Some truths arrive like lightning —
…sudden, shocking, illuminating everything at once.
But this wasn’t that kind of truth.
This was more like watching a fortress crumble, stone by stone. Years of carefully constructed beliefs unraveling thread by thread, until what remained was both devastating and liberating in its simplicity:
I was never broken
But oh, how deeply I believed I was.
Picture a newborn, fresh to this world, already carrying the weight of disappointment — “We wanted a girl,” they said, as if my very existence was somehow wrong from the start.
Imagine a young autistic boy, trying desperately to meet eyes with kindness, only to be met with punishment when I couldn’t force it.
A child learning that safety meant performance.
That love had conditions.
That belonging came with a price.
In my world, there was no room for mistakes.
No space for human stumbling.
No warm embrace of imperfection.
Just endless pressure.
Relentless expectations.
The constant threat of punishment.
In patriarchal culture males are not allowed simply to be who they are and to glory in their unique identity. Their value is always determined by what they do.
- bell hooks
Perfecting My Disappearing Act
Kingdom Hall bathroom, 1987
The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead like angry wasps, their harsh glow bouncing off the streaky mirror and the desperate shine of my polished shoes. At fourteen, I stood rigid before that unforgiving glass, a soldier preparing for battle.
My fingers moved mechanically through my hair — once, twice, ten times — trying to tame what others had always mocked. It had to be perfect. Perfection was the only armor I knew.
In my head, the Bible reading looped like a broken record: “Jehovah is my shepherd; I shall not want.” Each word had to land just right. Each inflection carried the weight of acceptance or rejection.
A bead of sweat traced its path down my temple. I wiped it away with the urgency of someone erasing evidence. Any sign of humanity felt dangerous.
My father’s face floated in my mind’s eye — sharp, critical, watching. His reputation balanced on the knife-edge of my performance.
Just don’t stumble.
Just pronounce every word right.
Just be the exemplary young man they expect.
The boy in the mirror was already practicing his disappearing act — shrinking himself to fit the mold, reaching for an impossible standard of flawlessness, hoping that maybe this time, perfect execution would earn a moment of genuine approval.
A glimpse of what it might feel like to be enough.
Neurodivergent Insight: Why Disappearing Hurts So Much
For many of us who are autistic, ADHD, or otherwise neurodivergent, this kind of “disappearing” isn’t just emotional. It’s neurological. It's called masking — a form of social survival learned early, often unconsciously, and reinforced by systems that punish difference. It can feel like becoming an expert in your own erasure.
The Cost of Disappearing
I became an expert at vanishing into other people’s expectations.
A master of reading rooms.
A scholar of survival.
My awareness turned razor-sharp, always scanning:
- The slight shift in tone that meant danger
- The subtle change in expression that spelled rejection
- The invisible tripwires that could trigger punishment
When I discovered “healing,” I turned that same hypervigilance inward.
Self-awareness became a weapon.
Growth became another form of self-punishment.
Not only because I wanted to evolve — but because I believed I needed fixing.
Even after:
- Getting clean
- Coming out
- Leaving the religion
- Building a business
- Supporting others in their own journey’s
That whisper remained:
You’re not enough.
You’re too much.
You’re still broken.
(What I couldn’t see yet was that some of the pain I carried wasn’t just trauma — it was the lifelong friction of living as an autistic person in a world that never acknowledged it, understood it, or made space for it.)
The Unraveling
Change came like dawn — gradually, then all at once.
First, in recovery, reading my journals from the depths of addiction. Seeing not just the darkness, but the light that never left:
- The part that kept loving
- The part that kept trying
- The part that kept showing up
Then came the spiritual awakening through texts like “The Untethered Soul” and “Awareness.” The recognition that I wasn’t:
- Just my thoughts
- Just my pain
- Just my trauma
I was the awareness holding all of it.
The love that witnessed the worst and stayed.
The presence that never needed fixing.
One night in 2014, my journal captured a turning point:
“When are you going to stop believing you’re broken?
When will you finally realize that you don’t need fixing?
You – just as you are, right here, right now – are everything this moment needs.”
The Truth That Changes Everything
Here’s what I’ve come to know:
Healing doesn’t happen through effort.
It happens through surrender.
We don’t climb toward wholeness.
We soften into it.
This is the heart of what I now call the
Gravity Model of Returning
a remembering that love, presence, and clarity aren’t goals to achieve.
They’re gravity. Already here. Already holding us.
And healing begins the moment we stop resisting that.
Most of us carry such heavy resistance.
We’re braced against life.
We’re forcing change.
We’re trying to regulate ourselves into worthiness.
But here’s the truth:
You can’t fix what was never broken.
You can’t earn what’s already yours.
Wholeness isn’t a destination.
It’s your natural state — revealed when you stop trying to be someone else.
So if you’re exhausted…
If your soul aches from endless self-improvement…
Know this:
You’re not broken.
You never were.
(Take a moment. Breathe. Let your body feel that truth—not just your mind.)
The day you stop trying to fix yourself
Is the day you begin to truly live.
Maybe you don’t need to rise.
Maybe you just need to stop resisting what’s already holding you.
Note for the Neurodivergent
The Real Reason You're So Tired ( It's Not What You Think)
If you've spent a lifetime wondering why everything feels harder for you, why perfection was the only safety you knew, or why rest never seems to bring relief — you're not broken either.
Masking, burnout, shutdowns, meltdowns — these are not failures. They’re your nervous system doing its best to protect you.
Healing doesn’t mean becoming more "normal."
It means remembering:
You were whole before the world asked you to be anything else.