18. You Inherited This Brain (It's Not Wrong)
You identified you’re AuDHD and things finally made sense. Oh, that's why. Relief. Understanding. Language for why everything felt so hard your whole life.
But even with that knowledge, you're still overloaded by sounds no one else hears. Still in boom-bust cycles. Still apologizing for needing things differently.
That's because knowing you're AuDHD doesn't unlock "how to finally be normal."
It opens something deeper. Your brain isn't flawed—it's ancestral. It runs back through every neurodivergent human who saw what others missed, who felt too much, who lived at the edges and held medicine the village needed.
This isn't about fixing yourself. It's about remembering.
In This Episode:
Your AuDHD brain isn't a disorder—it's an ancestral inheritance with a role and purpose
Living a "borrowed" life drains you; building one that fits your brain gives you your energy back
Being resourced isn't selfish—it's how you can actually do what you're here to do
Season 2 explores what becomes possible when we stop trying to fit
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THIS BRAIN ISN'T NEW
We know AuDHD has a genetic component. We can trace it through families. But we've been taught to see it as a disorder—something that went wrong.
What if it didn't go wrong? What if it's been here all along?
The way-back grandmothers—the ones whose names we don't know—carried this brain too. They saw patterns no one else noticed. Felt the weather turning in their bones. Knew which plant for which wound. Could sit with the dying.
We're not trying to recreate their exact lives. We're looking for the principles underneath. The why behind how they structured their days, their relationships, their work. When we understand what made those lives sustainable for brains like ours, we can build modern versions that actually work.
THE ROLE WE INHERITED
Before "too sensitive" was a problem, there were people who held the same paradox we do. Who needed deep stillness to restore AND felt pulled toward connection and movement. Who saw patterns no one else noticed AND moved between worlds with curiosity.
This wasn't a bug. This was the design.
These ancestors held specific functions in their communities. They could sit with the dying while knowing when the harvest needed to happen. Hold ceremony with precision while adapting when things shifted. Feel what was coming before anyone else saw it.
The midwife who knew something was wrong before anyone else saw it. The weather-reader who felt the shift before the sky changed. The plant-keeper who held knowledge across seasons. The edge-walker who moved between worlds.
These weren't people who were "successful despite being different." They were successful because they were different. Their sensitivity was their radar. Their intensity was their power. Their inability to do things "the normal way" was their actual gift.
That's what we carry.
WHAT THIS LOOKS LIKE NOW
We're not all going to be full-time plant-keepers or weather-readers. But we can ask: What was the function of those roles?
The midwife wasn't just delivering babies—she was holding thresholds, being present for transformation, trusting her pattern recognition. The plant-keeper wasn't just storing herbs—she was tending slow knowledge, working in cycles, holding what others forgot.
Those functions still exist. They just look different.
Maybe you hold threshold spaces through coaching or witnessing. Maybe you tend slow knowledge through deep research and pattern recognition. Maybe you move between worlds, translating and bridging.
Season 2 explores what following the wisdom of our way-back grandmothers looks like in the modern age:
What love and friendship look like when we're not pretending or masking
What work looks like designed for our brains, not borrowed from someone else's template
Unconventional paths: intergenerational living, lives without kids, nomadic lifestyles
Not as prescriptions. As possibilities. Examples of people asking: What did my way-back grandmothers need to thrive—and how do I build a modern version of that?
WHY THIS MATTERS
When you're constantly depleted from living a borrowed life, you can't access what you're here to do—whether that's making art, raising kids, building businesses, or simply being present with the people you love.
The ancestral model wasn't "contribute to deserve care." It was "when you're cared for, your gifts emerge naturally." Our way-back grandmothers were resourced BY the village so they could offer what was theirs to offer.
The world doesn't need another person performing normal. It needs us resourced. It needs us whole. Because we see what others don't see. We feel what needs attention. We think in ways that unlock what's stuck.
But we can't do any of that while white-knuckling our way through a life that was never built for us.
THE KEY INSIGHT
When you hear "your brain has a lineage," pause. What opens? Not in your thinking. In your feeling.
The restlessness, the sensitivity, the way we see patterns and hold paradoxes and can't quite fit—it connects us to every neurodivergent human across time. Every person who lived at the edges and held medicine the village needed.
You're not flawed. You're not too much. You're in a lineage with those who came before.
And this season? We're learning how to live like it.