I’m going to bring up a rather controversial topic here:
Neurodiverse stereotypes.
I’m referring to people who think that someone has to appear a certain way in order to ‘be’ neurodiverse. Otherwise, they definitely don’t have any condition – they are perfectly normal and are either trying to be special, or worrying about nothing.
Such as…
You don’t look like you have <insert neurological condition here>.
You aren’t introverted/sad/withdrawn/etc enough to have <insert neurological condition here>.
You aren’t struggling with anything in your life, you don’t have <insert neurological condition here>.
People with <insert neurological condition here> aren’t like this, therefore you don’t have it.
The chance of you having <insert neurological condition here> is 1 in a large number. How could you have it?
Note that some neurodiverse people also think this way about others.
Let’s explore the truth behind statements like these. Most of the time, the qualifying factor is something innate, something that cannot be told without the person telling you themselves. Even then, there is a lot going on in people’s minds and they can’t possibly tell you every single thing they are thinking about at the moment. Sometimes, they aren’t even aware of what processes are happening in their minds, especially something subconscious or involuntary.
How then could a third party know someone else inside out? How would people know for sure what is going on in someone’s mind?
In addition, every person is different, neurodiverse or not. There are checklists for symptoms of every condition, but they do not have to all be present in an individual for the individual to have the condition. Often, symptoms present themselves differently in different people. It’s like giving people a very general objective, such as “Make someone happy”. There are a list of things you could do to achieve that, but everyone is going to do it differently.
In all, I think people can’t really know for sure.
But that is my stand on the matter. What is yours? Do you think neurological stereotypes such as these can be justified?
multiplIxer 