Adult Neurodiversity Thread

Adult Neurodiversity Thread (Autism, ADHD, etc)

I feel like there should be a neurodiversity thread but buggered if I can find one. This might be a bit niche, I'm not sure, but this podcast chat with Robert Chapman is good and his book sounds excellent: https://www.everand.com/podcast/702055056/The-Rise-of-Anti-Capitalist-Neurodiversity-Robert-Chapman-s-Empire-of-Normality

― I would prefer not to. (Chinaski), Wednesday, February 14, 2024 6:55 AM (three months ago)

i agree. people who are caregivers just have very different challenges to someone like me, and i think it's good to have a separate place for those of us who have the 'tism or ADHD or AuDHD or whatever to talk about shit.

i've been reading a little bit about "pathological demand avoidance", sometimes called "persistent desire for autonomy", and am thinking about the ways it might apply to my life. of course i'm only going to know so much about stuff from reading about it on the internet, but for me a lot of it is, like. it's just a question of framing. because neurodiversity isn't some fixed, static, empirical thing, it's a way of looking at things. some of my behaviors do feel like they fit under the PDA umbrella.

anyway i don't want to overdisclose on the first post haha, we'll kinda see how shit goes from here :)

I'm both neurodivergent and a caregiver.

same

I'm primarily a caregiver (my kid has diagnosed severe OCD & ADHD) but also recognise a bunch of ADHD traits in myself the more I learn about it. I also teach secondary school (11-16) so work alongside a lot of neurodiverse kids (and staff).

I've kind of stalled with it, but that Chapman book is very good. Recommended. Glad to see the thread!

I have only recently begun to accept my very mild and relatively unobtrusive neurodivergence as neurodivergence (namely, ADD minus the H) and also to accept that, by having consistently compared/contrasted my issues against what I perceive to be more profound struggles on the part of others, I've undermined my own struggles and the extent to which I would likely benefit from strategies that I've unnecessarily denied myself.

Not a caregiver, btw. A bullet which hypothetical receivers of my care are no doubt hypothetically thrilled to have dodged.

i've been diagnosed with adhd/ocd before but not autism because to be honest i never go to doctors much. i've never seen a psychiatrist. i could use a therapist. anyway, i've got stuff. my stuff. lots of stuff. i live with a queer bipolar woman and a very very old man. this is a sign i once made for myself. to help me interact with people. it helped! i just mirror people for the most part. it has always worked best.

https://scontent-bos5-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t31.18172-8/21056036_10156183226112137_5435713567081105916_o.jpg?_nc_cat=110&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=5f2048&_nc_ohc=Soow7xpBcdYQ7kNvgHwBsv1&_nc_ht=scontent-bos5-1.xx&oh=00_AYAAFY8R1KMDN6j1hCE20_NE9bo_2xkuxGMVqYmEtQgyCA&oe=666D95AD

Hi 👋

Nice to see this thread on ILX. I have memories of reading posts here (like 15 years ago, when I was pretty active here) that were basically “people claiming to have aspergers are making it up ‘cause they want to be different.” Some of those posts had an outsized influence in my own self-denial in exploring my ND qualities, so I’m just glad that that attitude isn’t so pervasive (at least not here) like it used to be.

My experience is similar to the above post, except I came to realize / accept this (mainly mild ASD) 6 years ago, and since then have oscillated between leaning heavily into that identification and distancing myself from identifications altogether. Most days I sit in the middle, which seems to fit me.

Sorry, posted too late. Above post = Old Lunch’s post

I'm both neurodivergent and a caregiver.

― Christine Green Leafy Dragon Indigo

oh yeah like caregivers ofc welcome here but i feel like the other thread is focused around caregiving and this is like... for people's own experiences ig?

i'm not a caregiver myself fwiw

-

Nice to see this thread on ILX. I have memories of reading posts here (like 15 years ago, when I was pretty active here) that were basically “people claiming to have aspergers are making it up ‘cause they want to be different.” Some of those posts had an outsized influence in my own self-denial in exploring my ND qualities, so I’m just glad that that attitude isn’t so pervasive (at least not here) like it used to be.

― ed.b

yeah that was everywhere on the internet 15 years or so ago, people ragging on people with "self-diagnosed asperger's". so i didn't think of myself as autistic until i transitioned and was around a bunch of other people and realized "oh wait i am very obviously autistic"

part of which is that the diagnostic criteria and understanding _do_ and _have_ changed over time, see: "asperger's" no longer being a thing once people realized oh wait this was just a nazi scumfuck literally gatekeeping autistic people to see which ones were "life unworthy of life". like for me, i'm born in '76 and there was no way i was gonna get diagnosed with autism because i'm _verbal_.

there's a huge amount of cultural bias to neurodiversity diagnoses... even though i belong to the single group most likely to be diagnosed (white amab raised by educated, middle-class parents) it was never gonna happen, although i think i might have gotten a "hyperactivity" dx somewhere along the line. plus then my mental health was weaponized in my parents' divorce and i wasn't gonna get any treatment after _that_ went down.

anyway i _am_ self-dx, i went and started looking at autism experts and saw simon baron-cohen postulating autism as "extreme male brain" and my transfem ass was like shit, if that's the preeminent expert, i sure as fuck can self-dx.

neurodiversity is mostly important in my life because the _vast_ majority of trans people are also autistic. and a lot of non-trans queer people, as well. i really like allistic (non-autistic) people and think they're super cool but i don't always get to socialize with them.

-

i've been diagnosed with adhd/ocd before but not autism because to be honest i never go to doctors much. i've never seen a psychiatrist. i could use a therapist. anyway, i've got stuff. my stuff. lots of stuff. i live with a queer bipolar woman and a very very old man. this is a sign i once made for myself. to help me interact with people. it helped! i just mirror people for the most part. it has always worked best.

― scott seward

i mean i gotta say, speaking as a neurodiverse person i... _respect greatly_ your incredible amount of knowledge and understanding of recorded music. for me it's all self-id. music used to be one of my special interests (this is autism lingo, a "special interest" is a topic a neurodiverse person can talk without taking a breath for a _long time_ about), and you're just, like, light-years ahead of me in terms of breadth and depth of musical knowledge. respect.

"Beyond simplistic narratives of normativity and difference, this groundbreaking book exposes the very myth of the 'normal' brain as a product of intensified capitalism."

very, very interesting. the main reason i've never really dug deeper into ND topics--despite clearly seeing tendencies within myself--is my complete inability to conceive of a "neurotypicality" from which one can diverge. will be checking out this book, thanks for the heads up

the main reason i've never really dug deeper into ND topics--despite clearly seeing tendencies within myself--is my complete inability to conceive of a "neurotypicality" from which one can diverge.

This is my feeling. Yeah, I'm fucked up. Everyone's fucked up. The specifics of my fucked-up-ness are of interest only to me and possibly my wife. (Who is in the process of investigating her fucked-up-ness at the moment.) So if nobody's "normal," why worry about it? If you and I can have a civil, even friendly conversation, filtered through our respective fucked-up-nesses, it's all good.

The book really traces the *invention* of the category of normal, or how 'normal' was shaped by eugenics, taxonomic hierarchies, psychology etc and how that fed into capitalist exploitation. I've not finished the book yet, but Chapman is essentially making a case for neurodiversity being a form of anti-capitalist resistance and organisation.

And not in a Deleuzian way (though he does cite Deleuze) - it's a more practical call-to-arms, with links to organisations etc.

The book really traces the *invention* of the category of normal, or how 'normal' was shaped by eugenics, taxonomic hierarchies, psychology etc and how that fed into capitalist exploitation. I've not finished the book yet, but Chapman is essentially making a case for neurodiversity being a form of anti-capitalist resistance and organisation.

― I would prefer not to. (Chinaski)

in general i would say that disability politics does often serve as a form of anticapitalist resistance... neurodiversity isn't something i'd classify as a "disability" per se, but the spectre of it hangs heavily over my life. under today's capitalist society, my value as a human being to society is more or less wholly dependent on my ability to conform to the requirements of capital. those demands have become more and more stringent and uncompromising over the course of my life. "post-scarcity" economics often seems like a game of musical chairs... i'm supposed to be spending my time desperately trying to hold on to my chair and ignoring the people who keep taking away the chairs, ignoring all the people who don't have chairs. which is pretty hard for me to do as a trans person.

today has actually been a really painful day personally. my department wanted me to fill out a "career development plan" and i had to explain to my boss that my brain cannot make sense of the questions on the survey, and also that no, i cannot talk to her about it on the phone, because i am extremely upset about my inability to answer the questions, and if i have to try to talk to her, i will cry.

is that the 'tism? is that me being neurodiverse? or is that me being subjected to a humiliating ritual wherein i'm pressured to talk about "what i like" about my job. i don't like _anything_ about my job. i hate my fucking job. i work my job for money. changing that situation is beyond the ability of anybody who will read my "survey". asking me to fill out that survey is stupid and inconsiderate.

but i have to explain that to some fucking cis person in a way that won't hurt their fragile ego, and then have them do performative allyship designed to make them feel better about the systemic problems that aren't being addressed.

please use this thread which is titled so that people can find it in search:

Adult Neurodiversity Thread (Autism, ADHD, etc.)

thx