Tag: childhood trauma

Masking / Passing, SubstackLeave a comment
Lyric, years ago, with long black hair and pale skin from staying indoors, dressed as in a red hood and red and silver mask.

Growing Up Not Knowing About My Neurodivergent (Autistic and ADHD) Brain and What I Wish I Had Understood Sooner

Lyric Holmans

Question for my late-identified Neurodivergent readers: Is there anything you wish you’d known or understood sooner?

If you could give one piece of advice to your younger, unidentified self, what would it be?

I am Neurodivergent, but I didn’t know it (or even what Neurodivergence or Neurodiversity was) for most of my life.

Being diagnosed Autistic, at the age of 29, a few months shy of my 30th birthday, during a mental health crisis, turned my world upside down. It also saved my life. Continue reading Growing Up Not Knowing About My Neurodivergent (Autistic and ADHD) Brain and What I Wish I Had Understood Sooner

Children & Families, Family, Masking / PassingLeave a comment
Young Lyric, with long black hair and a blank expression, was wearing a paper hat they had made, with a stuffed bulldog beside them as they stood in front of a bookshelf in their grandparent’s home.

Reaching My Breaking Point – I Used to Think My Detachment Was a Superpower. It Was Actually a Survival Skill.

Lyric Holmans

For much of my life, I felt like a passenger in my own body, but a few years ago, after reaching my breaking point when my grandfather and then our oldest dog Rocky both passed away within a few short weeks of one another, something inside me started to change rapidly.

Before that point, I’d been managing. Yet, this moment, holding my grandfather’s hand as they pulled the plug, and then doing the same with Rocky, as his kidneys failed soon after (when we decided the kindest thing we could do for him was to let him go), ended up becoming a tipping point (one that sent all of my carefully balanced dominoes tumbling down). Continue reading Reaching My Breaking Point – I Used to Think My Detachment Was a Superpower. It Was Actually a Survival Skill.