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?
Every minute of every day That a person goes hungry That a hospital is bombed That slavery is and has been
That the planet is burning With hate and fear and pride But mostly as a sacrifice To the ravenous god Mammon Who demands a child die For each dollar it grants the wicked
You’re totally right. We should be unable to breathe To sleep, to have peace Until each war is ended forever
Until violence is mutinied And bullets no longer rain on the schools and churches And cities and countries
Until all are free from the demons In the legislature and in their minds In the pulpit and in their homes
You’re right. We are complicit. You’re right.
We live in abundance while others starve And freeze and lie ill or scream of anguish On our very streets
We pass by and we scroll on We can’t take another headline We ask in despair if anything matters And wonder that anyone has survived this long
This cruel planet, and its stupid inhabitants Destroying it as fast as possible In our worship to our golden god
You’re right. It should make us boil in rage. You’re right. We have no excuse to stay silent.
And our bodies are also right. We cannot take constant grief and rage. We are not built for this 24/7 world. We need rest and hope and humor
We need to hold so much in our hearts Not just the anger fire But the still waters Not just the injustice But praise of the good
The birds of the air And the palm trees that line my street Know something I don’t And they don’t know what I know
So I learn from their wisdom And ground myself to the earth That will be here long after we die Welcoming us back to the dirt
I can feel and do and be And speak from My full self Unashamed
Unwavering in righteous anger Rooted in peace within Committed to what is mine to do Rejoicing with those who rejoice Taking pleasure in the ephemeral and savoring transcendence
Holding in tension Multidimensional Loving and raging and fighting and calming Hosting and giving And resting and creating
So that my body, mind and heart Survive long enough to turn my grief Into a legacy.
There has yet to be peace on the Earth But don’t stop seeking Until it’s born.
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.
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:
Today, there is much discussion on embodiment, what it means to show up in a space as your full self, and to be present in your body wherever you are. The topic du jour, in particular, is church attendance. Can we experience the “real” church online?
This got me thinking about how if you’re going to talk about embodied presence, you need to be aware of what it means for someone to show up in their marginalized body, whether in a physical or online space. The risks it takes and the emotional cost it demands.
No amount of busyness or responsibility cures clinical depression, anxiety disorders, or neurodivergence. I believe people when they say they “just” needed (a kid, a partner, a job change, spirituality, a move) and now they feel better. But that’s not a cure for our disorders.
Sometimes in life, we do need a change. Whether it’s a weekly “me time” or a cross-country move or a new business, change can be good. But you cannot outrun your disorder. You can’t out-schedule it or out-perform it or out-laugh it. You can’t fill your life with enough people. You can only face it. Discover your values. Accept what you have been given and commit to living according to those values. Set your boundaries, and unravel your shame. Deconstruct and reconstruct and get help from people qualified and trustworthy to give it.
The only way is through. The only way is honesty with yourself and your past, present, and future. It takes lament and commitment, feeling the pain and not avoiding and learning to be whole while shattered. There is no easy out or clever trick or shortcut.
We take our meds and pay for the help we can afford and research, listen, and grow. We do what’s healthy for us emotionally, mentally, and physically. Knowing sometimes it will be a choice between one or the other. And we forgive ourselves and keep going when we hurt ourselves. We can’t outsmart it, but we find balance in the tumult. Slowly, over time. Like a raging river wearing on a rock.
We pray, “just enough for today, God.” That’s all we need. To keep breathing another day. and eventually, it is easier to breathe some days.
But we never graduate from this. We never achieve enough or get promoted out of a disorder. We can make it work and learn to live with it and do things to reduce it. But those are done in humility, with the step of facing it, saying I cannot hide in fake fine. If you are struggling this month, this year, this lifetime. It’s not too late and it’s not too early. You don’t have to wait until you hit the bottom. You don’t have a lack of will or spiritual weakness or identity of failure; you have a disability.
I don’t know that I’m there yet to be proud of my disabilities, but this #DisabilityPrideMonth, please don’t let anyone tell you that you just haven’t tried hard enough or are not busy enough or have too much time on your hands. You deserve the help you need.
Invisible Cake Society 