Untangled
Neurodiversity, codependency, and the patterns we carry
I did something completely insane.
In a world where people are trying to capture and hold attention, one piece of evidence creators, sponsors and founders rely on is the subscription list. I cut mine by more than half. Stick around to find out why.
I have a Meetup group connected to the Ripefruit work. These folks probably came from a myriad of directions. They would have joined as both speakers and registrants of the DEI+N (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Neurodiversity) Talks, teachers and occupational therapists, folks who found me on the platform, and people who registered for Neuro and Nitro over the past four years for Social Emotional Learning and art making. It added up to a modest 299 people. I’m not sure what the one person was holding out for.
Let me step back for a moment and talk about my understanding of codependency and boundaries, and what I think it has to do with all of this.
I first discovered codependency about 10 years ago when I started looking into attachment styles. I had heard about anxious and secure attachment and, in my nature, wanted to understand what shaped those patterns. I came across a famous experiment called “The Strange Situation Experiment”1. It was an experiment where a mother and child are in a room. The mother leaves and either a stranger enters or the mother returns later. The range of reactions from the child was recorded and used to shape our understanding of attachment styles. I was fascinated and dove deeper.
I wanted to jump straight to the antidote. It made me uneasy to consider that my idea of falling in love, the butterflies, the feeling of floating, the chirping birds, might be shaped by my own attachment style. (Caution reader: spoiler alert to anyone still holding onto that image). I needed the answer on how to fix it. But I couldn’t get to the antidote without first understanding the problem. The problem was codependency.
So I went all in. I attended Codependents Anonymous meetings. Not a place a younger version of me or my friends would have been caught in. One of the first hurdles for me was the language. People introduced themselves as codependents. Ew! Occasionally, I heard “Hi my name is ____ and I’m someone working through codependent habits.” That took getting used to. But I started to understand that owning the label for this tendency we were all acknowledging was key to improving. This work was an exploration into one-sided agreements, obligation dressed as love, and dependency framed as partnership. Underneath it was a self-preservation strategy for safety and belonging.
Over time, I learned core concepts like the drama triangle and cross-talk. It clicked. Great. I had fixed love!
Except I hadn’t. I’d come to know that I had broken a former concept of love and would need to rebuild precepts brick by brick.
What’s more is what came next. I suddenly had a new lens on the world. Every relationship revealed its own codependence. Employer and employee. Racial dynamics. Teacher and student. Company and consumer. Constituent and system. And most relevant here, how we accept neurodiversity.
There is a codependent relationship when you say there’s a neurotypical and a neurodivergent. One can’t exist without the other. You can think of neurodiversity as a wider umbrella encompassing all, but most people aren’t making that distinction. They don’t care that the research says all brains are neurodiverse.2
“Under this perspective, "neurotypical" merely describes a majority whose cognitive differences do not fall into specific, recognized neurodivergent categories, but they are still part of the overall spectrum of cognitive diversity.”3
The moment you say someone thinks differently, you have to ask, different than what. That question takes you straight into the complexity of how all of us think. Yes, there are ranges that science calls typical. But there are also layers of culture, environment, class, generation, and adaptation. And everything else could be explained as masking. In other words, neurodiversity is the largest box we could wear without having to break it, should we be inclined.
Yes, we made a lot of these words up. Scientists don’t always use them the way we do as a culture. But they help us name something that gives voice to those who haven’t had one before. They increase sensitivity and awareness and create access.
At the same time, labels are complicated. They can support identity and growth, but they can also limit. The more we learn about them, the more likely we are to see ourselves inside them.4
I have a saying for this. Find the box so you can break the box. Or, if you like that box, you won’t put me in it.
Codependency even finds its way into the diagnosis process. Decisions about who is or isn’t considered neurodivergent are rarely neutral. They can carry implications for parents, hinge on access and cost, or be shaped by what a diagnosis might offer or take away. And once you’ve been named, that identity doesn’t sit in isolation. It gets reinforced by the people around you. You’ve always been “the ___ one,” so what happens when you’re not? Growth can challenge the roles others are used to, and not everyone is ready to adjust.
The Meetup group was made up of people seeking understanding, for themselves or for others, around neurodiversity. But I’m not sure the group was delivering that for them anymore.
Meanwhile, back at the conjunction of codependence and neurodiversity (or any other cross street), there was an antidote. Boundaries.
I went deep into that work. I took three courses and eventually taught one. Only now am I starting to feel the impact. It’s a pause before saying yes. A pause before assuming more is better. A pause before acting from fear, from the need to be chosen, from accepting behavior that doesn’t actually work for me.
As I build Ripefruit and think about legacy, I’m realizing something. There has to be a fierce edit. A boundary, so to speak. “But without losing subscribers” the fear voice shouts from the back of my head.
So there were about 300 people cozy in the Meetup group. Some engaged, some loosely connected, some long gone in spirit.
If the foundation is split, or you’ve used the wrong butter, (if you prefer a food metaphor), you can’t overcome that no matter how hard you try.
Meetup charges the most, so I started there. They benefit from the volume more than I do, and I’ve never had more than 10 people show up to an event. I asked for dues. A few people gave. A faithful few. In response, I waived dues for, and thus retained anyone who had engaged in the past eight months.
Everyone else, I released. Meetup actually cut them.
I allowed this to make room for the people aligned with the work as it exists now, not as it existed four years ago. And honestly, they’re probably grateful for fewer emails. I would be.
So I used boundaries to force an edit.
And 84 people remained. See, it was absolutely insane…but there you have my argument for it.
I want to pour one out for the homies who didn’t make the cut. I hope we cross paths again.
There’s a piece I wish I had 10 years ago. Something that would have shown me that codependency and how my attention works were connected. Working on one impacted the other. I mapped it out across a few neurodiversity labels. I’ll make it available here for those that want to go deeper.
Also, this is actually something we started to touch on in the Break the Box DEI+N Talks session. The idea that you can use a label to find yourself, but not stay confined to it. Check out the whole episode.
https://www.simplypsychology.org/mary-ainsworth.html
https://www.physiology.org/publications/news/the-physiologist-magazine/2022/september/neurodiversity-in-the-lab?SSO=Y
https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/3166200/1/200941708_Sep2022.pdf
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12554567/#:~:text=Conversations%20around%20neurodivergence%20and%20self,acceptance%20(2–5).