This video was shot and released to Patreon, YouTube, and Facebook subscribers on June 1, 2021. It’s public release date is June 23, 2021.

NeuroDivergent Polyamory – Autistic NonConformity in My Relationships

Humans NeuroRebel here, also known as Lyric, and, gosh, this month has been a busy month.

So far, I’ve spoken about being neurodivergent and LGBTQIA plus, and if there’s a connection to that, and I also shared about being pansexual.

I shared my journey as a binary human, when one of you asked “how might you know if you are non-binary” in the video about my personal enby journey.

I also threw in a video about why we need to teach boundaries and consent to Autistic People. A last minute addition, because of relevant current events that made this a necessary, unfortunately.

 Today I’m going to talk to you and share a little bit more about my own personal journey, part of my identity, and that I am and always have been polyamorous.

And if you would like to know more about what this means for me as an autistic neurodivergent human. Please do stay tuned.

First, let’s do a definition that doesn’t come from me because, I like to start off with something.  Then we’ll dissect it a little bit.

 According to Queering Psychology, who is an NYS licensed psychotherapist, L M H C, who describes themselves as “a Black queer man from the Bronx who wants to rip his peoples and psychotherapist and mental health counselor, who wants to share his knowledge.”

Fantastic.   I love this blog. I recommend you check it out, if you don’t already Queering Psychology, really good stuff on there and they define polyamory as well.

First, a polyamorous person is someone who can date, commit to, and/or love more than one. Person.

Polyamory involves being in multiple relationships with multiple people and building connections, feelings, and commitments with more than one person.

 Each relationship is going to look different, depending on the situation and the needs of the people in each relationship. In polyam none of the relationships are secret. Every relationship has its boundaries and commitment, depending on what the people in the relationship or relationships want. End quote.

 Ooh. Now let me humanize this for you from a personal sort of perspective, as someone who has known that they are capable of having feelings for more than one person at a time for many years, since middle school at a very young age.

Now, because not all stories are going to be mine to tell, I am going to be speaking today from my perspective, as a polyamorous human being, not speaking of any of my  partners or our specific relationships. Still I think I can share a lot with you and respect people’s rights to privacy and hopefully be a bit educational today.

 As I mentioned earlier, polyamorous, people are able to have multiple relationships with multiple people at one time.

And this is going to extend beyond casual one night stands, swinging, or flings – though, there is nothing wrong with these types of relationships, if that is what you’re into, as long as you aren’t hurting people and you have partners who are also okay and concenting with this type of relationship. Yes.

 As polyamorous humans, we are capable of having deep love for more than one partner at a time.

 It’s not just an excuse to go wild and run around with no consequences and escape commitment, and not answer to anyone. 

It’s quite the opposite. There is a lot of commitment and communication.   It’s not a free pass for bad behavior, like some people might want to believe, and those attitudes aren’t helpful. They’re very hurtful, because they stigmatize polyamorous people.

 I have known that my affections work this way since I was in middle school. I also believe that being autistic has led me to where this part of my identity on my sleeve, like the rest of my sexual orientation without shame  or explanation for many years, despite the possibility of this being potentially the most taboo part of my identity, and it shouldn’t be, I’m not ashamed, but in fact, in my state and my country,  if you want to get technical, polyamory is a crime and we cannot legally marry more than one partner, if we wanted to. So there are still some problems for polyamorous people right now.

 We don’t have the same rights to our relationships as monogamous people do because the society that has been set up is a very  monogamous  dominated society.

 According to the polyamory society, “polyamory emphasizes consciously choosing how many partners, one wishes to be involved with rather than accepting social norms, which dictate loving only one person at a time.”

Social norms. Oh, those again? Yeah. You see, part of the way I am impacted by being Autistic is that I often don’t see the point of a lot of social norms.

 I don’t see why I should follow them and I have always been this way, since I was a very young person, long before finding out I was Autistic at the age of 29, almost five years ago now.

 Suddenly everything makes sense. Just another one of those social norms.  I’ve got a big lack thereof.

With polyamorous relationships, just like with every relationship, each relationship is unique, because they tend to all have different dynamics and naturally just be at different stages and maturity levels. That will also depend on the needs of the individuals in the relationship.

Different partners tend to support each other in various ways.  This can actually be a really great way for NeuroDivergent People,  or any human, to grow a better support network, so you’re not always leaning on only one person to support you all the time.

 Just gonna throw that out there really quick.  Also, when looking at the different kinds of relationships and differences in relationships, new relationships tend to be more hot and spicy as I like to say, hot, hot, hot,  and unfortunately, also tend to be more unstable and more difficult to maintain, despite the hot, fresh excitement  that is new lovin’.

Old relationships can grow and become very calm, reliable, and easier over time and it’s important to nurture and give attention to those old relationships and not let the fires go out, so to speak.

Polyamorous relationships, take work, honesty, and communication.

Communication is very, very, important for ethical non-monogamous relationships to work and none of the relationships can be secret. It’s not cheating because everything is out in the open, all cards on the table.

 Literally seeing cards everywhere, like a deck of cards and a green poker table, because I’m Autistic and I’m visual. I’m seeing it right now…

 For all parties involved.

Because I’m, Multipli, MeuroDivergent Autistic ADHD, communication can be complicated, especially when trying to communicate more abstract concepts, such as feelings and emotions.

I think visually, in videos and pictures, then texts, and I can translate text to speech.

Believe it or not. I’m reading a script right now, but these concepts do not have visual representations in my mental space.

 This means I need a lot of time and space and possibly a keyboard  to think very frequently.  I need partners who understand this.

Also to ease the complexities of communication, I do find that communicating with other NeuroDivergent people does seem to be easier than communicating with neuro-typical people.

 Because of this, being in relationships with neurodivergent people I find to be easier and it would be easier for me than being in a relationship with a neuro-typical person  because, unfortunately, neurotypical people don’t seem to understand my feelings or my more intense experience of the world and that’s hard.

 Nothing against neuro-typical people. I’m not saying I would never date an NT person. Okay. That’s not, I’m saying. Don’t put words in my mouth, before you go there.

I’m just saying dating someone who’s not NeuroDivergent is more complex, and it would require a lot more work on both ends, because of the communication and processing differences.

Plus the difference in life experience of being in the neuromajority versus being in the neurominority. Which could honestly be an entire video. Let me know if you wanted me to do a video on that topic. That could be a big one  drop a comment, let me know.

There are also many different types of polyamorous relationships, too many to get into this video, because we are actually already over time.

 If you Google “different types of polyamorous relationships”, I am fairly sure a ton of resources will quickly pop up for you and, luckily, polyamorous people are starting to open up about their lives, despite us still being very heavily stigmatized in many parts of the world.

 Being polyamorous might even get you laid off from a job these days still, because we’re deemed as having a moral behavior, sometimes.

Baby steps, small bits of progress, right?

Just like being Queer, Autistic NeuroDivergent, et cetera, we have to humanize the issues, and show that polyamorous people are just people. Humans just trying to live their lives.

Nothing to see here bye move on, move on.

All right. Thanks for hanging out with me this week and an off topic video from the normal Autism and NeuroDiversity stuff I normally put out, but with a NeuroDiversity spin, talking about being Autistic and being polyamorous. I hope this has been helpful to you.

Don’t forget to subscribe and turn on notifications, especially if you’re new, because I do put out new videos each and every Wednesday.

A special, thank you to the Patreon Subscribers, YouTube subscribers and Facebook supporters who do that a little bit of a monetary subscription. You humans got this video early.

I shot it on June 1st and it’s not going to come out till much later in the month. It was just a little thank you to those of you for the support that you give.

I’m actually really grateful for any of you that are here, watching interacting, sharing, commenting, giving your ideas, feedback, and video suggestions, keep dropping those, keep doing them. I like to talk about the things that you want to hear about.

 I couldn’t do it without you. I’m really grateful for each and every one of you. Thank you all humans.

I will talk to you next Wednesday. Bye.

Help me get the word out!!! – If you like what I do, and would like more, please consider subscribing on Patreon. This blog is made possible by support from readers like YOU!  (Sharing my content is also, equally helpful!)

With gratitude, Lyric