4 Ways To Connect To Your Queer Neurodivergent Self.
Sometimes I look back at the first year I came out as a lesbian when I was 34 and I feel so much tenderness and compassion for how much I desperately wanted to be seen. It had taken me SO long to arrive at my queerness, so long to first whisper to myself “I think I’m a lesbian” and then to come out to family, friends, random strangers on the internet. So many years of thinking “everyone feels this way” and thinking how I felt in my intimate relationships was due to trauma or being “sexually broken.”
So at first I performed my queerness. I explored it. I tended to it, I honored it, I whispered sweet nothings to it. But I secretly wanted the women I dated to SEE my queerness, to see and celebrate my femmeness, to fall in love with my queer joy & pleasure. But even when a woman I dated looked at a picture of my baby gay pre-teen self and said “Wow, you were such a gay kid” and even when I was constantly told “wow, you’re really femme” I still felt like I desired to be seen in an even deeper way.
I think so many of us who either come out later in life or realize we’re neurodivergent later in life (or both!) have this deep desire and unmet need to feel seen & celebrated in our authentic selves. When we consider that so many of us grew up with unmet childhood needs around our queerness and our neurodivergence-it makes so much sense that there is such a deep desire to get those needs met as an adult. But sometimes being seen and celebrated can be complicated. Perhaps due to trauma we grew up with this secret sense that we didn’t matter or that our needs weren’t important. Sometimes even identifying a need feels big and scary. Sometimes imposter syndrome rears it’s head and we feel this need to prove our queerness and/or to prove that we’re autistic. So we might perform, people please, mask and still often feel unmet in our deepest desires of feeling seen.
Here are a few ways you might tend to your beautiful needs of feeling seen and celebrated in your queer and neurodivergent self:
1.) Tend to Your Queer & Neurodivergent Goodness.
By goodness I mean tending to your queer and neurodivergent health, joy, magic, innate wisdom, pleasure, authentic self. So often our queer and neurodivergent goodness can get covered up with things like trauma, compulsory heterosexuality, internalized ableism, shame. But underneath that gunk, lies your natural queer and neurodivergent goodness.
What are some ways you might tend to it?
What are some ways you might connect to it?
How might you perhaps amplify your queer and neurodivergent goodness even more?
2.) Plumping Up Your Worthiness Muscle.
A lot of us might have received the messages that we weren’t worthy, or that we had to prove our worthiness or that it wasn’t okay to have needs. A big part of coming home to ourselves can be reminding ourselves that we are born worthy and that we never have to prove our worthiness. This could look like doing trauma resolution with a trained coach or therapist, doing inner child healing work or gently reminding yourself of how worthy you are. You might start a practice of gently reminding yourself that you matter so much.
3.) What are your queer and neurodivergent unmet needs?
So many of us queer and neurodivergent adults didn’t get the queer and neurodivergent specific care we deserved as kids. By care I mean:
Being fully seen in our beautiful and authentic queer and neurodivergent selves.
Having access to queer and neurodivergent resources and representation.
Getting our specific queer and neurodivergent needs met. This could look like receiving queer sex education or having a parent support you with your sensory needs.
Being celebrated in your beautiful queer and/or neurodivergent authentic selves. Being witnessed and celebrated in your queerness and neurodivergent selves.
You might make a list of your unmet needs. Notice what comes up when you make the list. You might feel sad, angry or even grief. Perhaps see if you can welcome those emotions in, you might extend a loving word or gesture like “you’re welcome here” or “it’s okay for you to be here.”
4.) Find a way to get those needs met now as an adult.
Here’s the tender truth: it can feel scary and tender to ask someone to meet an unmet childhood need. But it can also feel so damn healing to get our childhood unmet needs met now as an adult. But instead of wishing that someone would celebrated our queerness or wishing that a friend would fully witness our autistic self-we can do something much more simple:
We can ask. We can advocate for our needs. We can also explore ways others might meet those needs and how we can meet those needs ourselves. I find that the best combination of meeting these unmet needs is in ourselves and also in the context of relationships. That way we have access to both internal and external ways to meet those needs now as an adult.
Here are some doable things you might do to feel celebrated and seen in my queerness and autistic self:
Make a Google Doc with your partner/friend/loved one and have it be a space to celebrate each other’s neurodivergence and/or queerness. You could share compliments, witnessing, reflections. It’s a living document to celebrate each other and to receive celebrations, compliments and loving reflections.
Played the compliment game with loved ones. This is a game I learned from Rachael Maddox and it basically consists of setting a timer for 2-3 minutes and asking your loved one to celebrate you in a specific way. “Hey babe, can you celebrate me and really honor my queerness? I feel this deep desire to be seen in my queer femmeness.” Then you get to receive the celebrations and then you switch. It’s fun, it’s easy, it’s healing.
I’m a big fan of writing love letters to my queer and autistic self. I write these letters and celebrate all the glorious, beautiful and loving things about my queer and autistic self. It meets the need to feel seen and heard in my queer and autistic self.
Online & in person community. It can make us feel so seen and celebrated when we engage in community whether that’s in person, in a support or social group or by watching TikToks. Maybe you see someone stim and it makes your autistic self feel so seen. Maybe someone shares a story about coming out later in life and it makes you feel seen and heard in your queerness. You might meet the need of feeling seen and celebrated through consuming content or making your own and receiving others comments and reactions.
Whether you’ve recently come out and/or realized you’re neurodivergent or have known you’re queer and neurodivergent for a long time, it can be supportive to tend to your queer and neurodivergent self in small doable ways. These small steady steps of connecting to your queer and neurodivergent self add up over time and can have a big impact. My hope is that you too feel seen and celebrated in your queer and neurodivergent authentic self-both by yourself and by those that love you.
The information contained in this blog post is for general educational and informational purposes only and should not be construed as medical or mental health advice. The information provided is not a substitute for advice from a qualified professional who is aware of the facts and circumstances of your individual situation. We expressly recommend that you seek advice from a professional familiar with your specific situation.
If you’d like 1:1 support in queer and neurodivergent trauma resolution, somatic healing and steady support-I’d love to support you. You can find out more information about working with me here. Also craving more stories and queer & neurodivergent goodness? Make sure to subscribe to my Queer Autistic Newsletter that comes out weekly on Substack.