Site Title✦ ADHD | Autism | Emotional Processing | Trauma Healing ✦

Where neurodivergent minds take flight and sensitive hearts adapt.

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🧠🦋 About — BrainButterfly, HeartChameleon Site Author: Kevin Sarasin ADHD Father. Advocate. Coach. Neurodivergent AF. ⸻ 🦋 Welcome to the Nest Hey, I’m Kevin — a dad, neurodivergent advocate, ADHD coach, and someone who’s had to fight damn hard to be understood in a world that doesn’t slow down for people like me… or my son. This space is personal. It’s emotional. It’s built from lived experience, systemic failures, and the kind of pain that turns into purpose. BrainButterfly, HeartChameleon is more than a blog — it’s a nest for nervous systems like ours. ⸻ 💡 Why I Started This Blog I started this after my son Nash — 7 years old, neurodivergent, bright as the sun — was stabbed at school. Stabbed. And even after everything we’d tried to do right… the system failed him. Again and again. He was bullied, dismissed, emotionally injured, and misunderstood. He was masked, silenced, and told to be someone he’s not. And I saw myself in him. Every day. So this blog was born. 🧡 To share our story. 🧠 To connect with others who are living it. ✊ To advocate for change — in schools, in families, and in society. We are not wired to follow. We are born leaders. We think for ourselves. We were never the problem — we’re just not algorithm-brained like the rest of the world. ⸻ 💬 What You’ll Find Here • Real stories about ADHD, masking, trauma, and parenthood • Tools for families navigating the education system • Resources on emotional processing and generational healing • A raw, no-BS look at what it means to raise — and be — a neurodivergent soul • A space for you to feel less alone ⸻ 🦎 BrainButterfly. HeartChameleon. Our brains are like butterflies: slow processors, fast thinkers, deeply intuitive. Our hearts are like chameleons: adaptive, reactive, sensitive to emotional temperature. This brand is built around a truth many of us live every day: We are not “too much.” We are processing in a world that rarely gives us space to do so.
  • 🧡 When You Grow Up Afraid to Ask for Anything

    🧡 When You Grow Up Afraid to Ask for Anything

    By Kevin | BrainButterfly.org

    When you grow up afraid to ask for anything, you don’t become low-maintenance.

    You become emotionally malnourished.

    You learn to swallow your needs before anyone else can reject them.

    You learn to smile through discomfort and apologize for existing.

    You become the “easy one,” the “good kid,” the “quiet helper.”

    And everyone thanks you—except your nervous system.

    It Starts Early

    For many of us, it started with little things.

    Being told we were selfish for wanting seconds.

    Getting in trouble for asking too many questions.

    Being called dramatic for expressing pain.

    Being guilted for needing comfort.

    So we stopped asking.

    Not just for food or help, but for love.

    For reassurance.

    For space.

    For safety.

    And the world celebrated our silence as obedience.

    Then We Became Parents

    And suddenly, we were raising kids who did ask.

    Loudly. Freely. Relentlessly.

    And it triggered something ancient inside us.

    Not because our kids are “too much,”

    but because we were taught to be less.

    Breaking the Pattern

    I see it in myself.

    I see it in my sons.

    And I’ve decided the cycle ends here.

    Because when a child feels safe enough to ask for help, they’re not being needy—they’re being brave.

    Because meeting a need is not spoiling a child—it’s wiring their brain for self-worth.

    So if my kid asks for help with something I know they can do…

    I pause.

    I breathe.

    I remind myself: This is not defiance. This is trust.

    🦋 What I’m Teaching My Kids (and Myself)

    Your needs matter—even if someone else doesn’t understand them. Asking for help is a skill, not a weakness. You never have to earn love by being easy to raise. The right people will never punish you for being real.

    ❤️ If This Resonates

    You’re not alone. You’re not broken. You’re not “too sensitive.”

    You were just raised to believe your feelings were burdens.

    But we’re changing that now.

    Together.

    ✉️ Subscribe to the Nest

    Be the first to get new posts, healing tools, and advocacy updates.

    👉 Join here

    🧠 With care and courage,

    Kevin

  • 🦋 We’re Not Wired to Follow

    🦋 We’re Not Wired to Follow

    By Kevin | BrainButterfly.org

    They called it disobedience.

    I now know it was a nervous system trying to survive.

    They said I had a bad attitude.

    But I was masking fear, confusion, and overwhelm.

    They punished me for asking questions.

    Now I teach my kids that curiosity is courage.

    Growing up neurodivergent in a world that demanded conformity meant I had two choices: shrink or explode. I learned to shrink. To stay quiet. To follow rules even when they made no sense. I became a master at pleasing, avoiding, surviving.

    And for a long time, I thought that was normal.

    Then I became a father—and I saw it happening all over again.

    This Blog is a Rebellion

    This blog isn’t just about me. It’s for every child who’s been made to feel like a problem. Every parent still healing from fear-based parenting. Every adult who was told they were “too sensitive,” “too much,” or “not enough.”

    BrainButterfly is a place where we shed our camouflage—like chameleons who’ve been hiding for too long—and finally let our true colours fly.

    We’re not here to teach our kids to fit in.

    We’re here to show them they were never broken.

    What You’ll Find Here

    🧠 Real stories about parenting, ADHD, and nervous system wisdom

    🧡 Reflections on trauma, people-pleasing, and how we heal

    📚 Resources for families raising neurodivergent kids

    🛠 Tools, graphics, and community for cycle-breakers and cycle-healers

    Why I Started This

    Because I’ve lived it.

    Because I see it in my own children.

    Because I know what happens when feelings go unheard, when systems silence voices, when kids are told to “just behave” instead of being understood.

    Because we’re not wired to follow—we’re wired to feel, connect, and create.

    And because this time, I choose to respond with compassion instead of control. To raise my kids the way I wish I was raised. To listen. To understand. To protect the spark.

    ✊ Join the Movement

    This isn’t just a blog. It’s a nest for neurodivergent minds and gentle hearts.

    🟠 Subscribe to updates

    🟠 Share your story

    🟠 Help build a world where every brain gets to fly

    Subscribe to the Nest

    📬 Be the first to receive new posts, graphics, and advocacy tools.

    👉 Sign up here

    🦋 With heart,

    Kevin