Tag: trauma healing

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.

Masking / Passing, Relationships / Bullies / Friendships, Updates
Lyric, last year, deep in depression, with green hair and a black leather jacket.

Invisible & Drowning: My Negativity Was a Cry for Help – Toxic Positivity Kills: My Year of Being Told to Smile While Drowning

Lyric Holmans

When Your Rock Bottom Goes Unseen – Why Expressing Pain and Discomfort is a Disruption to the Status Quo and What Happens When You Can’t Fake Being Fine
Continue reading Invisible & Drowning: My Negativity Was a Cry for Help – Toxic Positivity Kills: My Year of Being Told to Smile While Drowning

Children & Families, Substack
Young Lyric, who believed they were doomed to hell, dressed as a black cat.

Religious Indoctrination of Children Is Child Abuse: Here’s Why I Won’t Apologize for Calling Religious Indoctrination Child Abuse.

Lyric Holmans

As a child, who was indoctrinated into the Christian faith, but struggled to believe what I was told “was the unquestionable truth,” I spent the first 11 years of my life terrified that I was going to hell (and was convinced that I was a bad person) because I couldn’t force myself to believe in Jesus and the Christian God (who I was told was the ONLY path to salvation and everyone who wasn’t a believer would go to hell). Continue reading Religious Indoctrination of Children Is Child Abuse: Here’s Why I Won’t Apologize for Calling Religious Indoctrination Child Abuse.

Substack
A selfie Lyric took recently. They’re in a black and white outfit and sitting in their RV, with their long hair down and smiling.

Society Trained Me to Swallow My Rage. My Autistic Self Said “No More.” – “Repression = Strength” Was a Dangerous Lie I Believed (Until My Diagnosis).

Lyric Holmans

The Forbidden Feeling: Why My Anger Terrified Me (And How I Made Peace With It) – The Cost of Swallowing Coals: How I Stopped Digesting Anger & Started Living.
Continue reading Society Trained Me to Swallow My Rage. My Autistic Self Said “No More.” – “Repression = Strength” Was a Dangerous Lie I Believed (Until My Diagnosis).