Interview: Find Your Freaks
Here’s the episode description:
What if the thing that makes you feel like an outsider is actually the key to real belonging?
We spend a lot of time talking about how to build community — how to grow it, structure it, and sustain it. But we don’t talk nearly enough about what it feels like to be the person on the outside of it. The one who doesn’t quite fit, who feels like “too much,” or who has learned to edit themselves just to stay in the room.
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 how that experience can become the foundation for something powerful. As a neuroqueer, AuDHD creator, Eli doesn’t just make art. She creates spaces where people who have always felt different finally feel seen and understood.
Eli shares how years of feeling “too much” shaped her work and her perspective on belonging. Instead of trying to fit into spaces that never quite worked, she began building her own — spaces where otherness isn’t something to hide, but something to celebrate.
Together, they challenge a common assumption about community: that belonging comes from fitting in. Because in the end, real belonging isn’t about being tolerated. It’s about being recognized.
In This Episode, We Explore
What it actually feels like to move through the world as an outsider
The hidden cost of trying to “pass” as normal
Why being “too much” is often a context problem, not a personal flaw
How Eli uses art to create emotional refuge and recognition
The difference between being included and truly belonging
What community builders get wrong about inclusion
How showing up fully creates permission for others to do the same
You can listen to the episode below, or find it wherever you get your podcasts:
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