Read this before you call yourself lazy again
What society labels as “procrastination” or “disorganization”—it’s really just a panic response.
I haven’t yet worked with a group of designers that was wholly neurotypical, and tbh, it kind of seems weird to be NT as a creative. I sometimes wonder if neurodivergence is actually a requirement for being creative. You have to be able to wiggle your brain in a way that isn’t linear, maybe.
For me, I didn’t diagnose, categorize or attempt to understand my own neurodivergence until I had a kid, and that kid turned out to be autistic.
My little guy, he often shuts down when something new happens. It can be anything:
A TINY change like taking a slightly different route to school.
A BIG change like when he went from Pre-K to Kindergarten in a new school.
A FUN change that he’s looked forward to for months, like when I rented an Air BnB a mile away from us for a little vacation, and he panicked so hard that we had to cut it short one day in.
Or like last night, when we tried to teach him a new card game.
On his turn, he stared blankly at a space to the left of my gaze with big glassy eyes filled with tears. They erupted and spilled down his cheeks. He said “I don’t know” over and over. After we waited a while and tried to assure him that he could take all the time he needed or not play at all, he eventually calmed down enough tell me:
“One snap for No.”
What he meant was: "I can’t speak right now. Ask me a question, and if I snap once, that means no.”
He doesn’t always go nonverbal these days, but when he gets to that place, it means he is really distressed. He snapped his way to telling me he’d love to hang out with the rest of us but he didn’t want to play the game.
My son's raw, vibrating honesty about the pain of change strikes a chord.
It makes me think of every time I belly flopped onto my bed when I was having trouble with school, convinced I was dying and that all was lost. It reminds me of the ache I feel every time the kids hit some new milestone, no matter how positive it is. And it makes me think of every time I’ve ever watched a designer shut down in response to an assignment or to a critique. Especially when that designer was me 😅.
From this, I realize three important things:
Maybe all of us are one “snap routine” away from a shortcut—a secret hack—to being able to communicate our intentions and needs when we’re feeling overwhelmed.
Also, that what society labels as “procrastination” or “disorganization”—it’s really just a panic response. That means you need to soothe it, not yell at it.
Those people who tell you that you have some kind of character flaw—that you're undisciplined or lazy? They have no idea what they’re talking about. Let’s see THEM try to process 42% more information on average and see how well they do. Pay them no heed.
It’s easy to protect and soothe a small child, but it can be hard to treat ourselves with the same amount of care. So if that's you, I want you to hear me when I say this:
You are not broken.
The more I learn to meet my brain where it is, the more I notice something: that’s when the good work happens. Not when I force it—but when I make space for it.
XOXO,
Cathy🫰