Hi! I’m Liz

About 3 years ago I started having a strange experience when I went out. A couple of hours into the evening I would stop being able to fully process conversations. I knew the other person was speaking, and I could somewhat understand the individual words, but it was hard to focus and I would end up smiling and nodding for the remainder of the interaction. I assumed I’d inadvertently chugged my cocktail too quickly… every single time. It was awkward for everyone involved and who knows what I agreed to while pretending to understand what was going on?

Then, one day at a business lunch (no alcohol!) I realized it was happening again. Following a long journey involving deep rabbit holes, therapy, and self-assessments I came to realize I am neurospicy, likely AuDHD with a particular sensitivity to sound. This explained my lifelong inability to finish a project and miniscule social battery. Something about perimenopause kicked my sensitivities into overdrive and made it so that I can’t just fake my way through overstimulating situations anymore.

These strange experiences in public were sensory overloads and eventual shut downs when I didn’t notice the signs fast enough. They’d been happening my entire life, I just didn’t have the language to describe them. In middle school I used to joke about having “hot flashes” in the chorus room under the gross iridescent lighting while surrounded by 30 off-key singing children. Now I know why my mind blanked out and my body thought it was running from a jungle cat while trying to learn “Be Our Guest” from Beauty and the Beast.

I live in New Orleans, Louisiana which is an ADHD stimulation dream and autistic sensory nightmare. I’m a transplant (been here 12 years) and I hope to be here until it sinks back into the swamp (better yet, we finally build the infrastructure to prevent that). Finding the balance that allows me to experience the joy and uniqueness of New Orleans life without shutting down is an adventure. Sometimes I find that magic sweet spot and other times I’m waving goodbye to friends as I jump in a rideshare back to my home at 8 pm on a Saturday night.

I’m on a mission to give other neurospicy peeps the information I wish I had - how sensory friendly is a restaurant, venue, show, or event? I won’t claim to have it all figured out but I hope my experiences can help others discover the delights that my adopted home has to offer.