š¦ AuDHD Magic is a celebration of Autistic and ADHD magic, mysticism, and sensitivity, hosted by Stephanie Elizabeth!
Welcome to the era of unhinged. Hereās what weāre diving into in this episode of AuDHD Magic:
What does it mean to be feral and unhinged?
The paradox of sanist cultural norms
How Iām neuroqueering my life and subverting the nice white girl conditioning
The astrological context for this chaotic moment
Connecting the thread between Aquarius, Uranus, and the AuDHD experience
Embracing the edge and becoming willing to repel people
Navigating loss and renewal of community
Read the transcript:
What is AuDHD magic, and what happens when we articulate it, when we put words to our reality?
This is AuDHD Magic, a celebration of Autistic and ADHD magic, mysticism and sensitivity. Iām your host Stephanie Elizabeth, a fairy witch, intuitive artist and guide obsessed with all things weird and witchy.
Keep listening for an unfiltered, unapologetically queer and fae journey into unseen dimensions and intersections of Autistic and ADHD reality. By the way, I have a potty mouth, so this podcast is definitely not appropriate for children.
Iām back! This is episode two, and I want to start with a shout out to everyone who has subscribed so far. Itās been a great response to this project, and Iām excited to share the next installment today.
So if you caught the first episode, or if youāve just had a conversation with me recently, you may have heard me say that I have entered my unhinged era. Now that might sound like just a flippant, chronically online kind of statement, but it actually has a deeper meaning, and today I want to talk about it, and so Iām going to share about what that means to me, how I recognize that itās time for this, why now, and how itās connected to the AuDHD experience. And I will be bringing into the astrological context, so keep listening to find out all about my unhinged era.
So for anyone not familiar with the term unhinged, Oxford languages defines it as āwildly irrational and out of touch with reality.ā Cambridge English dictionary goes straight to mentally ill as their definition, and Reddit user MalarkeyStar writes, āit means ācrazy and socially unacceptableāā and they go on to accurately point out that the word unhinged is often weaponized to invalidate people who do not conform to typical social norms and opinions.
I feel like thereās some overlap between the connotation of being unhinged and being feral, which is a term that Iām seeing a lot more people adopting in the neurodivergent community, possibly because of the Feral Neurodivergent Memes page on Facebook. (If you know, you know.) And again, thereās the concept with feral, of being unsocialized, of not conforming to the expected behavior and social norms.
One of the memories that came to mind as I was thinking about this is when I was a teenage Fiona Apple fan. Okay, weāre talking the Y2K era. I remember at one point being told by my then-boyfriend that Fiona is crazy and sheās mentally ill, and a lot of this was because of her famed Grammy VMA acceptance speech denouncing the bullshit of the music industry. And she wasnāt wrong. She just said the uncomfortable truth out loud.
Now this guy and I later broke up over his religious fundamentalism and conservative political views, by the way, and he also went on to become a successful right wing Christian author and TV commentator who is still spewing more of this harmful nonsense. (Donāt get me started on that.)
So letās be real. Being seen as crazy can have devastating consequences, especially for those who do not have the protective shield of privilege to legitimize and sort of smooth over their differences. There is a long history of insanity as a concept of being defined by racist, misogynist, ableist frameworks, and being something thatās weaponized against marginalized individuals and communities, whether thatās for personal or political gain or just to maintain a social hierarchy conformity.
Even now you only need to go into any comment section to find dog whistles about the dangers of mentally ill folks and why we should be bringing back institutions. So with all of this in mind, I think you could make the case that unhinged is a slur, or at least slur adjacent. So I do think itās a word thatās best applied to oneself and not something to use in description of someone else.
Now, although I do hold multiple neurodivergent identities personally and I have significant lived experience with depression and anxiety that have at times, distorted my view of realityāall that said I donāt consider myself to be crazy, wildly irrational and out of touch with reality. So then why am I calling myself unhinged?
For me, entering my unhinged era is about acknowledging that I am intentionally moving closer to the edge of what is socially acceptable. For example, I hold some so-called irrational beliefs that I stand by, such as:
I am a fairy with magical powers,
I can read people and communicate with trees and spirits.
I believe astrology is a legitimate source of insight to navigate the people patterns and timing in my life.
I know that my ancestors speak to me and we are intimately connected.
I have the understanding that I have a different sensory experience as a highly sensitive person, and itās not because Iām fussy or I just want to be a special snowflake.
I even hold the cringeworthy notion that I have insights and ideas that are worth sharing with strangers on the internet. š
Being seen as foolish, crazy and unhinged is something I have long feared and tried to avoid by adopting my Virgo rising mask and presenting myself as smart, rational and pragmatic with a reasonable explanation for everything. Add in a little of my Mercury and Libra to tone down any edgy statements and tailor my message to the people in front of me, and you have a recipe for maintaining an illusion of respectability.
Itās kind of a mind fuck that in order to be seen as in touch with reality, we have to pretend and suppress our actual reality, like seriously. Meanwhile, the people and institutions who tend to disparage us are actually the ones detached from reality and projecting their own violence onto anyone who makes them uncomfortable. Every accusation is a confession, as they say.
Iām not okay with performing for that agenda, and itās a barrier to being the person Iām meant to be in this lifetime. So entering my unhinged era is really an acknowledgement that Iām knowingly putting myself further out there, despite the fact that there are people who undoubtedly think I am delusional, or at the very least that Iām a silly, childish person who should just grow up and get a real job. And I just want to say, been there, done that, and I will continue having fun and aging in reverse.
I realized that I canāt control what other people think of me, and staying silent or attempting to hide my so called unhinged qualities and beliefs will not keep people from judging me, neither will hiding my gifts, talents and brilliance keep me safe from insecure people who find me threatening. Othersā judgments about me do not have to mean anything true about me. Those judgments emerge from that personās psyche and worldview.
I started getting bullied in preschool, and it continued through college, even though at that point I had sort of developed my masking strategy and I was actually trying to be way more normie in my presentation and activities than I am at this point in my life.
I was masking so hard in an attempt to stop people seeing me as the uncool, weird girl. And the thing is, it didnāt even work, because they still thought I was weird and funny and entertaining, not in a laughing with way, but in a laughing at. And studies have shown that allistic people (people who are not autistic) unconsciously sense who is autistic within seconds, and they react unfavorably. And this is all unconscious bias. Itās the reason why people will say, āOh, I welcome your unmasked self,ā but then the second you unmask, theyāre uncomfortable and they think youāre rude.
So Iām flipping the script on being weird and rude and different, and now itās something that I relish and claim for myself as a positive because weird people are often the most creative and interesting people that I encounter.
So entering my unhinged era means embracing my AuDHD nature and my queerness and all of the elements of who I am that I want to live and express, even if theyāre not welcomed by the mainstream or the people around me. And I do want to say that I am very fortunate and privileged to have wonderful, truly accepting people in my life, a partner who sees me, loves me and supports me as my authentic AuDHD self. So many people do not have that because AuDHD is othered in this culture. And the expectations of conformity and productivity do not work for us. They do not allow most of us to exist as we are, with our gifts, our needs, our limitations, but at the same time, the culture will gladly extract our labor, our creativity and ingenuity, while tossing the rest.
For me, embracing unhinged means:
Less people pleasing, more unapologetic existence,
Embracing my rebelliousness and subversive tendencies, which have been long hidden under the veneer of being a nice little white girl as I was socialized to be
Speaking the truth, acknowledging reality, even when people think Iām paranoid or a downer. āCan we talk about something better? Letās just focus on the positive. Itās probably going to be fine.ā Yeah, thatās oftentimes bullshit. So owning my opinionated nature is part of this, and remaining true to my values even when theyāre considered controversial or extreme.
Owning my joy, my enthusiasm and my genuineness. If you heard episode one, I talked about a notebook that I found from years ago that had some really important insights for me. And one of the things I found in there was a line I had written at some point, and it says, Iām not cool, Iām warm and goofy. And thatās true.
So itās also about moving and inhabiting my body in ways that are natural for me. For example, when music is playing, I need to move, even if people around me are remaining rigidly still. And I have to say that has happened at so many live music shows, and itās like mind boggling to me. Another thing, I wear colors, I wear patterns. I dress with flair in a sea of beige and neutrals.
Now, all of this I understand in the context of neuroqueering, which, if youāre not familiar with that, itās a concept defined by Dr. Nick Walker as āthe practice of queering, subverting, defying, disrupting, liberating oneself from neuronormativity and heteronormativity simultaneously.ā
So again, weāre existing in our bodies as they are. Weāre existing in our authentic sexual identity. And I would also add gender norms to this as well, because my mask was shaped by being socialized as a girl, where it was important to not make anyone uncomfortable, not to stand out or take up too much space, defer to other people.
So with all of this, why am I doing this now? Especially in a moment when we have an increasingly terrifying, actually unhinged authoritarian government and the feeling that here in the US, we are on the verge, if not already, in the early stages, of a civil war.
Thereās a well known quote from Black feminist writer and activist Audre Lorde in her poem A Litany For Survival. And she writes:
When we speak, we are afraid, our words will not be heard nor welcomed, but when we are silent, we are still afraid, so it is better to speak.
So letās turn to the astrology for some context on all of this.
This is a moment when we have Aquarian and Uranian energies coming to prominence. So we have Uranus in Gemini and Pluto in Aquarius. So the narrative has fractured and fragmented, and we are in a decentralization process. Fact based consensus reality is really kind of not a thing anymore. Weāre all in these reality silos and echo chambers. And with this, and certainly in the context of the collective trauma of the covid 19 pandemic which is ongoing, our social norms are shifting, and this is a very chaotic time.
Thinking about Aquarius as an archetype, this is one that I associate with neurodivergence, and it can sometimes be said to have an unhinged quality, as it is out of sync with the dominant social paradigms. It could be, often we think of it as ahead of its time. It could also be behind the times, as weāre seeing with some of those in power at the moment. Aquarius is also associated with friends, activism, collective visions and community gathered around shared causes or affinity.
Uranus is the modern ruler of Aquarius, so they go together. And the energy of Uranus is revolutionary. Itās destabilizing. It can be ingenious, and it carries an association with technological advancements.
Now in the Zodiac, Aquarius is symbolized by the water bearer. The water bearer is the one who leaves the village to go fetch water and then brings it back so everyone can partake. And in the course of leaving the village, they gain insight from outside the village walls. They can see from the outside things that people were inside cannot.
So in the same way, those of us who hold marginalized identities, inhabit marginalized neurotypes, bodies, experiencesāwe hold valuable awareness and insights that the in group, the people who fit the norm or are able to perform that they fit the norm well enough to convince others, those people donāt see and understand what we can see from the margins.
And so with Aquarius, there can be this sort of alien quality, someone whoās not quite in alignment, while it also does speak to the gathering of kindred spirits, even if itās a group of aliens.
Side note: Audre Lord had sun in Aquarius.
Now, bringing this back to my personal unhinged era, I have a confluence of Aquarian and Uranian transits hitting my chart right now that are ushering in this era for me.
Pluto in Aquarius is transiting my sixth house of service and health, definitely shifting some of my daily routines and just how I prioritize my physical, mental, emotional health.
Uranus is transiting my midheaven in Gemini, which concerns my career, reputation, legacy, impact, role as a citizen and a public figure, even though Iām kind of allergic to calling myself a public figure, but you get what I mean. With it being Gemini and ruled by Mercury, which is also my chart ruler, it also speaks to just my whole way of moving through the world, and especially my voice, my writing, my speaking.
I also have new friends coming into my life because I have Jupiter bringing expansion to my 11th house, which is an area of the chart that generally is concerned with Aquarian matters (friendships, groups, activism, what have you). And Jupiter is going to pass by my natal moon in cancer, in this transit of my 11th house, and at the same time, my progressed Moon has moved into Aquarius, so bringing me into the next two and a half years of an Aquarius era for me. And interestingly, that progression happened exactly on September 26 which is the day I released episode one of this podcast. And yes, that was intentional.
So if youāre curious about the astrology of neurodivergence, I will be sharing more on that in a later episode, so be sure to subscribe to hear more about that.
But for now, all of this astrological context tells me that drastic shifts are likely at this time for me, new possibilities are emerging, and beloved community is becoming a bigger focus. Now, community has always been important to me, but Iāve gotten clear that embracing more of the radically queer and unhinged is the pathway to the type of community that I want to surround myself with.
The truth is that over the last five years, my prior community has shifted drastically, and I have felt adrift. People I once called friends have fallen out of touch or fallen down the crunchy-to-right-wing pipeline with all the other self-styled ādaughters of the witches you couldnāt burn.ā And yes, Iām being snarky.
At the same time that Iāve been sitting with my deep disappointment and grief of these shattered illusions, I now understand, after getting repeatedly hit over the head with it by my guides, that those who are leaving my life are making way for those who are coming in.
Itās now about four years after my late diagnosis of autism and ADHD (although I had self identified previously) I have reached the point where Iām finally willing to repel people, because the truth is, Iām not for everyone, and I never have been. And thereās no point in trying to find the perfect words to explain myself to people who are not going to get me.
When it comes to my work, itās time to niche down and speak specifically to my fellow fae and freaky neurodivergent folks, the AuDHDers, who get me without overexplaining or watering it down.
The things that repel the misaligned community will simultaneously magnetize the kindred spirits. And itās hard, because itās not just about getting okay with the consequences of repelling the āwrongā people. There are people I enjoy that I donāt want to leave behind. I donāt want to repel them. I donāt want them to feel unwelcome, but the fact of the matter is that trying to be legible to everyone will only keep me from serving my community and cross-pollinating the magic with my soul friends.
So Iāve come to the conclusion that if you want my brilliance, youāre also going to get my unhinged.
Well, I guess thatās it for today. Thatās about what I have to say at the moment, and Iām sure Iāll be continuing these reflections in future episodes.
But for now, Iād love to know your thoughts and what this brought up for you. Have you been through a process like this? Have you encountered any of these challenges or interpersonal sticky points? Drop into the comments or send me an email. Iād love to hear from you and know more about your experience.
I want to thank you for listening/reading today. š¦ Until next time, take care and stay magical!
AuDHD Magic is created and produced by Stephanie Elizabeth. Our theme song is Crystal Waves by Starry Eyes.
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