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My Big Neurodivergent Ideas Are How I Connect Even If They Scare Some People Off
Nothing excites me more than big ideas about people, relationships and how the world works. Listening to other people’s ideas and letting them expand mine. Being able to express my ideas and bouncing them off other people. Ideas are my jam.
It’s only dawned on me recently that my ideas are too big for most people. It’s not so much the content that’s the problem, but the very act of having and bringing them out in shared company.
I know I should contain myself but I’m not very good at it. Not now that I know what neurodivergent masking looks like and the damage it has caused me. Alas, it seems I’m out of practice in slotting myself into other people’s expectations of normality.
Because I’m autistic, I can see a pattern that plays out. There’s always a point in an interaction where I lose them as I feel the energy being sucked out of the room. Then it’s like I’m watching slow-motion footage of yet another potential connection running up curb. It might look something like this:
We’re having a drink at a local bar and I start talking about an LGBTQ law reform campaign I was passionately involved in.
