What if the way you move through the world, slower, differently, non-linearly, wasn’t something to fix, but something to honour?

In this episode of Just Your Normal Missfit, host Ann Thomas is joined by Arpita Gaidhane, an artist, facilitator, and creator of Fireplace, a free and intentionally held community space for people seeking emotional safety and belonging.

This conversation explores neurodivergence, neuroqueerness, and what it means to live creatively in a culture obsessed with hustle, productivity, and “normal” life timelines.

Arpita speaks about concepts like crip time and queer time, the emotional cost of masking, and how both neurodivergent and queer lives often resist linear ideas of success, growth, and adulthood.

Together, Ann and Arpita reflect on:
– Neuroqueerness as a creative and resilient way of living
– The pressure to keep up in a fast, productivity-driven world
– Building emotionally safe and brave spaces through Fireplace
– Unlearning shame around difference, disability, and identity
– How community, slowness, and honesty can become acts of care

This episode is an invitation to slow down, to question the rules we’ve inherited, and to imagine gentler, more authentic ways of being with ourselves and each other.

🔥 Watch the full episode to learn more about Arpita and Fireplace.