ONE

I am neurodivergent.

To most others, I may seem only typical, but the firsthand experience of my life has been confusing and atypical. I’m among those ND people, many of us women, who received a late diagnosis in life. Among those who were never handed a framework or the language to wholly understand ourselves. And the thing about language is that when you don’t have the right words, either because they don’t yet exist or because you don’t know them, you sub in others. Some of my adjectives were super nice, standoffish, spacey, sensitive, emotionally intense, creative, chaotic, lazy, unreliable, sunny, depressive, weird, dramatic, incapable. But really the word I was looking for all my life was neurodivergent. Not to be dramatic, but learning that word was a rebirth of sorts, and I’m grateful.

TWO

I am the mother of neurodivergent kids.

Like me, they have mysterious ways of experiencing the world. Had they been born a generation earlier, when the word neurodivergent was not yet a part of the mainstream lexicon, when Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA) was not yet gaining recognition, they might’ve been labeled simply challenging, naughty, defiant, when they are actually none of these things. Had they been born before the internet, before social media (and this is a weird thing to say) their lives would be much more difficult. Because their mother goes to the internet everyday to fetch water, sustenance. To witness other mothers who experience the world in similar ways and learn how they’re building unique environments for their ND kids.

THREE

I’ve never had a more exciting idea than (DI)VERGE.

And I’ve had a lot of them. Ideas have never been shy with me. Most of my life, they have come in droves, fragile as vapor, eager for me to make them into more substantial forms of matter, but alas running into the brick wall of my executive dysfunction. Not so with (DI)VERGE. An exciting idea that aligned perfectly with my special interests? This I could do…

I’m so happy to see this idea taking shape in the digital realm. One day soon, I hope to hold in my hands a magazine, a tangible print version of this idea, mingling with the ideas of other ND creators. I realize this project hinges on the participation of others, on strangers, on you, but this only excites me because I know that every ND friend of mine has a hundred stories and creations to share. I know that there are thousands of ND people who I don’t yet know, who I hope connect with through this publication, who have stories and creations that need to be shared. Thank you, thank you, thank you for being here. 

Learn how to contribute to the magazine here.