What if the thing that makes you feel like an outsider is actually the key to real belonging?
There’s a moment most people don’t talk about, but almost everyone recognizes.
You walk into a room — a party, a group chat, a comment section — and nothing bad happens. Nobody says anything mean. But you look around, read the room, and quietly decide: I am too much for this place.
So you adjust. You soften your voice, hold back your thoughts, edit your reactions. You make yourself smaller, not because anyone asked you to, but because it feels like the cost of staying.
For some people, that moment is occasional. For others, it becomes a pattern. A way of moving through the world.
In this episode of Find Your Freaks, Tonya Kubo sits down with Eli Trier — artist, writer, and self-described “dopamine dealer” — to explore what it means to live as an outsider and why that experience might be pointing to something deeper than we realize.
Because what if the problem isn’t that you’re too much?
What if the problem is that no one in the room has gone first?
Episode Highlights
- [03:15] Why Eli’s “freaks” are the weird, creative, non-traditional souls
- [09:40] What it means to be neuroqueer and AuDHD in a world built for sameness
- [17:20] The experience of being “too much” and learning to self-edit
- [26:10] Why fitting in can feel safer… but costs more than we think
- [34:45] How Eli’s art creates a sense of recognition and belonging
- [42:30] The difference between inclusion and true belonging
- [51:00] Why community builders need to rethink what “safe space” actually means
- [1:02:15] The power of showing up fully and going first
When “Too Much” Becomes a Strategy
For many people, especially those who identify as neurodivergent, creative, or just outside the expected norm, being “too much” isn’t a personality trait. It’s feedback they’ve been given over and over again.
Too loud. Too sensitive. Too intense. Too different.
Over time, that feedback doesn’t just sting. It teaches you how to adapt. How to scan a room and figure out which parts of you are acceptable and which parts need to stay hidden.
It’s a survival strategy. And in many environments, it works.
But it comes at a cost.
Because the version of you that gets accepted isn’t the full version of you. And the longer you operate that way, the harder it becomes to remember what unedited even feels like.
“If you feel like you’re too much, it might just mean you’re in the wrong room.” -Eli Trier Share on X
The Difference Between Inclusion and Belonging
One of the most important distinctions in this conversation is the difference between being included and actually belonging.
Inclusion says, “You can be here.”
Belonging says, “You can be here as yourself.”
That gap matters more than most community builders realize.
Because you can have a space that looks diverse, welcoming, and open — and still have people quietly shrinking inside of it. Still have people translating themselves, toning themselves down, or performing a version of who they think will be accepted.
From the outside, everything looks like it’s working.
From the inside, people still feel alone.
“Belonging isn’t about being tolerated. It’s about being recognized.” -Eli Trier Share on X
Building Spaces That Don’t Require Translation
Eli’s work exists at that intersection.
As a neuroqueer, AuDHD creator, she doesn’t just make art for people who feel different. She creates experiences where they don’t have to explain themselves in the first place.
Her work is a reminder that recognition is powerful. That feeling seen — not just included, but understood — changes how people show up.
It creates ease. It creates safety. It creates connection that doesn’t require performance.
And that’s what most people are actually looking for when they say they want community.
Not more access.
Not more opportunities to participate.
A place where they don’t have to translate who they are.
“The goal isn’t to fit in. It’s to find or create spaces where you don’t have to shrink.” -Eli Trier Share on X
What Community Builders Get Wrong
If you lead a community, this episode lands differently.
Because it challenges a common assumption: that belonging is created through structure alone.
More programming.
More guidelines.
More opportunities to engage.
But belonging doesn’t come from perfectly designed systems. It comes from signals.
Who gets to be visible?
What kinds of expression are actually welcomed?
What happens when someone shows up in a way that doesn’t fit the norm?
People are always paying attention to those cues. And they adjust themselves accordingly.
Which means if you want a community where people feel safe to show up fully, you can’t just invite that.
You have to model it.
Going First Changes the Room
This is where the conversation shifts.
Because the question stops being, “How do I find my people?”
And becomes, “Am I willing to be the person who makes it safe for my people to find me?”
That’s a different level of responsibility.
It means showing up fully before it feels safe. It means being visible in ways that might not be immediately understood. It means risking being the “freakiest” person in the room.
But that’s also what changes the room.
Because when someone goes first — when they show up without editing, without shrinking — it creates permission. It signals to everyone else that maybe they don’t have to perform either.
And that’s where belonging actually starts.
“When you go first and show up fully, you create permission for others to do the same.” -Eli Trier Share on X
You’re Not the Only One
If you’ve ever felt like you were too much, too different, or just slightly out of place, this conversation offers something simple but powerful:
You’re not alone.
There are more people feeling that way than you think. They’re just really good at hiding it.
Until someone goes first.
Freak Flags Fly
Each episode ends with five quick questions. Here’s how Eli flies her flag:
- You’re my kind of freak if… you’ve ever felt like you didn’t quite fit — and decided to stay anyway.
- Something you love that friends don’t get: reading ten books a week and following curiosity wherever it goes.
- Community you’d infiltrate: any space where people are fully committed to their weird — the kind of place where no one is halfway in.
- Practice that keeps you connected: making and sharing art as a way of saying, “you’re not alone” without needing to explain.
- Someone doing freakishly good work who deserves a bigger stage: the artists, creators, and misfits quietly building worlds where other people finally feel seen.
Meet Our Guest
Eli Trier is a neuroqueer AuDHD artist, writer, podcaster, YouTuber, dopamine dealer, and founder of Elinor Trier Studio and Zuzu’s Haus of Cats, where she creates artwork that celebrates “otherness,” reminding you that you’re not the “odd one out,” you’re “one of a kind.” Her work lives in private collections worldwide and has been featured in multiple media outlets, including the Nautilus Silver Award-winning book Creatrix: She Who Makes. She reads ten books a week, snorts when she laughs, and might actually be a pile of cats in a sparkly trench coat.
Meet Your Host
Tonya Kubo is a community strategist, writer, and rebel with a cause: helping people find the place where they truly belong. She’s spent nearly two decades building online spaces that feel more like chosen family than comment sections, and she’s not afraid to call out the fluff in favor of real connection. As the founder of Find Your Freaks, Tonya brings together unconventional thinkers, builders, and bridge-makers who believe that “normal” was never the point. When she’s not hosting the show, she’s raising two daughters, leading client communities, and making meaning out of the mess.
Episode Transcript
Get the full transcript from Episode 22.
Resources & Mentions
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Let’s Stay Freaky
What’s Next
The spaces that feel safest aren’t the ones where everyone fits in. In the next episode, Tonya explores what it really means to go first, why being the “freakiest” one in the room sets the tone for everyone else, and how showing up fully creates the kind of permission real belonging is built on.
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