Obsessive, Intrusive, Magical Thinking

May 16, 2022
In this incandescent debut, journalist Eloise explores the nuances of being neurodivergent through a captivating mix of personal essays and cultural criticism. Eloise was diagnosed with OCD in her teens and later ADHD, autism, and Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a connective tissue disorder that causes chronic pain. Starting with her childhood in the U.K., she revisits the fixations that “destroyed and sustained” her—from journaling in the 2000s as a young girl “to make time more elastic” to shoplifting in her teens and romanticizing Los Angeles, where she moved as an adult to pursue a writing career. As she lithely moves through time, she conveys her passion for art, nature, and pop culture: finding refuge from the “constraints” of her body and mind in the “weightlessness” of water, and begrudgingly accepting her love of Disneyland in “Yesterday, Tomorrow and Fantasy” (“against all logic... I have become the thing I feared: a Disney Adult”). In “I Am Old Now, But I Wasn’t Then” a discussion about her obsession with mortality occasions a sharp analysis of the history of witchcraft to unpack cultural anxieties about death. Throughout, Eloise’s wit and grace cast her differences in a dazzling light: “Understanding that... my brain is wired differently, has been key to not only knowing myself but also liking her a little bit, too.” The result is a rewarding navigation through the corridors of a relentlessly curious mind.