What does this look like for you? Have you noticed this too? Tell me in the comments! #neurodivergent #autism #adhd #mentalhealth #psychology #autistic #dyslexia #dyslexic #criticalthinking #problem #problemsolved #work #corporatelife #audhd #gifted

Neurodivergent people often think so differently to neurotypicals, it's my Roman empire. Like the amount of masking I do to pretend that I agree with the neurotypical approach to critical thinking is wild. A lot of neurotypical people seem to critically think and problem solve kind of like a train line. You know, it's getting from point A to point B. There may be barriers or stops on the way, but at the end of the day, we just want to go in a straight line. I don't evaluate a train line one by one. I evaluate a train system all at the same time. And I want to optimize which one's best. So I'm not just going to look at A to B, I'm going to look at it like a spider web. Like imagine how a spider web would connect the lines between my knuckles. And because this happens for me in a matter of seconds, like I can map out months worth of consequences they don't see till they get there. And they see this as like an unnecessary delay. Like let's just go ahead and get started and see how it goes. A lot of neurotypicals seem to wait till there's a blockage in the plan, then they consider plan B. In corporate culture, they're like, we need dynamic people, this is a fast paced environment. It's like, it's not, you just didn't plan it right. That's not to criticize them. Their brilliance comes in the way they develop social bonds in these times of struggle. The bureaucracy got us, we didn't anticipate this. Let's bond over our hardship and find a solution together. Whereas I show care by avoiding the problem to begin with. And they don't appreciate this because in their view, we're just delaying the start date unnecessarily. They're happy to extend the deadline a thousand times if it means they get to build their social bonds along the way. And when things go wrong, I get to mask even more. I get to pretend I didn't point it out well in advance. And then I get to pretend I'm fine with adapting when we shouldn't have to. And they're all bonding and I'm feeling more and more alienated. The kicker is when they try to use this as a reason to tell me my thinking is rigid. And I'm like, really? Because this doesn't seem as rigid as this does to me. I get tense when things go wrong, not because I'm rigid and inflexible, but because I suggested that this problem was gonna happen three months ago, gave you this exact same solution. Nobody believed me. And now all of a sudden a neurotypical person says it and it's innovative and brilliant. Like the curse of Cassandra who had the gift of foresight, but that nobody would ever believe her.