I’m “divergent” from WHAT, exactly?

Civilization is a system that diverges from reality. Its function is to preserve unsustainable human behavior against natural feedback. It accomplishes this by suppressing, distorting, and severing ecological and biological feedback loops. As it becomes more effective at doing so, the living systems that depend on feedback to remain coherent (forests, animals people, ALL of life, ultimately) begin to break down.

Feedback sensitivity, like every trait, exists on a scale. So it’s no surprise that the organisms most sensitive to feedback are the first to suffer when that feedback is polluted or withheld.

Civilization gaslights by portraying feedback sensitivity as the deviation, when in fact it is the system itself that has broken from reality. Clearly. The evidence is everywhere it touches life: destroyed species, destroyed ecosystems, destroyed peoples.

But within its dominant framework, “neurodivergent,” becomes a catchall for anyone whose nervous system fails to function “normally” within an environment that is fundamentally maladaptive.

It bears repeating: the system you grieve being excluded from is maladaptive to ALL life. This isn’t a contentious statement. Turn on the news. You know it’s true. You feel it.

The “norm,” the neurotypical person, is a hypothetical construct. It describes someone who can survive and thrive outside of reality, inside civilization’s distortions. But that person doesn’t exist. There are only people who appear to tolerate those distortions in the moment. Their bodies and minds are in deep distress, but the feedback doesn’t register on an immediate physiological level. It shows up as depression. Anxiety. Diabetes. Chronic inflammation. Autoimmune disorders. Panic attacks. Doomscrolling. Disassociation. Insomnia. And they look to their captor for solutions. Plastic surgeries. Weight-loss drugs. Self-help. Workplace wellness seminars. Sugar. Alcohol. Netflix. Adderall. SSRIs. Ambient music. Mindfulness apps. Therapy dogs.

We need to stop speaking civilization’s language. We need reality again as a context. I’m so tired of validating the mass psychosis of broken systems.