#1: A User Guide to Treating People Like People

Neurodiversity occupies a similar place in the public consciousness as gay rights did in the 1970s: most people on the outside don't understand it and The Borg demand our assimilation! A necessary contribution to the dialogue around neurology, this zine features advice and exploratory narratives about how to accept the neurodiverse experience. Even the less divergent can understand us and see us as real, whole people. Featuring comics, narrative, advice, and origin stories that all teach how to better interact/collaborate/interface with us, this zine is the beginning of a social movement towards a future where people can be treated like, well, people. We find neuroatypical people inspiring and we think you could learn from our stories too!

#2: Being Taken Advantage Of

This zine is a forum of advice and stories to explain the neurodiverse experience so that we can be seen as real, whole people. One theme that kept coming up in conversations with neurodiverse people as "being taken advantage of." Every neurodiverse person seems to be a survivor of abuse, whether that be emotional, financial, sexual, physical, or mental. These stories humanise those experiences and provide context, humour, and real solutions for how to overcome them. Ultimately, living in our society it becomes difficult not to internalise ableism and see ourselves as lesser, rather than just different.

#4: Comorbidities

For neurodiverse folks, it's a rare thing to have only one diagnosis (or misdiagnosis) at a time—and if we do, it means our doctors are probably missing something. We have a lot of layers, and so many conditions and hurts go hand-in-hand, compounding and leading to each other. Our brain wiring doesn't exist in a vacuum. As Eliot Daughtry writes in his excellently clarifying contribution, "Basic research into statistics on how often the autistic population is affected by conditions like anxiety, sensory processing issues, and learning differences, started to yield some surprising numbers." He includes illustrated charts of common groupings, aka "comorbidities"—including conditions that can be categorized as neurological, psychological, physiological, learning differences, genetics. Also in this issue, Joe Biel talks about getting neurofeedback and navigating the healthcare system, as well as strangers assuming he is homeless. Kriss de Jong writes about a surprising discovery they made about their birth mother before ever meeting her. And Brian writes about what it's like to eat with schizophrenia. A fantastic and diverse issue.