My analogy that I like to use for this is being able to fit in a box that society has produced for you. Most people can fit in the box and I spent years attempting to fit myself into it. I contorted myself into painful shapes in a desperate attempt to please the world and even when I thought I was doing it right, it was never enough. Properly acknowledging that I will never fit in that box was immensely liberating in the long run.

Sometimes I see people who can fit in the box, but not comfortably, and I experience a mix of pity, and relief. I reflect on how grim my life would've been if I had been successful in carving myself into a shape that would fit what had been demanded of me — just because someone can fit in doesn't mean that that's good for them. Certainly, it denies one the ability to grow if you've already had to cut off parts of yourself to be palatable to the world.

In this light, I feel an odd sense of privilege for having found myself in the people who can't blend in, despite trying. "Privilege" is definitely the wrong word for this, but I struggle to articulate it otherwise. I think mostly, I'm just glad to finally be free of wasting what little energy I have trying. Even if it changes little in how the world regards me, I'm just glad to no longer think of myself as a broken neurotypical. I don't know what it means to be a functioning neurodivergent person, but I'm sort of excited to be a part of building that, alongside people like you and many others on this thread and this site.