I absolutely relate to this post, everything except being comfortable with anger. I absolutely cannot deal with anger. It was too much of my childhood growing up. Brilliant post.
So the only solution I see is: Resist. Boicot. Be yourself.
I have an internal urge to put my resting bitch face on, if I don't do that I get burnt out after one day.
The same urge applies to a whole plethora of needs that people have.
Anyone can slowly start shifting the system in their surroundings, we have the ability to talk to people so lets do that.
I know, everyone has their boundaries and personal problems but you get the point, even just talking with your close fiends about this can produce an unexpected result.
This system was built to exclude neurodivergents (I hate this word), lets destroy it.
We exist, we deserve to be ourselves, we deserve to chill the fuck out as much as anyone else does.
The resting bitch face as survival strategy is real — but it's still a mask. Just a defensive and expensive one rather than an accommodating one. Protection rather than performance. But still an energy cost.
"Resist. Boycott. Be yourself" — the energy behind it is exactly right. The execution needs to be sustainable for people already running a deficit.
The smarter version isn't dramatic resistance. It's precise, consistent, intelligent naming of the mechanism every time it shows up. I would say, refusal rather than boycott. Refusal to take part in what is requested. Like calculate your own ROI vs ROE. Not aggressively. Not exhaustingly. Is there any value in participating or engaging? Just — clearly, repeatedly, in whatever rooms are available.
That's how the invisible becomes visible without burning the person making it visible.
In my specific case the resting bitch face is not masking, is the opposite, when I'm relaxed I look like I'm pissed off and my energy in social occasions is used to adjust my face according to what I assume people are expecting to see from my expression
I can't do the resting bitch face either — and honestly I envy you for it a little.
Mine is just... neutral. Observational. Taking in data with the performance layer switched off. Not indifference — actually the opposite. Full attention, just no signal being broadcast deliberately. This makes people assume I'm shy instead. I'm not.
The problem is that neutral reads as cold to people who expect warmth to be visibly transmitted at all times. So the energy cost isn't holding an expression — it's the constant low-level awareness that my resting state is being misread, and the calculation of whether to correct it or let it go. People leave me alone because they can't read me.
Your resting bitch face at least has a clear signal. Mine just creates a question mark that other people want me to answer.
I think your situation aligns perfectly with mine, I can perfectly understand what you're saying, it's just a bit different.
My face is also non intentional, it comes up in any case, even if I'm interested or not annoyes. It is usually percieved as being full of myself instead of cold, but the result is similar: I get misunderstood just like you do.
And yes, the energy goes to keeping a "warmth" that is supposed to occur naturally, but some of us don't actually do it spontaneously, we have to actively think about it.
My personal take on people is not to judge theyr expressions, they can mislead and can be manipulated (just like we force warmth while masking sometimes) but judge people's actions.
The interesting thing about such social norms in behaviour is that they are rarely discussed as explicitly as such. Where have we read or been told, "If someone has a problem with you and has been talking behind your back, it's important that you not confront the issue honestly and directly and with compassion"? In fact, what we are taught is the opposite! Talking about people behind their backs is rarely portrayed as admirable in fiction, and instead, is associated with "snakes in the grass" and untrustworthiness.
In the neurotypical world, there seem to be areas of grey, where the explicit rules do not apply. Where the tacit rules kick in. Where, yes, it is morally wrong to do such and such, but that's for protagonists in stories and not for real people. It's ok for real people to do these things we normally find unsavoury because, well, a whole different set of rules applies. Maybe some tacitly agreed upon rules that neurodivergent people didn't get the memo on.
I want to add that I suspect it wasn't so much that the person talking behind the writer's back felt that it was somehow "correct" to refuse to discuss the issue, in the exact same way as small children caught out being mean at school would, but rather that she felt, well, embarrassed and awkward. It was simply easier to act as though the target of her wrongdoing was the problem rather than facing up honestly to the fact that she did something wrong herself.
Embarrassment is a powerful driver of avoidance. It's much easier to make the person you wronged into the problem than to sit with the discomfort of having done something you know wasn't right.
What's interesting is that the same directness that made me seem threatening to her is exactly what would have made the conversation easier for both of us. If she'd just said "I was embarrassed and I handled it badly" — that's something I could work with. That's a human moment. Instead the exit chosen was one that required making me wrong so she could stay comfortable.
Which is the tacit rule again — performing indirection is safer than honest discomfort.
Even when honest discomfort would have resolved everything faster.
The explicit rules we were taught: be honest, don't talk behind people's backs, address things directly. We followed them. And then discovered there's an entire layer of unwritten rules that contradict the written ones — and that knowing which layer applies in which moment is the real test. One nobody announced.
The neurotypical nervous system absorbs those tacit rules through thousands of small social moments. The neurodivergent one often doesn't catch the transmission. Not because we weren't paying attention. Because the signal was never made explicit.
And then we get marked down for following the rules we were actually given.
Great piece. I am a family doctor with a speciality in mental health matters and am trying to create awareness on this subject. Nowadays we have a mental health system that keeps rehashing this limited point of view: you are different, so you have a condition. High time to change the narrative. Excellent point on how it doesnt feel systemic, it feels personal for people on the recieving end of the matter
Thank you — and thank you for the work you're doing from inside the system.
"You are different, so you have a condition" — that framing does so much damage before anyone has even asked the right question. It locates the problem in the person before examining whether the environment producing the distress was ever designed for that person in the first place.
In my opinion it’s just so darn backwards, this assumption that if you’re not close to a typical, you’re wrong….. set up by a typical.
The fact that it feels personal is the mechanism, not the symptom. A world that consistently reflects one version of human back as correct will, over time, convince everyone who doesn't match it that the problem is theirs to solve. The systemic becomes invisible precisely because it's so thoroughly internalised.
Clinicians who can hold both — the individual and the structural — are rare and genuinely needed. The narrative shift you're describing is exactly what changes outcomes.
One thing I’ve been wrestling with lately is the difference between dysfunction and mismatch.
For years, I assumed that if I was struggling to be understood, the problem must be me. But the more I’ve studied communication, cognition, and relational dynamics, the more I’ve wondered whether many of us spend our lives being measured against standards we didn’t help create.
Not because we’re “better.”
Not because the systems are always wrong.
But because familiarity often gets mistaken for correctness.
I’ve become increasingly interested in what happens when people stop asking, “What’s wrong with me?” and start asking, “What conditions help me think, contribute, connect, and thrive?”
Thank you for putting language to something I’ve been circling for a long time.
You make perfect sense — and you've named something I've been living today.
Dysfunction and mismatch feel like different positions on the same scale to me. When the energy is depleted, the load is too high, the system is running a threat response — that's dysfunction. The gap between me and the environment becomes unnavigable.
Same person, better conditions — mismatch. The environment still wasn't built for this architecture. But there's enough resource to navigate the gap rather than be swallowed by it.
"What conditions help me think, contribute, connect and thrive" is exactly the right question. Because the answer changes the frame entirely — from fixing the person to designing the conditions.
Naming that it stays this way not through malice but through comfort, through a reality where the problem simply doesn't exist for those swimming with the current, is the hardest thing to make legible to anyone who hasn't felt it. Because you can't argue someone out of a comfort they've never had to name. The story at the start is a perfect microscale version of the whole system. Directness penalised as aggression. Indirectness rewarded as reasonable. Two nervous systems reading the same moment, and only one gets to be the default. Fantastic piece.
Neurodivergence is a label thst has been created out of thin air and has no science behind it. It is a coping strategy for people that have mental disorder.
It serves as an umbrella concept rather than a specific medical condition found in diagnostic manuals like the DSM-5 or ICD-11.
neurodivergence itself cannot be diagnosed and you cannot claim medical insurance for "neurodivergence" itself
And today it is a pop culture “cool” new shiny thing to label yourselves neurodivergence furthermore showing the mental disorder.
Autism and ADHD and OCD and all the other things that are BRAIN DIFFERENCES (scientifically PROVEN by YOUR own neurotypical systems by now!!) are NOT „disorders“. Brain difference and disorder are mutually exclusive… 😖
They are very real and VERY MUCH „diagnosable“. And at least in many countries you can very much claim medical insurance / disability etc. due to them if they are disabling in any form *in the current, unavoidable, „normal“ environment*. Even when they are NOT disabling in the right circumstances. Because as of now modern (western) life does not afford those right circumstances for people who are neurodiverse ( aka have different brains).
BTW, because someone like you is likely to think that as well: PTB*S* is a SYNDROME, too, NOT a „disorder“ (that is a wrong and harmful, old label).
A „disorder“ is something that is pathological and harmful (to others and/or self).
A syndrome is an appropriate response to *abnormal circumstances*.
A neurodiversity literally means a brain and nervous system difference.
All are medical, scientifically proven and well-acknowledged by now. They are NOT the same. And they are not „non-existent“ just because your personal medical knowledge is lagging behind modern medicine. 🙄
I absolutely relate to this post, everything except being comfortable with anger. I absolutely cannot deal with anger. It was too much of my childhood growing up. Brilliant post.
So the only solution I see is: Resist. Boicot. Be yourself.
I have an internal urge to put my resting bitch face on, if I don't do that I get burnt out after one day.
The same urge applies to a whole plethora of needs that people have.
Anyone can slowly start shifting the system in their surroundings, we have the ability to talk to people so lets do that.
I know, everyone has their boundaries and personal problems but you get the point, even just talking with your close fiends about this can produce an unexpected result.
This system was built to exclude neurodivergents (I hate this word), lets destroy it.
We exist, we deserve to be ourselves, we deserve to chill the fuck out as much as anyone else does.
The resting bitch face as survival strategy is real — but it's still a mask. Just a defensive and expensive one rather than an accommodating one. Protection rather than performance. But still an energy cost.
"Resist. Boycott. Be yourself" — the energy behind it is exactly right. The execution needs to be sustainable for people already running a deficit.
The smarter version isn't dramatic resistance. It's precise, consistent, intelligent naming of the mechanism every time it shows up. I would say, refusal rather than boycott. Refusal to take part in what is requested. Like calculate your own ROI vs ROE. Not aggressively. Not exhaustingly. Is there any value in participating or engaging? Just — clearly, repeatedly, in whatever rooms are available.
That's how the invisible becomes visible without burning the person making it visible.
You're already doing it. Keep going. 🧡
“Refuse” works nice for a motto too :P
In my specific case the resting bitch face is not masking, is the opposite, when I'm relaxed I look like I'm pissed off and my energy in social occasions is used to adjust my face according to what I assume people are expecting to see from my expression
I can't do the resting bitch face either — and honestly I envy you for it a little.
Mine is just... neutral. Observational. Taking in data with the performance layer switched off. Not indifference — actually the opposite. Full attention, just no signal being broadcast deliberately. This makes people assume I'm shy instead. I'm not.
The problem is that neutral reads as cold to people who expect warmth to be visibly transmitted at all times. So the energy cost isn't holding an expression — it's the constant low-level awareness that my resting state is being misread, and the calculation of whether to correct it or let it go. People leave me alone because they can't read me.
Your resting bitch face at least has a clear signal. Mine just creates a question mark that other people want me to answer.
I think your situation aligns perfectly with mine, I can perfectly understand what you're saying, it's just a bit different.
My face is also non intentional, it comes up in any case, even if I'm interested or not annoyes. It is usually percieved as being full of myself instead of cold, but the result is similar: I get misunderstood just like you do.
And yes, the energy goes to keeping a "warmth" that is supposed to occur naturally, but some of us don't actually do it spontaneously, we have to actively think about it.
My personal take on people is not to judge theyr expressions, they can mislead and can be manipulated (just like we force warmth while masking sometimes) but judge people's actions.
The interesting thing about such social norms in behaviour is that they are rarely discussed as explicitly as such. Where have we read or been told, "If someone has a problem with you and has been talking behind your back, it's important that you not confront the issue honestly and directly and with compassion"? In fact, what we are taught is the opposite! Talking about people behind their backs is rarely portrayed as admirable in fiction, and instead, is associated with "snakes in the grass" and untrustworthiness.
In the neurotypical world, there seem to be areas of grey, where the explicit rules do not apply. Where the tacit rules kick in. Where, yes, it is morally wrong to do such and such, but that's for protagonists in stories and not for real people. It's ok for real people to do these things we normally find unsavoury because, well, a whole different set of rules applies. Maybe some tacitly agreed upon rules that neurodivergent people didn't get the memo on.
I want to add that I suspect it wasn't so much that the person talking behind the writer's back felt that it was somehow "correct" to refuse to discuss the issue, in the exact same way as small children caught out being mean at school would, but rather that she felt, well, embarrassed and awkward. It was simply easier to act as though the target of her wrongdoing was the problem rather than facing up honestly to the fact that she did something wrong herself.
That's a generous and probably accurate read.
Embarrassment is a powerful driver of avoidance. It's much easier to make the person you wronged into the problem than to sit with the discomfort of having done something you know wasn't right.
What's interesting is that the same directness that made me seem threatening to her is exactly what would have made the conversation easier for both of us. If she'd just said "I was embarrassed and I handled it badly" — that's something I could work with. That's a human moment. Instead the exit chosen was one that required making me wrong so she could stay comfortable.
Which is the tacit rule again — performing indirection is safer than honest discomfort.
Even when honest discomfort would have resolved everything faster.
"The memo we didn't get" — that's exactly it.
The explicit rules we were taught: be honest, don't talk behind people's backs, address things directly. We followed them. And then discovered there's an entire layer of unwritten rules that contradict the written ones — and that knowing which layer applies in which moment is the real test. One nobody announced.
The neurotypical nervous system absorbs those tacit rules through thousands of small social moments. The neurodivergent one often doesn't catch the transmission. Not because we weren't paying attention. Because the signal was never made explicit.
And then we get marked down for following the rules we were actually given.
I totally agree with this I wrote about it too not long ago from a historical view point, you might resonate with. https://substack.com/@thequietspaceinside/note/c-272979799?r=7qpomr
Great piece. I am a family doctor with a speciality in mental health matters and am trying to create awareness on this subject. Nowadays we have a mental health system that keeps rehashing this limited point of view: you are different, so you have a condition. High time to change the narrative. Excellent point on how it doesnt feel systemic, it feels personal for people on the recieving end of the matter
Thank you — and thank you for the work you're doing from inside the system.
"You are different, so you have a condition" — that framing does so much damage before anyone has even asked the right question. It locates the problem in the person before examining whether the environment producing the distress was ever designed for that person in the first place.
In my opinion it’s just so darn backwards, this assumption that if you’re not close to a typical, you’re wrong….. set up by a typical.
The fact that it feels personal is the mechanism, not the symptom. A world that consistently reflects one version of human back as correct will, over time, convince everyone who doesn't match it that the problem is theirs to solve. The systemic becomes invisible precisely because it's so thoroughly internalised.
Clinicians who can hold both — the individual and the structural — are rare and genuinely needed. The narrative shift you're describing is exactly what changes outcomes.
I'm glad the piece landed. 🧡
This resonated deeply.
One thing I’ve been wrestling with lately is the difference between dysfunction and mismatch.
For years, I assumed that if I was struggling to be understood, the problem must be me. But the more I’ve studied communication, cognition, and relational dynamics, the more I’ve wondered whether many of us spend our lives being measured against standards we didn’t help create.
Not because we’re “better.”
Not because the systems are always wrong.
But because familiarity often gets mistaken for correctness.
I’ve become increasingly interested in what happens when people stop asking, “What’s wrong with me?” and start asking, “What conditions help me think, contribute, connect, and thrive?”
Thank you for putting language to something I’ve been circling for a long time.
You make perfect sense — and you've named something I've been living today.
Dysfunction and mismatch feel like different positions on the same scale to me. When the energy is depleted, the load is too high, the system is running a threat response — that's dysfunction. The gap between me and the environment becomes unnavigable.
Same person, better conditions — mismatch. The environment still wasn't built for this architecture. But there's enough resource to navigate the gap rather than be swallowed by it.
"What conditions help me think, contribute, connect and thrive" is exactly the right question. Because the answer changes the frame entirely — from fixing the person to designing the conditions.
This situation feels SO familiar 😒
Thank you❤
Well shit :-/
Naming that it stays this way not through malice but through comfort, through a reality where the problem simply doesn't exist for those swimming with the current, is the hardest thing to make legible to anyone who hasn't felt it. Because you can't argue someone out of a comfort they've never had to name. The story at the start is a perfect microscale version of the whole system. Directness penalised as aggression. Indirectness rewarded as reasonable. Two nervous systems reading the same moment, and only one gets to be the default. Fantastic piece.
Neurodivergence is a label thst has been created out of thin air and has no science behind it. It is a coping strategy for people that have mental disorder.
It serves as an umbrella concept rather than a specific medical condition found in diagnostic manuals like the DSM-5 or ICD-11.
neurodivergence itself cannot be diagnosed and you cannot claim medical insurance for "neurodivergence" itself
And today it is a pop culture “cool” new shiny thing to label yourselves neurodivergence furthermore showing the mental disorder.
Look it up
The fact that you think neurodiversity is a mental disorder just proves the whole point of the article.
Autism and ADHD and OCD and all the other things that are BRAIN DIFFERENCES (scientifically PROVEN by YOUR own neurotypical systems by now!!) are NOT „disorders“. Brain difference and disorder are mutually exclusive… 😖
They are very real and VERY MUCH „diagnosable“. And at least in many countries you can very much claim medical insurance / disability etc. due to them if they are disabling in any form *in the current, unavoidable, „normal“ environment*. Even when they are NOT disabling in the right circumstances. Because as of now modern (western) life does not afford those right circumstances for people who are neurodiverse ( aka have different brains).
BTW, because someone like you is likely to think that as well: PTB*S* is a SYNDROME, too, NOT a „disorder“ (that is a wrong and harmful, old label).
A „disorder“ is something that is pathological and harmful (to others and/or self).
A syndrome is an appropriate response to *abnormal circumstances*.
A neurodiversity literally means a brain and nervous system difference.
All are medical, scientifically proven and well-acknowledged by now. They are NOT the same. And they are not „non-existent“ just because your personal medical knowledge is lagging behind modern medicine. 🙄