Welcome back! This week I want to cover some challenging topics. I hope that you will stick with me through the end, if you are able, and as always, please feel free to like, share, and connect. In this edition:

– ONE | When the System Eats You Alive: How institutional harm and self-preservation intentionally conflict to keep you tired, powerless, and stuck, and why choosing yourself isn’t selfish, it’s survival.
– TWO | Nobody Cared: Suicide in the workplace and the the complicit role we play in “looking the other way”.
– THREE | Neurodivergent, Noncompliant, and Not Popular: The beauty (and backlash) of rejecting neurotypical norms, especially in times of performative marketability, and refusing to live as a caricature of yourself for the comfort of your neurotypical peers.

Editor’s Note: This weeks newsletter contains references to suicide and sexual assault. If these topics are too intense for you, as a survivor, I see you and I understand. Feel free to skip Section Two: Nobody Cared, or join me again next week. In love, JJ.

ONE | When the System Eats You Alive

Let’s be real, you’re tired, right? If you’re drawn to this newsletter amongst all of your options you probably are. I’m not judging; I mean, I know I’m f–king exhausted. Not just “didn’t get enough sleep last night” tired, but bone-deep, soul-crushing exhaustion that comes from constantly fighting inside of a system designed to wear you down.

I’m talking about that full-body, heavy-limbed, foggy-brained, “I don’t know how much longer I can keep pretending I’m okay” tired. The kind of exhaustion that stacks up slowly but relentlessly, until even eating lunch or taking a shower feels like an act of resistance. I know it. I live it. And I’m here to say: you’re not imagining it.

We’ve all been there, especially lately, caught in the gears of institutions that promise support but deliver only collapse, where “self-care” feels like another item on an impossible to-do list, and choosing yourself feels less like an act of empowerment and more like a selfish indulgence.

This isn’t just burnout. This is what happens when you live too long in systems that were never meant to nourish you, never built to honor your worth, and sure as hell not designed to help you thrive. Whether it’s a toxic workplace, a broken healthcare system, hustle culture on steroids, or performative DEI initiatives that treat your identity as a checkbox, it’s all connected.

What if I told you that feeling…that gnawing conflict between doing what’s expected and doing what’s necessary for your own survival…isn’t accidental?

It’s a feature, not a bug, designed to keep you powerless, stuck, and just pliable enough to serve someone else’s agenda.

The whole thing is rigged to keep you grinding just hard enough to survive but never enough to breathe. Never enough to dream. Never enough to say, “What I need matters too.”

And even when you do start to whisper those words, even when you dare to pull back, to rest, to re-center yourself…it feels wrong. I will never forget laying on a table in the ER, hooked up to an EKG, and trying to answer work texts while the frustrated tech batted at my arms.

Even caring for yourself during a potential heart attack feels like breaking some unspoken rule.

Like self-preservation is rebellion. And that’s because it is.

The worst part? Most of us have internalized it so deeply, we start to believe the problem is us. That if we could just work harder, organize better, wake up earlier, meditate more, manifest differently, fix ourselves…then maybe we’d finally feel okay. Maybe we’d finally be “enough”. Or fit in.

That constant tug-of-war between what they expect from you and what you need to stay whole? The imposter syndrome they encourage through biased and dysfunctional “review” systems? That’s the point.

That’s the mechanism. That’s how the machine keeps running: off your labor, your silence, your burnout, your guilt.

But naming it is power. Naming it is the beginning of refusing to carry shame for a system that was never built with your humanity in mind. Rest is not laziness. Boundaries are not betrayal. Tapping out is not weakness. It’s survival.

And the truth is you were never “broken”. The system is. You’re not “too sensitive” or “too much” or “bad at boundaries.” You’re reacting exactly the way a human being is supposed to react when forced to trade their soul for a paycheck, their dignity for compliance, or their identity for a performance.

And let’s not even pretend this shit is equal-opportunity. If you’re queer, neurodivergent, disabled, a person of color, a woman, a man who shows emotion, or any combination of the above: you already know the walls close in faster and the expectations are higher. You’re asked to educate and endure, to show up and shut up, to prove your humanity just to be seen as competent.

They’ll call it professionalism. They’ll call it resilience. They’ll call it “being a team player.” But you know what it is? Extraction. It’s you being mined, emotionally, intellectually, spiritually, for someone else’s metrics. And they will bleed you dry if you let them.

So no, you’re not weak for needing rest. You’re not dramatic for naming harm. You’re not a failure for not being able to carry it all. You’re just human in a machine that was built to ignore your humanity.

So if you’re tired, really tired, know this: it’s not a personal failing. It’s a predictable outcome of being awake in a world that profits from your exhaustion.

Choosing to survive that? To slow down, speak up, or even walk away? That’s not quitting. That’s not selfish.

That’s sacred.

TWO | Nobody Cared

We talk a good game about mental health these days, don’t we? Hashtags, awareness campaigns, HR pamphlets collecting dust in forgotten corners. But when it comes to the stark, terrifying reality of suicide in the workplace, suddenly everyone gets quiet.

We wring our hands, offer platitudes, and then, almost instinctively, we look away…if we even do that.

Because confronting the truth, that someone among us reached a point of such despair they saw no other option, and that perhaps, just perhaps, our collective silence and complicity played a part, is far more uncomfortable than pretending it’s an isolated tragedy, unconnected to the daily grind, the toxic environments, or the subtle, insidious ways we normalize suffering.

When I left my job, it was because I was struck with the stark reality that after accumulating over 10 years of recovery from self harm and attempt, that if I didn’t leave I was going to end my life. It was a deeply familiar feeling; a haunting in the oldest formation of my cells that screamed out in the same voice as when I attempted suicide in my past.

I had taken in every hurtful, disrespectful, disgusting moment and experience and instead of rejecting it, carried it deep into my soul where I began to believe that I was worthless and didn’t deserve to be alive. I hadn’t felt that way so deeply since I was sexually assaulted.

Your workday should never rank at the same height as a sexual assault, or cause the same weight of shame or fear. I had lost every small beautiful piece of myself over the months, lost huge chunks of hair and over 60 pounds; I left with 3 bleeding ulcers and a whopping seven emergency visits for panic attacks and irregular heartbeat.

And my story isn’t unique. Every day, in every office and workplace across the country, you have colleagues and friends who smile through their day, who maybe make veiled comments to you about needing help “navigating the culture”, and go home and contemplate taking their life.

And far too many times….they do.

For every person like me, who has survived an attempt, there are hundreds more who have not. Beautiful, important souls like my sweet cousin Bobby. Or my childhood friend Jeremy. Or the endless list of brilliant educators: Antoinette “Bonnie” Candia-Bailey who faced severe bullying from colleagues and whose boss laughed in her face days before her death when trying to seek mental health support, or Antonio Calvo, who faced deportation when his role was cut even though his employer knew it would result in visa loss.

I am humbly begging you: please do not look away from these people when they are asking for your help, reporting abuse, or showing signs of mental health crisis. We need you to be braver than your fear of getting involved.

THREE | Neurodivergent, Noncompliant, and Not Popular

In a world obsessed with curated perfection and the relentless pressure to “brand” your authenticity, being neurodivergent feels less like a unique identity and more like a glitch in the matrix.

We’re told to embrace our differences, but only if those differences are marketable, palatable, and don’t make anyone too uncomfortable. So, we twist ourselves into pretzels, mimicking neurotypical norms, performing a watered-down version of ourselves for the comfort and consumption of others.

But what happens when you decide you’re done with the performance? What happens when you embrace the beautiful, messy, noncompliant truth of who you are, even if it means sacrificing popularity and refusing to be a caricature for someone else’s peace of mind?

Honestly, not all of us can handle another co-opting of our quirks and behaviors by “popular” creators who infantilize our identities while simultaneously using our lived experiences to kick up likes for being performatively “quirky”, or mega conglomerates who tokenize our identities for capital or social gains and then discard us when it’s no longer “popular”.

Because let’s be real: when you are actually neurodivergent and finally stop pretending, when you let go of masking for survival and start showing up as the raw, unfiltered version of yourself, the room gets real quiet.

People don’t know what to do with someone who isn’t performing for their comfort. Who doesn’t play neurotypical, who isn’t trying to smooth out the edges of their ADHD, their autism, their trauma, their truth.

And that silence? That’s the sound of your liberation echoing in a world that’s been trained to ignore anything that doesn’t fit neatly into a LinkedIn-friendly TED Talk about “diversity.”

Because being neurodivergent isn’t always “cute and quirky”. It’s not a vibe. It’s not an aesthetic. It’s not the TikTok version with soft lighting and pastel graphics about “how to be more productive with ADHD.”

Sometimes it’s crying in the bathroom because the lights are too bright or because you can feel your pants too much. Sometimes it’s missing another deadline because your brain went sideways and forgot how time works.

Sometimes it’s being fucking brilliant at something no one taught you how to do, but still being underestimated because you don’t look, sound, or behave the way they think “competence” should while the gatekeepers who either allow or deny access to the institutions that bring “credibility” to your name don’t look fondly at weirdos.

And when you stop apologizing for that, or when you stop trying to shrink your weirdness, or your differentness, or your authenticity, into something that fits their PowerPoint slides…that’s when the real tension starts. You become inconvenient. Uncontainable. Not “good energy.” Not a “culture fit”, the most vile of HR slop.

But you also become free.

Free from the tyranny of forced palatability. Free from the soul-sucking loop of trying to be “understood” by people who’ve never had to explain their existence. Free from being someone else’s teachable moment. Free from vomiting blood over the opinions of people that you don’t even LIKE.

So no, I’m not here to make anyone comfortable. I’m not here to simplify myself for your workshop or be your diversity token or serve up digestible neurodivergence for your social media engagement strategy. I’m not going to mask every aspect of who I am while dancing like a marionette for your entertainment. I’m not going to tell my peers that they need to sacrifice their joy, their expression, their beauty to please milquetoast bigots.

I’m here to take up space. To exist loudly. To burn down the idea that I owe you performance in order to be seen as real.

Because the truth is: the more I lean into my noncompliance, the more I realize that popularity was never the point.

Liberation is.

xx JJ