Dr. Neff from Neurodivergent Insight has a wealth of resources and well... yes, insights into neurodivergency. She wrote a book, Self-Care for Autistic People, it will help you engage in some neurodivergent self-care and to navigate the on-going challenges of the bio-psycho-social aspects of your health and neuro-spicy wellness.
Here is one of my favorite excerpts, about Grieving my Limits (p.114):
My autism diagnosis led me to feel liberation, pride and also grief. The most profound moments of grief emerge when I come face-to-face with my own limits. These limits encompass sensory limits, energy limits, and social limits.
If I ignore these limits, l am making myself susceptible to burnout and chronic health conditions. When I discovered I was Autistic, I changed career paths. I realized that working as a professor within an academic institute or working full-time in a hospital setting would utterly burn me out. There was grief in this realization, but on the other side of that grief was freedom. I restructured my life, built a company called Neurodivergent Insights, and embarked on a career that worked with my sensory, social, and energy limits. In order to find this happiness, I needed to both acknowledge and grieve my limits.
Grieving your limits is an ongoing process, not a one-time experience. Maybe one day you wake up and encounter a wall of fatigue, experience intensified executive functioning struggles, or strain to keep up with the demands of parenting. In these moments, it's perfectly fine to grieve your limits once again.
However, on the other side of that grief is freedom: When you grieve your limits, you can actually construct realistic expectations and release yourself from the guilt of not conforming to the pace of your allistic peers.
It's much better for your mental health to cultivate a pace and life that works for you and honors your limits!
Comments