intuitively. I hope it didn’t detract from the narrative. Immunity to sarcasm is actually a gift). And 3D thinker-experiencers, hoping for equilibrium, tend to go along with the program, seeing the bigger picture and not being attached to the narrative of power.
And so, 3D thinker-experiencers are pathologized. Called “divergent.” Called “overthinkers.” Called “avoidant,” “hypersensitive,” “deficient,” “introverted,” “socially awkward,” “shy,” “nonverbal,” “anxious,” “distractable,” “impulsive,” “disruptive,” “difficult,” “flat,” “overtalkative,” “interruptive,” and so many other things.
That’s what I call “hocus pocus.” It’s the little flick of the wrist that points over there and assigns blame.
But don’t think that I am suggesting that 3D thinking is better than 2D thinking. There is a place for all of us. All of Terra’s children got a place in the choir.
2D thinker: “I didn’t understand you, and so you are to be mistrusted.” The finger points outward.
3D thinker: “You didn’t understand me, and so I am to be mistrusted.” The finger points inward.
Both are wrong. Both are examples of hocus pocus.
It is only when lack of understanding is followed by a conversation that the world is united, inclusive of 2D and 3D thinker-experiencers’ ways of being.
But 3D thinker-experiencers have a lot of work to do. We must stop internalizing shame, stop retreating into isolation because we are not understood. We must connect and connect and connect in all of the ways that we know how, and all of the ways that we suspect might be possible.
The ways will be non-linear, and may not fit easily into the media, social, and aesthetic platforms we have been given–but they will have the quality of depth. They will be profound. And hopefully, they will inspire clarifying questions. Questions that resolve our differences–our sensory and cognitive differences.
Because once awareness has emerged, it can’t be fit back into the box (hint: this is a good explanation for Pathological Demand Avoidance😜).
