The Real Special Forces: neurodivergent adults, hidden strengths, and misunderstood lives

You are in a deep sleep; your brain is doing the prep work to wake you up. All of a sudden, the comforting silence in the ears and the plushy feeling of a relaxed body turn into an unexplainable and intense discomfort.

You open your eyes; the scents, the sights, the sensations all over your skin, the odd taste in your mouth, and the explosive pressure in your ears start your heart to race faster. You are breathing shallow breaths. The atmosphere you are in is your worst nightmare. You are in the middle of a war zone.

In utter fear and panic, your gaze moves down to your own body. You are in a uniform. A heavy, smelly fabric made of irritation. It is impossible to grasp your situation. How the heck did you end up here? Are you seriously in the military? You have nothing it takes to be a soldier. In the middle of a freaking war?? You never take the last piece of cookie from a jar, and now you are supposed to take a life? You don’t attend social gatherings because you really cannot find meaning in fake interactions and are not a huge fan of wasting your time if it doesn’t serve a meaningful purpose.

But now, just because some people, somewhere, want more of somethings (which don’t even belong to them in the first place), you are expected to comply with their nonsensical and harmful-for-all-existence choices. Are you chosen to be the performer of their beliefs while completely undermining yours?

Your thoughts are racing, trying to find a crumb of meaning. “What led to all of this? I deeply love everything. I know people see me and read me differently, but this? Is this because I reacted to things they call normal in a way that is accepted as abnormal?”

While you were so lost in your thoughts, wanting to figure it out, a message appears on your digital visor. It reads, Proceed to the shown location on your guidance system. You don’t want to move, but you have to. Good or bad, you need to see where this goes. You squint and start shaking it off, instinctively helping your muscles relax and generate more flow to them so that you walk.

Your journey, as shown on your visor, did not read as long, but every second of it felt like decades. Most of it was blurry. Among thousands of seconds, the ones that stood out did not make much sense, but they were very vivid.

The moment you felt as if you had to wipe the built-up grime on a random sign. Or when you helped a fellow soldier from under a pile of debris with a strength that did not belong to you.

While you were refilling your canteen with a hose you found, the feeling that caused you to also go ahead and fill a cracked plate that sat nearby and place this by a window.

The feeling you had as if someone was following you, and sure enough, it turned out to be a fact, and you found out about it by trusting that feeling.

A soldier who was taught and trained to kill you was following you. The significant yet very confusing interaction you had with this enemy soldier kept replaying in your head.

When that enemy soldier ended up cornering you and pointed his weapon, to your own surprise, you stood still. How your fear completely subsided the moment you saw a much deeper fear in his eyes and your heart somehow grew bigger with love. While standing with closed eyes, having made peace with the probability of dying but not at all ready for what you were about to see. How on earth have you witnessed the enemy drop his gun and run the other way while crying like a child?

Why would you possibly be thinking about these moments right now? You check your comms to see how much distance there is to walk until you make it to your target destination. Almost there! The relief, the impatience, maybe, hopefully, some answers.

The adrenaline was rushing in your veins, pushing you towards your checkpoint. You were looking at your then physically visible destination, and the moment you entered the marked area, you felt an intense pressure on your abdomen. It knocked the wind out of you. The pain covered your entire body. The sharp whistle you just heard was indeed what you knew it to be.

You looked down at your chest and saw the bullet hole. Everything was getting blurry. However, instead of fear, an odd feeling of relief enveloped your being. Before you collapsed to the dirt-covered ground, the last thing you read on your visor was “Mission Accomplished.”

From a place of total freedom and bliss, you now see your motionless body. There is no sadness. The answers you deeply wanted just appear in your consciousness.

The uncomfortable body, your intense sensations, the way you loved, your unshakeable values, your rejection of taking part in any form of violence… They all make sense now!

The sign you cleaned showed the way to a lost, scared civilian and guided her into safety. The fellow soldier you rescued was able to head back home to his newborn and take his agreed-on place in that child’s life. The bowl you filled with water nourished birds enough so that they weren’t going to be looking for water elsewhere but instead be able to fly to a campsite nearby and awaken a soldier who fell asleep in his post.

But what completed your mission was the moment you chose love despite your fear, when you saw fear in someone’s eyes you were trained and told to hate. That soldier, being the precious only child of a very powerful leader of a terrorist group, was about to change his father’s heart and make him stop for good. You played your role in bringing out the light in that young man, the light he couldn’t find by himself in his environment.

This story is a metaphor for all Neurodivergent minds. You are different but in the most beautiful and crucial-for-the-well-being-of-the-whole sense of the way.

This life you are struggling with is not because something is wrong with you. The environment, designed by the collective of common minds and souls at earlier stages in their evolution, made you believe that what and how you are is not OK.

Just like the soldier from the story, stop feeling sorry for your existence. Your place on this planet is needed. The ones whose paths you cross with need you more than you need them. You matter, although the evidence tells a different story. You are convinced you are a mistake. All of this is a smoke screen projecting a movie of your beliefs. Your life is a just and loyal deaf butler who senses vibrations you make. This loving butler, who is always with you, serves you the exact equivalent of the vibrations you create.

From the second you finish reading this until your experience is complete on this planet, feel uncomfortable in your uniform, do not agree with the war going on around you, and do not pull the trigger on the ones you don’t agree with.

Continue spending as much time as you can on the things that bring you pure joy. Wherever you have to go, whatever you need to do, just be yourself unwaveringly and unapologetically. What and who you are create vibrations that are designed to change lives and eventually this planet. How many, where, and who is not your job to figure out. Trust the bigger picture and your importance, which you can not see at the moment.

When you need to be reminded of a proof, just recognize that you are still breathing.

What this represents;

This story is not literal. It reflects internal experience: sensory overload, emotional intensity, heightened awareness, and the search for meaning while living inside constant input.