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.

• 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

[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

Elinor 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.

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.

• “You’re not the odd one out. You’re one of a kind.” — Eli Trier
• “Being ‘too much’ usually just means you’re in the wrong room.” — Eli Trier
• “Belonging isn’t about being tolerated. It’s about being recognized.” — Eli Trier
• “The goal isn’t to become more palatable. It’s to find the places where you already make sense.” — Eli Trier

• Elinor Trier Studio
• Zuzu’s Haus of Cats
• Creatrix: She Who Makes

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Find Your Freaks merchandise is available through Abilities and Attitudes.

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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.