By Yamila García

I am a morning person. I love the fresh air and enjoy how quiet and clean is everything early in the morning. The morning feels like a blank page, like an opportunity to do things right and go home with that wonderful feeling of having completed our responsibilities for the day. When I have the possibility to organize my days to my liking, I always decide to put all my tasks in as early as possible to finish the day earlier and not “cut” the day. It’s as if my mind needs to check all the items on my to-do list to get to relax. So, when for example I have an activity at 3 PM and nothing before that, it is almost impossible for me to focus on doing something else until that box has been checked. It feels like I’m “on hiatus” until I complete those tasks and it is a great loss of time and energy for me.

Some people may think: that I am overthinking things or that I am exaggerating. But it is my reality and that of many neurodivergents. We think and function differently than neurotypicals, and this should not be ignored. And I’m not saying it shouldn’t be ignored because I don’t want it to be, but because we could all benefit from a world where our differences are respected and taken advantage of. We are asked to swim when in fact we have wings and can fly. No matter how much effort we make, no matter how much will we put into learning to swim, it will never be the way in which we can get the most out of our abilities. We swim every day in a world that was not designed for us.

Be kind to your neurodivergent friend, what is natural for you is more than challenging for them. This is the reason why many of us are tired all the time. It is exhausting. Every day we have to adapt the way we communicate to the way neurotypicals do. The same with how we learn, we have to accept and adapt to how things are taught in the classroom because it is implicitly assumed that we all learn in the same way. We adapt how we actually feel about something, to how we are expected to feel, so as not to be once again branded as weird. And the worst part is that we are evaluated as if we are on an equal footing with others. What I am saying has nothing to do with abilities, but with the conditions and environment in which we are required to function.

By Yamila García

After an intense and exhausting semester, comes the difficult task of stopping. When we move at a significant speed, whether in a vehicle or running, we do not come to a complete stop in a second… Inertia makes us keep going beyond the goal, for a few meters until we come to a complete stop. Keeping up with the intensity of the classes is not easy, but neither is stopping. When we cross the finish line after running a race, our body is still active, alert and so it feels weird to be still. The same thing happens when we finish all our tests and assignments. It takes a little time to get the body and mind comfortable in the calm. Some, like me, perhaps fill up with activities to keep their minds busy, or we could even say silent. And so, stopping becomes a threat. So what should be the best or easiest part, turns out to be the opposite.

However, stopping does not have to be synonymous with disorganization or improvisation. We can also have an agenda for our leisure time. Many times during the year I find myself wishing I had time to do this or that. “I wish I have time to paint”, “I wish I have time to watch a tv series”, “I wish I have time to get a few coding projects done” and so many other “I wish”, but when I finally have the time, I can’t find a way to enjoy it. Sometimes because I don’t have a plan and the days just go by, and other times because I try to fulfill other things that I couldn’t do during the semester such as appointments, paperwork, etc. Therefore, this year I have decided to plan what I want to do during the winter break. Not in such a structured way, but more like a wish list. I deeply believe in the importance of nourishing our minds with things that make us laugh, enjoy and relax. I believe that we should all take care of our mental health with the same responsibility we put on our jobs and other commitments. I’m learning how to do it, I’m seeing the benefits while doing it and I want everyone to be able to work for their own joy.

Work for your enjoyment, commit yourself to taking care of yourself, value and be grateful for each day of your life, because although sometimes it is hard, we have overcome more than we ever imagined we could do and we will marvel at what awaits us.

By Yamila García

The lack of knowledge is a dangerous thing. Sometimes not knowing can be good, but other times it can cause a lot of damage.

Every time I’ve approached a professor for help, I’ve always been greeted with a lot of enthusiasm and appreciation for taking the plunge and showing interest. Never during the time that I have been studying in this institution, has a professor not given me the help that I needed. They always made me feel that they really care that we learn, that they take pride in their work, and that they want us to get the most out of their class. Considering these experiences, I can say that I am sure that they want the best for us and that they have a lot of goodwill. However, given the format of some of their classes, many of them have hurt me more than helped. But knowing their goodwill, I have to assume they just don’t know how we neurodivergents work. So all they do is random, it may or may not work for us. Not knowing what works for us is like wanting to guide us on a trail without knowing the way.

Many times, when I have found things in their classes that do not work for me, I have become frustrated. I know I shouldn’t because in reality there is no bad intention on their part, just a lack of knowledge on how to make the class accessible to different ways of thinking. It’s just that. They don’t know how we work. So this year I decided that at the end of the semester I will email my professors, telling them what worked and what didn’t work for me. They will be simple lists indicating what made my life easier and what was a great challenge for me and how it could be avoided. It won’t make a difference in my semester, but it can make them realize that we all don’t work in the same way. I believe that whenever we have the opportunity, we should make neurotypical people know our way of seeing the world. The hope is that one day “their world” will be friendlier to us. We have to give them the chance, we are the ones who have to tell them about ourselves.

By Yamila García

The fact that I didn’t know I was neurodivergent for so long made me an expert in “enduring” whatever I had to live through. It’s hard for me to stop and understand that I deserve free time and fun. I grew up believing that if others could do certain things, I had to be able to too. It didn’t matter how much it cost me, or how many crises I had, I always ended up doing what I had to do because “I had to.” I did not understand why some activities were so difficult for me, but I refused to accept it and thought that they were just silly things in my head and that I was just overthinking. I forced myself for a long time but now I’m learning to listen to myself.

We are officially 4 weeks from the end of the semester and I can already feel my battery is low. All the effort made at the beginning of the semester to adapt, the struggles with classes, assignments, and due dates, and the anxiety of exams, seem to have consumed a good percentage of our energy, and only a little remains. It is not that it happens on a pre-established date. Instead, I realize it because, for everything I do, I need more time and more effort, and I feel that I already carry a good dose of stress. At other times of my life I would have sworn that it only happened to me, but today I know that there are many of us who are going through this. We need to be patient with ourselves, we need to respect our body, our mind, and the time it takes us to do whatever we have to do. We have already done a good part of the semester’s work, we should be proud of it, and although what is coming is important, we will not be able to do it if we do not arrive in a good physical and mental state at the end of the semester. Go for a 10-minute walk, listen to your favorite song several times in a row as many of us like to do, play with your pets for a while… Stopping studying or working for 10 or 15 minutes does not have a great impact on these activities, but it can have it on our mental health, renewing our energy and serving as the push we need to get to December on our feet!

Listening to ourselves is not being weak, but being intelligent. Our body and our mind are what allow us to do what we want to do. How are we supposed to do it without taking care of ourselves? The lower our battery is, the more things we have ahead of us, and the more difficult what is to come… the more we need to give ourselves time and care.

By Yamila García

Despite having noticed at a young age that people perceived the world in a different way than I do, there were many things that I did not know. Every day of my life, when I leave my house in the morning, I feel like a sword pierces my head. It is a deep pain that makes me dizzy and doesn’t let me see for a few seconds. I always thought that this was how everyone feels when they leave their house and see the sunshine. Of course, I was wrong. Also, I thought that people drew in their minds everything they heard or read, but that was not the case either. However, I always did it with such a level of detail that I can remember the smells, sensations, and flavors of what I imagined. In fact, many times I have come across people I wanted to talk to because “I knew them” but in reality, I had imagined them when I read a book, or when someone told me a story. My imagination draws everything in great detail and I think that is why I always need to know more, to get well-structured information and clear instructions. I need to know what I am drawing. If I can’t draw it, it feels like I can’t see or hear. My mental drawings are like maps for me. I also thought that people react to texture like me, that even have dreamed of textures… I couldn’t see anything in my dreams, just felt the sensations from the textures. There are some that calm me, others that give me chills and goosebumps.

Many neurodivergent people have great sensory differences from neurotypical people. Little things that seem unimportant can affect us enormously. For better or for worse… That is why it is important to recognize these differences, accept them and work on them. Knowing ourselves better can often mean being able to use that sensory sensitivity to counteract difficulties. I know what textures calm me down, I know what music lowers my heart rate, and I know what smells take me back to happy moments… And that’s how I deal with the anxiety that so many other things cause me. Simply, I go through life facing the difficulties that come my way, taking advantage of what for some people is a failure. At first glance it may seem like it, but on many occasions, I have been able to use these features to my advantage. 

We have been told many times that we do not fit in, that we are “failed,” that we must adapt and that we must hide all those “flaws.” Don’t listen to them! Those are not “flaws,” they are simply a part of you that should be valued and understood. Never did any of these characteristics not give me something good. They just need a little acceptance and work to see how we can make them flourish as gifts.

By Yamila García

I know that at this time many people in the school feel that something is wrong with them. As I walk around campus, I always think about how many people are wondering why they have to be so different and can’t just fit in like everyone else. They would try to “camouflage,” learn to be like everyone, and hide every particularity that makes them rare or unacceptable to society. I know it because I lived many years of my life this way. Blaming myself for being different, and thinking that something was wrong with me. Although I learned to value these differences, I also learned with whom and when to share them, just to be able to fit in. 

In all these years that I spent not knowing the reason for my differences, I also lost the opportunity to work on them to enhance them. I feel that the passage of time and the struggle to fit in, made me lose some of these characteristics. Some were positive changes, but others were a great loss. I remember having a great ability to play with numbers and symbols in my head. I remembered very long series, and I made long equations without writing them, just drawing them in my mind. I was able to see connections in many more things than now and I could hyperfocus deeper and for much longer than now. I think I just thought that those things that I was obsessed with, kept me from having a normal social life. Perhaps I got a little angry and saw them as an obstacle. The truth is that I didn’t have the tools to see the potential in my differences and I regret that.

When I officially found out I was neurodivergent, I took a breath, forgave myself, and apologized too. I felt sorry for having blamed myself and for having thought at some point that my differences were problems instead of opportunities. From that moment on, everything made sense and things only got better. I have been trying to recover what I lost along the way trying to camouflage myself and I celebrate my differences. Knowing who you are is the best starting point and allows you to work from your own reality, enhance your strengths and understand your difficulties from a more tolerant perspective with yourself. I wish that all those who have ever felt like me, can have a prompt diagnosis and begin to celebrate their differences because they are our greatest treasure.

By Yamila García

When you are attentive, everything around you can teach you something. I was sitting next to a friend at an event when I saw her take a stack of cards that had been printed with the wrong date. She took a pen and started correcting them one by one. The stack of cards was so big that I thought she would just correct a few for the event attendees. I began to think how nervous it would make me to have to correct them all in the time that the event lasted. Also, I remembered the many times when my pile of pending tasks is large, and I drown in thoughts of fear of not being able to complete them. Then, I spend hours worrying, instead of trying. I watched as she kept correcting cards slowly and carefully, and I thought that she would never be able to correct all of them in such a short time. But she kept going slowly and steadily. I greatly admired her perseverance, and her ability not to get caught up in a hurry. I thought about whether she was aiming to finish them all or if she just kept on consistently without even thinking about having to finish them. How wonderful it would be to be able to have that perseverance and that calm when facing my tasks!

Time passed, and before the event was even over, she had finished correcting all of them. When I saw her from the beginning with that giant stack of cards, I didn’t think she would make it at such a slow pace. However, with her patience and tenacity, she did. She not only did that, but she also inspired me! I went home with great motivation to try to replicate what I had learned from her. I imagined myself sitting in front of my computer, starting with a small task, as if it were a card that I was going to correct, then another task, and thus completing my stack of cards without even noticing it. In order for you to understand how important what I witnessed was to me, you would need to know what the process of completing the same task would be like for me. First, I would choke thinking about the number of cards, then I would probably think about the time I would have, I would divide the number of cards by the time available to know how much I would be able to spend fixing each card, and then finally I would take some time to doubt which would be the best way to do the task, or which would be the best pen to use. Meanwhile, my anxiety would increase more and more, and I would start correcting the cards at an exaggeratedly fast pace. I would feel overwhelmed. I would stop, and I would continue to doubt whether or not I would be able to complete the task… I think at this point you get what I’m trying to say. So, even if we don’t complete the stack of cards, it’s better to have completed some instead of none. Same for homework, chores, work, and everything we have to face in life. Let’s keep moving, slowly but steadily, let’s just sit down and do it, and then let’s see how far we get. Thank you dear friend for this teaching.

By Yamila García

I have the tendency to think in extremes. “Black and white thinking,” as they call it. That is why when I don’t like something, I typically don’t like anything related to it and it blocks me completely. I totally lose interest and find it impossible to focus on it. It has happened to me several times, with people, activities, classes, etc… The last time it happened was during a recent semester and it was really challenging to pass the class. It was a class that I liked. It was a subject that I would typically enjoy. But I didn’t get to adapt to my professor and from there everything went uphill (it was a really hard climb). Not being able to adapt to my professor sometimes means that I am not able to follow my professor, adapt to their class format, or focus on the class for different reasons. It is never a quick transition, from one moment to the next, but more progressive, until I cross the door of the blockade, and there is no turning back.

When this semester started, I felt that I was on my way to that door in one of my classes. I couldn’t understand my professor and my first few weeks of learning were blank (just like my first quiz). I panicked of course but always proactively. I contacted my professor. I explained that I was not understanding and we talked about what I needed to understand. In the next class, I was very surprised to see that my professor had humbly taken my comments to make his class more understandable to me. I’m a fan of my professor now. Yes, “black and white” thinking again. It felt so good to be heard! Look how easy it is to close that door and make the semester something less overwhelming for people like me. I know I was not the only one in that class with the same difficulties.

I just want to say thank you to all the professors who listen to their students and allow themselves to grow from criticism because those are the ones that become unforgettable for us students. Not only do they teach us academic concepts but they also teach us by example, showing that we can always learn from everyone. Thank you for listening and not letting us through that door. You can’t even imagine the relief your flexibility gives us.