Dear Friends,

Welcome to the first paid post of my Substack, one that supports the books that I have in progress. I literally cannot write these books without you. My publishers don’t give me big advances (or advances at all) even though they are lovely presses. I don’t expect that I’ll ever receive a large advance.

Ten days ago, I turned 50, and with that wisdom, I can say that publishing is vastly different from what it was thirty years ago, when I started my master’s in creative writing program. Even in a mere thirty years, the landscape is unrecognizable. And that’s okay. Really. I won’t be getting big advances.

But I do have you, a community I never had before, and I like this world better. Truly.

If you are not a paid subscriber, you’ll be able to read some of this piece and hopefully learn a lot from what you read. If you are a paid subscriber, you’ll be able to read the whole thing. (Note: You might prefer to read it online and not in your email. It’s a longform piece for sure.)

One of my works in progress is a book for writers. I’ve been teaching writing for over twenty years, and I’m currently faculty in the MFA program in writing at Drexel University. The point is, I think about writing a lot. I love reading craft books, books about the publishing industry, books about the writing life. (I still have my hardcover first edition of Bird By Bird by Anne Lamott from the year it came out. I was in college.)

My book is tentatively titled Good Enough Writer, and I hope to have it completed by the end of this year, 2026. As I go, I will share working drafts of chapters with my paid subscribers. Some of these chapters will be more philosophical. Some will be more instructional. This one is definitely on the philosophical side, but I hope you find it interesting—especially if you have ever thought to yourself, “Should I write a book?”

(The answer to that question is always “Yes.”)

Also, please provide feedback! Any comments you might have on what you liked or what could be better are more than welcome.

I’m so glad you’re here.

-Katie

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Chapter Title: Chrysalis

[As I said above, this chapter is a work in progress. I’m still trying to nail down the throughline, and also I think it’s pretty depressing and I’m funnier than this. For a book on writing, having a meandering, weird essay about capitalist, patriarchal, gendered norms might not be the thing. I don’t know. What do you think?]

As writers, productivity is a constant concern. We track our word counts. We use journals to track our writing progress. Tracking writing output is just another way to measure ourselves and whether we are doing enough. Whether we are enough. And most of us fail to measure up to whatever gold standard we have in our own heads.

There’s nothing that trashes your creativity more than believing you aren’t doing enough. That pressure is how you end up in bed watching reruns of Ted Lasso. (Or The Witcher. It depends on my mood.)

Public discourse about productivity dramatically changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. In real time, we could watch it split into two main camps, which have persisted to this day. The first looks like this: “How to Make the Best Use of this Time at Home!” I call this the “productivity during hard times” genre.

The second looks like this: “Stop Worrying about Being Productive During a Crisis.” I call this the “reject productivity” genre. If I were to pick a camp, it would be the second. And yet, I cannot stop worrying about productivity.

Even now, years after the “end” of Covid, in the year 2026 as I write these words, I worry that I am not doing enough. That worry grinds at me daily, and I know I’m not the only one. How can we be creative under this onslaught of advice for what we must do in order to…be creative? Be productive? Be a successful writer?

It just isn’t possible.

***

Recently, my spouse and I were gathering up every pair of headphones the kids had scattered around the house. The kids complained that they didn’t have any for school, and so we wondered if we needed to buy more pairs. The kids use headphones a lot; we continued to homeschool once the pandemic hit, and we never stopped. Our kids (like me) are neurodivergent, and they thrive learning at home. Headphones are necessary.

But we wanted to be sure we needed more headphones before we spent the money.

For me, even with our life of relative financial security, money is a trigger for anxiety. It goes way back to childhood, and it will not let up. I’ve tried; my therapist has tried. Each session, she would ask, “Can you pay the mortgage this month? Your bills?” and I would say, “Of course.” And she would ask, “Then what are you worried about?”

There was, and there remains, no answer to that question.

During the search for the headphones, I opened a drawer and discovered a snarl of fine white cables—an innumerable number of earbuds, their tangled state the obvious explanation for why the kids weren’t using them. I sat down to untangle each pair one at a time, clean them with a little bit of Windex on a cloth, and wrap them into neat bundles.

After the fourth pair or so, and only partially through my task, I started thinking about how long it would take before the headphones were snarled again.

I turned to my spouse. “I feel like Sisyphus.”

“Which one was he again?”

“He pushed a boulder up a hill over and over, and it kept rolling back down.”

***

I’m a writer. I write books. It used to be that I wrote a lot of books, essays, and stories. Endless words, just flowing like Niagara Falls.

And then, one day, the words dried up. Around the same time, my anxiety spiked, worry took hold of my mind twenty-four-seven, and would not let go. It was mid-2020, and I just could not write anymore. My writer friends posted on social media about how they were writing so much during this time at home, and I wanted to throw my laptop into the pond with the snapping turtles across the street.

But there could be no throwing. I still had projects due. I am a writer for a living. I couldn’t stop because of the pandemic. The thing is, my body had other ideas. It just shut down.

Then, on October 1st, 2021, I awoke feeling certain that something was amiss. I sat up quickly and grabbed my phone. No messages. Looking at my calendar, it seemed like an ordinary day: overly full of responsibilities with no time for the afternoon nap I knew I would need but would have no time to take.

I could not shake the sense that something was terribly wrong.

The bad feeling kept nagging me even after I headed into my office. Did I have a doctor's appointment that I had not put on the calendar? Did one of the kids? Was the vet supposed to come and see the pets? Something was missing, something important. But it was just beyond my reach.

And then, like a too-bright camera flash, there it was. On October 1st, 2021, the final manuscript of my most recent book was due to my publisher.

Frantic, I texted everyone involved—my co-author and also my co-editor of the series of which the book was a part. I refused to believe that we had made such a huge mistake. Surely one of them would have remembered this important deadline. Surely, we couldn’t have, as a group, fucked up so royally.

Reader: Indeed, we could have.

My co-author and I had diligently worked on the book for a year. Then, once the pandemic hit, we had to stop and frantically transform our courses into high-quality online learning experiences. Then, shortly after, we started teaching. The book slipped into the shadows of our psyches. On October First, we had a woefully unfinished, unedited pile of pages.

In the urgency of pandemic teaching, we had simply forgotten the deadline.

I offered to call our editor to ask for an extension. Thankfully, our editor gave us one month to finish the book. We really needed three months, but that would have pushed the book’s production deadline beyond what the publisher could tolerate. During that one month, my co-author and I, each the primary caregiver of two children and people with full-time jobs, wrote and edited and wrote and edited until we nearly fell apart. My co-editor of the series, a single parent with a full-time job, pulled more than her weight, editing the book multiple times to help us meet the deadline.

Finally, at six a.m. on November 1st, 2021, I woke early to do one final read and then emailed the pages before my kids woke up for school. After I sent the book, I felt a wave of relief, Sisyphus finally pushing the rock over the mountain in Tartarus.

But I also felt other emotions: helplessness in the face of our mistake with the deadline. After all, we had a team, a good, thoughtful, responsible team, and all of us had dropped this ball. If we together could not manage a project, then what hope is there that I can do one alone?

I also felt exhaustion because writing that book on such a tight deadline—a deadline caused by my own negligence—had taken every bit of energy I had. I did not know how I would ever be able to do that much work again. And I wasn’t exaggerating. I meant ever.

I would like to toss aside the very concept of productivity forever. To reject the word from my vocabulary. To lie about all day and read and scribble in my notebook and worry about nothing. To play with my horses and dog and cats and kids and spouse and never, ever worry.

What a magnificent life that would be.

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I’m so glad you’re here.

-Katie

For the past six months, I’ve been working with a career coach. Technically, she’s a speaker coach, but she does so much more than that. (And yes, even moderately successful writers like me need coaches from time to time. Her name is Erin Loman Jeck.) For about 3 months, we did all of this behind-the-scenes work building my platform, figuring out my goals, and making a plan to achieve them.

And then, at about 3 1/2 months, I had a breakdown. I realized that everything we’d been building toward just was not me.

I didn’t want to do the work we were setting me up to do. I didn’t relate to it, and I didn’t enjoy it. I thought this work was what I wanted, but I was wrong! 😱

I wrote about my breakdown in my journal for, like, 100 pages, then made a document with bullet points because no one could possibly make sense of all that rambling, not even me.

Then the worst part came. I had to tell my coach during our weekly meeting that everything we’d done up to that point needed to be chucked.

After I shared my revelation with her, she just laughed. “This is totally normal,” she said.

“What?”

My coach is also a trained therapist, and she practiced in a former life. She told me that with her patients before and her clients now, inevitably at the 3-month point, everyone goes through this…breakdown…I was going through.

It was nothing so minor as an identity crisis. I had a complete identity breakdown.

Why? Because she forced me to examine myself and my career more closely than I have in years, and I realized I was on a track that I didn’t want to be on.

So, she’s helped me pivot. It’s been some work to do this pivot—which, I might add, most of you probably won’t even notice. But internally, my entire worldview has shifted.

Whew. Agonizing. Exhausting. Thrilling. Pivots are hard.

And then I had another realization. Something bigger.

Life, itself, is just one long series of pivots. Pivoting is another facet of living. We shed past selves and become new people all the time. If we are lucky, we are in a constant state of self-discovery, and that’s a good thing.

My latest pivot could be influenced by my upcoming birthday: I turn 50 in June. That’s a big one. For a long time, leading up to this birthday, I dreaded growing older. I feared it. I feared dying. I felt like my life was over.

(Hello, “existential crisis” and also “the human condition.”)

Part of this fear and dread was driven by our youth-obsessed culture. You’ll never see me read a 30 under 30 of anything. In my twenties, I was a semi-alcoholic, idiotic twat. Why on earth would I take advice from a 20-something?

All of the things I know now? It is incredible.

This most recent pivot was less like aiming for a new goal and more like coming home to myself. The self that had been there all along, underneath all of the things I believed I needed to accomplish in order to be worthy and successful.

But, I realized, none of those accomplishments make a person worthy or even successful.

Worthiness based on external metrics success (like the bottom line), the things our capitalist society use to measure a person’s value, are not the things I value at all.

I am lucky that I get to write for a living. I am lucky, and I am grateful.

My mantra for this month of turning 50 is this: Welcome home.

Substack Update

I have added paid subscriptions as an option for my Substack. Most of what I write will remain free. Also, I have priced my subscriptions as low as Substack will allow. I do have a “Founding Member” option that allows those of you who are inclined to support me more to pay more—you get to choose.

Here are the benefits for each tier.

Free Subscriber

• You get this letter for the outsiders, the misfits, and the beautifully complicated.

• You get access to the subscriber group chat. I love the group chat!

Paid Subscriber

• You get this letter—PLUS paywalled longer pieces that only paid subscribers can see.

• You get access to the subscriber group chat AND the ability to start discussion threads there. (Please, someone subscribe because right now I’m the only one who can do that.)

• You get early and insider access to my writing, including works in progress, deleted scenes from books, and serialized essays.

Founding Member Subscriber

• You get all of the benefits of a paid membership, plus one signed paperback book of your choice every year that you are a founder. Email me the title you would like, and confirm your username on here.

Starting soon, I’ll be sending out paid subscriber essays, and I hope I can count on some of you for support.

What About You?

Anyone else having an identity breakdown lately? How are you handling it? Did you panic like I did? (Oh, so much panicking.)

Anyone else having a big birthday or thoughts and feelings about growing older? Let’s support each other.

Love to you.

-Katie Rose

Dear Friends,

If you are ADHD, AuDHD, or a similar kind of Misfit (I’m AuDHD), then you might have trouble keeping up with your Self and all of the things that your Self wants to do. I was writing in my notebook just this week about all of the amazing projects I want to work on and why isn’t there more time in the day and…and…and.

I did a little gratitude work to help calm my firebrain (what I call it when I’m overwhelmed by ideas). First, I said, Isn’t it great that you have all of the ideas for cool projects? (Books, teaching videos, workshops and talks, and more books, and also I decided to train a new baby horse.)

And I also wrote, Isn’t it wonderful that so much of your work is work that you WANT to do?

It’s true—I’m super lucky that I get to work for myself. It took many years to get here, but I do.

Now, let’s be real—there are a lot of things on the to-do list that are NOT things I want to do (ahem, QuickBooks) but I do them because I must.

But having this feeling of deep inspiration, and having projects that draw me in and make me love the work I do, that’s lucky indeed.

But what do you do when you want to do everything?

How do you manage your energy and focus and avoid things like anxiety and burnout?

Short answer: It isn’t easy.

Long answer: I don’t know exactly what will work for you, but I have some ideas.

Advice for how to embrace your creative side without blowing a circuit:

(1) Limit yourself to one “big” task a day. For example, I’m writing two books at the same time right now. But the day I dug deep into the book proposal for Book #1, I took a break from Book #2. Another day, I got started on my daily writing practice for Book #2, and ended up writing 5000 words (I shocked myself with that one). When I was done, I said, Okay, you’re done now. Done with everything. And I watched Stranger Things that evening rather than turning back to Book #1.

(2) Take breaks. Lots of breaks. Related to Stranger Things in #1. You’re going to hyperfocus, and that’s great. But then you’re going to come out of it. And when you do, TAKE A BREAK. This is an order. Lots of Misfits like us have trouble with interoception—we don’t notice if our back is hurting or if we need to pee or if we’re hungry or thirsty while we are zoomed in on a task. Take care of your body, friends. Take a walk around the block. Do some jumping jacks. (I’m tending toward the jumping jacks at the moment because it is so COLD.)

(3) Take a day (or half-day) off. Y’all, I’m not going to lie, this is the HARDEST THING for me. I work 7 days a week. Picture the dowager countess saying, “What is a weekend?” and you’ve got me. But just because I love my work and want to work on it every day doesn’t mean I SHOULD. That’s the road to burnout. You have to take time away from your projects. Watch TV. Read a book. Lie in bed all day. This is not permission. This is an order.

(4) Be mindful of overwhelm. When I have so many things that I want/need to do, like many Misfits, I can get so overwhelmed that I can’t get out of bed. This is related to #3, above, when I said that I have a hard time taking time off. I convince myself that I’m only wanting to lie in bed and read on a Sunday because I’m overwhelmed and avoiding. And y’all, it’s true—it can be hard to tell the difference.

Here’s my advice: if you are lying in bed unsure if you just need a break or if you’re avoiding because of overwhelm, Do One Thing. Pick one small task, I recommend something that takes about 20 minutes to complete, max. Do that one thing. If your brain perks up and says, Hey, I can do this! I feel much better now!, then you were overwhelmed, and my Do One Thing tactic broke the chokehold. But if you do the one thing and you’re like, That was nice, but now I’m certain I want to roll around in bed, then you just need a break.

(5) Work with a friend. I love this one. I have co-working sessions multiple times a week. They help me stay on track with my projects, but also remind me that I’m not alone in this thing I’m doing AND keep me grounded. If you are interested in learning more about co-working sessions for neurodivergent people, comment on this post. I’m going to start hosting one!

As always, feel free to share this letter with anyone who might need it. Love to you all.

-Katie

Dear Friends,

This morning, my online writing group came together like we do every Friday, and we were all feeling the same way: overwhelmed, exhausted, drowning. My wise friend said, It looks like we’re all in the muck.

Muck. Yes. That was exactly the right word.

Then Lisa suggested that we all take a moment to briefly describe the muck, name it. Then immediately after, name what we’re grateful for.

It was like a spiritual cleanse. A release.

For my part, my muck is this:

(1) I’ve been overwhelmed with the quantity of work that I’ve taken on. So much work, I don’t know where to begin. As someone with AuDHD, this feeling of intense overwhelm can lead to my not knowing where to start and avoiding the work completely.

(2) Then, at the same time, I feel like my work is pointless. I feel like I’m on a hamster wheel going nowhere fast. That the payoff that might come from all of this work is so far in the future it might never come. I’m shouting into the void. And this feeling is compounded by what I see as failure after failure (friends, the rejections from lit mags alone. I haven’t published short writing since this time last year.)

And of course, there’s the pointlessness of trying to do all of this work when the world is (still) on fire. Fire, everywhere. I know that art still matters, indeed it REALLY matters, in the face of injustice. But does MY art matter? Should I change what I’m doing to make it matter more? (Which sends me back the #1.)

And these things are only my professional life.

What it comes down to, for me, as someone with my neurodivergent traits who is also a human living on earth in 2026, is this:

• I feel like I’m only as good as my last win.

• I feel like any rejection is more powerful than any success. Failures LOOM. Successes fade.

• I feel like if my books aren’t earning money or my essays don’t have the imprimatur of a magazine, then they’re not worth reading. Publishing an essay here, on my blog, is a failure.

If you’re paying attention, you’ll see all of my hauntings lead to one place, summed up like this: What I produce equals how valuable and how lovable I am as a human being. I spend my life running away from a voice that whispers incessantly, You are not good enough.

Which, of course, is bullshit.

If you are in the muck, I recommend you try what we did today. Get out your notebook or preferred writing method and then write:

1. A *brief* list of the muck. Don’t dwell on it—just name it. Write “Muck,” underline it, then list it out.

2. A list of everything you’re grateful for. Beneath the muck, write “Grateful,” underline it, then list it out. But when you dive into what you are grateful for, don’t hold back. Write and write and tell stories about sledding with your kids and nieces and nephews on that amazing snow day, and how your kids are sensitive and loving and kind, and how your puppy has become your friend, not the same friend that your dog who died last year was, but a new kind of friend, and you love him too.

Times are dark. We need to focus on our gratitude more than ever.

This is a conversation space exclusively for subscribers—kind of like a group chat or live hangout. I’ll post questions and updates that come my way, and you can jump into the discussion.

Join chat

How to get started

1. Get the Substack app by clicking this link or the button below. New chat threads won’t be sent sent via email, so turn on push notifications so you don’t miss conversation as it happens. You can also access chat on the web.

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2. Open the app and tap the Chat icon. It looks like two bubbles in the bottom bar, and you’ll see a row for my chat inside.

3. That’s it! Jump into my thread to say hi, and if you have any issues, check out Substack’s FAQ.

I’m so glad you’re here.

Katie

Dear Friends,

Back in 1999, I enrolled in the Master’s program at the Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars, with a focus on literary nonfiction.

In the years since then, I’ve published many books, but not one was literary nonfiction.

And then, just last week, I submitted the manuscript to West Virginia University Press for my literary memoir, An Autistic Girl’s Guide to Horses.

I feel like I’ve accomplished something incredible (writing a literary memoir), but also that I’ve come full circle, back to the writing I always wanted to do, when I was just twenty-two and enrolling in the Hopkins program.

Of course, of course, I’m proud of the other books I’ve written. They are my life’s work. They help people. They change the world. (I also really like writing my romance novels, and there is a new trilogy coming soon.)

Writing AGATHA (I give all my books pronounceable acronyms), though, was a journey through something else altogether. It was a chance to go back to my roots.

And it was a chance to tell a story that I want to tell—without restrictions. To tell a ripping good story, to make jokes, to be free in a way I have never felt with my other books.

There’s something special in that freedom we feel when writing certain kinds of stories. And I hope that when people read the book, they feel that freedom inside them, too.

Of course, writing something so deeply personal inevitably causes some anxiety. After I wrote the first draft, I reviewed it closely to make sure that I was fair to all the characters of the story (whose names have been changed, but still)—because no one is only bad or only good. We are all human.

Even Darth Vader.

Look for it in 2027.

Speaking of anxiety...

Register now for my FREE, 1-hour, online masterclass on anxiety and accommodations in higher education. It is useful for teachers, parents, students, administrators, and anyone else who wants to learn more about anxiety (is it really on the rise? Is it really real? Spoiler: yes) and accommodations for students.

You can read all about it and register for it here; it is on April 15 at 4 pm ET.

If you can attend the live event, we will have a Q and A period where we always have good conversations.

If you can’t make it that day, register anyway, and you’ll get a link to the replay.

I hope to see you there.

Love,

Katie

Dear Friends,

As a neurodivergent writer, I don’t get up at the crack of dawn to write. I don’t write every day. And that’s okay.

There’s a lot of writing advice out there that can be harmful to neurodivergent people.

For example, have you ever seen the hashtag #5amwritersclub? Did it ever make you feel like a failure?

Not to criticize those who participate (many of whom are my friends), but that type of lifestyle isn’t for everyone (obviously).

And for neurodivergent people, getting up early every day can be harmful. We often need more sleep, more recovery time, more quiet time, and greater flexibility in our work.

We have also been slammed with guilt and feelings of inadequacy since birth. Knowing that my friends are out there at 5 a.m. writing books once made me feel terrible about myself—a habit that didn’t need any extra support. (I blocked the hashtag.)

Then, you also see this bad advice in almost every writing craft book out there: “Write every day.”

No. Just, no.

This advice is more shame fodder. Before I learned better self-acceptance, the underlying message to my vulnerable psyche that if I couldn’t write every day, I must not be serious about writing.

Neurodivergent people don’t need any more criticism about how lazy we are, or unable to comply, or inadequate in any other way.

I’m neurodivergent (autism, ADHD, and bipolar disorder). My brain dislikes rigid routines, and that’s okay. I have realized that I can’t sit down and write every day at the same time. Why?

My energy levels change daily. Some mornings, I wake up feeling foggy, while others I’m overstimulated.

Some afternoons, I hyperfocus and write 10 pages without blinking. Other days, I don’t write at all—and crash by 6 p.m.

Trying to force a writing schedule only creates shame. We’ve had enough of that.

So what can we do?

Neurodivergent writers need a different kind of routine—one rooted in self-awareness, rather than self-punishment.

Here are some ideas for what to do instead:

Track energy, not hours. Try noting when you feel most creative, not when you think you should be. Sometimes it’s at 8 p.m. Sometimes it’s during a lunch break.

Create flexible rituals. You may not open your laptop at 5 a.m., but you likely do have go-to cues: music, a weighted blanket, or a fun, specific drink that signals to my brain: “Hey, we’re safe to create, let's do this.’’

Honor REST as part of the process. Pausing isn’t failure—it’s part of the workflow. Taking a break doesn’t mean you are lazy. Breaks are how we reset and come back stronger and refreshed.

Redefine consistency. You don’t need to write every day. Figure out what consistent means to you and your body. Don’t force yourself into rigid routines that will fall apart.

The most important part of this process is letting go of the internalized shame that so many neurodivergent people possess. Writers already struggle. Let’s take the shame away.

Love to you,

Katie

Updates

(1) Please preorder my new book from Johns Hopkins University Press, YOUR KID BELONGS HERE: An Insider’s Companion to Parenting Neurodiverse Children. Preorders are a gift to authors.

(2) Check out my latest article: How Neurodiverse Parents Can Better Manage Chaos

(3) Check out this fabulous ebook deal going on now: THE POPPY WAR by R.F. Kuang is only 99 cents on all ebook channels. Here it is on Kobo. (Substack: )

Dear Friends,

You might recall that my dog, my friend, my deep companion Corey died earlier this year from a sudden-onset, untreatable cancer. It was horrible. It still hurts every day.

Last night, m…

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Dear Friends,

Some of you, like me, are feeling disheartened or even overwhelmed by what is happening with our systems of governance.

As a law professor with a specialty in disability and mental health law (and by virtue of that, constitutional law), I’m particularly overwhelmed by this administration’s approach to neu…

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No matter how prepared we are, grief catches us by surprise.

My dog, Corey, died yesterday, humanely euthanized after being diagnosed with terminal cancer two months ago.

She was my rock, my daily companion, my dear friend, my support. My company when my husband traveled. The wielder of the bark that scared away burg…

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When I tell people that I'm a neurodiversity-affirming or “neuroaffirming” writing coach, I usually get questions.

What does neuroaffirming mean? Do you only work with neurodivergen…

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The day my spouse, my best friend, my anchor, and my love turned 47 years old, my heart clenched with fear.

To be clear: My fear of aging is not a fear of decrepitude—not yet at any rate. I already have the aches and pains of a life well lived—banging my knees on moguls when I lived in Colorado in my 20s. Tearing up my ankle playing outdoor volleyball in…

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As we near the end of another semester, these topics become even more poignant. Let’s take a look at each one and learn from them.

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Dear Friends,

You might have noticed that my Substack got a facelift.

The original title referred back to when I was a full-time professor and how being neurodivergent “interrupted” that career trajectory.

But I am now a writer full-time and have been since 2014, and it’s time for my public face, such as this letter, to…

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As a neurodivergent author and neurodiversity-affirming writing coach, I often hear stories from other creative types about struggles with work-life balance and finding time for their creative work.

Just so you know where I’m coming from, I don’t like the phrase “work-life…

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Recently, I realized that I am lonely.

The loneliness did not come on all of a sudden. It crept in slowly—as friends moved away, as I quit a club that I’d been a part of for nearly a decade, and as I withdrew into my solitary work as a writer as deadline…

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I’m rereading Brené Brown’s Daring Greatly, and the first chapter always gets me. Especially when she talks about the fear of being ordinary.

“I see a shame-based fear of being ordinary. I see the fear of never feeling extraordinary enough to be noticed, to be lovable, to belong, or to cultivate a sense of purpose.”

“I know the yearning to …

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I wrote recently on both my blog and my Psychology Today column about the benefits of neurodivergent meltdowns. (Benefits? Yes.)

Here’s how I define a neurodivergent meltdown:

A strong emotional response to sensory or emotional overload, caused by either the build-up of small events or one large event, that releases the emotional overload a…

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Today is two weeks to the day after my second surgery. That means I’m finally allowed to bend down and pick up my phone when I drop it. Until now I’ve been relying on one of my teenagers to come get it for me.

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