Going into a spiral. Need anything?

We are all Jennifer Connelly in Labyrinth led by Jareth the Goblin King

The gentleman at the grocery store is talking about people disappearing into gulags. The poetess on the radio is discussing her latest poem about Henny Penny (“the sky is falling!”). My hairdresser who just cut my hair says she might never leave Portugal on her fall trip. And we live in rainforest-bubble Alaska.

I’m struggling to find metaphor for what is happening right now, and all I can think about is this scene in Labyrinth.

Before we knew what the word “gaslighting” meant, we had Jareth the Goblin King, disturbingly sexy in his spandex and increasingly larger bulge, adorably playing with a baby while simultaneously laughing about killing it.

Garbed in white tights, knee-high boots, toting a phallus-shaped staff, David Bowie tries to kill fourteen-year-old Jennifer Connelly with an axe, meat grinder, and a poisonous peach.

When that doesn’t work, he tries to seduce her with super healthy-functioning-relationship lines like these:

“You cowered before me, I was frightening. I have reordered time. I have turned the world upside down, and I have done it all for you! I am exhausted from living up to your expectations of me. Isn’t that generous?”

Upside-down indeed. I haven’t lost this much hair since remote learning.

The labyrinth is unfair. It’s an unwinnable game, Jennifer Connolly‘s character discovers. The Goblin King enjoys this. As do all his little goblin toadies, doing whatever it takes to stay on his good side, knowing it could be their heads that roll next.

Neurodivergent and spiraling? You’re not alone.

I’ve had so much insomnia that there’s no more laundry to fold at one in the morning. Anxiety pangs have been running through my body like a cancer.

Did I mention I’m also a teacher, homeschooling an autistic child, parenting a defiant teenage son, my husband gets his news from YouTube, and last week was Folk Fest?

Wedneaday, skin cancer enthusiast Bobby Kennedy took a break from roasting under hot dog halogen lights to announce a new brand of eugenics, declaring that autism is an “epidemic” caused by mold and food additives.

(My autistic daughter was raised in a mold-free home and breast-fed until age 3 ½, supplemented with all organic foods. Not that that matters anyway because science.)

So I deleted my news app. Took social media off my phone. And yet I can’t look away. I keep peeking at my New York Times app, my only remaining source of information, and well, we all know what happened MondayTuesdayWednesayisitFridayyet.

Why am I spiralling? the voice in my mind said. Is it my neurospicy?

Having studied autism deeply after my daughter’s diagnosis five years ago, I learned I present several autistic traits and am a hypersensitive empath. So I did what any reasonable person would do and crowd-sourced my question to Threads:

Neurospicy peeps from the U.S., do you feel like your neurodivergence is making you more fearful and obsessed with the news? I don’t know if it’s because I’m hypersensitive or because I tend to obsess compulsively about things, but I feel that living in Merica is causing me to spiral a little more than my fellow normie’s…

Threads confirmed my suspicions. “It’s a really bad time for people with high justice sensitivity,” one said.

High justice sensitivity— it all makes sense! I remember having such high justice sensitivity growing up that I was honestly shocked I wasn’t a Libra.

My daughter’s sense of justice is so strong that she cries if I squash a mosquito or the dog rips up a piece of paper! If I had a dollar every time my daughter said, “It’s not fair,” I could buy a bike.

“Autistic and ADHD individuals in particular tend to have higher levels of justice sensitivity compared to neurotypicals,” writes Dr. Amy Marschall in Very Well Mind.

Is it our ability to recognize patterns? Or simply existing as ND (neurodivergent) in a world of normies? Is it our empathy and porousness, not knowing where we end and the rest of the world begins?

Brain imaging has demonstrated that neurospicy brains tend to be much more affected by injustices. And this *gestures to all this* timeline is the worst.

“Because NDs are so sensitive to everything, we are the first to notice the signs and patterns,” commenters on Threads opined. “We process it more intensely, too.”

Based on the comments, many of us are spiraling, paralyzed, and/or not sleeping, while others are dissociating from it.

So do I keep checking the news or naw? Repression is a “maladaptive coping strategy,” they said. “But try to keep a limit on doomscrolling.”

It’s also extra rough for anyone who’s been in an abusive/narcissistic relationship, as I was for several years. Anyone who was chronically gaslighted before we knew what that word meant feels their amygdala activated big time, and suddenly, we are emotionally thrust back into the spaces where those with more power manipulated us.

Whereas pre-internet we had little to no information about what was happening to us, now we rely on it to make us feel more “prepared” and empowered, so we can fight back. However, the information may be causing overwhelm and sleeplessness.

“Being NeuroSpicy in the U.S. right now feels like a constant loop of doomscrolling + emotional overhload. Our nervous sytems are already more sensitive, and when you mix that in with justice sensitivity, hyperfocus, and compulsive thought patterns, it’s a recipe for spiralling. You’re not alone. It’s not that we care too much, it’s that we’re wired to notice and feel things more deeply— and that can be both a strength and a struggle.” — Threads commenter

Add in the fact that neurodivergents are already more predisposed to depression, fatigue, and anxiety; we’re making ourselves sick.

“I don’t have this level of masking in me anymore.”

High justice sensitivity “can also be turned into its greatest strength through understanding, external support, and a shift to action,” writes The Edge Foundation. Many folks I know who are organizing and speaking out are neurospicy in their own right.

All of this is to say you are not alone. And sometimes knowing that is the best medicine.

Now, if we could just figure out how to get the baby back and defeat and have dissociative sex with the Goblin King, because David Bowie.

It’s all so confusing!

For more weird, become a free or paid subscriber! Yesterday the Alaskan governor vetoed the increase in education again 😢 and your $4 monthly contribution keeps me out of the bog of eternal despair. I will be so grateful! Thank you!

Love, Summer