For most of my life, I thought something was wrong with me. Not in a dramatic way, just in a quiet, constant way. Like I was always slightly off, slightly too much, slightly out of sync with everyone else. It took me a long time to realize that people were seeing me differently than I saw myself. People like to say that I had a problem that was a little different. I was sometimes too sensitive, that I overthink, I react too much, I don't fit the mold. So their conclusion was obvious, right? That I must be broken. And I started to believe that I was broken. Because if you're not like everyone else, people need to know what's wrong with you. Why you think the way you do, why you react the way you do, why you don't process things like everyone else. The assumption is always the same. If you're different, you must be broken. But what if nothing is wrong with you at all? What if you're just wired differently? Welcome back to Brain Vme. I'm Joshua Erickson. Today we're going to be talking about how we're all a little different. And if you're even more different than other people, it's okay. Now, this isn't about fixing yourself. I honestly don't believe there is much to fix or anything to fix. What you need and what other people need is understanding about who you are and what you're like. People love to label the differences they see in you or others as problems. He doesn't react the same way. He doesn't like being around people. She doesn't talk to anyone or she talks too much. He has a little OCD. All sorts of things, right? They'll ask, what's wrong with you? Maybe not to you, but maybe to other people. And that's their default question. Because you like things differently. I like going to the movies by myself. Now, this is a very light example, but I do. Why? Because I don't want to talk to anyone. I don't want to. What just happened? I don't want anything. I prefer spending time with myself often than I do with other people. Because other people are exhausting. But what did people say about me growing up? No, he's antisocial. He doesn't like people. He's just weird. We can we can we can change that about him. But you know what? Not everything needs to be corrected. Some things just need to be understood. You're not malfunctioning. You're just different. You think different, you process different, and it's fine. Now society frames any kind of deviation as damage. If you think differently, if you feel differently, if you react differently, you're labeled difficult, dramatic, antisocial, too much. And these diagnoses become your identity. You start internalizing the idea that you're defective. You buy into everything that everyone says about you, whether or not it's true. You may have ADHD, you may have OCD, you may have borderline personality disorder or something going on, anxiety, depression. All of those things are going to impact your behavior. They're going to change the way that you view things, which means you're going to react differently to stimulus. You're going to think differently about things. And inevitably, you're going to feel differently about things. But that's what part of being human is. No one's brain is the same as someone else's. We all have different experiences growing up, even in the same town, sometimes even in the same household. And all of those things that you experience growing up and your own brain chemistry shape who you are. And who you are is not a label. You're not difficult. You're probably just misunderstood. You're not dramatic. Maybe you have borderline personality disorder. And I am not a doctor, I'm not diagnosing anyone. Which makes you feel emotions strongly. You're not antisocial, maybe you're just introverted. You find it tiring being around people. But these diagnoses, whether it's from other people or yourself, don't have to become your identity. I firmly believe that you should work to understand yourself. You should improve your self-awareness. I'm not saying you need to go get diagnosed to have this or that. I mean, we're talking about labels, right? You don't need to go get yourself labeled by a professional either. You just need to understand what you do. Look at what you do, look at how you react to something, and then think about well, why? Why do I do that? That's what I did. And over the course of a few years, I really started to understand myself. I actually became self-aware. If you had asked me six years ago, are you self-aware? I'd be like, of course I am. And then when I started to open up and understand myself a little better in therapy, I realized I had no idea who I was or what I wanted. As I've talked about in other episodes, I had developed a mask and I believed in that mask. I believed that's who I was. It wasn't. I wasn't broken. Neither are you. Now, let's talk about what wire differently actually means. Different wiring equals different strengths and different challenges. You might process the world differently. You're gonna feel things more intensely. Your brain doesn't run on autopilot. You notice what others miss. You struggle where others don't. Not better, not worse, just different. I deal with ADHD. Now that means for most of the time, I probably look normal. I probably seem like I think like everybody else. But I'm constantly doing word association in my head. Everything I read, everything I hear. From a person to the TV to whatever. I hear a word, it immediately triggers a bazillion thoughts. And then I have all this stuff swirling in my head. And then I'll just inevitably, when I get an idea, have this stream of consciousness coming out of my mouth without any context for anyone around. Now, some people find that uncomfortable. Some people get annoyed by it. I just process the world differently. The very thing that people like throughout my life where I can come up with ideas very quickly, is because I process the world differently. But sometimes people aren't good with that. They're not comfortable with that. So then I get labeled as difficult or just weird. And I know that I'm the same person in both of those situations. I'm processing the world exactly as I see it. It's not a choice, it's who I am. As I said, I have different strengths and different challenges. I'm wired a little different than some people. I might feel things more intensely than some people. Most of the time, I seem very calm. Very even. And then all of a sudden, something will happen, and all of a sudden I seem intensely angry. Because I feel things more intensely. Not everything, but some things. I can't tell you the number of times that I have been ready to explode because of the fact that I can hear someone chewing. It drives me insane. Now that's not a I think that's a pretty common thing, at least I think it is. But something like that, it makes me literally makes me mad when I hear the chewing from other people. I have to go away, or I have to do something that's louder than the sound of that chewing. My brain, like yours, doesn't run an autopilot. So don't think that it should. There's a cost to trying to be normal too. And I say normal in quotes. Because what is normal? Everybody is who they are. Everybody's unique. But so let me rephrase it. The cost of trying to be like like everybody else is showing you who they are. Because everybody's wearing some kind of a mask. As a survival mechanism, but it does get expensive. Now, for you, if you want to try to pretend to be like everyone else, you have got a mask. You've got to show people what you think they want to see. You've got to pretend to think like everyone else. You gotta try to react appropriately instead of honestly. I feel things differently than other people. I always have. I would say that I'm not a very empathetic person. I've struggled with understanding and or displaying emotions for a lot of my life. When something really exciting or really sad happens or to people around me, there's no guarantee I'm gonna feel what they're feeling. I may understand it from a logical standpoint, from I may understand it cognitively, but I may not feel it. But everyone around me is assuming that I'm gonna show this visible emotion. But how do I show an emotion that I don't feel? So, what I did growing up is I learned to see how other people were reacting at these happy moments, these sad moments, whatever. And I would start mimicking what they're doing, how they're reacting, so that I could react appropriately to make everyone else feel comfortable. And what does that do? Wearing that kind of a mask? It exhausts you. I was tired. Because it's a cumulative effect doing that. And as I said earlier, you do it for long enough and you kind of forget who you are to an extent, or at least there's there's confusion. How do I really feel? There's emotional toll of this constant self-editing. And like I said, it's cumulative, it builds up, and you're gonna find out that it costs more to try to fit in than to stand out. So we're gonna shift because I decided I'm gonna stop trying to be fixed by others or myself. I didn't become perfect when I dropped a mask. I became honest. I stopped chasing this concept of normality. I accepted how my brain works. I learned about myself, I became self-aware. I truly started to understand how I see the world and how I react to things so that I could then use that to my advantage. I built my life around who I actually was instead of trying to fight and hide from it. It didn't go over well with everybody because people will notice a change in you. But that's okay. Because you're gonna have an easier time getting through the day, you're gonna have an easier time living with yourself. This isn't a miracle, this isn't magic. It's it's just a mindset change that you have to want and you have to commit to. Remember, you don't need to be repaired. You need to understand yourself, surround yourself with people who get you. Maybe you need some kind of treatment or therapy. I know I did. But you definitely need support and you need acceptance. If somebody's not willing to accept you for who you are, do you need them in your life? And uh remember that different isn't broken. It's just different. Thank you for listening. This has been the Brain versus Me Podcast. I'm Joshua Erickson. Until next time.