“Every day that I wake up, I'm so happy to be alive and be able to talk.”Stefanie Smith
Gratitude
In January 2020 I was diagnosed with cancer. I started posting about it that February, and kept posting through radiation. I am still here, and I have not stopped being astonished by that.
“I knew what a refrigerator did. I just couldn't find the word for it.”
Losing language, and getting it back
In 2021 I had brain surgery. When I woke up I had two words left: yes and no. Half the time I said the wrong one — I'd say “yes” when I meant no. If it was left, I said right. It took about six months before I had enough language to get through a day, and years before I sounded like myself again.
“Being neurodivergent in a neurotypical world is lonely for a lot of people.”
Neurodivergence
That same surgery left me with a sensory processing disorder, and it turned out to be the thing that made the rest of my work make sense — it put me on both sides of a conversation most people only ever hear from one side. There was a second surgery later, after I came home to California. That is what I mean when I say I build bridges.
“My presence is the present.”Stefanie Smith
What I bring to a room
I speak with a master’s degree, a lot of experience, and a story I’m not careful with anymore. Audiences do not need me to be an expert at them. They need someone who has been on the other side of it and came back able to describe the trip.
“I don't need people to understand it. I just need to keep doing the next right thing.”Stefanie Smith
Where this is going
An eight-week course for neurodivergent adults and the people who love them. A book about the cancer years. More stages, more rooms, more conversations that start somewhere honest.
