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✨ Here’s a clip from The Mind of Sai Marie podcast today featuring Neurodivergent Rebel, Lyric Rivera, in conversation about their powerful new book The Weight of Normal. This work confronts the pressures of social expectations, the harm they inflict on neurodivergent lives, and the courage it takes to resist conformity.

In this episode, we explored the lived realities of neurodivergence, the resilience required to challenge “normal,” and the role of storytelling in reclaiming identity, dignity, and creative sovereignty.

Listen to the full episode over on my Substack here https://open.substack.com/pub/saimarie/p/the-weight-of-normal-an-interview?r=6c0ev&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true (also available on YouTube & Spotify).

#LyricRivera #NeurodivergentRebel #MindofSaiMarie #TheWeightOfNormal #StorytellingMatters #ResilientVoices #NeurodivergentStrength

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Transcript
00:00can you share the origin story of your journey into authorship and what first compelled you to
00:04write The Weight of Normal? Well, since I was a very young person, I've always loved writing.
00:10You know, originally when I was a kid, I wrote a lot of fiction and I never thought that my own
00:16story was particularly interesting or anything anyone would want to have any, like, why would
00:22anyone want to read about me? You know, I thought I could make up fantasy that would be so much more
00:25interesting and then I was diagnosed autistic at the age of 29, which is nine years ago now and that
00:32was for me the start of a healing journey that I'm still on. You know, if I'm totally transparent and
00:39I don't know if these kinds of healing journeys are things we ever stop going on. It's always a part of
00:45growth, but nine years past learning I am autistic and I have always have been autistic and now coming
00:52to that point where I'm having a chance to reflect back over things and understand how much not
00:59knowing the truth and having unfair expectations put on me as a result of nobody knowing the truth
01:06about my brain has really been what inspired me to put a lot of this stuff into this book. And also,
01:14you know, for me, it's, you know, with my blog or any of the work I do, it's always wanting people to
01:21know that they're not alone and also being a resource that I need myself. This one's really
01:28personal, more personal than any of the other books I've ever worked on or put out. I think
01:32something that has really influenced the work I do and why storytelling is so important for me is I was
01:39that kid that really struggled in school. It was, it was treated like I was a problem. For me, I really
01:45think learning can be engaging and fun and we are able to like really be involved with story and
01:53storytelling. It lets us absorb things on a different, as a kid, I think if more of the
01:58education was storytelling, it would have, it would have been better for me.
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