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“What excites me… is that I’m literally making a career out of being different.”
This. OMG THIS. ALL THE THIS.
I’ve been fifty shades of “different” all my life. Born with a medical condition that could *technically* kill me except it was “under control” (except the rare times it wasn’t, and then off to the ER we go) – so I was told it didn’t count as a disability. Neurodivergent in a time before even the *concept* for that word existed. And “gifted and talented”. From the time I started school I got the narrative that I Must Not Stand Out In Any way Ever Ever Ever (except academics, which I was good at), because standing out draws attention, and *any* attention would get a giant-ass target drawn on my back. So I learned to make myself as small and invisible as humanly possible as much of the time as possible, because they can’t pick on you if they never see you.
Long story short, I ended up with that target on my back anyway, mostly because I am absolute shit at even trying to lie, and I couldn’t (still can’t) high-mask to save my own life or anybody else’s.
<<<SKIP a lot of years of living with C-PTSD I didn’t know I had, most of it from “lifelong medical trauma” and LOTS of school bullying>>>
Flash WAY forward. Here’s me, in the counseling private practice I’ve been dreaming of since, I shit you not, age sixteen. Standing in service to (to date) thirty neurodivergent and/or LGBTQ+ humans who’ve mostly wanted more than anything else to feel seen, heard, understood, and *not so fucking alone.* And you know how I give them that? By being able to say, with all my heart and all my truth from a place of utter authenticity, “I get that. I really *get* that. Because I’m one too.”
*Damn* I love my work.
- This reply was modified 10 months, 3 weeks ago by Megan Matthews.