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Hello all! Happy Neurodivergent Pride Day to all the lovely Neurodivergent people, especially the Aspec neurodivergents. This discussion, I’m going to be talking about the effects of neurodivergence on Aspec people, and give some personal anecdotes. I apologize in advance if anything I talk about is triggering. I hope you all have a lovely holiday!
One thing about our generation that I’m proud of is how we’re gradually becoming less apologetic about being ourselves, and being transparent about our experiences. This includes the transparency of our mental health conditions. And today is the day we can celebrate being unapologetically us, and feel united and proud to be different. And while we are all celebrating our neurodivergence, I want to remind us all that our conditions are ours to deal with and it is important that we do not invalidate other’s experiences simply because they may have a different condition than us. The number of disorders or the severity is not a competition, and by saying that your experience is worse than others is invalidating, no matter the circumstance.
With that being said, I’m going to bring this back around to a queer perspective. While neurodivergence doesn’t discriminate, the LGBTQIA+ experience with mental health can be considerably different from our cishetallo counterparts. Coming to terms with your identity has similarities to coming to terms with a mental health diagnosis, though they aren’t identical. Some similarities, from my experience, including the doubting, the self-gaslighting, the moment when you look up or see videos about signs and you don’t meet all of the criteria so you think you were making it up, the eventual acceptance after the “weird things” about yourself finally have a cause, and so many more. Another similarity that comes with being LGBTQIA+ and having a mental health condition is that, for the most part, both are invisible from the outside. And since either of them aren’t typically noticed by others outwardly, internalized discrimination from outsiders and yourself is common. The important thing is to remember that, no matter what, these parts of your identity don’t fully define you, they’re simply working pieces that put you all together. At the end of this post, I will add some resources involving mental health and being LGBTQIA+.
Now, for my personal experience. My discoveries with mental health and my queer identity are very recent, and to be honest are still things I’m working through. I discovered I was on the asexual spectrum in college, during the wonderful (sarcasm) year of 2020. At that time, I didn’t even know about romantic identities because I was so worried about coming to terms with my sexuality. Though, it was only a few months after doing research and finding social media posts that I discovered romantic identities and began doing research. It was 2021 when I landed on demiromantic and asexual. As for mental health, I’ve only been in therapy for about a year, almost two. I’ve had to go through quite a few because the first couple weren’t active with me, they simply thought I just wanted someone to talk to (I think, either that or they just weren’t doing their jobs right). But, this year, I finally found an amazing therapist that has been helping me a lot. About two months ago, I received my formal diagnoses from her. For those who were following me during that time, you probably noticed the gaps in my activity and constantly apologizing for not being more on top of things. For those who are curious, my current diagnoses are GAD, CPTSD, Autism, and ADHD. What is so crazy is I never thought I had any of these things. I think it’s fair to say that everyone questions themselves and does crazy research about what mental illness they might have (or maybe not, idk), and when some of these would pop up I didn’t feel I matched the criteria. That wasn’t until my lovely therapist called out all of my behavior and we went through the diagnosis process. That process was so intimidating and nerve-racking that my anxiety was through the roof the entire time, which was almost a month worth of meeting. And while I’ve had some time, I still haven’t really come fully to terms with it. But, I’m also the type of person that doesn’t register grief until about a month after something happens. Either way, many of the common overlaps that I mentioned in the paragraph above are things that I experienced, and still experience, with both discoveries about myself. If this was similar to your experience, I’d love to hear about it! Feel free to DM me and let me know!
As promised, I’m attaching some resources for mental health and LGBTQIA+, some combined, some not, down below. Please utilize these if you are struggling, questioning, or need any help at all.
Trevor Project- One of the largest organizations for info and support of LGBTQIA+ Youth
NAMI- National Alliance on Mental Illness, a great resource for mental health support
PFLAG- The first and largest organization for supporting, educating, and advocating for LGBTQIA+ people and youth
Pridecounseling.com- A site for connecting with a counselor/therapist as an LGBTQIA+ person
Call or Text 988- Suicide and Crisis Hotline
HRC Resource Page- Human Rights Campaign list of resources for LGBTQIA+ support lines
Trans Lifeline 877-565-8860- Provided by HRC
LGBT National Youth Talkline 1-800-246-7743
LGBTQIA+ Lifeline Call 1-800-273-8255 or Text HOME to 741741
If you have any thoughts to add or have any questions to ask, please reach out to me through social media or email.
Thank you for reading and stay true to yourself!