Understanding what neurodivergent means….

Shortly after my bipolar diagnosis I entered the realm of being neurodivergent, during my assessment I noticed I had a lot of childhood experiences and behaviours that are similar to my autistic son. I relate with the experience of those with autism, and I felt a sense of community and it’s likely because bipolar is neurodivergence and there is a lot of overlapping qualities within the spectrum of neurodivergence. I don’t usually link other blogs to my blog (I have below please read) but I came across this blog that a neurodivergent person I follow had written that beautifully explained what the term “neurodivergent” means. They wrote it to help those who had never really heard of neurodivergence, and I really think it’s helpful for those who want to understand what this terminology means. I know the term neurodivergent is out there a lot, people think it’s some sort of trend people are jumping on, but it’s not, many people……mostly women are finding out late in life they are neurodivergent because professionals and people with lived experiences are talking about it, and many women have not met the narrow “qualifications” for being neurodivergent because historically most of the studies have been on males with very narrow and limited understanding based upon very obvious divergent “behaviour”. Being neurodivergent isn’t trendy, many people lived undiagnosed a very long time, the DSM has become more detailed and a lot more has been learned about neurodivergence in women…..so as the information improved and it got out there more people are beginning to go and get assessed.

Please click the link below, you will learn a lot 🙂

https://neurodivergentrebel.substack.com/p/neurodivergence-includes-lifelong?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR14xtfLO1EAAoI-fFmX5AzbUmXsMWbbgm2PL5bLpW8_xAIJbX7A4WCSov0_aem_kHBaH6UgPSHeOFctCwByVA

Walking back to me

Sometimes I wonder what the problem was, I thought the problem was that I really didn’t understand them. I never really felt like I was a part of them, like I was accepted. It felt like they treated each other as real “family” and that I should be thankful I was even invited to witness their bond, like I was an audience member to their show, I was valued because they liked a crowd. Most of my life I thought this dynamic was my fault, that I wasn’t worthy of their consideration. I now realize the problem hasn’t been me understanding them, I understand them. The problem is they don’t know or understand me, they only know the version of me I had to be so they would accept me. It’s the version of me that was a reflection of them and at some point I stopped knowing myself. And that has been lonely. That version of me is gone, the version who is ok with being treated as an after thought, and now I’m walking back towards myself,  the person I was before I distorted myself to fit in, as I walk away from them, I heal my relationship with me.

For the love of trees

If there is any living thing on earth that actively wants to live among humans it's trees.

The photo above is of a huge maple that was in front of our first house. We lived in a city so buying a house with a big tree allowed me to connect with nature at the time, it had huge branches that we let grow low enough that we could lift our kids up to touch them, my kids played under its shade. We had bird feeders in our yard so birds would nest in the maple, you could hear and sometimes see cicada on them, and at night the fireflies would glow among its leaves . Every year the tree would shower our yard in helicopter seeds, and little trees would sometimes sprout.

Trees find a way even in a busy city to grow, it's like they want to take over and have us living among them, and sometimes I wish we would let them .