Detached Book Review
Why the only advice for you is advice that matches your Neurotype
This is yet another self-help book not for neurodivergent women. Detached: How to Let Go, Heal and Become Irresistible. The advice in it is glib at best. It recommends that you “learn to love yourself,” but offers no concrete advice on how to do so. It also recommends you put yourself first now both of these recommendations are very wise and I also recommend them however, when a person is going through something major like a divorce, or the loss of loved ones, or has recently lost a job and it’s associated identity, is recovering from abuse and trauma or maybe, just maybe all of the above it feels superficial and preachy for lack of better term.
Who doesn’t want to love themselves and put themselves first?
Who is actively making the choice NOT to do these things?
It completely misses the mark on the late-realized neurodivergent woman’s experience. For women like us, it’s impossible to just slap on a smile and say, “I won’t accept poor treatment ever again because I’m worth the best treatment,” But the reality is that our baseline in the world is mistreatment. People look at us weirdly in public; strangers act like we might be dangerous because we miss social cues or appear just slightly out of step.
Social media influencers with PhD’s label our behavior as Dark Tetrad adjacent; of course, people generally avoid us. And of course, we end up in relationships with other people who exhibit similar behaviors, we give them the benefit of the doubt because we are slightly out of step ourselves. And slowly over time, we get more and more beaten down by abusive personalities. Until we finally wake up and realize that we are being abused.
We receive an unquantifiable amount of microaggressions just for existing in the world, and double those if we take up space: laugh “too loud,” wear bright colors, and break social norms. (Read: practice unmasking)
Just the other day, I was at a brand new shop that opened in my area. I was wearing an African-print dress, and a woman stepped out from behind the back door curtain and asked me about it. We had a conversation about Africa, and she said she liked that I was willing to wear such a bright colored dress. I responded with people are going to stare at me one way or another, might as well give them something to look at. She sort of gave a fake smile and a nod, said, “Hmm,” and then made her way back behind the curtain. Like I had said, something inappropriate, and that was the end of the conversation.
Did she think I was claiming to be stunning? Did she realize I was referring to the fact that I come across as slightly out of step? Did the mean nothing by it? I don’t know, but subconsciously I’ve been trying to figure it out. It was likely a micro-rejection. I know I come off as aloof and a bit full of myself, but I’m not; I’m just afraid of how people treat me and waiting for them to do what this woman did. Maybe I would benefit from better boundaries, and just saying nothing would have been better; it’s hard to know. It’s hard to feel like I need to censor myself and unpack every “misstep” in communication because the majority of the world reads me WRONG. It’s not my fault they don’t understand me as a person. Sometimes, I wonder why I keep trying.
But back to what we were talking about before. When you are constantly bombarded with microaggressions, misunderstandings, and rejection, it can feel like empty advice when someone says, “just love yourself and put yourself first.” I do, it’s just that everyone else does not, and that’s a lonely way to live. I remember as a child, I had stellar self-esteem until High School, I loved my wild, wonderful, quirky self. But boy, did every High School I attended find a way of making me feel like a FREAK. Like a WEIRDO, and being in the world as an adult has been another repeat of High School. I find the occasional friend, and sometimes they reject me once they spend some time with me, too. But it’s not as overwhelming as High School because I can retreat at any time. When you are in High School, there is no retreating. It’s like working a job where everyone treats you the same… like a FREAK. I worry about my son and his experience as he grows up and goes through school. I assume at some point we will homeschool, he hates school. Right now, I use his school time as free childcare; it helps me recover from burnout, but otherwise it’s pretty useless, and I feel like a bad mom for asking him to attend.
But back to the book, some of the recommendations are to build safety; how exactly? It says to focus on what experiences have taught you rather than what went wrong. So cognitive reframing? Cool. That’s only helpful if the whole world doesn’t reject you all the time. It says to normalize rejection. I mean, if you are ND, you have normalized rejection; it’s the norm to you. It’s just that many of us are traumatized by this normalized rejection, that’s what we call RSD Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria, because being traumatized by chronic rejection is somehow our fault and a failure on our part?! -Ok, said no one ever- It recommends recognizing rejection as part of life, not as part of your value, but it’s exhausting always being rejected and only sometimes finding pockets of acceptance… am I right?
Practice self-compassion; this one is tricky, and I’ve been working hard at it for LITERAL DECADES. Like, 25 years at this point, boy, it is a practice, especially when you are a target for dangerous people because they want to use you. (Remember the Dark Tetrads I mentioned? Psychopaths, Sociopaths, Narcissists, and Machiavellians) It recommends reminding yourself often that you’re enough and this experience doesn’t define you. Um, ok. But it literally does.
Then it goes on to say strengthen resilience, something about confidence doesn’t mean hurting it, just means knowing you’ll be ok no matter what. But what if nothing feels ok? What if every day you battle thoughts of not wanting to keep fighting? This is such a normal experience for neurodivergent people who are going through traumatic events like divorce, loss of loved ones, etc.
Of course, it closes with adopting a growth mindset. Of course, this is something I’ve been working aggressively on for the last decade. It depends on where I’m at in life. How it’s going right now is pretty bottom of the barrel as I recover from autistic burnout, navigate 6+ and an ever-growing list of autoimmune diseases, and don’t forget 3 bulging disks in my neck -fun times!-. I can’t help but laugh hearing about people complaining about one autoimmune disease on TikTok, like really, Karen? You are complaining about one of the six I navigate daily, ONE.
#roughlife
The author recommends IFS (Internal Family Systems, a form of regressive therapy) for reparenting your internal child, and while this may work well on neurotypicals its actually been suggested it might be dangerous for neurodivergent brains. I’ve done a lot of IFS in my 20+ years of therapy, and it hasn’t worked, well ok so maybe some of it helped? I’ve gotten some relief, but nowhere near enough. The author recommends noticing when you’re activated (Read: Triggered), but for someone recovering from C-PTSD, that’s most of the time. It’s so frequent that I can’t count how many times it happens in a day. She recommends using Dr. Nicole LaPerla’s advice Get curious. Pause and notice what’s happening in your body. Name those sensations, ok? Well, we so often avoid what’s happening in our bodies because we hurt so much, and if we notice, we might not be able to tolerate living in them.
Pause before reacting, say out loud, “I’m triggered right now, I need to breathe because naming the trigger creates distance from it.” I’ve heard this one before, and as a person who sometimes has trouble communicating when I’m overwhelmed (Read: Selective Mutism, but that term is really polarizing in our community, it’s legitimately something I struggle with). I’m not sure this will always work. Self-soothe. Go for a walk, journal, or do a shakeout. Sure, I advise this kind of thing too. Now, journaling, I think, can be hit or miss for those who ruminate. Journaling can actually encourage you to stay in negativity, which is why I gave it up in the first place, but here I am again journaling. What’s the problem with journaling? It can trigger a rumination loop, and if you’re prone to rumination, you might get stuck there, which has been what I’ve been dealing with lately. Many people feel that if they can get their feelings and thoughts out, they will feel better, but for neurodivergent people, sometimes this is not true.
The advice is to do something that calms your nervous system, so for me, that’s walking, lying in bed with a weighted blanket, earthing, rocking it out in my rocking chair with again, my weighted blanket, and being hugged firmly (but I currently have no one in my life who can do this for me regularly). Then it says to notice when your back, recognize when you return to your body. This misses the fact that many ND women live entirely in their heads, and sometimes it’s a survival response when pain is particularly bad, for example, I’m in a lot of pain today, my hands are numb, my neck is hurting, my upper back feels like someone tried to filet it.
Finally, she says to respond from your wise adult self (Sometimes called Wise Mind in mindfulness and DBT). It’s how confidence in built by learning to respond instead of react, yes, of course, but none of this is really spot on for someone with C-PTSD, basically someone who is neurodivergent. When you force yourself to sit with your discomfort if you have physical struggles, it’s basically like your body is a crime scene and you’re an investigator that’s not relaxing, it’s a cortisol dump.
Neurodivergent people can use journaling, but we are best served by focusing on what we have learned from an experience rather than just venting about it. You can also split your journaling up into three parts: 1. The Facts: What happened? 2. The feelings interoception of how you feel about it, and 3. Action steps you can take to feel better, experience different emotions, or release the negativity or intensity.
Even if it’s just noise-canceling headphones and drinking water, or lying in bed under a weighted blanket with an eye mask on for five minutes.
For me personally, talking something out always works better, which is why my friends get annoyed at me, or at least my closest one right now. She’s the one who recommended I start journaling because she doesn’t have the bandwidth to listen to me talk about my horrifying experiences. I do also utilize therapy, but it’s only once a week, and let’s face it, sometimes, if not always, we have things to process daily.
This is all a long, drawn-out way of saying books, particularly self-help books by non-autistic or non-neurodivergent authors, may actively be harming you. Not just books but advice in general.
Even research that looks into the neurotypical/allistic experience may be harming you because you are going to get misinformation. For example, when I was an undergraduate in psychology, earning my bachelor’s in psychology and social behavior at UCI, it was repeatedly emphasized that most people are safe. 50% of people are securely attached, and most people have good intentions. Sure, if you’re neurotypical/allistic, but not if you’re neurodivergent and highly empathic, then you actually experience a dangerous and predatory world where people see your differences and the safe people avoid you becuse you are “different” or just a little “out of step” but the toxic people latch right on you are easy to get things from you are very kind and giving.
You assume the best in people, so it’s easy to end up surrounded by literal snakes, piranhas, hyenas, and leeches. No, I’m not being dramatic. I remember having a torrid (and very imagined) love affair with a veteran on campus. I trauma-bonded with him from afar. He refused to let me into his circle, not the outer or inner circle. While he was polite to me, he hated that I could always see when he was triggered or having a flashback. I just wanted to help him and to connect with him, and to feel less alone in my trauma.
It’s only 10 years later, and I’ve really unpacked with reality. Sometimes, delayed processing is really delayed.
So if you want advice on your neurotype, get it from your neurotype.
Keep going, stay strong, xo, Michelle
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