The Inner Ramblings of a Neurodivergent Newbie

I am here, not quite believing that I have finally managed to begin writing the first post within my blog; a blog I had started (but never really started) from scratch twice. A blog that has taunted me for years, untouched and a reminder of an unfulfilled want...perhaps a need. I've had so much to say that at times I thought my brain would implode. I decided I could bring a voice recorder around with me so I could at least capture the ideas as they came and went, but the lack of inner peace and organisation failed me time and time again. But as I sit in an unusually quiet house, I reflect on the last three weeks of a new chapter; my diagnosis of Autism and ADHD, and the introduction of medication that has made my heart ache with hope and at times made my head spin like I was on a crazy rollercoaster. I don't know where this journey ends, I won't lie. What I do know is that I have never felt so much clarity, acceptance and self-love than I do right now. It does seem possible to "know" and "not know" in equal measures, which equates to an unfathomable yet comforting realisation that no journey is linear. Was I finally writing in my blog rather than spending hours of excruciating frustration trying to design the site, because I had finally accepted that I was a procrastinating perfectionist in search of a self-fulfilling prophecy? Maybe, but you know what? I'm comfortable with that. I am comfortable with a lot of things now because I know that some of the fundamentally frustrating stuff about me is not my fault. This doesn't mean I'm looking to divert the blame whenever or however I please; it just gives me a safe space to identify my challenges and own them, without the frightening prospect of another mental avalanche.

For someone who has never chased fashion, the irony is not lost on me that I have become part of a growing trend of newly-diagnosed 'Neurodivergents'. How was my timing so off? If you had told me two years ago that I would be here, now, calmly contemplating a future I had not foreseen, I would have developed a twitchy eye in response. If you had also told me that I would feel so happy and alive because I finally had answers which had in turn become an explosion of new questions, I would laugh in disbelief. I often wonder just how many of us are here, in this brand new dimension, the keen, hopeful newbies of the Neurodivergent world eager to learn and excel in the knowledge of ourselves. I am here in the front row, pen poised in anticipation and nostrils flaring at any hint of sabotage from the undiscerning crowd of non-believers. Would I have chosen this life for myself? No. Life certainly has not been easy in this mind of mine; but in the same breath, I would quite simply not be me without it, and I honestly could not be more proud of who I am today.