#neurodivergence is still considered like a disease by the majority of society

[battybiologist]

Please reblog for sample size.

[doberbutts]

ty for your post about ADHD, i was actually attacked for saying similar things and accused of not even having ADHD at all, when all i did was explain the logic behind the "ADHD isnt a disability" crowd and that it doesnt mean no one has struggles stemming from ADHD, just that its been both proven that people with ADHD show less harmful symptoms when allowed to thrive in their own way, and that in some nomadic societies ADHD is the default. it just means our exist shouldnt be pathologized

and to be clear i think that goes for a lot more things besides ADHD, pathologization of deviations from what is considered the default is a widespread issue. i dont think people even know it stems from literally a single sample of what researchers at the time considered an ideal family

ADD is absolutely a disability in today’s world. ADD might not have been a disability when we were in a different society, when things such as “must be constantly doing something Or Else A Tiger Will Eat Me” and “sometimes Professor Dillyhop locks himself in his library and doesn’t eat for 3 days while researching a new insect he’s never seen before” were significantly more common.

It’s been proven that, like with many developmental disorders, when provided a support network that seeks to understand and legitimize the neurodivergent experience rather than Make Them Normal, we thrive. Our more pesky symptoms such as RSD and Executive Dysfunction are lessened sometimes to the point of virtual nonexistence. Hyperfocus is put to constructive work, even if that constructive work is “I’m going to stare at these individual leaves on a tree until I understand why they move a certain way when the wind hits them”. Infodumps become lectures and workshops and public speaking. Overstimulation is either avoided entirely by making places less fucking chaotic the second you walk in or a safe place is provided for recovery. Understimulation is solved by creating self-soothing tactics and coping methods to stay on course. Medication is provided by those who cannot be helped with lifestyle changes alone.

But you know, what do I know, I’ve only been unmedicated since leaving middle school and learned to manage my own symptoms through enforcing not only my own lifestyle changes but being vocal with friends and my workplace on what I need to not feel like a complete failure on a day-to-day basis while also understanding that I wouldn’t have needed to feel like a failure and a waste of space if I didn’t grow up as “that weird kid no one likes but everyone pretends to because we get in trouble for being too obvious about it” and “Jaz has Can’t Sit Still disease which is the same as all these problematic unmedicated and unsupported kids in school so we’d better heavy-hand this or he’ll drop out of college and never get married”. I wouldn’t HAVE the majority of the problems I have stemming from having ADD if I had maybe just an ounce more understanding from my community growing up. It’s great that my mom taught me to advocate for myself and got me medication and therapy but it’s less great that she also used it as a weapon against me whenever things didn’t go her way.

And now? I work in a job where I’m not expected to show up first thing in the morning and so I stopped being late for work all the time. I found a special interest that actually pays well to be employed in that I can sit and hyperfocus about each individual client and the intricacies of their specific cases. I use nagging apps to fix my food and water situations. My dogs don’t let me lay in bed like a lump all day. My friends understand my RSD and how I can be sensitive to perceived rejection or mockery. Class is literally Jaz Infodumps For An Hour At A Time. If I get overwhelmed I can always just ask for a few minutes to myself to calm down. I’m able to keep a schedule and stick to the majority of the things I have planned provided Something Else Stressful doesn’t get in the way of that.

I unfucked my life by building a support system and I know that the majority of people who react negatively to those who say that ADD doesn’t need to be a disability if only our society were ready to provide this understanding and acceptance on a large scale basis are reacting to the idea that someone can snap their fingers and make all the bad stuff stop. That’ll never happen. But if you get the support you need, you’ll find that the way your symptoms affect your life lessen to the point where your ADD simply becomes another aspect of you rather than something holding you back from the person you’ve always wanted to be and never felt you could live up to. Disability is about your symptoms having a major impact on your quality of life- and your symptoms would not have such an impact if neurotypical people could perhaps imagine a world where more people like me could have the support system I’ve fought tooth and nail to get.

[hcpefulmarshmallow]

Hello friends, this is just a thing that I wanted to mention real quick (you: “stop it Jenny, we know you don’t do real quick”) because it’s been playing on my mind for some time. Trigger warning for mental illness.

 To begin, a (somewhat) brief preface. When I talk about what’s a ‘real’ diagnosis and what’s not, I’m referring to what exists in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition (DSM-V); and the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11).

 The most recent edition of the DSM-V was published in 2013 by the American Psychiatric Association, and the most recent edition of the ICD-11 in 2018. They are both common diagnostic tools for mental disorders, offering clear, standardised criteria. The DSM is more commonly used in America and is more universally known, while the ICD-11, despite being less common knowledge, actually has a wider reach professionally and is used more in Europe and other parts of the world. It also has a broader scope than the DSM, covering overall health instead of just mental disorders.

 Please bear in mind that I have not read either resource in their entirety, this is just what I can work out from more general research of the two, compared to patterns in writing that I see all the time. And just know that I’m not calling anyone out or trying to police anyone’s creativity. Consider this an information dump, and inspiration to research what you write.

 So, with all the boring stuff out of the way: what’s my damn point? Why did I take on the mammoth task of reducing a complicated and very nuanced issue to a single post? In fact, what is the issue at hand? 5 paragraphs in and I’ve still not addressed it, I’m a great essayist.

 Well, it all started with the song  “Sweet But Psycho” by Ava Max. And no, I don’t know it -- and neither does my sister who seems to think she does, because I hear the first four lines sung out loud more than I ever needed to: “Oh, she's sweet but a psycho / A little bit psycho / At night she's screamin' / I'm-ma-ma-ma out my mind”. And when you have that catchy but annoying tune in your head, the things you hate about it are inescapable. 

 At this point, you’re probably thinking this is another rant about the glorification (or even, gasp, the cutesification) of mental illness around us and, uh...sort of? Like I said, I’m not here to police anybody. And I don’t think almost anything is truly bad in isolation -- it’s the trend that scares me. There’s not much I, a lowly internet dweeb, can do about the mainstream, but I do think I can educate my fellow peers. And what I want to educate you on today is the use of words that don’t mean what we think they mean, as an example of why we need to mind the subject matter we handle.

 So. ‘Psycho’. In terms of writing, most people use it to refer to their characters who are your batshit off-the-wall cutesy crazy types. Your Yanderes and Jeff The Killers of the fandom world. It’s usually short for two different terms: either Psychopath or Psychotic, and in neither case does this do anybody any favours. Let me explain.

 The term ‘Psychopath’ is often used to describe someone who is cruel, violent, has no care for others, and is often bloodthirsty. These characters are usually presented in one of two ways: as someone who can blend into wider society until their true dark nature is triggered, at which point they become deadly and dangerous; or as someone who is simply unapproachable at all times. Psychopath also has a sister term it’s often treated as interchangeable with, of which I am sure you’re aware: Sociopath. A ‘Sociopath’ is someone who cannot or simply does not experience empathy, sympathy, all those wonderful emotions that make us caring and considerate towards others. As a result, a ‘Sociopath’ often winds up doing radically hurtful things to other people.

 The trouble with both of these words is that, medically, they do not exist. Not how we think they do. We just made them up to be mean to each other. That’s right, you can’t be diagnosed as a Sociopath, or a Psychopath. Yeah, I was shocked too. I got so used to hearing people described like this, I thought they must be real.

 And I’m not saying that these words are invalid, just because they’re not real diagnoses. That’s not how words work. The beauty of language is that we invented it, and we can keep on reinventing it. If people use the term ‘Psychopath’ in this way, it will inevitably come to mean this exact thing, no matter what psychology says. And that’s fine. The trouble is that they are often conflated with real mental illness. Used in the place of a genuine diagnosis so we can still have our crazy villain type without the constraints of real, attributable illness. Because you gotta keep ‘em guessing!!1! In the same way they become real words if we use them like they are, they become interchangeable with actual mental issues if we use them that way. The ‘symptoms’ of being a Psycho- or Sociopath are oftentimes just exaggerated forms of symptoms belonging to actual, diagnosed illnesses. And like I said, trends are worse than individual problems, but when we see a combination of symptoms in an illness, whether that illness is given a fake name or not, in exclusively characters who we’d never want to meet in real life, the real sufferers suffer. It puts a stigma in our minds whether we mean for it to or not; it closes us off to conversations, to understanding these people and how to help them.

 The worst cases are when writers take the opportunity to justify their use of the word by ‘diagnosing’ the character themselves, which takes on a whole new level of Yikes. We’re in such an awkward place in terms of representation at the moment, and I know it’s hard to navigate. I have all the love for people who do so with pure intentions. If, for example, you have a straight character, it’s easy for that character to be themselves. But if you have a gay character, everything they do is Gay, and it’s a representation of the Gay Community, and you will be held to a higher standard because of that. That is the lens through which we look at media right now, and it sucks for everyone, and is so easily exploited, but it is what it is. In much the same way, if your character is the only character in your story with a certain illness and they’re also your Big Bad, or someone who would be genuinely terrifying to approach -- well, I don’t think I need to explain why that could be seen as a major disservice. And of course, if your character is the only one in a whole darn genre...yeah. This is why trends matter. And why the trend of mental health getting misrepresented is so troublesome.

 But I digress: because remember, I did say there were two uses of the word Psycho, and the second is grounded in reality. The word ‘Psychotic’ is, medically speaking, a real thing. Again, used to mean someone who is deranged, possibly murderous - and like I said, if a word is used a certain way, it will come to mean a certain thing. But the term has a psychological basis. Psychotic describes someone experiencing Psychosis - a mental disorder in which the sufferer experiences a break from reality. The most classic case is a war veteran who thinks he is suddenly back on the battlefield.

 But obviously, a sufferer of a serious and damaging phenomenon isn’t what we think of when we hear ‘Psycho’ or even ‘Psychotic’. I don’t want to lean too much into the impact on mental health as a whole; that the idea of being neurodivergent is subsequently glamourised and demonised at the same time; that people latch onto labels that have real, practical use, all for the sake of feeling special. I want to keep it basic now. I want to ask: do terms like these have a place in writing? Specifically, in RP, since that is the form with which I am most acquainted right now. Obviously I can only answer with my own opinion, since there’s no Holy Doctrine to tell us one way or another.

 I’m not going to sit here and demonise everyone I think has mishandled subject matter. Believe me, I’ve not always been good at it -- I’m still not always good at it. And as someone actively playing a character whose mental issues are a major part of his characterisation, and who does things that make him unlikeable because of those mental illnesses, I know the pressure to get it right all the time. That unsteady balance between realism and demonisation, glorification and representation. The desire to put labels to traits, to have an understanding of what’s going on in such a complicated mind. It’s tricky. Everyone’s experiences are different. And I’m not saying we need to get rid of “crazy for the sake of crazy” characters, or view everything through the lens of “but who will this hurt??”; or get rid of these terms altogether. Like I said, societal meaning is still meaning. And I personally like to believe that most authors have good intentions, even those with poor execution. And I’m certainly not trying to shame anyone for falling for societal opinion. Everyone has about something at some point.

 If there’s a point to this at all, it’s this: research. Learn. Adapt. Not even my information is perfect and correct. I’ve seen everything above done a million times in so many ways, good and bad. If you want to follow a trend in writing or in storytelling, do, but try to understand it first so you can execute it better. Give it a purpose, and a place. Seize your right to be creative, by all means, but also take the opportunity to learn something new. And in turn, use your art to not only express and entertain, but educate.

 Tl;dr: The best premise in the word can still be executed poorly, but likewise, a poor premise can be executed well. No subject matter has to be wholly off limits, and not everything has to be a statement about something. But handling matters, so handle your work with respect. Do your research and understand what you’re saying before you say it. Make something you’re proud to stand by.