Hi Reader,

Last week, I shared a general sense of stuckness I’ve been feeling lately — or perhaps for much of my life. First, I want to thank everyone who responded. I received close to 200 emails, each brimming with thoughtfulness, depth, curiosity, and shared struggles. I’m grateful for the wisdom and humanity you offered.

This week, I want to share a story from my childhood that seems to echo through my life — a story that might just resonate with some of you, too.

[This newsletter discusses topics that may be sensitive for those who have lost someone to drowning. Please proceed with care.]

As a child, I really, really wanted to be a mermaid. To say The Little Mermaid was a special interest would be an understatement. I’d beg to go to McDonald’s just for The Little Mermaid toys in their Happy Meals, spending hours with them in the bath. I’d rewatch the movie obsessively, dreaming of how I could invent something that would make me a functional mermaid. I’d fantasize that mermaids were real … you’re getting the point. It was a fantasy and a special interest all rolled into one.

There are plenty of reasons for this, but one stands out: I loved water. But my relationship with summer pools was more complicated. The pool was loud, chaotic, bright, and unpredictable.

Kids splashing water and shouting nearby, the sun glaring off the surface, hurting my eyes — it was all too much. So, I found a sanctuary: I would close my eyes and sit at the bottom of the pool (in the shallow end), cross-legged, for as long as my lungs would allow. Down there, the noise and chaos was muted. Of course, I couldn’t stay submerged forever. I’d eventually float back to the surface for a gulp of air, dreading the moment I re-emerged.

Under the water was slow, quiet, peaceful. But as soon as I surfaced, the overwhelm of light, sound, and chaos hit me all at once. So, I’d take a deep breath and dive back under, craving that brief respite.

Several years ago, during therapy, I mentioned this story, and it has since become a metaphor for how I navigate life. When I’m not immersed in the slow, deep rhythm of monotropic flow, I feel overwhelmed — dragged around by my brain from task to task, much like the unpredictable kids splashing nearby. The pings and pongs of the world pull me in every direction, and I find myself frantically searching for the next opportunity to dive back under, into the quiet of monotropic flow.

In conversation with a psychoanalyst, we explored a few questions: How does one make a home underwater when they are, in fact, not a mermaid? How does one feel at home in a world that doesn’t support a monotropic brain?

Earlier this year, I came across an article suggesting that the diagnostic criteria for autism could be re-imaged through a more affirming framework – that of monotropism and Autistic flow theory. Given my pool metaphor, this resonated deeply. And when life interrupts my ideal state, distress follows.

I believe all humans feel some tension between the demands of the modern world and the desire for deeper, slower thinking. Years ago, I read an essay by the poet Christian Wiman, where he reflected on the collective strain of living in a society fragmented by too much:

“But the reality of contemporary American life—which often seems like a kind of collective ADHD — is that any consciousness requires a great deal of resistance, and how does one relax and resist at the same time?”

— Christian Wiman

While I’m unsure about the metaphorical use of ADHD, Wiman's idea that consciousness requires resistance — and the simultaneous challenge of relaxing and resisting — perfectly captures a tension I frequently feel.

And this tension between neurology and environment is even more deeply felt by those of us who thrive in deep, slow thinking.

Last week a reader from New Zealand shared with me that: in Māori, the word for autism is takiwātanga, meaning “in their own time and space.”

I love this definition — it reflects what I was trying to find underwater as a child. It’s also why managing life — which involves collaborative coordination with time and space — can be so challenging for me.

Last week, I reflected on how to get unpaused and realized I’d been diving underwater defensively. There are two ways to submerge oneself: one is for the joy, pleasure, and delight of it — like deep-sea divers searching for beauty, adventure, and discovery. The other is as a form of escape — to get away from the overwhelming splashes, bright lights, and chaos above. (And, of course, there can be elements of both, where it’s both a move toward something and away from something.)

Too often, I slip into hyperfocus as a defense mechanism — a reaction to overwhelm, what I’ve come to call “Defensive Monotropic Mode.”

I realized the key to unpausing isn’t to spend less time in monotropic flow, but to intentionally make my life more monotropic-friendly — so I don’t feel the constant need to escape.

That’s my experiment for this season: creating a life that invites monotropic flow and is more monotropic-friendly, with fewer spaces that force my attention to splinter, so I don’t feel the need to defensively immerse myself as much.

I’ll be sharing experiments and practices as I go through this process (you can look for them in the Weekly Roundup). This week, I’ve been exploring how to set the tone for the day with monotropic flow (read more in the Monotropic Tip of the Week).

However you’re spending your attention this weekend, I wish you some deep, restorative pockets of flow state.

★彡 Neurodivergent Insights Weekly Roundup ★彡

Monotropic Tip

This tip was inspired by one of our newsletter readers, K. David Smith, LCSW, who shared with me last week the power of starting each day in monotropic flow. I realized I’d been starting my day with tasks that splinter my attention (like email and checking in with my team), which set a chaotic tone for the day, leading me to dive into monotropic projects defensively to escape the overwhelm.

Because I love alliteration, I’ve dubbed this little ritual “Monotropic Mornings” and have started my day with singular-focus tasks. I’ve noticed a powerful shift — it sets a focused tone for the day, and I’ve felt more bandwidth for the inevitable “boppy” things that come my way. It’s a practice I plan to continue and invite you to try.

If you do, feel free to tag me on social media (neurodivergent_insights) with #MonotropicMornings — I’d love to see photos of what monotropic mornings look like for others! Who knows, maybe we can make this a thing. 😊

New Blog Post

This week, we continued our neurodiverse communication series with a post on the double empathy problem, exploring the context leading up to Dr. Milton’s theory and the theory itself.

Read Here

Visual Education

For those who prefer visual content, I created an abbreviated version of the blog post available on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook. You can check it out on instagram below.

See Here

New on the Podcast

This week, we wrapped up our ND entrepreneur series with Maureen Werrbach. I’m not sure how much we actually talked about entrepreneurship, we ended up talking about the person behind the entrepreneur, authenticity, and vulnerability.

Listen Here

Labor Day Weekend Sale

Capitalism is so weird — every holiday turns into an excuse for a sale. I always feel a bit weird about it, but I also enjoy giving people a chance to grab my products at a discount, and I aim to do this at least once a month. So, this weekend, you can enjoy 30% off with the code WellnessWeekend.

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