I come from a family of neurodiverse people. Both parents are neurodiverse (undiagnosed Autism and ADHD) and had psychological comorbidities. My siblings, too, are neurodiverse: an ADHD brother and an ADD and Dyslexic older sister. Needless to say, the pattern has continued with my nieces and nephew, who are all neurodivergent.
Let’s say it’s a colourful genotype, not short of drama. If I wrote a script (tempting ????), it would probably be a hit on Netflix and 10/10 on IMBD ????.
In a family of creatives, misfits, troublemakers, rebels and heart warriors, I stood out the most.
As a baby, I screamed all the time, talked late (Autism), and when I did start, never shut up (ADHD). I thought my name was Demet Shut Up ????
My sister understood I was different. Being neurodiverse herself, she got me and sought to include me. Whatever was given to her, she would say, ‘Demetda,’ which translates in English as ‘Demet too’ or ‘And Demet’. In photos from our childhood, dressed in mum’s ’70s sewing pattern clothing, my sister always had her arm around me—my guardian angel. I lived under her protective wing for years, never wanting to be separated from her. She was the sheath, making all the noise bearable, and I looked longingly at her through the door separating our classrooms.
I remember clearly my first day at school. The shock of sitting on a hard chair, at a desk, in a row, expecting to be quiet. I never felt more like an alien. We were all terrified.
The thing with neurodiversity, for me, is that it makes it that much harder to conform. So the institution of education became the first arena where the inner battle grew, ammunition fuelled by the irrational rules and system designed to cage, restrict and control. None of it meant anything, and I looked out the window at the birds flying freely and wanted to join them, my fantasy abruptly interrupted by the shrill, punitive tone of the teacher asking me to pay attention, sit still, and keep focused! On what? I couldn’t see the point of being there and had no interest until the musical instruments came out and the drums were handed to me. Then I focused as hell ????.
The surge of energy found a place on the running track, too, where I was the fastest runner, aged eight, racing the eleven-year-olds, the fastest speaker, the loudest speaker/chatterbox, the loudest singer, and the constant fidgeter. I broke rules I didn’t understand. I knew them, but because I didn’t understand them, they disappeared. I couldn’t challenge the teacher at school though that changed when hormones fired like bullets. Prior to that, I screamed inside at the injustice and discomfort. Often, I’d run to the toilets to cry and let it out. My saving grace was I loved studying and threw myself into learning.
Another constant was the bullying I experienced at every stage of my schooling. To take it a step further – my life. I am not a victim. A kind of divine ignorance and lack of awareness protected me from the snide remarks, and I had no idea that I was the butt of people’s jokes and laughed along with them as they picked on me. When the penny dropped, I felt sad but struggled to believe it or let it become my reality. It would never occur to me to bully anyone. I had my faults, but the bullying concept wasn’t in my library of knowledge. The negative energy did affect me, and I felt the sensation of isolation from the group. My rich fantasy world created a place where I was accepted, understood, valued and loved. It made up for what was happening in the real world.
My imagination became my retreat. Creative force has a power like no other. To others, this world made me appear weird and even more different. I remember playing alone in the playground, walking in circles and talking or singing. I hung out with the flowers or trees. They were my friends. I could feel them. The energy was simple, pure, and not complicated like people, where their eyes said one thing and actions another, and often their words didn’t match their energies. It was all very confusing.
By age seven, I’d learnt to mask until I got home, where I’d either lay under my bed to decompress, ask my brother and sister to cover me in the thick Encyclopaedias (we all had them in the 80s) to feel grounded by weight or sit inside a cupboard in the dark. Although I was petrified of the dark, I had to do it, like taking medicine, because you know if you don’t, you will die, thus earning myself the title Drama Queen or another classic, Attention Seeker. Everything became increasingly impassioned in my head, matching the drama in our dysfunctional family system where things kept changing, from parent’s partners (quite a bit), moving house (quite a bit more), and changing schools, the inevitable result of changing homes. It kept me interested in life, at least. ADHD liked the change, and Autism feared and hated it.
Routine was super important to me. I needed it. I loved it. Rules I set myself were held in high esteem. Those appointed by others, I couldn’t understand, see any value in or were not ‘fair’ were like a grenade in my heart. Looking back, Pathological Demand Avoidance might have been a label awarded to me, as well as Autism and ADHD. Being the middle child in a single-parent family with a hard-working mum meant we had many au pairs who let us be, so I ran the TV schedule—the Oracle Dictator. I could control my environment for a few hours at home, and my brother and sister were happy. Or so I thought, but it was easier to let me have my way rather than endure what they all called a Z – a sudden shift of energy from A to Z where I had a meltdown. It often started with my being nonverbal and then a boiling rumbling sensation like a volcano about to erupt in my body, and I would either scream or throw myself down the stairs or at someone if they had been ‘the cause’ of it. That was when ADHD and Autism united – became a united front – and were on the same side of the battle lost—always lost—always climbing out of the hole. Then, like my parents, the mental health personality comorbidities hit home, starting at puberty, age twelve. Psychosis. Like everything else, I hid this too.
Not much inside. I learnt skills to hide my true self. Masks, they call it now.
Practically, I found it hard to take on any extra life responsibility and never got married or had kids. To give a little extra context, I do have five planets in Sagittarius – the freedom fighter, so the idea of losing my freedom to a system designed to break me, designed in a way I couldn’t understand and feel, and certainly wasn’t going to conform to, was preposterous. Like being a character in the wrong movie. That’s what I felt like. What am I doing here? What are these people doing? Whenever I could, I’d return to my fantasy world, write poetry, dance, and spend hours creating a place where I felt loved and safe.
Work was like school – a lying structure built on an ideal to create a population of enslaved people. The bullies were still there. The ego games. The dramas I had no desire to be a part of. Luckily, I always found at least one friend in these institutions. I still sucked in group activities, getting over-excited if I found myself fitting in, crossing boundaries, saying the wrong thing, talking out of turn and talking too much or too little. Never getting the balance.
A cycle of abusive relationships followed unsatisfying jobs – constantly changing – leaving in a mess due to being bullied out, having an internal meltdown, burnout… the noise, lights, constant chatter, inability to fit in, demands, the group stuff – wrong place and wrong time. What is wrong with me?
Lessons had to be learnt, but with no understanding of Autism or ADHD and being labelled as emotional, challenging, unstable, ‘we just don’t get her’ person and a lack of support in place, I was like a person running from one burning home to another – always running, trying to find a place to feel safe, before the embers caught fire.
I often found myself homeless, living on friend’s floors and rarely stayed anywhere longer than 6 months – I’d kid myself I could live in places that were unsuitable – people’s air fresheners, perfume, cleaning detergents or the noises, crowds and complexity of relationships made living with others traumatic, and I never earnt enough to rent my own studio or flat, despite being a fulltime employee. Except for the time I made an impulsive decision to move to Anglesey to escape another toxic relationship and ended up isolated and alone – again on the verge of a breakdown which resulted in my returning to the London and back on friends floors again.
I could not be vulnerable in the presence of others due to hiding for years, which caused mistrust and a lack of authenticity. I became lost in the many layers I created to survive in a design I didn’t fit.
There were moments of respite when I went to foreign lands. At the start of my thirties, when everyone else was finding their feet, settling into jobs or homes, partners, kids, etc., I got the hell out and moved abroad for ten years, finding solace with the many neurodiverse expats. There I fit in, as I wasn’t expected to fit in. Anything different about me was put down to me being a foreigner. I wasn’t expected to understand the culture or follow the rules and was given a ‘be yourself pass.’ The challenges of life’s mundane practical aspects could be relearned in a different culture. I got the extra help to create a bank account, rent a property, etc, as there was a community of expats to support me. Being a foreigner gave me the licence to not get the rules or the system, and there was some grace and compassion. Plus, I was living in Istanbul (Turkey), where rules were bent, and there was, at that time, still some personable effect. I could feel people more in a country that was not only warmer in climate but in spirit, too, a country not short of drama. A country with many layers of trauma. A little like myself. The pass given ran out eventually, and I returned in my forties.
It made sense. I wasn’t crazy. There wasn’t anything ‘wrong with me’.
I was in a system designed for a type of person. If you were lucky enough to have the proper support and find the right profession or passion that supported the neurodiverse aspects of yourself, then you were fortunate. I wasn’t, and that was why I felt like an alien. Like in STRANGER THINGS when Will was taken to the Upside Down World and heard his mum through the walls – that was me – on the other side of the wall trying to reach into a realm.
The diagnosis crashed the wall down, and I didn’t have to hide. I was given a voice and an outlet – the integration started – it’s still ongoing, and at least now I have peace; I have a voice and a space to be heard. All I wanted was to be understood and loved. That’s all anybody wants. We are all human, and we are all diverse. We need to change the system, and not so neurodiverse people can fit in, but so we can all be the best versions of ourselves.
Demet Dayanch is a jack of all trades, master of fun! A creative from London with Turkish Cypriot roots, she’s worked for arts charities, and film production companies, and as a content writer, teacher and Coach/Mentor. Her passions are writing, music, acting, research, astrology, mindfulness and neurodiversity.
