Lately, healing feels like chipping away at the stone of the tomb, bit by bit, waiting for it to roll away. It’s an exhausting process of grief, which we are in all the stages of at once. In the end, we may not find a cure, but we can walk toward acceptance of what is and commit to keep pursuing what can lead to improvement, day after day.
Hint: If the rhymes and rhythm feel a tad off or uncomfortable at times, feel the limp and the asymmetrical pain they represent. Dynamic disabilities can be frustrating as they come and go, often unpredictably.
Bit by bit, you are healing,
and oh how it hurts.
They promise a miracle
if you keep up the good work.
But a cure isn’t coming.
And so you must grieve.
“This is your life is now.”
You struggle to breathe.
Accept and resist.
Both are your lot.
This body malfunctions,
but it’s all that you’ve got.
The new medications
help only so much.
Exercises and tests.
Is it sore to the touch?
Eat well and drink water,
but watch for the sun,
not too much, not too little.
Don’t forget to have fun!
You see a doctor a day.
They say you’re doing well,
but inside your heart cries
and the ache starts to swell.
To hell with the scammers’
damning promotions.
I send digital hugs,
pictographic emotions.
It’s never enough.
You can’t do enough.
There will always be
just one more “just.”
Make space in your schedule.
Insurance denies.
Back to the start.
Light fades from your eyes.
Buy this trinket, do yoga,
take this new supplement.
“By the way, have you tried…?”
It won’t make a dent.
Acquaintances protest:
“You’re too healthy to need”
“You’re too young to have this”
“But you look fine to me!”
There’s a you they refuse,
a vulnerable friend,
a neighbor to help,
an inviting-in.
You’re so tired, so weary,
not from the symptoms;
it’s appointments and lines,
sorting folly from wisdom.
You make so many calls
“just checking on this.”
Wait for a response,
Can’t afford to miss.
Lab results, workouts,
the advice and procedures,
the shots and the patches,
the side effect teachers.
You still have to work
your eight hours each day.
You still have to do
the things that you say.
You need to take care
of yourself and your people.
You still need to gather
at cafes and steeples.
You still need to be
there when you can.
Don’t dwell on yourself;
give others a hand.
Accommodations and strategies,
coping mechanisms,
all these techniques
are complexity prisms
Of “How much will this take?
How much will it cost?”
Not solely money,
Time and energy lost.
It’s hard to say no
to those intending help
when so many don’t offer,
but do I have to eat kelp?
Sometimes the help hurts.
Snake oil is no cure.
And sometimes you wonder
why God’s so demure.
You’ve prayed and been faithful,
done all that you should.
You’ve completed each task
on your quest to be good.
So where is the miracle?
Where is hope and relief?
When peace is scarce,
All you have is this grief.
The pain keeps on coming,
but the effort’s worthwhile.
Accept the pursuit
of a life reconciled.
All that you aimed for
is altered at best.
You will not be fixed.
Your normal has left.
You learn who to trust
and who helps you stand tall
Who’s there for the breakdown,
And that scan in the Fall.
Rejoice at good news,
even when scared.
Remember the names
of people who cared.
I can’t promise miracles,
only sanctuary,
for people like us
and the stories we carry.
Mobility, strength,
stamina, speed,
memory, attention,
cognition, and need.
You are now this way.
It’s not your fault.
It’s not in God’s “plan”
to bring life to a halt.
The prayers go unanswered,
Missing: Miracle cure.
Spotting the frauds,
you resist their allure.
In each step that we take,
we resolve to keep trying—
not better completely
but better than dying.
Each day by day better
than yesterday went.
May you find relief;
may you feel free to vent.
Even when it’s not
the most perfect day,
know that we’re here,
and we’ll light your way.
As aromantic- and/or asexual-spectrum Christians and Jesus-adjacent people, it can be hard to believe that we are not alone. There are few examples of us in queer Christian spaces speaking about our experiences, not to mention the broader queer or Christian/faith worlds in general. I want to do my part to change that with this website and connect you with more a-spectrum Christian and Christian-ish people across the internet. This summer, I’m hosting a short Q&A series.
1. Hi! We’re so glad you’re here. Can you introduce yourself to the Invisible Cake Society with your name, pronouns, any identity labels you feel like sharing?
Hi, my name is Destiny DiMattei, my pronouns are she/her and they/them. I’m asexual, genderqueer, fat, disabled, and white. I haven’t decided on my label for my romantic orientation, but for me, the lines between romance and friendship are hard to define. Especially once you take sex out of the picture.
2. What do you like to spend your time doing, online or in person, creatively and/or professionally?
Professionally, I work as a peer recovery specialist at On Our Own Inc. Baltimore, and I’m working on getting my peer recovery specialist certification. I’m also getting certified as a body trust provider, and I’m a certified Body Image Coach. I am also a coleader of Body Liberation Baltimore. I also love doing activism, and when I can, I get involved with my local Baltimore chapter of Democratic Socialists of America. Creatively, I love to swim, watch horror movies, listen to podcasts (especially horror audio dramas), and hang out with friends. I’ve also recently got into ceramics. I’m hoping to get good at making human figures and dolls. I also love to create songs, and I consider myself a bit of a storyteller because I love making up scary stories. I need to start writing them down, but I hate writing. lol
3. When did you hear about aromanticism and asexuality, and when did you realize they described you?
I don’t remember when the exact year was, but it was in my mid 20s. I was thinking about me trying to date and how I was dreading getting closer to people because I didn’t really want to have sex with people and someone asked me if I considered that I might be asexual. I went into the rabbit hole of research and discovered that this is me. Before that, I thought I was just waiting till marriage like some Christians do, even though that wasn’t a whole thing with my faith. My family never pushed that on me anyway. It was only after reflecting that I realized that was just my out.
4. What’s your faith background and how would you describe your relationship with religion/spirituality/faith today?
I grew up Catholic, thanks to my granny. She loved the Catholic Church because of the sacraments, but she didn’t agree with everything, especially their thoughts on divorce because she’s remarried a few times. My granny isn’t the most LGBT inclusive, but she is better than some. Now after researching and realizing problems with the Catholic Church, I still have a connection with the Catholic faith, but I say I’m Catholic-ish. I’ve started attending an independent Catholic Church and I’m exploring other methods of spirituality. Now my only goal is to take my new understanding of what mainstream Christianity got wrong from an intellectual thought exercise to trying to develop a personal relationship with God.
5. How has your a-spec identity influenced your personal faith?
I don’t really know how to answer that. Purity culture was not stressed too hard in my family, but I would hear it in music. It was always also just talks about families and having kids and all that, but I was never expected to live up to that because I’m disabled. As time went on, however, I realized that being ace doesn’t change that I’m a child of God. I think the divine knows me and loves me as I am. I truly believe that. I feel like there needs to be more support for ace Christians, who are living single lives or in the nontraditional relationships.
6. How has your a-spec identity affected your relationship with religious or spiritual communities?
I left Roman Catholic churches because I was afraid if they got to know me and I started talking about being asexual and open to romance from either gender that I might be rejected. I found an LGBT-inclusive Independent Catholic Church called Our Lady, Undoer of Knots, which is part of Dignity USA. It’s the Baltimore chapter. The only thing that kind of sucks is the priest talks about sometimes that the LGBT community was virtually just gays and then bis and trans entered, and now it’s the whole alphabet. This kind of joke makes me a little mad sometimes. I feel like asexuality is still a mostly invisible orientation.
7. How has your faith affected your relationship with the a-spec or larger LGBTQIA+ community?
I’m very careful about who I share my faith with in the general LGBT community because there are some people that I’ve known who have had religious trauma. That’s the main thing I’ve noticed. My faith is pretty important to me, and sometimes I do educate when Christianity comes up about the more progressive and accepting version of things, but sometimes I feel alone in that effort.
8. Does your a-spec identity impact your gender identity? Or vice versa?
I don’t really think so. All I know is I figured out ace first before I started thinking about questioning my gender identity.
9. What should all a-spec Christians know?
They should know that they are all beloved children of God and that your identities are valid.
10. What do you want the larger affirming LGBTQIA+ and ally Christian community to know about a-spec Christians?
The larger community should know that ace Christians share things in common with the wider community, but there are some differences. For ace Christians, it’s harder to find love if they want love, and marriage might not be in the cards. Also for disabled queer Christians, marriage might not be possible, especially if they’re worried about benefits, such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Queer marriage cannot be the end all be all when it comes to LGBT inclusion and affirmation in the church. Maybe a commitment ceremony of QPRs or recognition of polyamorous couples would be a beneficial celebration of queer friendships, and more support for single people as well. If an ace person does get married (either because of love or convenience and necessity) support them as well.
11. At Invisible Cake Society, we highlight experiences that have been erased or seem invisible to those outside of them. What’s your favorite way to show your a-spectrum Pride?
I have an ace queer T-shirt that a friend from an ace meetup helped me make. I also try to go to ace meetups and just share things about myself. I also recommend my favorite podcasts, which two of them have ace main characters.
12. Do you have a favorite example of a-spec representation (whether explicitly stated or not) in media, books, public figures, theater, etc.? What about them resonated with you?
I love the Magnus Archives podcast because of the horror and the ace representation.
13. Anything else you want readers to know?
Nothing that I can think of. I’m so happy to hear about other ace Christians out there.
14. Where can they follow your work online?
I’m not very active online, but I do have a few social media things you can follow me on. I used to have TikTok, but I don’t use it anymore. My Facebook is Destiny DiMattei, and my Instagram. If you search my name, I should come up as well. I also am coleader of a Facebook group called Body Liberation Baltimore. I also just recently created my own Instagram for when I start up my coaching practice eventually. It’s a slow work in process, but it’s called ShrinklessCoach.
Justin, Ell, and I hosted a gathering for neurodivergent progressive Christians for Disability Pride Month 2025. Though this year’s event was not specifically for asexual and aromantic people, there is significant overlap with these communities, which was reflected in this discussion. (See our previous conversations about the a-spec Christian intersection here.)
Discussion questions:
How has your neurodivergence affected your experience of Christianity?
How has your faith affected your experience of being neurodivergent?
How have you been supported by your community?
What challenges have you encountered in your communities?
How can the Christian community as a whole better support and uplift neurodivergent people? What can Christianity learn from neurodivergent people and their lived experience?
What encouragement/words of affirmation can you share with other neurodivergent Christians?
What spiritual practices, resources or supports have helped you with your neurodivergence and faith?
This Enneagram 3 has been wrestling with “But is it enough to the world? Should I be doing more? Am I doing enough?” for many years.
Sarah Bessey asked these questions in a Substack post last week, and I wrote much of the following as an essay-length comment in response. At her encouragement, I am not being self-deprecating about my hyperverbal tendencies and am instead turning it into an actual essay here. 😊
Enoughness and too-muchness haunt me as I bounce between ADHD and anxiety, between disabilities and giftedness, between work-for-your-worthiness hustle culture and the fine line of comfort that tips necessary recovery-mode rest into self-indulgence and privilege. Am I achieving enough to have earned my belonging, my right to be treated with respect, my credibility when I speak on my own story, my rest? And then there are the less me-focused questions: Am I doing enough to steward my gifts for the needs of the world? Am I loving my neighbor or just talking about it online? Am I missing opportunities when I could have made a difference but didn’t see the need right in front of me, which I am uniquely gifted and called to fill?
For one example, there is work to be done around building the field of asexual theology as a subset of queer theology, and I know I could and maybe even “should” do it, but here at this point in time, I spend so much time managing my disorders and disabilities and general adulting that even reading and remembering a book feels like a daunting task, much less trying to be one of few pioneers in a niche and controversial subgenre of a subgenre. Maybe that will change! My containers and limits today might only be for a season. I can’t know.
And still the ambition is there: Maybe I will feel like I am making a difference if I just wrote a book or got a significant speaking gig or finally went to seminary, just as the leaders and mentors in my life have suspected I someday will. The Enneagram 3 in me knows I could be Someone Special, if I just tried harder, had the right master’s degree from the right school, started a podcast, networked with all the right people, had an impressive title, never said “no” ever, flew to all the conferences and namedropped and threw my resume and story around like currency. If tried to be everything shiny and powerful and impressive to everyone all of the time, maybe enoughness would find me.
Alas for the darn bounds of time and space that I have to live linearly, constrained to physics, for lack of a TARDIS.
But being Someone Special is not a magic solution for the enoughness. This is part of my twice-exceptional ADHD, anxiety, perfectionist, compulsive overachiever recovery plan: to live contained to what I can do and not what I should do. I know it sounds simple, like the first-day-of-therapy kind of basic. But I realized in 2024 that I wasn’t getting to bed late because of Revenge Bedtime Procrastination, in which one stays up late to extend their fun free time. I simply had too many things on my plate for a normal human to get done in a day, and I am not a “normal” human. I am an invisibly disabled one, just in small ways that add up, and not always obviously, even to myself. My brain and body are different than other people’s, in need of different and sometimes more time-consuming care or problem-solving. (In 2023, my Word of the Year was “Complicated, as in letting myself be.” And that was a huge theme. Very accurate for that year. Goodness.)
I know all the hustle culture currency, which we have been taught will buy love or respect, is just another lie of capitalism. So, as Kendra Adachi says, naming what matters to ME (and not to everyone’s expectations to live up to) is vital for survival.
Back to the good I could do in the world, which genuinely does need what I am uniquely gifted to share: My skills as an editor and former journalist can teach my friends and followers media literacy; my specific theology and knowledge as a queer asexual Methodist provides a rare perspective on de/reconstruction and advocacy training; my White middle-class privilege to boost a cause or raise awareness or speak until my voice is hoarse allows others to get what they need. But at what point do my gifts/abilities/skills and the world’s needs surpass my capacity, regardless of my fit-ness for the task and call to stewardship of all I’ve been given?
My local leaders of United Women in Faith, the UMC women’s organization, said their theme this year, is “No one can do everything, but we can all do something. Let’s see what we can do together.” It is essentially the same “my drop in the bucket” concept I’ve held like a lifeline: I can’t fill the whole bucket of the solution, but I can be one droplet that makes the bucket overflow with compassion and care for all.
So I know I can’t do everything, but am I doing enough, what’s expected of me, what I should be doing, what the world needs from me, what is my duty and responsibility to step up and do? One body, many parts, means I can’t be the whole body by myself, but as a body part, am I contributing my function to justify the gifts I’ve been given and meet the needs of those who need me to give them?
I tried so hard in 2024. I did what I could. And in some ways, it was never going to be enough, and learning that the hard way allowed me to discern “the difference” of the infamous prayer, between what is mine to change and what is mine to accept I cannot change. People like to edit this to “no longer accepting what I cannot change, but changing what I cannot accept” as if it makes any sense. With apologies to Angela Davis, often cited as the source of this quote, it doesn’t add up. The lesson of the container is learned in cracking it to pieces and the necessary repair work that follows. I cannot save the whole world and convert them to be Justice Warriors with my leftover Evangelical Hero Complex (vintage Sarah Bessey blog post throwback!). I can’t change the election outcome or my body’s neediness or hateful people who don’t want to do better and refuse to learn anything. But I can accept what is out of my control and still commit to live my values regardless of the circumstances. For another metaphor, if a brick wall is blocking my path, the only way forward is to start by accepting that the wall is immovable, but I am not. I can’t change the wall, but I can change direction in response to it. This is “the wisdom to know the difference.”
As Sarah wrote about, we must make peace with being contained, constrained, being CONtent/conTENT of a boundaried physics-abiding linear timestream with over a third of my 24 hours a day being paid work and another third being necessary sleep. We must trust it’s enough, we’re doing enough, we’re enough, or that we’ve equipped others enough that they can pick up the baton and start running for themselves. And maybe we build that community we want, not through earning admirers from hustling, impressing, or fulfilling obligations and duties with our own skills, but in encouraging, equipping, opening doors, and giving away our seat at the table to those who need to be heard and seen. And then, when we are refreshed and discerning wisely, we can jump back in with what IS ours to do.
Sarah also wrote of others demanding moremoremore, which can turn from an honor into a storm of expectations and duty and stewardship and performance and responsibility so fast. As Taylor Swift sings, “the crowd was chanting MORE” as she was falling apart and pretending to be on top of the world (“I Can Do It With a Broken Heart”). It is often a mistimed, misplaced, or misworded expression of gratitude.
I say this to all of you from hard-won experience: you are already enough. And you have the wisdom to determine your own course of action and capacity to give. Comparison and competition will not measure accurately, ever. Your worthiness and enoughness lie unshaken within you by any outside force or others’ assessment. You’re wanted and not forgotten, you’re important and belong, you’re respected and trusted, you’re so very deeply loved and appreciated, you’re effective and outstanding in your work. And often that work does hit exactly where your neighbors and loved ones have their own needs. And I sit with you all in that grief of discernment, priorities and values alignments, and adding and subtracting to your schedule, knowing that some of the “moremoremore!” cheeping baby birds will have to learn to fly and seek their need-meeting elsewhere because you cannot be everything to everyone all of the time, even if you’d be better at it than others or have been given unique gifts to do it. Sometimes that opens the door for someone else to be the one who steps up to help, and sometimes that learn-to-fly moment will be the realization the baby birds need to lead themselves. The “moremoremore” might be a chance for the crowd to grow into “I can too” and blossom into a community of support so you aren’t the lone pioneer in your area of expertise and giftings, just one necessary and interdependent part of a larger body.
Being involuntarily boundaried by our limitations is a grief. Don’t skip over that part. We must learn to lament.
And also. Healthy containers and constraints can lead to more diverse ecosystems and stronger, lasting growth. They will also help us get quiet and still enough to hear the whisper of the Spirit or nudge in a direction to go and love in ways we are uniquely called to, equipped for, gifted in, and given to delight in.
If I must live bounded in a container of energy, time, space, and ability, then let me be a garden, flourishing and resting and bearing fruit and contributing to the growth of others, each in its season.
Can’t pay attention Brain broke Too high a price Can’t afford the toll Out of memory Blind to time Got distracted from my work To write down the rhyme
Podcast playing but I don’t hear I hear but don’t listen I listen but it’s unclear Process in and out Doesn’t hit the brain All this shame Driving me insane
Habits live hard And they die fast Working to sit still But it doesn’t last So much to think about Just to think at all Bump into the corner To avoid a fall
Let me move Let me be What works for you Doesn’t work for me They call me gifted They call me rare My mind diverged From the truth or dare
I got good grades Flash good girl smile Anxiety got me As 4.0 nerd style But that doesn’t get you help Doesn’t get what you need So ladies do the work Gotta let them see you bleed
So tired I go wild So restless I need rest But if you give me urgency I’m passing every test Novelty is candy Need the energetic calm Got the bounce in my leg Got the stim toy in my palm
I organize to realize I couldn’t survive otherwise Losing things losing minds Depression working overtime Need a plan need a break Keep it real never fake Be proud of our kind Break out of the grind
None of this is your fault Stand strong stand tall It’s A-D-H-D That’s all.
I had the honor of writing about ADHD and spiritual practices for Sojourners Magazine!
If you had told me 11 years ago at my first contemplative retreat that I had ADHD, I would have been skeptical. I was an organized, overachieving Enneagram 3, a bookworm, and a grown professional woman — not a small bouncy boy disturbing his classroom because of his attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. The problem, I was told by all around me, was that I lacked spiritual discipline. But just a few hours into the retreat on a Saturday afternoon, I had to admit I wasn’t excelling at the assignment of stillness and silence.
When a friend had suggested the Jesuit-led contemplative retreat, I’d eagerly agreed. At the time, I was fresh out of college, dealing with a boatload of baggage from a brief flirtation with charismatic church culture, and spiritually restless. I also felt trapped in a spiral of shame, depression, and anxiety. Maybe spending some time at a beautiful, peaceful retreat center would discipline my hyperactive mind into spiritual maturity.
I started this year with a specific Word of the Year, a tradition in Christian women’s circles dating back to the heyday of the “blogsphere.” I usually don’t remember mine by April, but this year was different. This year the word that came to me, or that I picked (depending on what you believe about such things), was “complicated.”
As in, letting myself be.
I refused to simplify myself any longer. I would not pretend to be straight for others’ comfort. I would not pretend to be the perfect gold-star aromantic asexual person while denying the reality of my vague sapphic attractions, while accepting that I would never be fully accepted in the lesbian community either. Aromantic and yet a romantic. A cis woman and yet deeply, intrinsically, queerly, asexually so.
I would not hide that I have nontraditionally presenting ADHD in addition to my variety pack of mental illnesses. I would give up trying to screen and test myself over and over for autism, which I probably don’t actually have but also don’t not have entirely. I would be hyperactive and exhausted, both wrapped in brain fog and begging for someone quick enough to catch up with my twice-exceptional brain that has already put the pieces together. I would live into the reality of my disabilities despite feeling unqualified to use that term. I would respect my body’s needs and differences as my own and not the object of others’ expectations.
As you might assume from my content on this site, I carry a lot of labels. Some are less well-known than others, and some carry inaccurate connotations. Some I am constantly working for greater awareness of, and others I keep quieter about. These labels have been immensely helpful for me, whether they are as specific as a microlabel on the spectrum of aromantic and asexual identity or as broad as the unifying and nebulous umbrella terms that I’m not sure where all I fit within.
Naming is important to self-concept and acceptance of our identity, but there are equally important stages that we move through before and after we first say, “Hi, my name is ____ and I’m ____.” These aren’t strictly linear, but they are numbered for the sake of organization:
Content warning for child abusestory. Start at 3:24 if this is a trigger for you
First, it is a great feeling to be able to understand and process every word from a speaker without needing the captions. That almost never happens. I feel like I actually processed every word!
Aside from speaking skills, this was so healing. And not only as someone with APD but the heart behind it holds several jewels I think we all need to learn from. Dr. Alexander approaches her work in a way that feels more like ministry than many “ministers” we hear about online.
“I know what it feels like … to be imprisoned, but I also know how it feels to be set free.”
This is the crux of it, right from the start. Those of us deconstructing or evolving or just plain leaving conservative and evangelical church traditions know that feeling of being “set aside and dismissed.” Queer people who have lived in the closet know the feeling of being restrained inside that metaphor, of being not only hidden but trapped. Neurodivergent and mentally ill and disabled people know this prison that is their own mind and body. So many of us who resonate with a name like “Invisible Cake Society” have had to work through our traumas while it felt like no one could perceive us and no one would believe us.
Invisible Cake Society 