Why Substack is hard for neurodivergent writers

Audio read by a real human — me! — with fluffs and bloopers, and apparently today I can’t say the word “neurodivergent” — good luck!

It started with credentials. It turned into a time suck, categorisation confusion, and permission issues. Then I realised I’m not even playing the right game.

I came to Substack on a whim — to get things out of my own whizzy brain — and then remembered how much I like writing to people. For people. Putting things out there so that maybe there’ll be a response.

This is probably why early Twitter lit up my brain so much — it felt easy to find like-minded souls — and somehow none of the many friends I met back then have yet turned out to be axe-murderers. In a similar way, I’ve met really fun people via Substack, some of whom I’d known of from other platforms, and revelled in being able to read their thinking in longform pieces. Like a magazine that had commissioned a huge bunch of my favourite writers, curated exactly to my tastes. So I started to write longer pieces myself.

The little critic (he’s called Brian) on my shoulder tells me that at best, I have musings. Coulda been a tweet, in those olden days, not an article. It’s something that’s been bothering me from the start. Like, what are my credentials? Who do you even think you are?!

As you can see from my somewhat erratic posting schedule, that voice can be enough to stop me putting out work into the world.

Then the algorithm started to bite me in the butt. I’d set aside time to write, open the site, and get pulled into reading. My writing time could easily be eaten up by reading other people’s essays rather than writing my own. My internal dopamine fiend refused to distinguish between time to write on Substack from time to read Substack. When I open the app, I fell into reading rabbit holes which edged into doom-scrolling before a word was written. Hence why I’m drafting this in Notion.

The motivation and task initiation required to write usually hits at the precise moment when A THOUGHT pops into my head, sadly not tied to a schedule or calendar. (Why is it usually when I’m in the shower and do those waterproof notebooks actually work?)

Though I’m trying to not rely on my phone all the time, it’s easier to brain dump into a voicenote than handwrite notes — assuming I’m not midway through shampooing — to capture something before it’s lost forever. It can come out like word soup, but there’s usually enough there for an essay - my mind likes to make connections, and if Substack introduces a mindmap functionality, I will be sorted.

Then there’s the editing and publishing. I have no problems editing other people’s work, but I look at my own and the first questions are “What am I even trying to say here?” “Should I be saying that?” “Should I be saying anything at all?” Huge imposter syndrome happening. That can be enough to throw a spanner in the wheels, and it can be hard to get back on track and feel excited enough to hit publish if a piece has lingered too long. Being able to do anything at all depends on how many spoons I’ve got that day/week.

Lots of writers question themselves. Some readers might be questioning why I don’t just sit my arse down five days a week at set times, and write. I wish that the “obvious answer” was a possibility for me. When you’re a neurodivergent wonky-bodied writer, with ‘fluctuating’ energy levels and a limited store of Fucks To Give, you’re gambling on your personal roulette wheel of capacity and action all the time. You don’t know how the ball will land. Most of us would strike any Faustian bargain available just to have a bit more consistency available to us.

Substack woos you to stay in the app and their ecosystem as much as any other platform. But also, being here feels like I’ve sneaked into a party with all the cool kids and I desperately want to stay here, drinking the mocktails, soaking in the vibes. Although paradoxically IRL I want to be invited to the parties, I don’t actually want to go (that’s a whole other story, and why I need to get my arse in gear and organise an East London writers neurodivergent-friendly meet-up).

I’m still figuring out who I am, but I’m certain I’m not one of the cool kids. I’m a proud nerd. But not knowing who you are makes it harder to know who you want to talk to, I guess.

Do I try to fit in, or work to find somewhere I belong?

Could I try harder to fit in — or have I been doing that unsuccessfully all my life?

How do I find those people that instantly feel like home, like we belong together?

I guess what I’m looking for is feedback that this is reaching people, striking a chord. Substack can be overwhelming, who am I to add to the cacophony? That feeling makes it harder to hit publish.

It’s a riddle, this balance. Maybe a mirage.

One of the things that has slightly hobbled me in terms of posting regularly is the nomenclature. Calling this “a newsletter”. That sounds very official, and organised.

Therefore terrifying.

I get The Fear that I’m doing it wrong. So I can’t start at all. Even though there are no rules, I want someone to give me the manual. I need some boundaries, even if I don’t want them.

When Substack asks me if I want to create something, it offers the option of writing an “article”. When I first joined the platform, it was definitely called a newsletter and I absolutely balked because what news do I have to share with people? My inbox gets sorted into updates and promotions, and do I have either to communicate here? Brian pipes up here, because he’s a mean git, and tells me that this reticence is somehow a fault. My brain goes koala-smooth and my already unreliable memory turns to static noise.

When I think of newsletters, I experience conflicting visions of the Journal Store trying to flog me expensive Japanese stationery that I want but don’t need, or the myriad of emails from course creators with subject lines like “This is the Secret that I Didn’t Know I Needed that Changed Everything with 10 New AI Tools for you and a Scary Confession about My 5 Top Apps.”

Nevertheless, to me the main component of a newsletter is news. Updates. Information you didn’t already know or would find useful. Yes it’s usually trying to sell you something, but you’ve already opted in for that, sweetened with a discount or exclusive access I can absolutely understand that.

I just have…thoughts. Randomly sending those thoughts to my subscribers felt like me asking a lot of them.

Oh hai, RSD, preemptively “protecting” me.

Yes, despite the fact that my subscribers literally made that choice for themselves, clicking to subscribe. Seems like I proactively took it upon myself to course-correct for them. You signed up to hear from me — using your own free will, for the princely sum of zero pounds, because something I wrote sparked something in you —Well matey, here’s radio silence!

The biggest piece of news here is that getting diagnosed late in life with neurodivergence can explain lots of your past and also fuck with your current confidence. There’s a documented skills regression in late dx ASD. Trying new things can feel overwhelming when you’re rebuilding. You’re getting answers about your formative years, which domino into way more questions about your future.

I’m not a journalist (I feel you can tell.) I’m a neurodivergent crone with a keyboard. Just pouring out thoughts onto paper/computer screen, willy-nilly. Do I need a point to what I’m saying or is it just something I need to get out there out of my head and out into the ether? I’m guessing that if you’re reading this, it strikes a chord somehow.

Nomenclature and taxonomy are really important to me so I like to understand why something has the name that it’s been given and how things fit together in the bigger scheme of things. Identifying hierarchy is also helpful and I think that’s because it helps me supplement my knowledge about social cues. I work hard to understand how to play the game, before I can let myself jump in, so I’m in memberships, doing courses, reading ‘how to’ articles.

Here’s the incredibly frustrating bit: Substack keeps moving the goalposts. I’m still trying to learn what I’m making — newsletter, essay, article — and then suddenly the growth advice is Notes, because followers exist, and subscribing feels like a bigger step (for me too). Meanwhile they’re pushing the app, which is basically a dopamine theme park… and it’s making me wonder if the most neurodivergent-friendly way to use Substack now is the oldest one: subscribe to a ridiculous number of newsletters and let them arrive quietly by email, instead of getting sucked into the app for hours.

When Substack pivoted towards social media, notes and polls and other engagement frippery, it made me feel like the floor shifted underneath me. I don’t want to be the ringmaster of an entire circus, I just want to write. (Said every author ever since the advent of social media). Now that ‘writing on Substack’ has become ‘writing on Substack and marketing A LOT’ it’s… well, it’s just harder. Another layer of shit to do and it feels so discombobulating.

I walked through the door marked Library and ended up in the soft play centre. Without noise-cancelling headphones.

I ordered salted caramel ice cream and got served kimchi.

I boarded a train to Edinburgh and disembarked at Limassol airport.

Add to this the seasonal head fuck that is summertime in the UK with its commensurate heat waves and heat islands and my wonky chronically-ill body and it’s no wonder that I feel like everything is hazy and impossible to navigate.

Plus like I already said, I’m not even sure I was invited to this party.

And yet here I am, hanging out in the kitchen, where the music is quieter and there’s fewer people, but we’re all talking in happy circles, picking back up on conversations from fifteen minutes ago, rambling through stories, laughing at the punchlines before they’ve even been delivered.

Grab a glass, pull up a chair. If you’ve been dithering on hitting publishing here, remember our only job is actually to get those thoughts out of our heads so that they can crossbreed with other mad notions from other people on here, just as scared as us. Because that’s what we call community!

Have you wanted to write on here but haven’t yet? Started a Substack but not published recently? Got a half-finished essay you’ve been ignoring?

Go on, get it out there. Drop a link below. I want to read it. There’s your permission slip. Onwards.

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