“I don’t like that man. I must get to know him better.”
Abraham Lincoln
When we don’t like something or someone, our instinct is to distance ourselves from it. We look away. We move away.
In the beginning we don’t often like our neurodiversity, so we, our family, and the people around us try to ignore, suppress, or deny it.
It is the most common and standard default reaction.
We look away from it whenever we can.
Or try and deny it.
We move away physically and mentally.
Want to know how to have true happiness day to day in life?
What we really need to do is to get to know your neurodiversity better.
We must move closer to it and befriend it.
Because even though our instincts are telling us to run, hide, and ignore, we must remember that we are contaminated by our culture, which misunderstands the role of pain, suffering, and the purpose of struggle.
As we learn to accept the necessity of being a different thinker, we will find the true and natural instinct to get to know our neurodiversity.
It’s been there deep inside us all along.
I don’t always like my neurodiversity.
I must get to know it better.
By JoyGenea Schumer Furnstahl
Inspired by a poem about grief