Member-only story
Could I Finally Be Experiencing My Existence?
What it actually means to live in the present as embodied beings and why it is beyond the reach of many neurodivergent folks
The legacy of undiagnosed neurodivergence truly is the gift that keeps on giving. It’s proved to be an inexhaustible source of trauma and accumulated stress; an assortment of negative self-beliefs that have distorted my sense of who I am and my place in the world.
A notable feature of my life has been a lack of belief in my own existence; an inability to feel grounded in the reality of it. I know it sounds absurd — but stay with me.
I now realise I’ve gone through life in a state of low-level dissociation. It’s as though there is a disconnect between the experience I’m outwardly having and an inner experience that never matches my expectations of what I should be feeling. I haven’t been able to access an experience of life that would enable me to fully grasp it and own it.
Rather than inhabiting my life, I’m hovering above it; cut off from an embodied experience of being me in the world. Long before my profound sense of difference had words, it showed up as solid glass wall between me and the rest of the world. I could see everything in acute detail but I could never touch it or feel it.
