Dear neurokin,

One of the things I learned to do from an early age was hide. I don’t mean play hide and seek, because when I hide I do not want anyone to see or find me.

I learned to make myself so quiet and small that I was almost invisible.

In my twenties and thirties I pushed myself way beyond my comfort zone to be seen in order to progress my career. And to numb the overwhelm by partying hard. I was plagued with reoccurring burn out and crushing self loathing.

Discovering my neurodivergence illuminated why I found all of that so hard to bear.

Sometimes my hiding serves me well, it allows me recovery time.

Mostly, these days, I battle with it. Because sometimes I really want to do the thing, go to the talk, speak up and ask a question, give the talk myself or simply join in with the fun.

I feel paralysed, stuck in freeze mode, dithering and listening to a self saboteur who tell’s me:

Living well in plain sight

One of the things I’m navigating right now is learning to get comfortable again with being seen in the world.

Only this time I am learning how to show up as myself.

I know it’s causing me anxiety because my dreams are telling me so. I’m know, talking about your dreams can be considered boring. But, they give us so many clues as to what is troubling us and here’s what my dream told me.

I was a choir master, I had a huge choir awaiting my instructions and I couldn’t find the right music for the choir to sing. I was leafing through a huge pile of paper and I could not find what I was looking for and all eyes were on me. It was so stressful! They were a patient choir but I felt mortified, humiliated that I couldn’t find the music sheets and that I was so evidently overwhelmed.

I have ambitions to get myself back ‘out there’ with some of the work I want to do. And I am scared of pushing myself out into the open. The dream seemed to be telling me something pretty significant about leadership.

I’m a believer in ‘be the change you want to see.’ There is so much change I want to see, to be drive the change, but I don’t want anyone to see me!

Summer Solstice

Spirituality, meditating and guided visualisations are a vital source of creativity for me. So many of my ideas or realisations come when I explore my inner world.

I was invited to join a summer solstice gathering under a beautiful willow tree in the Sussex countryside on the morning of 21st June. It was to be led by a wonderful creative woman, who I always feel at ease with .

Oh how I dithered about whether I should go.

It was the first weekend my children were staying with their Dad since we separated earlier this year. I didn’t know how I would feel when they were gone for the first time.

Like anyone who has gone through a major life change I’m feeling pretty emotionally and energetically wrung out.

I made a million excuses in my head about why I couldn’t go. I could also feel an instinctive nudge that was saying to me ‘Go. This is what you need’

I was generously welcomed into the amazing home of the host and embraced by some women I knew and some I’d never met before. I was soon to learn that each and every one there are creatively brilliant women; writers, musicians, artists, healers, designers and makers.

Sometimes this can either make me go a bit too perform’y or muted and frozen in awe of them.

I did neither of those things, because I’m learning to gently show up as myself.

As my self esteem is growing, especially in the last year, I find it is becoming easier to reassure myself that I don’t need to perform.

When we were invited to come and make our floral crowns and to learn about the significance of all the flowers and herbs, that had been gathered for us, we all got immersed in the making of our individual creations.

My crown making is on a par with my reef making skills i.e not naturally splendid. I loved it anyhow and noticed that my fret levels were lower. The ritual of making it amongst these women was the real treat.

Then, under the magnificent willow tree we all sat in a circle on huge patterned blankets, with different textured colourful cushions scattered all around us. Birdsong surrounded us in this tranquil summer countryside.

We relaxed and let ourselves be spiritually guided to imagine what was opening up for us in images and symbols.

Then we quietly poured our thoughts onto paper; words, symbols, shapes, colours. Which we started to talk about with those sitting nearest to us.

I sensed we were all at some kind of turning points in our lives. We were the right people to be here, receiving the love and creativity that was being shared and experienced.

Should I stay or should I go?

We were invited to stay for lunch.

I could feel an inner tussle, I was having such a lovely time and I knew I could converse on a deeper level if I stayed. Along with the urge to make an early exit.

For me, a lot of this life beyond neurodivergent discovery is about tuning in on my energy and anxieties and trusting my instincts.

I stayed for the most delicious lunch. I enjoyed a lot of belly laughs and made some deeper connections.

I drove home so happy that I had showed up, dared to step out of my comfort zone and had the most deliciously nurturing experience.

I am learning that I can come and join in on my own terms.

I think I might be ready for more gentle nudges to step into the light and settle into what has been quietly transforming in me throughout this decade.

As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

1. How do you feel about being seen?

2. How does hiding help you?

3. How does it hinder?

4. Where do you want to show up in the world?

5. What quality in yourself do you want to shine?

Leave a comment

Thanks for reading,

Andrea xx

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Dear neurokin,

It was refreshing to see some wise words, amongst the nonsense and noise on instagram this week. My time spent there is fleeting these days. Reading these words felt like a relief:

It felt like a relief because it was acknowledgment that boundaries and the self belief it …

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Maybe one of the biggest tell tale signs of autism is difficulty in making eye contact. It doesn’t mean we can’t make eye contact and those high maskers amongst us will know, we force ourselves to perform all kinds of socially accepted social cues, body language and gestures to show we are following the rules.

That comes at a cost, to us.

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Since 2020, in direct correlation with discovering I’m autistic, my life as I knew it has been unravelling.

For the most part, this unravelling has been driven by me. With access to a whole lot of new and vital information about neurodivergence and myself, I’ve been on a quest to live in ways that are more like the ‘real’ me.

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Dear neurokin,

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It never is. When we recognise our own neurodivergent difficulties and ask for it to be recognised or for adjustments to be made it is not pity we seek, it is understanding.

What I’ve come here to write about today holds a great deal of embarrassment and shame for me; I’m learning to accept a limitation.

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Dear neurokin,

I recently took part in a local community panel discussion about making sense of neurodiversity. It was part of a series called Livewell; a safe space for people to explore complex topics about what it takes to live well.

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Dear neurokin,

We all have different, individual, parts that make up the whole of us.

Giddiness, euphoric joy and enthusiasm for music, colour and the simple things in life are part of me.

Along with other more solemn parts.

It is a truth universally known that we autistic folk have a serious part to us. Be it our love of sharing the facts that we have g…

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Dear neurokin,

‘I’m confused…’

These are words I hear most week’s, when receiving feedback about my writing from the other writers on my two year creative writing programme.

I was struck by this feedback ‘I’m confused, in this bit she’s confidently striding towards him and then she’s unsure of his feelings’

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Thank you to everyone who tuned into our Substack Live - a first for both of us!

Here’s the recording of our conversation for you to enjoy at your leisure.

Lisa shared how her neurodivergent deep interest in family history and her strengths are colliding into clarity on her dream job:

• Love of research

• Pattern recognition

• Curiosity about places and feeling intuitively drawn to certain places in the world

• Systemic thinking

• Love of maps

• Hyperfocus

• Dopamine hits from research leading to discovery

If you want to find out more about ’s work in genealogy and research go and check out her Substack

The Ancestor Audit

I’m on a journey to verify my family tree, one ancestor at a time. I’m sharing the discoveries, the dead ends, and the methods that move me forward. If you’re rebuilding your own tree or looking for company along the way, I’d love for you to join me.

By Lisa Rex

And Ancestor Audit YouTube

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this conversation. Is it helping you to think about how your deep interests and strengths collide? What’s your dream job?

Leave a comment

Get in touch with me if you would like to be in conversation about what’s opening up for you about your dream job.

Andrea x

If you enjoy my articles and can support we are neurokin with a paid subscription it’s massively appreciated.

Support with paid subscription

Dear neurokin,

Belong…we are neurokin is all about learning and growth as we move beyond the discovery phase of our neurodivergence.

I also love to celebrate and shine a light on the great work neurokin are doing - using our neurodivergent strengths to bring fulfilment in our work.

For many of us late life neurodivergent discovery brings a sense of our …

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Dear neurokin,

Another article inspired by a song. A song I’d heard before and sung the wrong lyrics to.

When I saw the lyric sheet in the last term of choir ‘I don’t know this one’ I told my Alto 1 buddy.

I did know the song, just not that it was called Pelican by the Maccabee’s.

As I sang it throughout the term it became more and more relevant to my life.

The song, if you don’t know it, follows the arc of life. It starts with the lyrics ‘So soon we, so soon we’re too old to carry’ (not ‘so sue me’ as I’d previously been singing!)

‘One thing’s for sure, we’re all getting older… before you know it, parent a parent’

At the end of last year both of my parents were undergoing treatment for cancer.

Neurokin, I officially became part of what’s known as The Sandwich Generation. covers a lot about the distinction between generations. The bad news is that Gen X are being massively squeezed in our ‘sandwich years’ and millennials will find these things even more challenging:

• Rising costs for care

  • parenting young adults , who are often unable to afford their own housing.

  • caring for elderly relatives with long term complex health conditions for longer periods of time

  • huge rising costs for education - in the UK university tuition fees have risen by 200%

  • residential care in the UK for elderly parents has risen 48% in the last 15 years

• Our mid life is lasting longer - for 20 years between the ages of 40 - 60.

It’s not the financial cost that I’m here to write about today.

I’m here to share my observations, learnings and what I’m noticing about the shifting dynamic of my relationship with my family and their unrecognised neurodivergence.

For of course, neurodivergence is genetic.

Living in the phase beyond neurodivergent discovery means that we can see the patterns of neurodivergence far and wide. Often in our own families with relatives who do not want to be ‘labelled’ as neurodivergent for fear of how they will be perceived.

As this is an article that is much more personal in what I share, the rest of it is behind a paywall.

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In 2025 I was given a thoughtful gift voucher for a swimming technique lesson. The aim was to boost my confidence, in particular with the front crawl stroke.

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Such was the case with this swimming vouch…

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Dear neurokin,

Music is a constant companion in my life.

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Dear neurokin,

Thank you so much for reading, liking or commenting on the articles I’ve written this year. I’m appreciative to every single one of you who subscribes to we are neurokin.

Ring out, wild bells

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
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Dear neurokin,

This week, we’re wrapping up this current line of enquiry into are we late discovered neurokin a generation of circuit breakers?

If you’re new to Belong; we are neurokin, welcome 👋

Here are the previous two articles in this series:

• Are We a Generation of Circuit Breakers?

• Circuit Breakers in Action - Part 1 - Annie Ridout

In this article we …

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Following on from my last article, in which I opened up a line of enquiry: Are we late discovered neurokin a generation of circuit breakers? today we’re exploring circuit breakers in action.

I can’t remember when I first came across Annie Ridout, but I know her words made me sit up and listen.

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Dear neurokin,

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It seems that illuminating your self-esteem, as being the foundation of loving your neurodivergence and living in rhythmic alignment with it, has struck a chord.

Thanks for sharing your comments in the last article, redeem your esteem.

Figuratively speaking, it seems self esteem has long been considered the little sister of the much more …

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