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
Impressively relevant video where the creator is autistic and describes his “Foreigner Strategy”
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.