Neurodivergence

Yes, but here's the trick: No one will be sitting around at the end of your life with a checklist of what you should have accomplished.

While there's a gratification to pushing yourself and your limits, there is also gratification to be found in just being. In enjoying where you are and what you have.

Slow progress is still progress. The ability to do amazing in bursts doesn't mean that you can keep up that effort/quality constantly, which is what many "normies" and authority figures when you're young seem to miss.

You're the one who gets to choose what you try to compete at, and the older I get the more comfortable I am with just competing against my own self. Myself a day ago, a month ago, a few years ago.

We didn't underachieve, society shut us out.

I was told that I was smart and great at school, that I'd get some cool job like working in a lab, but those are just platitudes when you're unable to get disciplined or function consistently at your max.

And honestly, so far in my life I feel its been a blessing in disguise - while I did go for education in a specific field, graduated and failed to get a job, working simpler uneducated jobs does give a degree of freedom. You can take up odd jobs, work in a factory or in a shop if you want - whatever doesn't require a specific degree and can switch between these jobs when you kinda feel like it going for jack-of-all-trades type of build, while if you got a well-paying specialization then it's what you're pushed to be stuck doing for the rest of your life.

Maybe that's secretly my brain coming up with cope, but experiencing new things constantly for lower pay > high pay specialized work you're doing forever.

Yeah, turns out you can't realize your potential when healthcare is restricted. I was "smart" but "needs to try harder", and you really can't just "try harder" your way out of neurological problems.

Turns out that I've got some white matter hyperintensities my neurologist says is scarring from getting abused as a child, and I have a small tumor in my thalamus. I'm due for another MRI to see if the glioma has grown at all, so fingers crossed my insurance situation doesn't change between then and now, because I can't afford it otherwise.

I started seeing this from a different perspective: if the people who've told me this were thinking of themselves and others like them as examples of fulfillment when referring to my potential, then am I friggin' glad I fell off!

Wanna know why? Because I know for a fact most of them were miserable until the day they died. Well, not all of them are dead, but of those that died... you get it... My point, at least I've had some damned fine moments while doing it my way! I won't regret the story I'll leave behind.

all those adults' ignorant "encouragement" (guilt-tripping) turned out to be just more toxic positivity (toxic toxicity)