I wake from a dream with the conviction that I need to find ways to express the rich inner worlds of neurodivergent people, including my own. After a difficult day, I’m frustrated by systems that make me keep proving my value while leaving my creativity and wisdom unseen. I revisit the shame of being labeled a bad child and recognize the kindness, honesty, and care I see in myself. I also explore why making videos feels difficult: the energy visibility invites, uncertainty about how to begin, and the way wanting meaning becomes perfectionism. Voice notes feel natural. By the end, I find relief in the possibility that raw expression can be evidence of trying while I build tools that make fuller expression possible.
| Primary Energy | Frustrated longing to express and be seen |
| Secondary Energy | Hurt, moral conviction, determination, uncertainty, emerging relief |
THREADS
1. Expressing the Value of Neurodivergent Inner Worlds
Summary
I wake with a strong sense that neurodivergent people have rich inner worlds that remain unseen and misunderstood. I want to help myself and others express the wisdom and creativity within us, and I’m frustrated that conventional opportunities keep asking me to prove my worth through systems that don’t fit my brain.
Open Question
How can I help myself and my people express the value within us through ways that work for our brains?
Tags: authentic-expression, neurodivergent-workflows, neurodiversity-advocacy
Domain Categories: neurodivergence, creative-expression, business-and-systems
2. Reclaiming Goodness Beneath Inherited Shame
Summary
I’m revisiting the belief that I was a bad child and the shame I carried from being treated that way. Looking back, I see how much I have cared for people, told the truth, and tried to help, while understanding the little lies I remember as attempts to receive loving attention. I recognize similar commitments to care and right from wrong in other neurodivergent people I’ve met or read about.
Tags: internalized-shame, self-recognition, identity-reclamation
Domain Categories: trauma-and-healing, identity-and-becoming
3. Holding Visibility Within My Energetic Capacity
Summary
I want to be seen and heard, but making videos still feels wrong for me in a way I don’t think is mainly about judgment or criticism. I experience the energy that honest public expression might invite back as heavy and intense, even when it isn’t bad. I’m trying to understand that hesitation alongside the practical uncertainty of what to say and how to begin.
Open Question
What form of visibility feels right for me and leaves room for the energy it brings back?
Tags: capacity-awareness, authentic-expression, self-trust
Domain Categories: creative-expression, personal-experimentation
4. Reducing Friction Between Expression and Output
Summary
I keep getting caught when my wish to make something meaningful becomes a demand to get it perfect, leaving many pieces half-created. Voice notes feel good, but the tools available for polished production exceed my current capacity. I arrive at the possibility that raw output can simply document my attempts while I build tools that help me make better things.
Lesson / Teaching
I can let what I make now be evidence of trying while I build the conditions for the fuller expression I want.
Tags: voice-first-creation, workflow-automation, creative-process
Domain Categories: business-and-systems, creative-expression, personal-experimentation
TRANSCRIPT
I just this second woke up, and I was having dreams that felt really impactful. It made a lot of sense. I was dreaming that neurodivergent people have really rich inner worlds, and that I need to find a way to express our inner worlds. Maybe that’s just a message for me, because yesterday was a really hard day again, where I really struggled to see the light and to believe that I am going to be able to find a way to live all the things that I am capable of, all the things I see in my mind’s eye.
There’s so much going on inside that just can’t be seen or known. That’s just so true of me and my people. I think we’re quite unknown as a neurotype, and we’re seen as these sensitive weaklings. But truthfully, I think there’s so much wisdom in there, and there’s so much creativity. I feel so frustrated that I have to chase after opportunities and constantly try and prove myself, “where the incapable” [wording unclear], using systems that just don’t work for my brain or that don’t align with the needs that need to be met in order for my creativity and my wisdom to come through.
I just want to be able to find a way to help myself and my people to express all this value that lies within. I feel like it’s going to have to be a fight that’s not going to come easily. I say that just because it has been—it has not come easily to be seen for who I am, for what I’m capable of. I am determined to find a way to support myself and others to live up to what we’re for and to be seen as who we truly are. These magnificent, magnificent conscious beings. It really feels like we’re here for a purpose.
Yesterday I found myself so frustrated. Nothing was working. None of the customer service things that I had to get done got done properly. There’s just so much human error. I spent a day reading, and the world is so fucked. There’s so much human error, and there’s so much flaw, human flaw.
There’s a part of it that’s excited for the robots to take over things. Really, very basic customer service stuff that just gets fucked up all the time. I really found myself being like, “Oh! There are just some things that robots need to do.” There are just some humans who have gotten away with so much awful shit because of ego, and because of these human qualities that just get out of hand.
Yesterday—it’s hard to speak to this because I feel like I’m tooting my own horn—but I was really reflecting on how kind I am as a person. I really care so fucking much. People have no idea. I think about people I’ve reached out to. Even if I have issues with people, I always set that aside and try to connect with them as humans.
I was looking back on my whole life. I was always made out to be this bad kid. I really believed that I had bad behavior, that I was bad. I carried a lot of shame for that, for being bad. It just was the opposite of what I wanted. I never wanted to be a bad kid. I’ve always been a kind, good soul.
I reflect back and I look, and I can’t find a single instance of my being bad, or of there being any wrongdoing. I don’t manipulate people. I don’t take advantage. I’m honest. I care. I tell the truth. When I was younger, I was told often that I was a liar. I’m sure I was making up lies because I wanted attention, because I was in an abusive home or I was being put down all the time.
None of my achievements were seen or celebrated. I wasn’t celebrated in any way that I remember. I think they were little white lies to just get loving attention. But now, as a human being, I definitely don’t lie. Too authentic. I tell the truth too much. “Oh, I know the time” [wording unclear].
I guess I’m trying to say I really have been so good my whole life. I’ve treated people properly. I have gone way out of my way to help people, to provide support, to listen, to lend a helping hand in times of need, to drop everything and to put someone else first. It just pains me because I know through my experiences lately, meeting others, “nor the way I’m living with people” [wording unclear], and reading about us, many of us have these qualities. “This access” [wording unclear] for always leaning towards doing the right thing. This incredible sense of right from wrong and truth.
Good morning. “My close. Oh” [wording unclear]. One, two, three, four, five. “He laughed” [wording unclear]. Cute. For those of you who have never heard that before, that is a tokay. There are lizards that live in the walls, and this one is particularly annoying. Because I guess it’s “made, it’s easy” [wording unclear], because he used to do that sound once in a blue moon.
Lately, he’s been doing it all fucking day and all night. He hides in the walls, so I can’t shoo him away or anything. But he’ll be right behind my headboard at 2 a.m. and let out one of those, and it scares the fuck out of me.
Anyway, I don’t know what this dream was, but whatever was happening in it—I don’t know if you get this too, but in your dream you’ve found the answer that’s going to solve everything, and you have to remember this. “I must remember.” Then literally the second I started recording and speaking what I had to remember, I was like, “Oh, it’s pretty simple.” It seemed like a big secret, but it’s my truth.
I have to find a way to express myself. I have to. It feels like this undying urge, and that tells me that it’s my purpose and it’s just what I’m here to do. I’m not finding conventional ways to do this. I’m trying to apply for jobs, and I’m trying to go the route that’s available to me, and I’m going to have to do something else because I can’t just keep bashing my head against the same wall over and over.
I really trust the universe. If I’ve tried something so many times and it’s not working, it’s not for me. There’s gotta be a different way. Okay, okay, okay, I’ll admit that. I hear myself saying, “I just want to put myself out there, and I just want people to see me, and I just want people to hear me.” It’s like, “Well, put yourself out there. Make a fucking video. Record yourself.”
But it’s true that there’s something about visibility, like making videos, that just doesn’t feel right for me. I don’t think it’s the fear of criticism and judgment. I really don’t think that’s what it is. I’ve done a lot of work around that. I witness myself moving through the world. I really don’t care what people think. I really understand that everyone has their own opinions about everything, and nothing is really about me.
But I guess the thing that’s holding me back is energetic. It’s like putting myself out there in this way is inviting stuff back. The way that I intend to put myself out there, speaking truths and being honest, it’s going to invite back a lot of energy. I’m not saying it’s bad energy, but it’s heavy and it’s intense. It’s a lot, and I feel like that’s what’s holding me back.
Also, truthfully, the other thing that’s holding me back is just not knowing. How do I get started? What do I say? Everyone says, “Start before you’re ready and just do it.” But I’m like, “Just do what? Turn on a camera and be like, ‘Hey everyone, I don’t really know what to say’?” I don’t want to waste people’s time, and I don’t want to be this person who’s looking for attention. It’s just not me.
If I am going to go out there, I want to go out there with something that is meaningful. But then I seem to struggle with meaningful becoming perfect. I get stuck in the perfect trap because I’m like, “Is this what I’m trying to say? How do I want to say it? How do I want to get it across? Is this the right way?”
It’s not like I haven’t tried this. I have tried so, so many times to create pieces of content. I have a million half-created, and nothing feels right. I really am just somebody who goes by feeling and intuition, and maybe I just haven’t found the right way. The voice notes feel great. But I guess I just have to find a way to get them out to the world, because people use visual mediums. I mean, it’s not like podcasts are popular [wording unclear].
But my whole thing is that I want to put out raw content. I don’t want to put out polished, produced content because “I don’t have to cut” [wording unclear]. Well, I do want to put out polished, produced content. I absolutely do. But as the type of neurodivergent being that I am, I don’t have capacity to do that using the tools that exist. So right now, my whole thing is raw.
Maybe that’s just it. Maybe right now I just have to put out raw content while I’m building the tools that are going to automate the rest of the process. Maybe what I put out doesn’t have to be meaningful. Maybe it’s just evidence of how I’ve been trying and throwing things at the wall and making things while building tools that help me to make better things. That actually feels pretty good. All right. Coffee time. Bye.