[2026] Neurodivergent Narratives - Writing Prompt #15

This week, we write into the space between the box we're handed and the experience that won't fit inside it.

Writing therapeutically is not about producing beautiful sentences. It is about using language to get close to something true — and sometimes the most direct route is an unexpected one. When we write inside a form that wasn’t designed for our experience, we give ourselves a kind of cover. The structure holds us at just enough distance that we can approach material we might otherwise avoid.

This technique, sometimes called the hermit crab essay, is particularly well suited to neurodivergent writers. Many of us have spent years navigating forms, systems, and structures that didn’t account for who we actually are. Writing back into those forms — on our own terms, with our own story as a small act of reclamation.
This week, Libby invites us to do exactly that.

Here’s Libby’s second prompt:

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