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"Grief doesn't arrive on schedule. It isn't a meeting you can RSVP to. It's not a shared Google calendar. It comes when the nervous system can bear it-and for some of us, that's days, weeks, or years after everyone else has moved on." Lovette Jallow Neurodivergent Grief in West Africa: How Our Ancestors Protected What the West Pathologized LOVETTEJALLOW.SUBSTACK.COM
"In the world I remember, you're not punished for grieving late. You're given time to walk with the dead. You're given space in nature to breathe. No timeline. No performance. No expiration date on sorrow." Lovette Jallow Neurodivergent Grief in West Africa: How Our Ancestors Protected What the West Pathologized LOVETTEJALLOW.SUBSTACK.COM
We were the anchors, not the outcasts.
Your grief is valid even if it shows up on its own timeline.
Read the essay to see how our ancestors held space for every kind of mourning.
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Neurodivergent -Grief in West Africa: How Our Ancestors Protected What the West Pathologized Why delayed grief, alexithymia, and autistic • mourning were understood and not punished in precolonial African societies E ㅏ
"Autistic grief doesn't always look the way people expect. Because of that, I've been kicked out of more than one funeral not for causing a scene, not for disrespect, but because I laughed. That's all it took: grieving incorrectly." Lovette Jallow Neurodivergent Grief in West Africa: How Our Ancestors Protected What the West Pathologized LOVETTEJALLOW.SUBSTACK.COM
"And yet, many of us—especially those who are autistic, ADHD, or both-are expected to perform grief on schedule. Time blindness, alexithymia, and delayed emotional processing aren't deficits." Lovette Jallow Neurodivergent Grief in West Africa: How Our Ancestors Protected What the West Pathologized LOVETTEJALLOW.SUBSTACK.COM
"In the communities I come from, delayed grief was normal. Even if experienced later later, someone would sit with me, share her name, her stories, her memory, and hold the space for me as I did for them." Lovette Jallow Neurodivergent Grief in West Africa: How Our Ancestors Protected What the West Pathologized LOVETTEJALLOW.SUBSTACK.COM
Ever laughed at a funeral or felt nothing then grief hit years later?
Precolonial West African communities expected delayed, unscripted, nonlinear mourning.
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