Photo by Dakota Corbin on Unsplash
Recently I was talking to my mom about neurodiversity. She is of the baby boom generation. While she respects my children and their varying diagnoses, she thinks some things are ridiculous. I have heard on more than one occasion, “We didn’t talk about these things when you kids were little.” She wondered why we needed a fancy word like neurodiversity.
I realized I felt the rightness of the word, but didn’t have an answer for her. I made it my mission to understand why.
What does it mean?
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, Neurodiversity has two definitions.
1. individual differences in brain functioning are regarded as normal variations within the human population.
2. the concept that differences in brain functioning within the human population are normal and that brain functioning that is not neurotypical should not be stigmatized.
I really like both these definitions. The first emphasizes that differences in people are normal. The second eliminates the stigma of these differences. I was diagnosed as depressed and anxious in my junior year of high school. I felt for so long that it was a dirty little secret. That something was wrong with me. I needed to pull myself together. Get my head screwed on right. It wasn’t until I was completing my degree in psychology, working in several labs researching depression that I realized how little was in my control. Surprisingly this made me feel more in control. It gave me the ability to change what I could. I was more forgiving of the things that I couldn’t change. Also, I was willing to talk about it.
We are all different
Today I am open with my personal mental health struggles. With my friends, coworkers, and even my children. I don’t want my children to grow up believing anything is wrong with them. We are working to normalize so many differences. I want neurological differences to be one of them.
Neurodiverse is a great word when you don’t have a diagnosis yet. Rainbow has seen psychologists, occupational therapists, physical therapists, and psychiatrists off and on since she was three. They have helped us as a family immensely. Rainbow has thrived in situations that she couldn’t handle even a year ago. The one thing they haven’t been able to share is a definitive diagnosis.
Covid has made seeking any type of mental health support nearly impossible. We are blessed that we have a therapist and a psychiatrist Rainbow likes. But we have been on a waitlist for the last 6 months for an autism screening. Currently, our wait time is at least another six months. Right now I can’t say my daughter is on the spectrum. Her doctors suspect she is, her teachers think she is, and our family believes she is. Even talking to Rainbow she thinks autism describes how she feels sometimes.
Language is important
This is where having a word other than mental illness, or mental health concerns are important. I can say she is neurodiverse. This opens up a conversation with her teachers and other people. They can work with us to help her feel comfortable. We don’t need the diagnosis. All we need is the proper language.
Neurodiversity can encompass a whole range of diagnoses. Autism, ADHD, Dyslexia, Dyspraxia, and Anxiety all fall under the umbrella of neurodiversity. For more disorders under this umbrella go HERE. It allows an individual to be more than a diagnosis. People are judged differently based on the language that we use. When I say my son has ADHD, people immediately form a picture in their minds. This might involve him blurting out things, having poor impulse control, or inability to do school work. Some are true. Some are not. I prefer that people get to know my children.
It is necessary to share some information with new people in our lives. A teacher needs to know my child is noise sensitive and does better working on group projects in the hall. Saying they are neurodiverse, is all the teacher needs.
It is a spectrum
I like that we are moving to view so many things as a spectrum. When I was in college getting my bachelor’s in psychology the world still felt very black and white when it came to mental illness. Now I can see the language is adapting. My daughter is probably on the spectrum. It allows us to feel connected to each other. I see a line that we all have a place on. This line connects us, and we simply have different spots.
Neurodiversity might be a buzzword. It may disappear in another ten years. I really hope it doesn’t though. It is important to have neutral language when speaking about people. When we use emotionally charged words like illness or disease to discuss the brains and interactions of our children it stigmatizes them. Instead, we should be embracing their differences. My daughter Rainbow sees things in completely different ways than me. It is amazing. My son Dino can tell me everything that happened at school with his hyperfocus.
These are not disabilities, they are just different ways of seeing the world.
