k8- 24
i like using this thing but sometimes im like. wha. the hell s this
chats with my mom
‘’The unplaiting of the hair’’ 1997, 100x100, oil on canvas - #AndreyRemnev #Russia
blowing up at my insecure cheesemaking wife. “yes. i wish the curd was tighter. of fucking course i wish the curd was tighter”
spotify wrapped ..we’re not showing this year. out of respect for parties involved(me)
can’t help but think that a lot of the issues with how insular online communities conceive of neurodivergence stem from how the discourse necessitates the imagined existence of a mythic group of ‘neurotypicals’ cogently and unambiguously free of the social knottiness that certain neurodivergences can entail (“all ‘neurotypicals’ experience X,” “no ‘neurotypicals’ experience Y,” etc) rather than understanding neurotypicality as an enforced social norm to which we are all expected to comply and fall short of to varying degrees
I have a friend who is a med student of neurobiology and she said that there really is no such thing as a “neurotypical” and the term is extremely unhelpful. There is no “typical,” but there is an average, however it’s very rare for somebody to embody that average. To put it another way, if one person has 4 apples and another person has 6 apples, the average is 5 apples, however neither of these people has 5 apples. And considering that the brain has millions of factors going on, it’s unlikely that any individual would be average along every single one of those axis. What we consider “neurodivergence” is being outside of the commonly accepted range of deviation from the average. What nondisabled people think of as mental disability is when that deviation from the average impacts other people. What disabled people consider disability is when these deviations cause personal distress regardless of proximity to the average and would be distressing even with environmental changes.
She went on to say that even people who fall within that neuro average aren’t the ones making the rules for what is typical, and unofficially dubbed them neuropowerful. Once people have power, they can impose their ideas as the standard regardless of whether it’s the average or not. They’re outliers whose experience (both internally and externally) has been allowed to set the standards by which many (even most) people fall short, even those close to the “average.” The same is true for physical characteristics. If more than half the population is “overweight,” who determined what the acceptable weight is? Because it definitely isn’t *average* to the population. I know a lot of disabled and neurodivergent people flock to each other, but sometimes you realize everyone you know has some kind of major divergence, and nobody is in fact “neurotypical.”
This isn’t to say that all a “neurodivergent” person needs to be okay is a different environmental/cultural/societal structure. For some, ADHD/Autism are disabling, but for others, it isn’t, even if it’s the same level of deviation in the same environment. For me, personally, it’s a bit of both. I would benefit greatly from shifting cultural expectations as far as being able to meet my obligations, but my ADHD would still hurt me in moments when I want to do something for personal enjoyment and executive dysfunction will not let me get off the couch. I would benefit from a world that is not so depressing all the time, but I would still have days when I struggle to get out of bed because my brain is physically not set up to do serotonin.
tl;dr, human brains are way too complex to fit into categories like “neurotypical,” “neurodivergence” is simply a more extreme deviation from the average, and we do not even use the average as the actual standard of what our brains are expected to be.
Makes me think of the 99% Invisible episode about averages, and how they mess with our sense of what averages are.
What nondisabled people think of as mental disability is when that deviation from the average impacts other people. What disabled people consider disability is when these deviations cause personal distress regardless of proximity to the average and would be distressing even with environmental changes.
I’m gonna have to sit with that for a minute.
i’ve finally done something w all the useless knowledge . my soul can finally be at rest amen
my new groundbreaking novel will change a generation. every chapter will end with “uhh and then i cumped?” but the content will be so good that the public will be forced to overlook it
boobs are boobing tonight. Simply boobulous