This month in the Late Diagnosis Club: Welcome to Spin City!
Check out our March activity calendar. Explore this month’s Virtual Writing Circle, Book Club, PDA workshop, and Member Infodump. We're saving you a seat.
This month in the Late Diagnosis Club, we are exploring Special Interests (SPINs), the focused passions that often organize Autistic attention and energy. SPINs sit at the heart of monotropism, a theory of autism that describes our minds as naturally deep and immersive rather than scattered, and we will look at what that means for how we live, work, and connect.
SPINs do not look like productivity in the way mainstream culture defines it. They may not center multitasking, constant availability, or visible output on demand. Instead, a SPIN can show up as deep research, repeated practice, careful collecting, and hours of sustained focus that restore coherence to your mind and yet, for neurodivergent bottom-up processors, it is us at our MOST productive. Let’s hear it for monotropism!
For many people who discover they are neurodivergent later in life, special interests are one of the first areas where the past begins to reorganize itself. Hobbies that once felt obsessive, embarrassing, or “too much” are suddenly seen through a new lens. What was labeled as fixation, avoidance, or immaturity often turns out to be a regulatory system built around depth, repetition, and meaning. It is also a time for us to discover what honoring our spins requires and how to prioritize them instead of pushing them aside for appearances.
Many of us build connection through shared interests, spending time immersed in the same topic, world, or activity creates rhythm and safety. Understanding spins is not about learning how to focus “better.” It is about recognizing patterns that were always there and finally having language for them.
This is what we will explore together this month in the Late Diagnosis Club. We will meet live on Zoom four times, with cameras always optional, for a PDA workshop, a book club discussion of Slow Productivity, a member infodump night, and a therapeutic writing session with Neurodivergent Narratives editor Allyson Hogan.
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March Meetings
Are you feeling frazzled, stretched thin, and maybe even a little depressed right now; the world is loud and the demands are constant, but stress is not a moral failure. No matter how much we learn about our neurodivergence, living in a world that favors neurotypical ways of being, it is easy to forget that. When that happens, one of the most reliable ways back to yourself is to reconnect with a special interest that steadies your focus and regulates your nervous system. If you are deep in a long-standing spin, we will celebrate it this month, and if a new curiosity is just beginning to take hold, there is space for that too. Focused energy is featuring FRONT AND CENTER. Here is a calendar of the members only activities this month I thought you might find helpful.
New free podcast episodes come out every Friday all month. Are you enjoying the podcast? Let me know your thoughts. I want to make it better!
Paid members also get to participate in our Virtual Writing Circle, Book Club, monthly workshops, and our Member Infodump. We’d love to have you check it out. Come for a week and stay for the fun and friendships.
If you are already a member, keep reading for the members’ only schedule for the month.
