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Notes from Undiagnosed Neurodivergent Life
Emerging from the survival state and maybe into the world
I walk through the doors of my local university, and for the first time in 10 years, I’ve started to pay attention to how it makes my body feel.
Weaving in and out of hallways and staircases and passing by various strangers feels as though I’m walking through portals of ever-evolving energy orbs. I have this quiet underlying feeling of dread that is ever present in my body in public spaces like these. It’s a new semester and I’m about to walk into a class I have never been to with a large amount of people I have never met. The closer I get to the classroom, the larger the dread feels in my body. I feel the need to take a sharp inhale and hold my breath tightly in my chest, or jolt my arm up and down by my side to feel a grounding sensation boomerang throughout my whole body.
I enter the classroom in an extremely high alert state. Within milliseconds, antennae on every part of my body and mind are 100% alert as I scan for a seat. I am intaking so much information at once yet I don’t really have words for any of it nor does it feel like it’s fully in my conscious mind. It’s a hurricane inside all layers of me that I have no control…
