👉🏽 Subscribe for thoughtful, bite-sized emails — from Liz Zhou, a neurodivergent therapist — on how to take care of your nervous system & understand your brain.
The "taboo" topics that no one talks about
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Something I really appreciate about the neurodivergent community is our willingness to talk about “taboo” topics. Topics like: psychedelics, sex, money, disability, death, the state of the world, privilege, power, and oppression… and more. Topics that make people squirm. I’m not saying that every single neurodivergent person is 100% comfortable with these topics. But it’s been my observation that, as a community, we’re willing to confront the uncomfortable. Maybe because, as neurodivergent people, we’re kind of a walking taboo anyway. Different. “Not normal.” Outside of the box. It makes sense that we’re willing to talk about things that mainstream society prefers to ignore. For a long time, I’ve had a special interest in a topic that is deeply taboo — grief, death, and dying. My relationship with death is complex, meaningful, and multilayered — and it’s also not as depressing or gloomy as people might think. ❤️ Pausing here because I’m aware these are sensitive topics. If you don’t feel like engaging with them today, please feel free to shift attention to something else; or take mindful pauses as you read. I took a death doula training last year, where I learned terms like “green burial” & “water cremation,” and held rose petals in my hand as we rehearsed an end-of-life celebration ceremony. One of my favorite books is Briefly, Perfectly Human: Making an Authentic Life by Getting Real About the End — by Alua Arthur, a death doula. I listen to podcasts like End of Life University: Real Talk about Life & Death as I boil my tea in the morning. And if you were to ask me to help you pre-plan your funeral today to make it as meaningful and loving as possible, I wouldn’t bat an eye. I’d say, “Great. Where do you want to start?” My online shopping cart includes children’s books about grief, death, and dying – books like, The Invisible String, When Dinosaurs Die, and The Fall of Freddie the Leaf. Why? Because 1) I want the children in my life to have access to compassionate education about life & death, and 2) these books speak to the inner child in me. The colors, visuals, and simple language of children’s books makes it easier to confront the uncomfortable. And all of these things, together? ☝🏽 They contribute to my complex, meaningful, and multilayered relationship with grief, death, and dying. In other words, they fill me with life.
Feel free to reply and let me know: What’s a taboo topic that you’re interested in? I’d love to know. Talk soon, P.S. If you need help taking care of your nervous system, I’d love to support you. I offer Nervous System Healing Intensives — three 90-minute sessions, using brain-body modalities (Brainspotting, IFS, EMDR) that go deeper than talk therapy & help you feel better, sooner.
Intensives are a type of short-term, accelerated therapy — for folks who are looking for something different than weekly therapy; who need longer than 50-min sessions to go deep & get to the root of the issue. 👉🏽 If you want to get an Intensive on the books, contact me HERE. I'm scheduling for July & August 2025! P.P.S. Have the topics of grief, death, and dying been on your mind lately? You might like my recent blog post: How to Cope with End-of-Life & Death Anxiety. P.P.P.S. Know someone who needs to hear this? Forward it along. New readers can subscribe HERE. I help highly sensitive, neurodivergent adults heal their nervous systems & connect with their authentic selves.
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Liz's Neurodivergent Letters
👉🏽 Subscribe for thoughtful, bite-sized emails — from Liz Zhou, a neurodivergent therapist — on how to take care of your nervous system & understand your brain.
Would you rather… have a one-on-one hang out with a close friend, or attend a big party next Friday night? spend 1 hour watching entertaining TikTok videos, or diving into a book from your favorite genre? jam out to your favorite same song on repeat, or set your playlist on shuffle and go with the flow? There’s no right or wrong answer. Rather, your answers might reveal whether you prefer horizontal or vertical experiences. Let me explain. Vertical experiences are like digging a hole in the...
“It’s too quiet here,” one of my college dorm mates is saying. “I couldn’t even sleep last night.” It’s our second day attending college in middle-of-nowhere, Vermont, and we’re still acclimating to our new rural environment. Half-unpacked suitcases lay in our half-decorated rooms. Everyone is still learning each other’s names and how to not get lost on the way to the bathroom. My dorm mate explains that, having grown up in a big city, they aren’t used to pitch-black nights, where you’re more...
My friend’s mouth is moving and sounds are coming out, but my brain is comprehending about 50% of it. Inside, I’m scrambling. What are we talking about? How should I respond? Then it hits me. “Wait,” I say. “Can we turn off that fluorescent light?” We’re sitting in my living room, and it’s occurred to me that the lights are way too bright. Bright enough to give me a headache. We turn off the fluorescents and replace it with a calmer blue lighting. Ahhh. My nervous system immediately sighs...