Welcome to Divine Misfits

The Odd Bird Out

For the longest time, I felt like the odd bird out. I was always involved in different activities, whether that was sports or music or participating in class. But I always had trouble with things that seemed to come naturally to other people, especially socially. I had a hard time making friends or keeping friends and feeling connected to other people the way they seem to be with each other.

I always wonder how people were able to do that. And I would get so exhausted by social interactions, sometimes where I’d have to have to go home and kind of crawl into my little turtle shell and recover from being around people.

The Mirror Moment

There was this one day that I remember in particular, I was about 17 years old. I remember looking in the mirror, just kind of looking at myself and just saying, like, what is wrong with me? Why is it that this is so hard for me? Why do I keep bumping up against the same issue over and over and over again? It made me really sad to feel like I always kept finding myself in the same cycle. I knew there was something different, but I couldn’t put a name to it.

Mrs. Fix-It

So I went on this mission. I thought that if I can just work hard enough, and become a better person, then I can fix whatever this is. I decided I was going to pray more, read more Scripture, read more books, listen to more podcasts, I was going to do it all. And I thought maybe I’ll be able to fix whatever this is.

That was me for years and years, and I won’t even say that that is a negative, because I think I gleaned a lot from that. I learned a lot. Pushing yourself, I think, is very important. I pushed myself, increased my tolerance for things, learned a lot of skills that I’m wanting to share with you here on this podcast. But lo and behold, I would still run into the same invisible wall that I just couldn’t seem to get rid of.

I didn’t know what it was, or why it was there, but I just knew it existed. And it was causing me problems. 

The Longest Ride

There was this one instance during my freshman year of college. We went on an annual spring break training slash competition trip to Myrtle Beach. So I remember being on this bus with all of my teammates and I remember I couldn’t stand anyone on this bus (not their fault btw). I could not wait to get off the bus. I felt like I needed to get away from everyone. I was burned out on socializing. I was burned out on people. And I had truly reached my limit at that point. College was a huge transition for me. Going from high school, where I could kind of do my own thing, be in my own space, to going to college, new environment, training, because I was a college athlete, and never trained like that before.

I was exhausted. College classes, and then having a roommate. So there was nowhere to go. There was like nowhere to hide. I couldn’t escape. And by that point, spring break, I was so done and I was over it.

I didn’t have language for what I was experiencing at that time. Now I do. But at that time, all I knew was like things needed to change. I needed to work something out so that I didn’t continue to feel this way again.

It’s not my Fault

Between the personal development and wanting to become better, but then also being in these environments or experiences that wore me out, I had always felt like I was in this cycle of going back and forth. I carried a lot of guilt and a lot of shame because of that. Because I couldn’t fix it. 

That guilt and shame, you know, it started to dissipate over the years, I started to come to some kind of acceptance that, all right, well, maybe I’m just introverted, or I’m an INFJ or an INFT or INTJ or whatever it is. And okay, maybe, you know, I’m just a little bit different. So that’s okay. But again, I didn’t fully understand as much as I tried to figure it out.

The Diagnosis

So about a year and a half ago, we started the process of getting my twins evaluated for being on the spectrum. And as I’m going through this process, I start kind of connecting some dots for myself. I’m reading more about it and learning more and I’m like, this sounds a bit familiar. I started recognizing things, you know, in my children that I saw in myself. And I was like, you know what, I think I think I might be on the spectrum.

I set up an appointment with a psychiatric nurse practitioner through one of the online therapy platforms. Because I had done all of these online autism quotient tests, like all of the ones that you can take which was at least 10. And every single one of them was like, you have a high likelihood of being on the spectrum. 

So I make this appointment, and the NP does their own assessment. And he’s like, yeah, you have Asperger’s. I was like, okay, so it’s not just in my head, right? I’m not just, you know, making things up, and he’s like, No, no, no, you’re on the spectrum. 

Just Wired Differently

I got that diagnosis and kind of set it down for a little while to just kind of let it marinate in my psyche a little bit. The more I learned, the more it made sense. Also, the more I learned, the more that last bit of guilt and shame kind of fell away from me. Because knowing that my brain literally is just wired differently, I realized that’s not something to fix. That’s not something to be ashamed of. That’s not something to beat myself up over. My brain just works differently. I process information differently. I just interact differently. That’s okay.

Now, that’s not to negate personal development, because I think that’s important, neurodivergent or not, we can all work towards improving ourselves. And that’s part of, you know, what I want to help with here on this podcast.

But at my core, kind of understanding why certain things were so difficult, and how I had just been winging it this whole time. I was winging autism my whole entire life. 

Where This Blog Is Headed

I want to kind of take the sum of all of those experiences that I’ve had, everything that I’ve learned and gleaned through my faith and through Scripture and through personal development and kind of dial that in here.

I want to just share and encourage whether that’s for you to make some kind of external progress, or just have some kind of internal encouragement or acceptance or help you remove a little bit of that guilt and shame.

That’s what I want to do here through the stories in particular of the people in the Bible that God used who were oddballs themselves.Through the lessons I’ve learned with personal development and hopefully it can be an encouragement to you.

You’re a Divine Misfit

I’m very excited to start and be on this journey with you all. I look forward to connecting with the people this podcast is for. And I really pray that God uses this to be an encouragement to someone and all of those years that I spent trying to just figure it out will not be wasted and that it could help someone. So this is Divine Misfits, thank you so much for reading, and I’ll see you on the next one.

Bye.