Hi, I’m Chris’s mom, and I came up with the idea for Decoding Divergent for other moms—dads too, but mostly moms like me—who are raising a Chris, struggling in some ways, and needing to find a community: somewhere they can connect at that level. How the heck do I deal with this? What services can I get? Is it always going to be like this? Is there hope? More than anything, I needed someone to tell me there is hope, even when the people you love most in the world do not get it. They may be trying. Your closest lifelong friends may love you, but they still may not understand. I also created this after watching Chris grow and develop over the years, knowing his path was so far from linear. He made it through college. People need to know that things like this are possible. Now we are starting the workplace, and it is not going to be any more linear than school was. Another objective of Decoding Divergent is letting Chris show the world his amazing skills, his talents, and who he is—in an unorthodox, out-of-the-box way—so he can have a career he feels good about and be the amazing human he is, without masking or trying to squeeze into a box he is never going to fit in. Part of this is also acceptance for me, for him, and for all of us. We may have kids who are never going to fit in that box. So guess what? We have a different box. Part of this is giving all of us hope that there is another way. Welcome to Decoding Divergent. Let’s do the journey together.