Holding Pride in a World That Flattens You
Neurodivergent Notes
It’s Father’s Day. And this week, June 18th, is Autistic Pride Day.
That overlap feels worth contemplating, especially this year, in a moment where pride and visibility carry so much complexity. Nearly every Autistic and/or queer public-facing person I know has voiced some version of the same thing: it’s so hard to be perceived right now.
Hard to be seen in our identities and in our humanity ~ in the vulnerability and nuance and messiness. Hard to be seen without being flattened.
When collective trauma strikes, we tend to lose our softness. We slip into all-or-nothing thinking, scanning for heroes and villains, safe and unsafe. There’s less room for the gray. And yet… it’s the gray: the human, contradictory, messy middle that holds so much of what heals us.
So whether you’re doing it publicly or privately, whether you’re visibly advocating or just trying to hold onto yourself, I hope there’s some thread of pride you’re able to access this week. A pride rooted not in performance, but in you holding onto your humanity, especially in a world that would rather you didn’t. In your complexity. In your contradictions. In the parts of you that refuse to go numb.
One thing we know, across so many marginalized identities, is that integrating a positive identity can be protective. For our mental health. For our sense of self. For our relationships.
That’s true for Neurodivergent folx, and for queer folx, and for people who parent across these intersections. And it’s especially true when those identities were once hidden, shamed, or unnamed.
Last year, I shared the history of Autistic Pride Day: how it was founded by Autistic people, for Autistic people, an intentional contrast to awareness campaigns often steeped in pity. You can read that here if you’d like a primer on Autistic pride.
This year, I find myself reflecting less on history and more on healing.
And one thread that’s been showing up in my conversations this week is the power of being adored.
It’s something that came up during a recent parenting call inside the Nook. This month’s conversation centered on pride, so we gathered to reflect on what brings us pride in our families and children. As the conversation unfolded, it began to shift toward adoration and delight.
I felt an unexpected wave of emotion listening to parents speak about the ways they adore their children.
We weren’t troubleshooting sensory needs or strategizing around executive functioning (though those are important too). We were simply noticing and naming what we delight in: their sensitivity, their honesty, their freedom, the ways they are fully themselves in a world that so often asks for less.
And something about that conversation stayed with me.
Because for many of us, especially those who grew up undiagnosed or misunderstood, being “delighted in” wasn’t a common experience. Perhaps we learned how to be admired: to overachieve, to get the rules right, to mold ourselves into something others would accept. But being adored: being seen in our mess and met with delight, that’s a different kind of nourishment. A different kind of repair.
There’s something quietly radical about offering that to a child. About offering that to ourselves.
So today, I’m thinking about and appreciating the fathers who are doing just that.
The ones raising neurodivergent kids with curiosity and adoration.
The ones showing up to unlearn shame.
The ones discovering they’re Autistic or ADHD themselves and choosing pride over silence or shameful retreat.
There’s a beautiful study from LGBTQ+ parenting research that I keep returning to. It looks at how “positive identity aspects” in families: like pride, authenticity, and belonging, can buffer against the mental health impact of minority stress.1 That resonates deeply with what I see in neurodivergent families too. Pride, when rooted in connection, becomes a form of protection. A way to weather the world, together.
So whether you're a father, someone in a fathering role, a parent, or someone working to break old cycles…
Whether you're new to your Autistic identity or have carried it with pride for years…
Whether your pride is loud or quiet, shared or private…
I hope this week offers a moment of self-adoration. Of soft celebration in whatever way that looks for you.
And maybe, just maybe, a moment of adoration. From someone else. Or from yourself.
With warmth,
Megan Anna
Siegel, M., Legler, M., Neziraj, F., Goldberg, A. E., & Zemp, M. (2022). Minority Stress and Positive Identity Aspects in Members of LGBTQ+ Parent Families: Literature Review and a Study Protocol for a Mixed-Methods Evidence Synthesis. Children (Basel, Switzerland), 9(9), 1364. https://doi.org/10.3390/children9091364