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Neurospicy SA, a new San Antonio organization that serves young adults who live with brain conditions or disorders, recently held its grand opening and ribbon-cutting ceremony.
The gathering served as a safe space of belonging for people with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), adults on the autism spectrum, and people with an overlap of both, or as the neurodivergent community refers to it, AuDHD.
Neurospicy SA board chair, Heaven Handley, says she met Meredith Marks, the executive director of the organization, shortly after creating her own Facebook group, Neurodivergent San Antonio.
“I accidentally stumbled on her while I was trying to search for my own group, and so I reached out and I said, ’Well, why don't we collaborate?’” said Handley. “For the most part, I was in a place where, when I reached out to her, I first wanted to find out what her needs were. I had my own needs in terms of needing to coordinate some social events for my group. And basically, she said she was interested in forming a nonprofit. And at this point, I said, ‘Well, I can be your board of directors. I can bring you a board of directors.’ And so that's kind of how that came together.”
Handley herself is on the autism spectrum and has ADHD. She would like to develop resources for older individuals.
“One of the biggest reasons why I started doing this is my husband and I are both late diagnosed AuDHD — autism, and we have ADHD — and so I think we're part of a whole generation of people who have their own kids, and our kids are getting diagnosed, and all of a sudden we're realizing all of these things about our own childhood and all these things about our own lives that were extremely difficult, that we didn't realize that because of the shape of our brains that that's why things were 10 times harder for us than they were for everybody else,” said Handley. “We just sort of internalized all of those struggles.”
Ashleigh Fedderman attended the recent grand opening. Fedderman lives with depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder. She says each day is a learning process.
“But I feel as though I'm surrounded by really supportive people, like my mom here,” said Fedderman. “So that's a huge help. It would be nice if I can network and just find other people that are like me that I can interact with. That would be fun.”
Ashleigh’s mother, Shenita Fedderman, hopes to find information through the group for her son who is on the spectrum, but attends college out of state.
“I mean, he's a junior in college right now, so I mean, he's excelling, but I know that he's had some experiences with different things, like on campus or at school, that maybe he wouldn't go and communicate with somebody about, even though he is receiving services there,” said Fedderman.
The secretary of Neurospicy SA's board, Fabian Cantu, spoke at the ribbon-cutting ceremony about the organization’s impact in providing community for a population that frequently faces isolation.
“So many lives and so many people are given extra chances just for having a friend, just for having a community to go to, just for being able to stand in our room and not move and not have to look anywhere during a speech and not have to worry about forgetting what I'm going to say halfway through it,” said Cantu.
Bexar County Clerk Lucy Adame-Clark also took part in the ribbon-cutting ceremony. She said Neurospicy SA marks a step forward in bringing the wider community together.
“We need to continue supporting our community that has to deal with a lot of disadvantages of not having resources for any kind of disability, whether it's autism, ADD, ADHD,” she said. “These individuals are people who have careers, who have education, and who need our support to continue growing in the community. This is not their community. This is all our community.”
Neurospicy SA’s Executive Director Meredith Marks said she wants the organization to expand its network to other cities across the country and create community so that no one is left alone.
“One of our goals is to continue our programs, such as our adult socials and the peer support group, Common Ground peer group. But we also would like to start a new program, such as a therapeutic art class,” said Marks. “And so, the dream I have for Neurospicy, I would like to see Neurospicy's organization go national one day ... under my supervision. I would like to see a Neurospicy L.A., a Neurospicy Chicago, a Neurospicy New York, and so on.”
