School, practice, homework, drawing, sleeping. Tired, exhausted, overstimulated, anxious, scared. I go to school and get another failing grade. Failing in two, three, seven subjects. Hours of studying every day bring no results, and all I want to do is draw. I think about my fantasy world, the one I’d like to escape to—its colors, its characters.

The alarm rings at 7 AM, which is way too early. School is too bright, too cold, too loud. I am too tired. I don’t remember anything I studied the night before, and I count the minutes until I can jump out of my seat and run away. Hallways during breaks are just for quick naps or sketching. Walking home, I dread the avalanche of homework I can’t grasp. I don’t understand math. Physics makes no sense. History feels meaningless. Languages don’t click. I must be the dumbest person in the world. Everyone else manages just fine—so why can’t my brain process anything? I just want to draw. I fantasize that one day this nightmare will be over, and I’ll be able to be an artist in peace. Adults keep repeating how these are the best years of my life. And all I can think is—how miserable must your life be if this was the peak?

I spend my free time on DeviantArt and YouTube, watching different artists’ work, life stories, and projects. How brands collaborate with artists to create unique and exciting things in this world. I don’t understand what learning in school is supposed to give me. When I ask why I need to learn certain things, the only answer I get is, “Because you just do.” But why? What is the need? I love creative problem-solving, but no one wants to engage with my logic. “You’ll never need art in your life, but you will need math. You won’t always have a calculator in your pocket.” Numbers look like ocean waves to me—patterns moving around, visually interesting, but providing no information. I can’t put them together, and formulas are just a mess of numbers and letters. As an adult, I learned that dyscalculia is a real diagnosis. But for most of my life, I just believed my brain was garbage.

But there was one thing I knew for sure: if I didn’t finish school, I would have no future. It would be branded on my forehead that I was stupid, and I’d never get a job or have opportunities in life. I didn’t know how to argue against this because I had no real understanding or concept of work. I knew I never wanted to work, but everyone said it was unavoidable. So I enslaved myself to debt—the cost being my mental health, sleep, and sanity. Looking back now, I don’t understand why we do this to our children. School, practice, extracurriculars, homework. The amount of stress and expectations we pile on kids is insane. When do they get to breathe, make mistakes, and discover their own personality and interests? We are so terrified that kids will figure out for themselves who they want to be and what they want to do that we just work them to the bone. It doesn’t matter how old you are—you have to make your own mistakes. A parent’s job is to be the soft landing when their child falls. Children who grow up in safe and supportive families learn, through that process, how to be their own cushion.

Instead, many parents choose to shame their kids for their choices, hoping it will push them toward the dreams their parents have created for them. “You are so talented, but incredibly lazy. If you put the same energy into math as you put into drawing, your grades would be fine!” Neurodivergent kids have heard this speech more times than they can count. “Just get your act together and focus on the right things.” Instead of supporting a child’s talent and genuine interest, they shame it, thinking that will somehow guide them toward what they believe is important.

Unfortunately, that belief took root in me too and followed me into adulthood. Even though I protested against continuing my education right after high school and went straight into an art career, the belief remained: I had to dedicate all my energy to one thing and prove my worth to the world. So I aggressively pushed my tattooing career—working 5–7 days a week, drawing through the nights, traveling, participating in tattoo conventions, guest spotting, and more. Everything else felt like a distraction from who I had to become. Because I had to become something. Because if I wasn’t pouring all my energy into one thing, then who was I?

Years later, when I finally received my autism and ADHD diagnosis, I came across the term “multipotentialite”. It was a completely new and unfamiliar concept to me—one that is closely linked to neurodivergence. “Jack of all trades, master of none” was a phrase that had always scared me, but it turns out it’s just a fragment of a longer saying:

“Jack of all trades, master of none, though oftentimes better than master of one.”

And that realization flipped a switch in my brain! The more I learned about other creatives, their backgrounds, and their creative processes, the more I understood how vital it was for my brain to do a variety of things—things that, on the surface, had nothing to do with each other. Artists need to experience life in order to find inspiration, solve problems, and create art. But my whole life, I had been forced to separate art from the world—as if logic and real-world subjects existed in one space, and creativity and art existed in another. But it’s all the same thing! That Venn diagram is a circle! Creative people need to experience different aspects of life, solve diverse problems, meet different people, and explore various fields. Because that’s how they bring it all together to create something new and unique for society. And to express it in a way that makes sense: through art.

Think of Andy Warhol, Frida Kahlo, Matisse, or Da Vinci—big names, big examples, but they illustrate this concept well. Artists who experimented, experienced, and suffered in order to bring their lives into visual form and share something truly unique with the world. And they could do that because they saw the world as more than just one-dimensional art. Our life experiences are art. And that really is so deep!

My passion for tattooing, painting, sculpture, fashion, interior design, memes, cars, motorcycles, freediving, dogs, and a million other things reflects my inner world. I am neurodivergent, and I burn like a sparkler—brightly and joyfully, sharing that light with others. Life is short, but the world has so much to offer, and my role as a neurodivergent artist is to experience it and reflect it back through creation.

Don’t trap your kids in a box. Plant those seeds in the ground and watch, with curiosity instead of fear, what kind of incredible being will emerge!