Hi Reader,

I think a lot about the energy I put into the world — what I hold, what I process, and what I pass along. The idea of metabolizing pain — turning it into something meaningful, something life-giving — has influenced the way I move through hard things. I’ve watched in awe as one of my siblings has done this with fierce grace, transforming pain into something purposeful rather than letting it consume her.

As someone who absorbs emotions easily, I feel a deep responsibility to be intentional with what I project outward. Pain has to go somewhere. And while I try to move through it in a way that feels grounded and thoughtful, I don’t always get it right. Sometimes I react. Sometimes I spiral. Sometimes I disconnect, only to have unprocessed emotions seep out in ways my family absorbs. That’s part of what makes relationships tricky — we’re often metabolizing our own stuff while also taking in each other’s unprocessed emotions.

But I keep trying — trying to metabolize instead of transmit, trying to transform instead of unload. And let me tell you, the past couple months have tested that commitment in ways I didn’t see coming. In today's essay, I'm working to provide context, metabolized emotions and insights about contextualizing painful experiences. And also, I've not slept much this week, so it may be an imperfect attempt at weaving it all together.

I was planning to wrap up our relationship series with a piece on rupture and repair. And I still will — next week. But right now, I want to talk about something else: what happens when rupture hits in ways we don’t expect.

When Things Fall Apart (Sometimes, Spectacularly)

If you’ve visited my website recently, you may have run into broken pages, slow loading, or locked-out screens. If you’ve tried to access a resource, maybe you hit an error that made you want to throw your phone. If so, I am really so very sorry.

In relationships, we talk about rupture — the moment something breaks, trust is shaken, or connection falters. And if you’ve been sitting there staring at an error message, feeling frustrated or annoyed, well… we’ve had a mini rupture. My website is how I share my work with you, and when it doesn’t function, that connection is disrupted.

This past week has been a lesson in rupture for me — not just in the logistical sense (website chaos), but in the deeper, more personal ways rupture shows up in our lives. The ways it pulls at old wounds, resurfaces survival strategies, and forces us to reckon with patterns we thought we had outgrown. So while I was planning to write about rupture and repair in relationships, I found myself living through it in a much broader sense.

Here’s what’s been happening:

1️⃣ A website migration gone wrong – I trusted a web developer team with a huge project: moving my site, which gets 700k+ page views, to a new platform. It did not go well, to say the least. In hindsight, I see the red flags I ignored. I had my doubts, but I didn’t want to cause a scene. More on that in a moment.

2️⃣ A targeted cyberattack – My site has been under a sustained DDoS attack for weeks. Essentially, someone (or some group) is flooding the site with bot traffic, overwhelming it to the point of breaking. The way it’s been described to me — It’s like if you owned a brick-and-mortar shop, and someone paid to have thousands of people block the entrance every day so customers couldn’t get in. So a DDOS attack sends bots to overwhelm your website and server (to block the doors) so others can’t get in. I’ve learned in the last week DDOS attacks have taken many businesses down. These attacks aren’t cheap, and while there is a range, I’ve learned it can be as much as $50 an hour. So someone has been paying — daily for weeks now — to try to take my business down. It's been so challenging on a technical level and financial, seeing the drop in sales that supports our team. But what makes it even worse is not knowing why or who is behind this.

Things reached a crisis point this week. It slowly became obvious that the team I had initially hired couldn't fix the issues they caused and couldn't figure out how to deal with the DDoS attack. I feel so fortunate that a good friend put me in touch with a brilliant developer who has worked tirelessly to help stabilize the site. We're making progress, and he tells me we're through the worst of it but it’s been exhausting — emotionally, mentally, and financially.

When the Present Reopens the Past

I think because my business is so deeply intertwined with my values and selfhood, this has felt incredibly personal. But even if I were more detached, this experience would still land on my personal history. And that’s the thing about being human — the present and the past are always intermingling. Seeing those layers is part of metabolizing emotion.

And while I’ve had moments this week where I’ve told myself, “I shouldn’t be this emotional about a website/business”, I also know — of course, I’m emotional. Because hard moments don’t exist in isolation. They stack on top of everything that came before.

What This Brought Up for Me

Moments of rupture — whether in relationships, work, or life — don’t just stay contained to the present. They trigger old wounds, old survival strategies. So for example, since I’m the case study of this essay – this experience surfaced some long-standing patterns for me:

For me, this surfaced two big ones:

🔹 Not wanting to cause a scene – At some point in my life, I learned that keeping quiet, not being disruptive, not making things hard for others was the safest path. There are lots of ways, small ways and some rather significant ways where I betrayed myself to not cause a scene. This week, I saw how much that old survival strategy is still alive in me.

I had concerns about the team handling my website early on. But instead of trusting my gut, I second-guessed myself.

I assumed:

Maybe I’m overreacting.
Maybe my standards are too high.
Maybe I just don’t understand website migration.

I stayed in a bad situation too long. And the cost of that was real.

🔹 Hyper-independence – Perhaps not unrelated to “not causing a scene,” depending on others has never been easy for me. I built my business with a deep belief that I had to figure everything out myself. This week shattered that. When I realized just how much was at stake — not just for me, but for my team of neurodivergent employees — I had to do something I rarely let myself do. I had to ask for help. And what surprised me most? People showed up. And their kindness broke through in a way I didn’t expect.

I realized I’ve built walls — not just to protect my energy, but to block out care. I struggle to let kindness in, to fully receive it. That’s something I want to work on. Sending this email is so deeply uncomfortable and a sort of exposure (because I’m causing a scene by airing the dirty laundry of my business stress, and I’m exposing myself as not being as independent as I want to be. It's hard to admit that I am a human that needs support).

And maybe you see some of your own patterns in this (I suspect these two patterns are common for many Autistics … and perhaps many ADHDers). Maybe you know what it’s like to stay quiet when you should speak up, to prioritize other’s comfort and ease over yours or push through alone when you really need support. Maybe rupture in your own life has surfaced old wounds and survival strategies — ones that both served you and hurt you.

When Hard Moments Stack

I’m super aware that beyond my own stressors, the last couple months have been incredibly heavy and disorienting. There are a lot of painful and scary things happening in the world right now, and I realize for many of you, these are overlaying on top of some pretty painful personal histories in some pretty complex ways.

Hard moments rarely exist in isolation; they stack on top of everything that came before. And when we’re living through collective trauma, those layers become even heavier. Unprocessed emotions — our own and those circulating in the world — collide, making it even harder to metabolize what we’re carrying.

Learning how to ground, to connect with joy, to stay present to ourselves in the midst of it all isn’t just a way to care for ourselves amidst hard times — it’s an act of resistance. And part of that work is recognizing the overlays, understanding how past and present pain intertwine, and finding ways to find ourselves again.

Back to Repair … Here’s What We’re Doing

The hard reality is that while I wish I could fix what's going on with the world, at this point I can barely fix my own website, I’m sorry about that. And I’m very aware I’ve been channeling my existential anxiety by focusing on the small things I can fix like broken URL links and terribly formatted pages.

So, back to repair. If you’ve experienced website issues this week, I hope to rebuild that trust over time. We’re working through a queue of emails and troubleshooting purchases — if you’re waiting on something, please reach out (support@neurodivergentinsights.com), and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can. We really appreciate your patience as we dig out of this.

And on a bigger scale, I hope this can be a reminder: ruptures happen. They’re painful, they bring things to the surface, they shake up what we thought was stable. So there’s so much repair work to do. Whether in relationships, work, or the structures we rely on — what matters isn’t just what broke, but how we move forward. For me, I’m moving forward with this with a commitment to let more kindness in, to turn down the armor of hyper-independence (maybe half an inch), and to practice trusting my intuition, even when I fear it might cause a scene.

✨ Neurodivergent Notes Tip Jar ✨

✨ Tip Jar Link Here ✨

I’ve always kept my newsletter free. This newsletter goes out to 40,000 people each week. And I love that. I don’t want to change that. But this attack has been costly — not just emotionally, but financially. We're a small but dedicated team and having a couple weeks with minimal website sales means that it's going to be a challenge to keep up with operating costs and payroll, while we get things sorted out.

So, for the first time, I’m adding a tip jar. If this newsletter or our resources has brought you value and you’re in a place to support, you can contribute here.

50% will go directly to my neurodivergent employees — I’ve built this business with the goal of not just hiring neurodivergent folks but creating profit-sharing models to uplift my team. This quarter’s profit share took a hit from the attack, so donations will help offset that loss for my team.
50% will go to website security & recovery costs — the hiring of new developers, firewall protection, servers large enough to absorb the bot traffic and the infrastructure needed to prevent future attacks has been costly. When it comes to a DDoS attack the goal is to be able to stay in business long enough and to ride out the attack. That’s certainly our goal. So the other 50% will go toward these unexpected costs.

If donating would be a stretch, please don’t. But if you can do so comfortably, and if it would bring you a little dopamine knowing you’re helping sustain our work, we’d be incredibly grateful. I’ll likely keep this tip jar here this month (perhaps if I work through my hyper-indepence and fear of causing a scene, I’ll even muster up the willpower to make it a permanent feature of this newsletter). Never any expectations, always deep appreciation.

✨ Tip Jar Link Here ✨

If you are looking for additional ways to connect with or support our work while we wait this out my team and I have put together this page with ideas and quick links, including some free resources I have available but am terrible at getting the word out on. And feel free to share this link with others, it is appreciated.

Thank you for being here, for reading, for supporting neurodivergent-owned businesses, and for being part of this community. It means more than you know.

Warmly,

★彡 Neurodivergent Insights Weekly Roundup ★彡

🌟 Pre-Order The Autistic Burnout Workbook🌟

Pre-orders are now open for The Autistic Burnout Workbook! Pre-orders are a big help to authors — they signal to major booksellers that there’s demand, which increases the likelihood of the book being stocked and reaching more people.

Pre-Order Links Here ➜

If you pre-order I’m also gifting you the same amount spent for the Workbook (18.99) which can be used in our online shop for Digital Workbooks, several of our workbooks are 16.99, so you can grab one of those or apply it toward any other digital workbook. After you’ve pre-ordered, simply submit your screenshot and form below.

🎙️ Divergent Conversations

This week’s episode is a flashback episode where we explore experiences of autism related to interests, sensory differences and more.

Listen Here ➜

🌟 PDA North American Conference 🌟

I’m honored to join a lineup of incredible humans for the PDA North America Conference, happening both virtually and in-person from March 5-7th. I’ll be participating virtually.

If you’re interested in attending, you can learn more about the event and register below. They are also offering my readers 15% off by using code: NDInsights. They also never turn anyone away if the ticket prices are inaccessible. If you would like to come - they want them there. You can reach out to sara@pdanorthamerica.org if you need a deeper discount or free ticket. :)

Register Here ➜

✨ Quick Links For Connection and
NDI Support ✨

One thing I've realized through this experience is I am pretty terrible about getting the word out about all the activities and offerings we have going on here at NDI. We've put together this page for staying connected to our work. From using our free curated sensory soother database to our ND toolkit to ways of connecting with our resources when the website struggles :) (scroll to bottom of page to check out the databases we've built).

Check out Links Here ➜

📩 Pass It On

If you're finding value in these weekly insights, you can share this newsletter with friends and colleagues. You can just forward this email or send them here to sign up.