I live in world so infused with knowledge about what ADHD and autism are, because everyone I spend any time with has lived experience of one or the other, that I forget not everyone understands. And people look or stare, at what to me are normal parenting or relationship or individual behaviours, reactions and dynamics. And I feel judged, and I feel this is rude.
I say I would never judge a neurotypical person on their neurotypical behaviours, and mostly I wouldn’t, and perhaps this isn’t just a neurotypical behaviour – it is also most definitely ‘undiagnosed and resisting knowledge of self’ neurodivergent too. I do judge. I judge those who judge others – and I judge them as being rude. Deep down, and on reflection, taking a step back, I know it isn’t that black and white, and so my judgement passes, because I know that these people only judge because they don’t understand or because they’ve internalised parental or other adult criticism from their own childhoods. My capacity to see all sides and to have compassion can be a curse, because I throw myself into these spiralling kinds of thought experiments all the time, and I risk forgetting where my own needs sit and wait for me.
Is this a neurodivergent thing? I don’t know, because I have no baseline. I don’t believe I grew up with neurotypical people or have ever had any true friends that are neurotypical. I don’t know what parts of me would classify as neurodivergent or not.
What I do know is that when I see someone stop mid-sentence and stare at the sky, distracted by beautiful clouds, or stumble and pause, their mind flitting elsewhere and say “What was I saying?” I know I’ve found someone from my tribe. I know when I see someone with tears in their eyes over something silly on the TV or gets (what society tells us is) ‘overly’ upset over a dead bird, or who stops in the street to move a snail at risk, these are my friends. And when I see someone wince at a sound that most people don’t notice…or shade their eyes from fluorescent lights…or rush in to hold the bleeding head of a drunken man lying on the floor, without thought of consequences, or when someone stands almost imperceptibly stiller or somehow a different shape or colour or pattern to everyone else around them – I know these are my people, and my heart stretches out to them, because I know they’ve been criticised for their compassionately deep feelings, for not showing their feelings enough, for their reactions to overstimulation, maybe for being too loud, too quiet, too talkative, too emotional, not enough emotional enough, not making quite the right amount of eye contact. But whatever it is, for not fitting in, for not doing exactly what the others do.
I didn’t know I knew, long ago, when I was just a teen, but I wrote this in 1997, at age 20, and looking back now at what I’d written, I knew – I just didn’t have the right words or the names or the labels that others put on us. It’s about not belonging, knowing I didn’t belong, longing to belong but also longing to be able to just be me, and starting the find the people with whom I did and do belong, where the acceptance of me as myself is complete and unconditional.
This, to me, is what personal journeys are all about, whether it is a literal journey as a traveller or backpacker, a spiritual journey, some form of personal growth, or a therapeutic journey.
Journey into the mind
your feet are on dry land
secure and firm
you feel the warm welcome
you see the little wooden hut behind you
its arms stretched out to you
you feel yourself being pulled like a magnet
backwards into the safety
the arms are rough, like wood
yet gentle, like a leaf
you feel calm and happy
you allow yourself to be drawn in
you’re inside
you look around
it’s a part of you
you’re inside your soul
you gaze in wonderment at the feelings
you close your eyes in rapture at the colours
you feel the velvet, mossy and green,
brush against you
you let it wash over you
but the tide is coming in
the forest is closing its doors
your time is almost up
you give your soul a kiss
long and lingering
you feel your soul respond…
then you feel the clear water around your feet
washing them, cleansing them
you’re surfing out of there,
out of the hut
out of your soul
back to the mainland
the land of black ties and blank minds
you move among your people
you live in your land
but you cannot connect
your mind searches for a friend
your soul searches for another
you must leave the mainland
you close your eyes
you feel yourself being pulled like a magnet
upwards into the safety
the arms are damp, like clouds
yet gentle, like the breeze
you feel at home
you allow yourself to be drawn up
you arrive
you look around
it’s a part of you that you’ve seen before
you reach backwards and enter the hut
you allow the velvet to cushion you
you open your mind
you reach out your thoughts
you feel a connection
you move your soul along the bond
until it meets another
you embrace the acceptance
you let it wash over you
but the tide is coming in
the forest is closing its doors
your time is almost up
you give your soul a kiss
long and lingering
you feel your soul respond…
then you leave the hut
you feel yourself float downwards
spiralling gently
you land softly, against the velvet
the velvet of the mainland
the land of black ties and blank minds
but stop.
one mind is not blank
one mind is swirling and soaring
you reach out to it
you recognise the connection
you welcome the bond
this is your soul mate
you are home.
