August 14th 2025

Dissonance

I often think of being neurodivergent as something special. To feel, see and experience the world the way that we do is sometimes extremely specific, and there are plenty of perks and caveats to it.

Since I understood I was not neurotypical and what that entailed, I couldn't help but empathize a lot more with all kinds of neurodivergent and disabled individuals. I want to think that it made me a more understanding and patient person, and that it helped me put words and provide explanations to events and situations in my life that I had not been able to parse when I was younger.

It's a tricky thing, being in a spectrum where clarity is often missing.

Once you understand the reasons, often many many years into your adulthood, I think it is almost impossible not to obsess over it. Oh, you mean to tell me that there is a way to not make my friends hate me and abandon me? Oh, so if I had been able to read people I would have noticed all of these little hints regarding my behavior being not acceptable or even hurtful?

This also often leads to a more problematic and irritating (to others) train of thought:

"Perhaps if I inform/warn everyone about how incredibly neurodivergent I am, I will be allowed a little bit more grace, or be given more context in advance to help me understand certain situations with my friends and acquaintances. I would happily offer accommodations for anyone who asked me for them, so I'm certain that providing a general explanation to my many many little quirks will make the people in my life be more considerate... certainly."

So you start to bang your pots and pans everywhere you go.

You have a mini-miranda ready to go whenever things begin to feel iffy. "Sorry- I am incredibly autistic, so I might need you to elaborate a little more." "Oh... may I ask why? I'm not trying to correct you or argue, I'm just genuinely very bad at understanding these topics without help because I'm neurodivergent."

You are so sure that these warnings are necessary, that they will help you and others to avoid misunderstandings or conflict, that they will make others be more patient with the things they find difficult about you... but in my experience, it is hard to tell if the warnings have ever had the desired effect.

I think it is more likely people have physically or spiritually rolled their eyes and assumed I was making excuses for my bad behavior.

At times, I question if that is what I'm doing.

Am I being an asshole? Is this what "normal" people say? Are my questions, comments and observations making people uncomfortable? Irritated? Tired of me?

How can I know or measure if my need for clarity and control is unwelcome, or perhaps even transgressing people's boundaries? I feel like every time I decided I didn't want to overthink and chose to be more relaxed, I ended up making mistakes, often of the social-interaction nature.

I must be explicit and detailed about my needs and I expect everyone else to do the same when I request it. It is the most logical way to conduct oneself. Why wouldn't everyone else just want to see and understand things the same way? Being on the same page makes conversations fruitful, gratifying. I'm sure there might be one version or two versions or maybe even three versions to this shared experienced but we can certainly piece it together, and make it make sense to everyone involved, because in the end we all have good intentions and are probably of the same mind anyway.... right?

[ Insert some picture or gif that properly represents the delusional, wishful tone of the previous paragraph ]

Sigh.

I feel like there's a 10 pound demon sitting on my chest, making it a bit harder to breathe, and a cloud of bees enveloping my brain that does not let me think any further than a sentence at a time.

I also can't help but feel a little hopeless.

I spent so many years of my life interacting with a lot of people online who shared many of my thoughts, ideas and beliefs, which made it so —despite disagreements and miscommunication still happened— we often shared relatable-enough situations and contexts that allowed us to at least empathize and agree in most things. But now that I consider myself to be "retired" from fandom spaces, now that my normal way of socializing is mainly in-person, and that on top of that, I have a partner who was not raised online and who also wants to spend long periods of time with me, I think I have been constantly running into invisible walls I had never had the chance to see before.

When you have spent so many years trying to improve your social skills, —and what's more, even got to experience very rewarding interactions and moments because of the fruits of that labor— clear and healthy communication processes feel not only necessary, but even addictive to a degree.

If we could get away with it some of us would probably end every single conversation with "Thank you for this social interaction with me. Here's a QR code for a survey to rate how well I did. Please take five minutes to answer it and provide explicit feedback so that we can continue to make your experience enjoyable."

Ha ha, will say the average person, thinking it a funny gag while so many neurodivergent people have thought of similarly "simple and sensible" —at least to us— "solutions" like this before.

It's been a while since I reached the point of self-awareness that allows me to understand this kind of ridiculous over-controlling thoughts as... well, ridiculous and over-controlling. But that doesn't quite help me stop them, or to stop wanting to have those kind of "solutions" available in contexts where it would be nearly deranged to ask for such things.

I despise the term "normal", but man I wish I were normal.

It is exhausting to live inside your head, specially when your head can be so loud and obsessive.

You want it to slow down, you want it to let go. You really really wish it would just go with the flow and be fine with uncertainty, that you could feel relaxed or even just fine with not having a schedule, an explanation or any sense of control. But after growing up in utterly chaotic environments, having experienced countless heartbreaks, some of which are still open wounds because you were not given the chance to understand or get closure of any kind... uncertainty is scary. It's stressful. It's painful.

Please give me a chance to improve.

Please tell me what to do to make things better.

Please understand that my heart is fragile and that my intentions were good,

but that if you do not wish to have me around I need you to tell me as such.

Release me from the chains in my head that shackle me to the intangible concept of your love.

I beg you grant me mercy in the shape of reasons,

please say things are not fine,

that things will never be fine.

Tell me no.

Tell me why not.

I will do my best to understand.

I will try my damn best to come to terms with it.

But more importantly,

I will leave you alone,

and I will allow myself to finally end this problem-solving quest,

and start grieving the things I thought we were,

instead of these unfinished conversations I'm replaying in my head,

and those cheap dopamine fixes that are no longer there.

It might be hard, it might hurt,

but it is a pain much more bearable

than any lingering,

(unresolved

expectation,

or the irrational belief that one more explanation

will finally fix it all.

Much of trying to navigate the world from my neurodivergence feels so much like a mix of imposter syndrome and living in a permanent state of gaslighting. Mostly from myself.

Am I really that good at masking? Did I ever "crack" anything about socializing?

Am I actively and properly addressing people and situations in ways that feel kind and understanding?

Or am I just over-scrutinizing people, making them feel exposed and vulnerable against their will?

Am I just a freak who wants to analyze everyone under my microscope so I can define the traumas and lived experiences that I empathize with and that I hope we can bond over? Or so I can fix them? So that I can make sense of them?

So I can make sure I do and say the right things in the videogame dialogue option and get all the points I need to advance our relationship, give them the right gifts, say all the right things and discern the best routes to guarantee I get the good ending? To ensure I am doing enough to earn their love?

And how do I stop caring about any of it?

Is it even possible?

Caring deeply is the main reason I am the way I am. It is an intrinsic part of many neurodivergencies. We cannot help but care because our brains are wired that way, yes, but also because the world is often unkind and inconsiderate to us.

We do not want other people to feel the way we have felt, or that people suffer the way we know or have seen others suffer. We want to protect those we love in every way we can think of, and even if we could let go of the notion that we must be useful in order to be loved, it is hard to stop overthinking when you know that not-thinking and not-understanding was often the main thing putting you in those unpleasant or painful situations that have been engraved into core parts of your brain through repeated instances of abandonment and shame.

I once read a sentence akin to "I am always trying to express something incommunicable" and I have never stopped thinking about it.

I cannot help but think about how lately I am also constantly "finding out" that there is not one answer to anything. Even things that I used to think as "straightforward" or "obviously one-dimensional", like the definition of a word, or a shared experience.

I find that genuinely terrifying.

After so many years of obsessively trying to make sense of the world and people around me, it is very much like having the rug pulled from under me in a most violent way.

I am aware that chaos and uncertainty are just part of life, but the kind of additional chaos and uncertainty neurodivergent people experience while navigating a society that does not keep our needs in mind —but still punishes us every time that we fail to adjust to it— is endlessly traumatizing.

I want to be ok. I want to think less and let go more.

Though I don't know that I can really let go of anything willingly.

Not until I am told to do so. Not until I'm made to feel ashamed of my stubborness.

Not until a long and incredibly visceral process has torn my insides apart and every part of my brain that is in charge of empathy or rationalization has become too numb to keep trying.

But in the meantime, I keep trying.

So now I must deal with the deep discomfort of being wrong.

Of letting things happen. Of not trying to figure everything out.

I must make an effort to go against every single impulse I have had for over a decade, in hopes that I can attain something closer to a peace of mind.

I cannot say I am excited to try, and I am not naive enough to believe I will succeed.

I am scared to leave this comfortable room I built for myself in hopes to establish certainty.

But I guess this is me allowing myself to kick and scream on my way out.