Bold Claim Alert: we’re all capable of divergence, in the right context.
What if we, the autistic community, decided to drop the (neuro) in neurodivergence & skip the bioessentialism?
When I was young, I was punished for my divergence, deviance, & defiance - from school to my abusive home and neighbourhood. I was ostracized and forced to conform not only because I was “too much,” too hyperactive, too unfocused, too focused, too emotional, too disobedient, too talkative, or just too “odd.” I was also too *insert divergent trait here* as those around me found other things about me that annoyed them.
You see, we do not exist in a vacuum. Every trait, every behaviour, our personality, our identities, and how we perceive the world and ourselves is largely defined by the social context in which we exist in (i.e., this capitalist colonial society with all its enforced power structures, social norms, and binaries of good / bad or normal / abnormal).
None of us are born this way. We are shaped and molded by place. Society, and it’s overlords, decide who is disabled and who is not in order to achieve their own ends.
Many interpret the word “neurodivergent” as “different brain” or “atypical brain” and believe in the existence of “typical brains” or “normal people,” without questioning who sets the standard for what is “normal” or “typical.”
I held these false beliefs early on when I struggled to identify the root of the crushing pain, mental anguish, loneliness, and unworthiness I felt my whole life. It helped me direct my resentment at other people who superficially seemed like they “fit in” better. Even though I was just trying to survive - my reductive self-centered “us versus them” reactionary thinking was a trap designed for me by the system itself. It was easier for me to grasp that I or other people were “broken” rather than society itself.
When we suffer, it’s harder to comprehend that we live in a fundamentally brutal world where our safety, survival, and security is never guaranteed. It’s far easier to individualize our problems or blame ourselves / others. This brutal world robbed me of my parents when I was two. It placed me into an abusive house at 4. It drove me out of that house when I was 17, broken and alone - completely unprepared to face adulthood. Yet, each step of the way, it was there to “fix” the problems that it had created - making matters progressively worse.
It is difficult for us to understand that we live on a planet where we have to “earn” the right to live. Also when others hurt us - it is difficult to see that our communities are traumatized from generations of colonialism and oppression that trickles down and manifests as abuse. So to survive - we convince ourselves that there is something innately flawed or wrong with us or others. We resort to binaries of “good / evil” because it is easier - at first. But overall, it's a trap that keeps us stuck.
The System (e.g., big Pharma, capitalism, oligarchy, etc.) gaslights us into thinking we’re the problem in two ways. It actively harms our health and causes our trauma responses which manifests as diseases or are framed as mental illnesses. It punishes and pathologizes natural diversity, heterogeneity, deviance, or rebellion in any form and forces us to conform to be obedient workers (e.g., ABA, etc.).
Yes - biodiversity exists within humanity. Yet, certain traits are framed as “abnormal.” People are disabled accordingly, but also our biology is shaped by our environment - our place. Capitalism, in it’s current form, causes chronic illnesses, shortens our life spans, brutalizes us, and frames our response to these stressors as “disorders.” At baseline, our traits exist as neutral - their positive or negative manifestations (as we experience them internally or as they are perceived by others) is all contextual based on our social environment - our place.
Why don’t we reframe “symptoms” as divergent traits?
Let's examine some traits that are framed as “symptoms” under psychiatric diagnoses. They give us a clue into how all humans can thrive - if allowed.
What if ADHD or OCD were framed as “interest-based nervous systems” or “hyperfocus?”
This is a “symptom” that even in mainstream mental health culture is labeled as a unique trait in people who are “built different,” when in reality, no one is built to sit in a cubicle 40-100 hours a week at a mundane job where our bodies and minds are exploited for labor to serve unseen oligarchs.
Our attention spans are also being reduced in the age of fast information like 140 character tweets, nonstop stimuli consumption on IG, 1 minute TikToks or reels, etc. We're being primed to seek instant gratification and consume content fast to distract ourselves from the pain of existence.
Sitting in classrooms for hours, competing against our peers, standardized testing, and being coerced to study according to arbitrary rules to “succeed” isn't healthy for anyone, much less the Solitary Forager. Without workplaces or educational systems that seek to create drones for oligarchs, with more cooperation and collaboration in a world where we have more agency, free will, and time to pursue our “special interests” from a variety of options without fearing death (which is the punishment for not conforming today) because our basic survival needs are always guaranteed - we'd focus longer on things we care about. Bonus: our care-givers wouldn’t stress out over what will happen to us when they’re gone.
As I get older and have access to more privilege, more safety or security, my “neurodivergence” manifests openly and l'm more self-aware of how I don't want to conform. Before. I was very “neurotypical” on the surface (i.e., masking) because as a kid from the lower classes, the world wasn't my oyster. I had no agency. Today, I have a tad bit more agency to be able to pushback on eugenics’ norms. This tells us that with more freedom & agency, we're all capable of “diverging” in various ways and have to, if we're going to change the systems that are killing us.
I have found myself radicalizing myself. The more I learn, the more I want to recreate the system into something humane, caring. It starts with me, and you. Will you join me?
— December 16, 2023 Note —
Some of the materials herein have made it into my book, No Place for Autism? It was released in February 2023 from Lived Places Publishing and is available at Amazon and other major book retailers worldwide.