This post isn’t to exclude anyone or anything, I’m just curious how people understand the term.
According to the Cleveland Clinic:
People who identify themselves as neurodivergent typically have one or more of the conditions or disorders listed below. However, since there aren’t any medical criteria or definitions of what it means to be neurodivergent, other conditions also can fall under this term as well. People with these conditions may also choose not to identify themselves as neurodivergent.
- Autism spectrum disorder (this includes what was once known as Asperger’s syndrome).
- Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). […]
I think, as someone who was diagnosed with ADD when young and Asperger’s in my 20’s, the term applies. But I’d much rather be called Neurodivergent than other labels, if I had to pick one.
To me, my idea of neurodivergence is that it’s a more neutral term what we’d typically call neurodevelopmental disorders, and could potentially be extended to personality disorders. Neurodivergent people are those with (typically) lifelong differences in brain function. I think it’s a helpful concept at times but I also think it’s far too vague and more specific diagnoses exist for a reason.
I’m torn on including personality disorders because on one hand, they feel more squarely problematic (particularly as someone whose mother is Borderline), but on the other, it’s possible that “feeling squarely problematic” is influenced a whole lot by culture and personal opinion. I’ve experienced being judged by other people’s shitty personal opinions too often to feel comfortable doing it with other people.
I remember a similar discussion I had when an article labelled Kanye West as neurodivergent when he came out as bipolar. Part of it felt true, owning your mental illness as part of you is a part of labelling yourself neurodivergent. But I want to draw some separation between the symptoms and my personality. Plus I don’t want to glorify symptoms that cause a lot of people problems (including me). Having ADHD means I think differently than other people/have different life experiences and I like to see those as the main parts of neurodivergence.
My ability to hyperfocus is part of my ADHD but I feel like my ability to connect concepts in unlikely ways that other people don’t is part of neurodivergence. Also my ability to notice spiders on ceilings (it’s totally not cuz I’m looking all over the place). I just recommended a way for a student on how to take notes from videos because it’s something I struggle with so much and I notice where the difficulty is where other people miss it because it doesn’t affect them as much.
I completely see where you’re coming from with the idea of including personality disorders because of that “feeling squarely problematic” definition. Drawing on some personal experience, I don’t personally view myself as having a clearcut case of Asperger’s because 1) it was never severe enough to be a huge problem and 2) it was diagnosed after I was already an adult, by one psychiatrist (out of many).
Saying to someone “I’m considered neurodivergent” makes more sense to me than saying “I might be on the Autism Spectrum, depending on who you ask.”
Good insight!
…Granted, most psychiatrists are idiots when it comes to ASD. They’re operating on outdated as hell info and their own biases. I’ve seen way too much “well gee you’re holding a conversation with me, there’s no way your autistic” to actually take diagnosis seriously. I was diagnosed at six years old- It was obvious then and there was a ton of intervention- If I went for a diagnosis now, oh boy.
That’s a great point wrt: diagnosis as an adult. Many folks with ASD have learned how to mask effectively enough that they are then dismissed by psychiatrists later in life because they’re not exhibiting specific symptom.
Twice in my life I tried to start a conversation on this topic with a medical mental health professional, like “Doctor, this feels relatable, can we…”, and both times the reaction was basically “we’ve talked for 10 minutes and that’s definitely not relevant, I won’t even ask you where that came from or explain why”, in a way that made me feel like a bad person even for considering. And then proceeded to blame me for any follow up miscommunications… One time this was a “specialist” on the subject and I fear for any kids coming to them, they were all around a condescending patronizing asshole that could not even be on time 90% of the meetings
I think there’s also a lot of liminal space inbetween different diagnoses where people might otherwise need to say “I might have ADHD or maybe I’m autistic, or maybe both, but it’s hard to say” and “I’m neurodivergent” might be a frankly more useful way to describe the situation.