Hi, if you identify as on the spectrum, neurodiverse, ASD, ADHD - I would be curious if your family is multicultural, and if you or a relative has moved to a foreign country or lives in a foreign country. For example, I have grandparents on both parents side who moved abroad. I moved abroad myself as an adult, and have a sibling who has done so as well.
This seems to be a response to feeling alien in one’s own culture, therefore having less of an incentive of staying. And then it increases the alien-ness for the next generation. I wonder where are correlation and causation here. Maybe they just intertwine, like some neurofunky globetrotter’s dna.
I’m currently living abroad, so I can highly relate to this. I’m the first one in my family though. I’m a stranger anywhere. and being weird is much easier where people just assume it is because you are a foreigner
I never really noticed that I got a ‘get out of weird jail’ card by moving countries, but being from a different culture meant people would accept me being different more easily and I didn’t get into trouble for not understanding or knowing every detail of social behaviour.
I self-diagnosed years after moving countries, but then it clicked and saw how I had been a foreigner everywhere and always, and that this feeling of disconnect made moving abroad really easy.
And then it clicked again - the few friends I found who I could really relate with also always seemed to move away. When I was a kid, when I was an adult. I might have a close friend or two for few years, a decade or two, and then they move, to another city or country. Maybe they move places as easily as me because they or their families feel the same disconnect.
Impressively relevant video where the creator is autistic and describes his “Foreigner Strategy”