It has been happening to me lately, again and again. When I mention any negative part of my autistic or ADHD experience, someone replies “But… find your autistic/ADHD superpower!”
It’s bordering on toxic positivity for me, or maybe it already crosses into that territory.
Good and bad, not the best
Yes, autism and ADHD are a part of my personality, a part of being myself. And thus, there are both good and bad sides to them. But I think that reducing the good parts into one “superpower” (preferably one that can be turned into income), is brutally oversimplifying the matter — and creating a sense of pressure. A sense that you are not good enough. That you are somehow failing in neurodiverging. And as you probably felt that you were failing basic peopleing before that, what’s left? You don’t need that kind of shame.
When people are advising me to “find my AuDHD superpower”, often meaning the skill that would enable me to make good money, I think this isn’t going to happen anytime soon, unless there is someone out there who would pay me for reading vast quantities of sci-fi and fantasy books.
It’s hard to find anything good about a burnout
I’m currently in the 7th year of AuDHD burnout. Unable to work properly, unable to go out and see people without ending in an overload, meltdown, or shutdown. Desperately lonely. My burnout was the main contributing factor that drove my beloved of 11 years away in the end.
Being neurodivergent and not having adequate support has stolen the last 20 years of my life in which I endlessly struggled, and acquired a crippling social phobia and depression for my efforts to live “normally”. Is it a wonder that I can’t find a superpower in my neurodivergence, no matter how hard I try?
There is only the need to rest, to restore my energy, to become again.
Letting go of being productive
The best burnout advice I read was “Let go of the pressure of being productive.” That was a revelation! All the time, thrashing helplessly in the vicious cycle of AuDHD burnout, I was trying to produce something of value — and mostly failing.
Maybe sometimes, there is no superpower.
It doesn’t mean that there can’t be one later. But first, there must be healing. You need time to put the broken pieces of your mind and soul back together and build a life out of them again.
And when you are healed enough, there is time and place to look for the things you enjoy, skills that can help you make a living, and if you are really really lucky, sometimes they can be the same thing. When you have taken care of your mental health, you can go on the quest of discovering superpowers.
The neurodivergent people with ”superpowers” are probably a minority
Even if you don’t find one, don’t despair. I believe that people who have found their superpower are actually quite rare. Rare, but the most visible, because it is a dream come true. The model neurodivergent person. The one we all aspire to be.
I don’t begrudge them this. I would be so excited if something that comes naturally to me turned out to be a superpower. And it still can happen. But in the meantime, some of us need to live our un-superpowered neurodivergent lives and make the best of them. Feeling guilty that you haven’t yet found “the superpower” you are supposed to have just adds to the burden of an already burdened life.
So, let’s go easy on the superpower part of neurodivergence, OK?
It will help create a gentler world for more of us.
And gentler is what we need. Being gentle with yourself, first and foremost.
Rest. Breathe. Let go.
Allow yourself the things you enjoy, without pressure.
And maybe then, you will find your neurodivergent superpower. But there is no shame in not having one.
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