We Were Here and It Was Awful: Embracing our Authentic Selves in a Heavy World

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There’s a chance you’re reading this in a world that looks different than the one I’m standing in now.

I hope so.

Because the one I’m in? It’s heavy. And loud. And cruel in ways that dress themselves up as kindness or even "goodness." It’s a world where survival feels like a full-time job and being honest about who you are still costs more than most people can afford to pay.

We’re living inside the in-between. It's some grayish time after the breaking but before the rebuilding. Systems are cracking, people are unraveling, and so many of us are just trying to keep the lights on in our own heads. I don’t know if we’ll be remembered for anything noble. I think maybe we’ll be remembered for enduring.

If the air feels softer

And I don’t have a sweeping manifesto to leave you. No polished bow on this. I just want you to know: if you're standing in something softer now - if the air feels more breathable where you are - it didn’t happen by accident.

Countless people held the line for that.

We did.

We were tired. So tired. Our hearts were threadbare. Our nervous systems frayed from years of pretending the volume didn’t hurt.

We weren’t marching through the streets every day. Some of us couldn’t even leave the house.

But we were holding ground in quieter ways - setting boundaries that shattered our families, leaving jobs that couldn’t see us, choosing truths that made us inconvenient to love.

Quiet acts of resistance

We made casseroles for queer kids who'd been kicked out of their homes. We slipped cash to strangers online just trying to keep the lights on. We texted each other at 3am to say, I still see you. Don’t disappear.

We weren’t always loud, but we were here.

Some days, it looked like rage. Other days, it looked like collapse. Sometimes it was just one text sent or one spoon saved. But it was always resistance. It was always a refusal to disappear.

And gods, it was lonely.

What it actually felt like

People called us sensitive. Difficult. Dramatic. They told us we were imagining things. They smiled while they erased us. All while they expected gratitude for it.

We weren’t always graceful. Some of us snapped. Some of us shut down. We made mistakes. We lost people. We grieved versions of ourselves we thought we were supposed to be. And we grieved in private, mostly - because being visible was dangerous.

We stayed anyway

But we kept living. Not because it was brave, but because it was necessary. Because some part of us - the truest part - believed there needed to be a future worth getting to.

Maybe you’re living in it now.

If you are, please - don’t tell our stories like we were heroes. Don’t wrap our pain in neat endings. Don’t skip the part where it broke us.

Tell them we were real.

Tell them we were human.

Tell them we hurt in ways that stole the air from our lungs.

Then tell them why it matters that we stayed anyway.

-Elle

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Want to keep exploring beyond the future of neurodivergent survival?

This space is still new, but it’s already full of big questions, half-formed truths, and stories about neurodivergent survival or others that might sound a little like yours.

If you’re curious where to go next, here are a few places to wander:

• Safety Nets I've Stitched for Myself: Why Autistic Safety Systems Matter

  For me, safety is about understanding how easily the world can misread me, how quickly my own brain can work against me if I push too hard, and how I’ve had to become both my own advocate and my own accommodation just to navigate the supposedly “ordinary” parts of life.

  
  

• When Narcissists Target Neurodivergent People

  Being tangled up with someone who twists your words, rewrites your memories, and makes you doubt what’s real is a hallmark of narcissistic abuse of neurodivergent people - and you are not imagining it.

  
  

• The Queer Neurodivergent Life Map Quickstart (free download)

  A gentle, self-paced journal for autistic, ADHD, AuDHD, queer or otherwise neurodivergent women who are ready to unmask, unlearn, and rewrite their story from the inside out.

Or, if you just want to be here quietly, you can join the list and I’ll send new things your way when they’re ready. No pressure. No performance.

I love that you’re here.