I read this quote and felt it deeply: “You’re not here to fit in, you’re here to wake people up.”
For most of my life, I realise now, I’ve been fitting in, smoothing the edges, being what folk want or need. Not too loud, not too quiet, unless that’s what was expected then it’s dancing on the bar. I realise now that I’m really good at being what’s needed in the moment.
But underneath that, there’s always a quiet sense that something isn’t quite lining up. Not feeling like “me”. The constant “why can’t you just be happy with what you’ve got” was an undercurrent to my younger years coupled with “why can’t you just be like everyone else?”
I’d leave conversations replaying them repeatedly, analysing tone, facial expressions, energy, the exact moment things shifted. At the same time, my brain would race ahead, making connections, jumping ideas, struggling to stay with anything that didn’t fully grab my attention. Valuing deep, meaningful interactions over superficial small talk.
For years, I had no conscious awareness or language for any of it. I just thought I was either “too much” or “not enough,” depending on the day and desperately tried to measure up either way.
And then, something started to click. Maybe it was having children, maybe the shift into menopause, maybe the training as a therapist or of course all of the above.
I began to recognise traits that pointed towards neurodiversity. Not in a dramatic, life-altering diagnosis kind of way, but in a quiet, internal shift.
It wasn’t that I had suddenly changed. It was that I could finally see what had always been there.
That’s where the quote landed differently. “You’re not here to fit in…”
Fitting in has cost me a lot. Energy, mostly. The constant monitoring, adjusting, second-guessing. Saying yes when I mean no. Staying quiet when something doesn’t make sense or the energy feels off.
Specifically, hiding that I put a song on repeat and listened to it for hours. Worried about being great in a crisis but spending the whole day panicking over a call happening at 4pm. Freaking out that I want social plans but end up worrying about them to the point of wanting to cancel. Confused at needing structure and order one day and needing to dance around the kitchen or start a garden project the next (never finishing it of course because the next idea has come along). Being laughed at for stopping in my tracks on a walk for a good stick, rainbow or garden idea. And…filling silence.
“…you’re here to wake people up.”
That part felt uncomfortable. I don’t want to be someone who disrupts or challenges. But when I really sat with it, I realised “waking people up” doesn’t have to be loud or confrontational.
Sometimes it’s as simple as not pretending anymore.
Like the moment I said, “Actually, I’m struggling to listen right now, my cup is full,” instead of forcing myself to absorb others’ issues. Or when I questioned the morality of doing something at work that everyone else just accepted without thinking. That had its consequences of course.
Fitting in would have meant staying silent. Nodding along. Managing myself so no one else had to adjust.
Waking people up means being honest I think, even if it’s uncomfortable all round and I’m still struggling with that. It means showing that there are other ways to think, feel, and exist that don’t always match the “room.”
There’s a freedom in no longer trying to force myself into a shape that was never quite right. I’m still figuring things out, still questioning, still learning how to unpick years of habits built around fitting in but those moments I feel “out of step” might just be a different rhythm, not a wrong one.
Maybe I’m not here to fit in. Maybe none of us are, really.
Maybe the parts of us that don’t quite align with expectations of the majority are the very things that gently wake people up.
And maybe, just maybe, I’m allowed to take up space as I am while I figure the rest out.
Kirsty Ritchie
March 2026
