My Last Article Exploded...Which Brings All-New Possibilities...and Problems

A bit of an explosion for my latest newsletter essay that I did not expect, especially to that magnitude.

I posted it in some autistic community Facebook groups, and the reception and engagement were beyond my expectations. I think I did expect it to resonate more, but not to the degree it did. 

Take a look at how this week's newsletter compares to the prior two for an idea of the scope I am talking about:

Feels good as hell. So I found my audience, it seems.

Also, the response has opened possibilities beyond views and subscribers.

The comments and feedback from so, so many people were honestly amazing. It was great to hear from and connect with fellow autistic travelers about their experiences as leaders, and I want to keep growing those connections and possibly even build a community for autistic leaders. Plus, these interactions may help inform my thinking for my dissertation in some way. Something I’m mulling over.

But those possibilities also come with a cost.

Responding itself takes time, drains my limited writing and cognitive resources and energy, and just feels...never-ending. Yet right now, I feel addicted to the feedback. And just excited to be getting such a response.

This is a good problem. But one I didn’t anticipate.

I have to find a way to include this growth in my balance and approach without letting it consume everything else.

And I need to keep my focus on my dissertation. 

* * *

The response has forced me to consider why this particular essay connected with people, other than simply finding the right audience.

What seems to have really resonated was the inclusion of more of my personal narrative versus just pieces of information from my research. This is not so surprising in retrospect. 

But I think also the connection to systemic norms and barriers that disable autistics, with an eye toward actual solutions and what can be done to address those barriers, instead of simplistic, woe-is-me, life is hard whining. 

I also need to admit I feel a little pressure to make my next one as good or as impactful. I should probably let that go to some extent (while simultaneously not ignoring those things).

I have to really focus on making sure I am saying what I want to say and not get too pulled into a critical mindset that will cause me to censor or stifle myself. The perennial problem of writing. I actually think I am pretty decent with that when it comes to writing, but it is a practice to keep at and not take for granted.

This next one may not resonate as much.

And that’s OK.

And regardless of how the next essay performs, my focus is the dissertation. I have to remind myself of that as well.

* * *

But somehow, all that excitement has created its own kind of paralysis.

I feel a bit...I don’t know...stuck or frozen about what to do next today because I have a lot to do and catch up on. It’s Labor Day weekend, so I want to use that time to make progress, especially on my dissertation, but I also need to do another newsletter and keep that momentum going. Then there is other work stuff to keep up on, cleaning my house, which is a wreck right now, and so on and so on with all the things in my head right now.

And I just feel a bit frozen.

I need a list, but even that feels like a challenge...I should make a list, but I want to do all the things now.

I know this sounds ridiculous.

Make a plan and follow it.

Right?

Except making a plan and following it is not always as simple as it sounds.

An ADDitude Magazine webinar I was listening to earlier today brought up some interesting points about ADHD and executive functions that feel relevant to what I’m getting at.

Ari Tuckman, a psychologist, author, and longtime ADHD expert who specializes in diagnosing and treating ADHD, argued that “executive functions cannot be taught.” It doesn’t work that way.

He described executive functions as being about “managing this present moment now” so that we can create a better future. He also shared a famous description from Russell Barkley, a clinical neuropsychologist, author, and internationally recognized authority on ADHD: “ADHD is not a disorder of knowing what to do. It is a disorder of doing what you know.”

I know what to do. We all do. It’s the actual doing of the things that’s the problem.

And it’s more than just learning productivity skills and habits. I wish it were that simple.

The truth is, I work incredibly hard at those things (I would guess much, MUCH more than most), and I will probably never be where I am “supposed to be.”

Not that those things don’t have value, because those tools and skills are also my bread and butter. But it’s still an ongoing struggle for me in ways it is not and never will be for neurotypicals, and in ways they can’t really, or probably ever will, fully understand or accept. And so they often take it as intentionally disrespectful, rude, lazy, or whatever the interpretation is.

This is an important point for me to build on, better understand, and include in my research. Executive function is one of the least developed areas I need to address in my dissertation, I would say, so this is a good anchor to build on.

I think I am also dealing with a little bit of burnout. I have been going very hard for like two months or more. So yesterday, I needed and used time to decompress. I could probably use more, but I also feel like I have to get back into things. Plus, I have a lot of energy and excitement about my dissertation work, so I need to ride that wave. 

Coincidentally, this week’s newsletter essay will actually be about burnout, so be on the lookout for that. 

* * *

Okay, so a plan: 

1) Work on my dissertation. Keep polishing chapter one. Make a specific goal of what will get done today. 

2) Newsletter. I actually have a draft for that. It needs work, but still. 

3) Clean House. Work that into smaller chunks throughout the day. 

4) Prepare for the work week. Push that to tomorrow. (Thank you, Labor Day.) 

A good framework to get started. The power of writing!

Speaking of Labor Day, I need to go to the local parade tomorrow to watch. My son is performing in it, along with the rest of the high school marching band. Always love those, especially in recent years with my son in them. 

I took them (my kids) for a coffee date yesterday. I loved it so much. I wanted to create space to talk about what is going on for them, what they are doing well, what needs tweaking to achieve their goals, and other things about their lives. They are just their own people now, and I have to really put in the effort to know and understand them and put effort into the relationship itself, like you need to for any relationship, rather than just Dad telling little boys what to do. It is very hard (for me at least) to get out of dad mode. When they tell me things sometimes, I immediately feel an urge to pontificate...I guess also pretty autistic of me. But not so helpful for them. Working on that. 

Some autistic leadership analogies here, actually.

Repository for Thoughts and Writing About Writing: Rethinking the Hero Psychology Blog

Rethinking how I want to use this blog. I am a longtime fan of blogs and have been blogging regularly since 2005. Someday I may collect them all. I have been journaling regularly since 1993. I have a fantasy project of collecting all of those for some kind of grand retrospective character study of myself slash memory. Maybe an autoethnographic look at...something. I don’t know...a longitudinal autoethnographic study of how I've narrated and re-narrated myself across different life transitions. 

I kind of love that, and it's very hero psychology-ish, but I'm going on a tangent.

This blog space has mostly been just a second repository for the newsletter posts I have been doing, but that seems dumb. Why put the same content in two places? It is also potentially confusing for readers.

 So, the newsletters will be more formal essays about hero psychology things, and this will be more about the things I am writing and thinking about related to my newsletter, my dissertation, AuDHD issues, and other writing, as what I write about continues to shift and evolve.

I want to develop the notion of hero psychology into more of a thing. My dissertation first, but maybe that will be my next project. Also, fiction is and has always been my biggest love. I have so many unfinished stories, and plenty of finished ones. I’d love to revisit, finish, polish, and put them out there.

So, this is what this blog will be: a running record of the things I am thinking, writing, revisiting, and slowly turning into something more.

Today...working on revising Chapter One of my dissertation based on my committee chair’s feedback.

I’ve submitted my first three chapters, but I have pretty badly delayed working on it. It’s a shame. I was ahead of the game, and now I am behind.

But it is what it is.

I changed my ADHD meds. The old ones left me extremely tired in the evenings.

These new ones don’t do that...so far. That honestly might have been most of the problem, if I want to find excuses. But...

You know...in respecting the whole point of what it means to be autistic and ADHD, I need to respect the effects of that on me and my experiences as a neurodivergent person.

And minimizing it as just an excuse is perhaps part of the problem.

Doing anything after work felt like an extraordinarily heavy lift. And now, after changing meds, it no longer does. This may even be an important piece to include in my autoethnographic dissertation in some way.

The old meds impacted me. Badly. And hence important projects that impact my career have been delayed by a year.

This is the very kind of writing that will help inform my dissertation, my understanding of autistic leadership, and my understanding of myself as an autistic leader. Because that burnout piece, which I haven’t even really explored much at all yet, is real.

So, another reason for this blog...thinking through things as I am writing, which is honestly the best kind of writing.

But anyway, back to my agenda for today:

My dissertation revisions, like I said.

My newsletter for this week. I have a semi-draft. Something to do with autistic leadership as a form of activism. Not fully developed. But the pieces are there.

And things for work tomorrow.

And that’s my day. 

So, the new direction for this blog: a space to think through thoughts and ideas about Hero Psychology, writing, autism, my dissertation, and whatever else may eventually become something more. Pretty simple. But I think on the nose. 

The AuDyssey: AuDHD Setbacks & Persistence

Odysseus takes ten years to get home from a war that already lasted ten years.

He does not travel steadily forward. He gets lost. He becomes trapped. He makes mistakes. He loses people. Forces beyond his control work against him. Sometimes his own choices make the journey harder.

Yet he keeps moving.

I did not always love how Christopher Nolan’s version portrayed Odysseus. At times, he seemed like a bumbling man staggering from one disaster to another. If we see only his failures, we lose sight of what makes him heroic.

His greatness is not that he avoids setbacks.

It is that, across twenty years of war and wandering, some part of him continues to believe he can still make it home.

That kind of persistence feels familiar to me.

The AuDHD Odyssey

Being AuDHD has often felt less like a steady path of growth and more like an odyssey.

I learn. I adapt. I build systems. I gain confidence. I begin to believe I have finally figured out how to navigate something that once overwhelmed me.

Then an old struggle returns in a new form.

That recurrence can be brutal. If I can still end up here, what exactly did I learn the last time?

But perhaps that is the wrong way to measure growth.

Odysseus does not become heroic by reaching a point where nothing can knock him off course. He becomes heroic through his capacity to continue after being knocked off course again and again.

I would like to get knocked down less.

I would especially like to believe that enough reflection, preparation, and self-awareness could prevent me from ever returning to certain places. But my life has not worked that way. There have always been gains and setbacks, followed by new gains and new setbacks.

There is no final win in which every old vulnerability disappears.

There is only the continued journey.

The Temptation to Forget

One thing I found revealing in Nolan’s portrayal was Odysseus’s eagerness to eat the lotus.

He did not merely seem imprisoned by Calypso. He became a willing participant in his own captivity. The lotus allowed him to forget, to avoid facing what had happened and what returning home might now require.

And yet, some part of him still knew.

It kept calling him back. He would move toward escape, only to be pulled back into forgetting.

I understand the appeal.

Sometimes remembering where we were going forces us to confront the distance between that life and where we are now. Forgetting can feel easier than returning. If we stop thinking about who we hoped to become, we no longer have to feel how far away that person seems.

But some part of us remembers.

It keeps interrupting the forgetting.

Staying in the Underworld

I do not think I am refusing the return right now. I think I am somewhere deeper in the journey.

I am in the underworld.

This is the dark place where the hero descends beneath the ordinary world and encounters what has been buried. It is where old stories are reopened, contradictions emerge, and the self must be reconstructed from pieces that do not fit together well anymore.

Returning to my dissertation alongside my recent setbacks became the call that sent me back down.

My dissertation asks questions about identity, transition, neurodivergence, and how we construct ourselves through the stories we tell. Those questions no longer feel only academic.

I am living inside them again.

There is a part of me that likes it here.

I like collecting the pieces. I like exploring, learning, reflecting, and discovering connections I had not noticed before. For me, and perhaps for other autistic people, there can be a powerful temptation to stay in that depth. Understanding becomes absorbing.

Reconstruction becomes a project without a clear ending.

I can keep digging because there is always another connection to make.

But the purpose of the descent is not to live forever in the underworld. The hero is supposed to return with something.

The danger is not that I will fail to examine my life deeply enough. The danger is that I will remain in examination, endlessly preparing to return without ever deciding that I am ready enough to leave.

There Is No Final Win

I first learned this through sports. Football in particular.

You get knocked down. Hard. You make the wrong decision, sometimes at the worst possible time.

Despite all the practice, preparation, and determination, you lose.

But there is no time to remain on the ground. You get back up and return to the game. To the next play. Another opportunity.

Then another.

Sports taught me that strength is not measured only by how rarely I fall. It is also measured by what I do after I fall.

One of my greatest strengths may be a slightly irrational confidence that I can always get back in there. Some part of me continues to believe that next time could be better. Extraordinary, even.

That confidence may sometimes look foolish.

But it has carried me a long way.

Hero Psychology cannot promise a life without recurrence. It has to make room for regression, avoidance, exhaustion, reconstruction, and return.

The absence of a final win also means that no single loss gets to define the entire story. Finding myself somewhere painful again does not erase the distance I traveled.

That’s what Odysseus understood. Home is not reached through one uninterrupted act of courage. It is reached through the repeated decisions to continue, even after the journey has taken much longer than we believed it would.