Rebelling
Stop playing it cool.
Podcast
Episode 7 is out! Listen below! 👇
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In this first episode of Rebelling, host Amy Knott Parrish shares her journey from lifelong outsider to late-diagnosed ADHD and autistic adult. Through stories of identity, music, masking, and self-discovery, she explores what it means to rebel against “normal” and build a life that honors neurodivergent needs. This is a podcast for anyone craving belonging without pretending. Episode 1 Transcript
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What happens when you finally get the language for something you’ve felt your entire life—but never understood? In this deeply personal episode of Rebelling, host Amy Knott Parrish interviews Kelly Hambly, a 58 year old writer who was diagnosed with dyslexia as a child. Kelly shares what it's like being at the beginning of another neurodivergent diagnosis story. Episode 2 Transcript
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In this conversation with 28-year-old writer and interdisciplinary artist Kelly Shannon, we dig into the complex landscape of identity, burnout, and diagnosis. We talk about policing your own intensity, contradicting the narrative of exhaustion, how the toll of performing normal led her to seek answers, and that weird liminal space you're in just before and just after realizing you're neurodivergent.
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We also take an unexpected detour into the Gothic — yes, the literary genre — and how its themes strangely mirror the diagnosis experience. As an autoethnographer, Kelly has used her research skills to dig deep into her own story, uncovering exactly why seeking a diagnosis wasn’t just validating — it was necessary. Episode 3 Transcript
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In this solo episode, I’m talking about a phrase that’s been hounding me for decades: why can’t I just? Why can’t I just be easygoing? Be normal? Be fine with things that make no sense? It sounds small, but it’s actually huge—and it’s shaped so much of how I’ve lived. I’m pulling apart the layers of self-management, shame, and survival that come with being neurodivergent in a world that isn't always clear or understandable. And I’m wondering out loud what changes when we ask that same question—but with curiosity instead of criticism. Episode 4 Transcript
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Why Can't I Just companion essay
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5
Something most of the neurodivergent people I talk to have in common is a sense of not belonging. Connecting is supposed to be natural—but for many of us, it never feels that simple.
In this solo episode, I explore some of my early friendships, what it means to want friendships and relationships while not understanding how they work. I tried learning from books and TV, and by trying to decipher how other people behaved, but it often didn't make sense or work for me. It wasn't obvious.
This episode isn't a one-size-fits-all checklist or suggestion box—it's an invitation to get curious. It's about viewing friendship, connection, and relationships not as things we’re just supposed to know how to do, but as things we can learn, study, question, and create our own ideas for. Episode 5 Transcript
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I’ve been sitting with some big questions about identity for what feels like my whole life—what we call ourselves, what’s been put on us, what we outgrow, and what still feels like home. I read three things this week (linked below), that cracked me open, especially around the language of neurodivergence, the limits of diagnosis, and how easy it is to forget who we were before the world started naming us. After reading the first two (they are linked in order of how I read them), I got uncomfortable with calling myself neurodivergent- not because I am ashamed of it, but because after reading the first two articles calling myself neurodivergent felt...unaware.
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For a minute, I felt ignorant and wanted the words off my website. To un-name myself. Then I read the third one and it brought things full circle- identity is older and more complicated than that. In this episode I explore remembering that identity isn’t something we need to discard or defend—it’s something we can let evolve. Something that can hold complexity without collapsing under it, help us find kinship, and be a place to begin. Episode 6 Transcript
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Why I Don't Say Neurotypical guest post on The Spiral Lab by BJ Ferguson
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Psychiatric Diagnoses and Bioessentialism Will Not Liberate Us by Ayesha Khan
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Neurodivergence in Ancient Africa: What History Forgot But Our Ancestors Knew by Lovette Jallow​
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7
What if addiction isn’t a disease, but a way we’ve learned to cope? What if sobriety isn’t just about abstinence, but about sensing ourselves, how things make sense, and what makes sense? What if recovery isn’t a rigid path—but a way to reconnect with something alive, relational, and yours to shape?
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In this episode, I share the story of my own unconventional sobriety outside of AA and traditional recovery models. I talk about why those spaces didn’t work for me, what did, and how receiving late diagnoses of ADHD and autism gave me the language to understand what I’d really been doing all those years: self medicating. I wasn't addicted- I was adapting.
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This is the beginning of an ongoing conversation about neuroqueering addiction, sobriety, and recovery. To make more room for complexity, difference, and care. To give us more options by shifting from the pathology paradigm to a diversity one.
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If the traditional path has never quite fit you either, I hope this episode helps you feel more seen and less alone. Episode 7 Transcript
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I have an upcoming live class on August 24 where we’ll explore these ideas in community. Find out more/sign up
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📬 Reach me anytime at amy@rebelling.me
SOBERBIA on Blogger and SOBERBIA on Substack
🖤 Thanks to Nick Walker for his work and the concept of neuroqueering, as well as the pathology and neurodiversity paradigm.
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THROW AWAY THE MASTER’S TOOLS: LIBERATING OURSELVES FROM THE PATHOLOGY PARADIGM