Tag: Neurodiversity

Greetings, fellow adventurers and curious souls!

As many of you know, this blog has been a canvas for my journey, a place where I’ve shared countless stories from mountain trails to life’s metaphorical bumps. Today, I’m thrilled to announce some exciting changes that reflect both my personal growth and the evolution of this blog.

A New Identity: “The Divergent Mountain Biker”

I’m transitioning to “The Divergent Mountain Biker” with a fresh tagline: “Dropping in on a neurotypical jumpline.” These changes mirror my own path towards embracing neurodivergence and exploring how it intersects with my passion for mountain biking. This new title and tagline capture the essence of navigating a world where the paths less traveled often lead to the most rewarding vistas.

Embracing Innovation: Introducing AI to Our Journey

In our quest to bring you richer, more engaging content, we’ve started integrating neural network technologies. This post was crafted with the assistance of a custom ChatGPT bot named “Bloggette,” which I’ve tailored to help create insightful and unique content. This is just the beginning of how we’ll leverage AI to enhance our storytelling and offer you new perspectives on both neurodivergence and mountain biking. It’s all neural!

Have Your Say: A Poll to Guide Our Future Content

As we chart this new territory, your input is more invaluable than ever. I’ve set up a poll to gather your thoughts on these changes and what you’d like to see in future posts. Your feedback will help shape the direction of The Divergent Mountain Biker as we continue to explore this divergent trail together.

Looking Ahead

I am excited about this new phase and encourage you all to leave your thoughts and suggestions in the comments or on any of my social media platforms, although they are not visited often. Thank you for being part of this journey. Let’s ride into this new chapter together, exploring the divergent and the diverse, and seeing where this trail leads us.

Resources

1. Neurodiversity Resources: Different Brains offers a wealth of information and resources tailored to the neurodivergent community, including educational videos and articles that can inspire content.
2. AI in Content Creation: Aspiration Marketing details how AI can revolutionize content marketing by aiding in tasks like keyword research, audience segmentation, and personalized content creation.
3. Engagement and Community Building: ActiveCampaign emphasizes the importance of personalizing content while respecting privacy and navigating the complexities of digital engagement.

Looking back on this post, I have to laugh a bit at how I almost turned into my own armchair therapist. I mean, let’s be real, diagnosing autism from a blog post? That’s about as effective as trying to fix a car by staring at the manual.

But even as I wrote it, I could see a few breadcrumbs that hinted at my need for structure. When I said I “need the basic three: sleep, eat, and exercise” and that I “must focus on this,” it wasn’t just filler. Those aren’t just healthy habits to me; they’re like the glue that holds me together, especially when life gets rocky. Maybe it’s a bit of a peek into my mind, where routine really does feel like a lifeline.

And then there’s that bit where I wrote, “I’m always doing things differently,” and how that sometimes makes me feel like an enigma to others. Socializing can feel like I’m always two steps off-beat, making it hard for people to really “get” me. It’s not that I don’t want connections; sometimes, I just feel like I’m on a different frequency, like I’m always slightly out of sync with the crowd.

And as for emotions, oh boy, that part where I’m talking about the “grief process” and the whole cocktail of denial, anger, sadness, and confusion. I don’t know if it’s just me or a brain-wiring thing, but when I feel, I really feel, like I’m constantly walking a tightrope of emotions, no net below.

But, hey, I know these are just little clues, little pieces of a larger puzzle. If anything, writing that post made me realize that only someone with the actual credentials—not just a keyboard—can put those pieces together in a way that makes sense.

Divergent Resources

---

Hello from my lovely living room in Missoula Montana. The sun is out and it looks like a nice summer day. When you go outside it is a different story. It is only 23 degrees out right now but the crisp air is worth it. I did not get any sleep last night and I missed getting up at 6. I need the basic 3, sleep, eat, and exercise. I must focus on this while I go through this very hard time.

Flexibility. I think our minds sometimes run on automatic. We follow the same thoughts running the same familiar ruts, our lives have a static, fixed quality. Do you think that it would be a good to have flexibility in our daily lives? Rather than responding in my habitual ways, I can try doing something differently, like this morning by not freaking out and going into a deep depression for the day because I missed an appointment.

I say this, if we run the same routine every day nothing will change. After all isn’t change good sometimes. Now we come to my secondary struggle. Doing things differently, in my view, isn’t exactly going to be good for others to accept you. If your constantly doing things differently, how can anyone get to know you. My friend Paul can account for this. I am always doing things differently that I had done them before.

Maybe I am not thinking about this correctly. Is not the most important thing acceptance of ourselves, our past, other people, and our present circumstances? Acceptance brings peace, healing, and freedom, something that my present situation does not give a lot of. I need freedom, freedom to take care of myself.

Its not that easy however. Acceptance isn’t just one of those ”turn the switch“ things. This brings me to what I am feeling now. I am going through the necessary stages, like denial, anger, negation, and sadness. Yes, the grief process. I am full of grief, yes! My grief is frustrating. It is confusing. I am hovering between sadness and denial, specially with the car. That is also why I have decided to stay away from friends so that they don’t have to try to understand my mood changes and wacky behavior. Hell, I don’t understand it sometimes.

Don’t worry universe! I am taking steps to take care of myself, at my own pace. Please be understanding friend, for the very human way I go through transition.

I cant sleep. This is a bad thing because I have an interview tomorrow. I think my mind and body are trying to sabotage me.

I’ve been mulling over what I said yesterday and, honestly, I’ve got more to say. I’m realizing I have this habit of trusting other people a bit too much. The kicker? I don’t always trust myself. Maybe it goes back to childhood—getting labeled as something I didn’t believe I was. You know the stuff: lazy, careless, all those charming little labels some of us heard growing up.

But here’s the thing: we need to trust ourselves more. Trust what we know. It’s not always easy, though. Standing firm in your truth? Yeah, that’s tough when everyone around you is trying to convince you that you’re wrong.

And let’s be real, sometimes other people have their own baggage—they might be carrying guilt, shame, or even denial like it’s designer luggage. They’ve got their own agenda, and they’d love nothing more than for us to doubt what we know to be true. It’s almost like they want to pull us into their mess. And if we let them? Well, isn’t that just a recipe for codependency?

Honestly, it’s risky business to start giving someone else’s beliefs more weight than our own. When we stop trusting ourselves, it’s like delivering a knockout punch to our sense of self, our confidence, even our mental health.

When we ignore that inner voice—the one that knows the truth—we end up out of sync, cut off from our center, our connection to something bigger than ourselves. No wonder we feel crazy or ashamed, like we’re stumbling around in the dark. I mean, it’s like when someone pulls the rug out from under you, and suddenly you’ve got no footing. Same deal.

Now, I’m not saying we’re always right about everything. But we’re definitely not always wrong either. So, what I’m thinking is, I need to get better at standing in my truth—and maybe we all do. Trusting what we know feels more solid now, more grounded. And that’s exactly where I plan to stay: grounded in reality.