safespace

finding a safespace.

Ever since I can remember, I never seemed to fit in the world around me. My early childhood memories consist of countless moments and situations, where people would make remarks that told me to "act and be normal". But no matter how hard I tried, I could not relate to this term, "normal". Something about the world was off, and everyone told me that this issue came from me and the way I was.

The reality that I was facing, is one which is quite commonly experienced by both diagnosed and undiagnosed neurodiverse people. I was never told about identity and diversity, let alone neurodiversity in particular. In fact, I did not know about neurodiversity up until my teenage years - and even then, it still took me years and lots of help from others to realize that I myself was on the neurodiverse spectrum.

As of writing this, I am twenty-two years old, and I only got to know about my neurodiversity during the past twelve months. Within this process, I found the space and strength to reflect on a lot of things, including my childhood. There is still a lot to unpack for me. Entering this process led me to asking myself how a young kid can deal with a world that is rejecting their identity. Where do you go, when there is nowhere safe to go? To me, there can be no definite answer to this question, everyone has their own experiences and ways to deal with them, and I would like to share mine. This zine is the story of how childhood me found a safespace.

This zine was made using electric zine maker by Nathalie Lawhead and HTML5 Reader for Electric Zine Maker by Jeremy Oduber. I can not state how wonderful these tools are.