How To Look On The Bright Side

Apr 8, 2024

Hey there, human,

I could say a lot about the recent upset in my daily postings—but that would be dwelling on the negative.

So to keep moving forward while Substack works on this problem, let’s practice looking on the bright side together.

Look: I’ve been a depressed AuDHDer (autistic & ADHDer) my whole life, whether I knew it or accepted it.

I don’t want to speak for your experience, but let’s just say I know what it’s like to spend a whole summer in bed. That was 2012 for me.

But this is the problem: Neurodivergence is often seen as a myriad of struggles… and I’ve personally contributed to that.

Let me be the one to say now that there is so much more to being neurodivergent than the struggles, and those positives deserve to be seen, too.

But positives can’t be seen if you’ve spent a lifetime unconsciously letting your brain run on negativity alone.

What I’m proposing is by no means simple or easy, but all things worth doing take practice.

So let’s take a look at what it takes to start changing this.

When negativity gets you nowhere, there’s only one direction to go.

I resisted this truth for over 12 years because negativity felt so validating to my experience.

But it wasn’t.

Negativity only led me to dwelling on feelings—not validating them.

So why don’t we start there?

1. Validate your negative feelings.

It takes guts to be able to tell yourself, “This sucks and my feelings are understandable,” and believe it.

But feelings will stay stuck if they aren’t heard.

That’s why Step 1 is to stop, listen, and validate to your feelings.

The best place to be emotionally is open.

That’s why Step 2 is all about keeping yourself open.

Ask yourself if these feelings are helping you move forward.

If you aren’t open to your feelings, you won’t be able to move on from them.

Accepting your feelings as real and unhelpful is the hard part, so good job!

All that’s left is to release them by focusing on the positive.

This is by no means simple, so here are some questions to help out:

*This very well may trigger more feelings, so you may need to loop back around to Step 1.

Don’t worry, though, that’s normal.

I’ll help you get started:

However you’re feeling about that upsetting thing is perfectly reasonable.

Of course it’s hard—you’re struggling! Anybody would find it hard.

So instead of giving yourself a worse time, try taking the 3 steps above.

And remember: You can always ask for help by commenting below.