This is about how embodiment therapies can be one size fits all and lack a neurodiversity lens, thereby pathologizing nd traits as trauma. Yes this includes polyvagal theory and most of the other faves.
Sometimes I don't know how to drive this meatmobile. That sounds like a disconnected thing to say Embodiment therapies want us to be IN our bodies more fully. They consider that if you're not it's bc of trauma. But I think there are different ways that ppl get born Where the place of your spirit is more or less positioned in the body Or positioned Differently. My spirit is not always positioned in this body's pelvis, in this body's fingers My spirit is seated farther back at the intersection of embodiment and ethereality At the intersection of Spirit and Enspirited Materiality At the nexus of the figure 8 so I can loop out in either direction Like a tooth loose in it's moorings I can wiggle free Shrug off the "mortal coil" at times But as a result, I'm not all the way here much of the time So to drive this body, it feels like my hands are behind my hands moving them with puppet sticks Always kind of behind everyone else My eyes blink a second late, I'm told I'm awkward, my legs feel thick and clumpy Through embodiment work I learned to be more in my body It is good! I still see the body as gorgeous, intelligent, secret, subtle and overt, a warrior in it's continuous striving to synch with the cycles and seasons, to resonate with the land Despite all we have done to it All the ways we have maligned and rejected it, treated it as discarded meat scraps not good enough for our refined minds Yes I love the body, I'm forever grateful To those teachers and healers who have guided me into the sacred creation mysteries, The nebulae of the pelvic bowl and the ancient scrolls within the hollow bones preserved for centuries Yes I love I am in awe of The body But I am not always in it and that's how I was made Some of us are positioned Differently in our bodies Further back and nestled into the crux of the between Forever stationed at the crossroads, we can come to you but we travel longer We can come to the Angel lands The Elven lands And our path there is shorter and so Familiar This is not wrong This is not necessarily from harm Although some say that trauma is an initiation that lays open a path to power Sometimes yes and sometimes It's just sad and pointless Some of us are born positioned Differently in relation to our bodies Our seat is too far from the steering wheel and it gets stuck that way So we have to reach far to be able to drive Stretch out legs to reach the pedals And it's uncomfortable. Respect those of us who were made this way We are not doing it wrong we have a different role to play We must turn from awareness from movement more often as others do in sleep And that's ok Sometimes this is trauma and sometimes diversity We might need care for our bodies when Our role is to travel outside them We might need help Driving the Meatmobile What we give what we bring back is worth so much Mystics and poets are but a few of the known roles that we, the conditionally embodied play. Please don't pathologize us unless we agree that this is indeed pathological For some of us this is a sacred path made terrible only by the way we're continually told we perform humanness badly We are bad body-drivers, mind drivers They don't see the way we walk barefoot making tracks amoungst the stars And how brilliantly suited we are to do so.
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People talk a game about accessibility and acceptance of different neurotypes but have no idea and often have barely investigated the social norms they perpetuate which exclude us. Many of us have difficulty interpreting social cues, differences in verbal communication and mannerisms/expressions. What I want to do is take a look at “acceptance” more critically, bc what would it take for neurotypical ppl to look beyond our social differences enough that they can stop writing us off as weird or unfriendly and socially excluding us as a result?
This exclusion is not small potatoes. Being socially excluded results in alot more than just not getting invited to parties. It can mean that people don't rent you a room in their communal house, (personally been literally homeless for this reason), check up on you and see if you're eating and sleeping ok, become close enough friends with you to notice if you aren’t ok or even notice if they don’t see you around, learn about your access needs without which you can’t participate in events and it’s unsafe to do so, employ you, refrain from berating and abusing you or general shaming that becomes debilitating when it’s near constant, and other things directly related to survival. If people think you’re weird and unfriendly or whatever, (not referring to behaviors which cause actual harm here), could it often be because they’re interpreting your social differences and misread of social cues from their own lens of normativity? By that I mean- we see someone not making eye contact while we're speaking, having an atypical facial expression or a lack of expression in response to what you just told them, not making conversation or talking alot when they're around you, interrupting or talking loudly when it seems inappropriate, having what looks to be(to you!) a sullen or tired or depressed or annoyed or stressed out expression and many more, so many more examples. And there are intersections to be sure! I definitely know cis-men who are neurodivergent but also operating under entitlement to interrupt and dominate conversations, so don’t think I’m saying all our behaviors are good and never oppressive. I’m saying use inquiry rather than assumption). Some people might think that social cues are normal or biological but I can tell you, from visiting in other cultures that they are not. Some cultural norms elsewhere might be that making direct eye contact is rude and reserved for more intimate interactions (which is my natural inclination so I was thrilled!). Some of them interrupt each other alot and it’s not deemed offensive. The norms by which we are getting judged and consequently excluded are not universal. So what would need to change? It's almost like in order to create social accessibility for neurodivergent ppl, we would have to deconstruct the meanings we attribute to behaviors as social norms. I mean first of all, we need to learn that making assumptions is often harmful. Just like you should not assume gender, you should not assume ability, could we also not assume neurotypicality? Could we then also not assume that social behavior and mannerisms have a typified meaning? Deconstructing ableism around neurodiversity means (among other things), always considering the possibility of neurodivergence in your daily interactions with people, and applying that lens when you find yourself inferring meanings into people’s behaviors. It also could mean considering why you deem a certain behavior as rude or weird, why it makes you uncomfortable, if your belief about it has roots in oppression even. Is it a norm associated with whiteness or eurocentricity, with class privilege, or one that is acceptable for cis-men to do but not people of marginalized genders? So being willing to be curious, apply some different inquiry. And then actually developing relationships in which you can ask questions of people with different neurotypes as to their intentions, access needs and well being. And yes, I am saying that there is ablism implicit in social norms. If it means you exclude people and don’t share resources with them, then absolutely that’s ablism. And it could very well be that alot of these norms come from social rules created by the ruling class to do exactly that: exclude people from resources! Deem certain people uncouth, inferior, undesirable because of their “manners'' and use that as an excuse to hoard resources away from them. Are these things related? They very well could be!! It’s worth considering. Our internal experience is that most of us are terrified of fucking up all day everyday because we know how quick you are to infer meaning to our behaviors. We’re inwardly cringing bc we can’t tell if we’re fucking up and there will be consequences, sometimes serious ones. We are so socially hypervigilant and do so much labor to set neurotypical people at ease that we’re melting down after a few hours of interaction. I’ve oft heard it said in disability justice circles that neurotypicals need to do some of the labor of accepting us to take some of the burden off of us to be constantly masking, so these are some ways I can think of for that to happen. In spaces specifically for neurodivergent people, we so often experience an ease of relating and comfortability that we don’t experience anywhere else. If I ask myself why that is, it seems like it’s almost always that we’re curious. Because we are already operating from a basis of assuming a diversity of neurologies, and understand how it feels to be rejected and misunderstood because of communication differences, we ask each other questions, ask for clarification, familiarize ourselves with each other’s access needs in a way that is starkly different from neurotypical-dominant spaces. And it feels angelically amazing. We experience access intimacy with each other, but I’d like to believe we could experience it with neurotypical people as well. It’s emotionally, relationally important but also impacts our literal survival. Please consider taking a look at your analysis of our behaviors and of behavior and social norms in general. Neurodivergent people, we might need to do this too as we've internalized the norms of dominant culture, learned to police ourselves and even each other. Neurodivergent people are amazing to know, I feel delighted by us all the time and you probably would too if you can put down the normativity goggles for a minute. ID: a photo of a person in a feild of white puffy flowers with redwood trees in the background. The person is light skinned with light brown hair and dressed in a black t-shirt and black leggings with black and leopard print scarves around their waist and they are leaning back with their arms above their head and face tilted up. I’m hanging out with my friend, who like me, is hyperverbal and then mute. We talk alot, and then we tire and our brains go to non verbal, often at the same time. But when that happens we both kind of panic, because there are so many messages everywhere that if you aren’t verbally engaging with a person at all times it becomes “awkward” and people hate to feel awkward so I have to keep talking or else ppl won’t like me. BUT I literally can’t talk, my brain ceases to form words, my tongue feels literally paralyzed, my brain feels full of cotton wool and I literally can’t do it. Sometimes it’s even to the point where I can’t think in words, so I wouldn’t be able to write or sign even. That’s when I make an excuse to leave bc I don’t know how to hang out when my voice isnt working. If I don't you'll keep coming up with small talk prompts which neither of us want and the air feels like it's made out of elmer's glue.
Most of my social anxiety is on account of mutism. What if I go out amongst people and it happens? I will have to leave, sneak out in a shadow and get on my bike and ride like hell, probably feeling shame along with great relief and the sadness of lack of attunement, ringing out in my burning cheeks and hollow ribs, which my nervous system reads the same as rejection. “I must be alone bc I’m not good enough, not good enough because I failed at speech once more, not good enough and definitely broken.” What would it be like, my non-mute friends, or even my fellow mute-friends who, like me have been indoctrinated to think no one will like us if we can’t talk, what would it be like if I didn’t have to go bc my throat feels numb and paralyzed and my mind is not making anymore words? What would it be like if I didn’t have to run bc of something I can't control? If I didn't have to run from.you. Would you ask me what I need and I might be able to write or sign (which ideally you would be able to understand). If I needed to dance instead of talk would you wanna do that too? Even if not, can I communicate to you in movement and gesture and will you listen? If I needed to lay down and be quiet but not alone, would you sit with me and be quiet but not alone, would you sit with me and resume your conversations not thinking it at all odd that I’m not contributing verbally, but still considering my presence a contribution? Could you read to me or sing to me? Could we both be fucking quiet and listen? Are there birds outside the window? Do you know them? Have you listened to the wind lately? Would it be too much to ask that we listen for awhile together? Why is silence and listening only for being alone? And fellow mute friends? Instead of feeling mutual shame about our non-verbalness and collapsing into awkwardness and avoidance, what if we had other language options??? Other communication options? What if we gestured, danced, shared some ASMR or a stim, what if we drew each other pictures, laid hands on each other to feel the energies, rolled around in the sand, made nature art, talked in poetry, talked in glossollaic languages, touched flower petals and looked at bugs? Why are we still judging each other and ourselves with neurotypical verbal-dominant social norms when there’s a whole world of ways for us to “talk?” Yeah anyway, what if there were ways to accept us and include us but bc you rely on neurotypical standards of communication they might not have occurred to you? Because *news flash* there are, so many other ways. This body belongs to mystery and not to lenses or scrutiny
This body belongs to the forms of the rolling land which are monstrous and wyrd. This body and nervous system is made to read the land and the correspondences, the relationships the synchronies and answer back in the same language I do not belong to typical anything-meaning the usual: Cis & Het normativity, Neurotypicality, Oppressive Beauty and Ability Standards, Patriarchy, or the usual suspects. BUT ALSO: desirability, queer normativity, able-norms, social norms or any other norms that are still perpetuated in cultures that claim to counter the dominant oppressive one. Normativity haunts my body, Makes me constrict Makes me fear repercussions, exclusion, abandonment. Makes me mask, yes outwardly, but also to myself, Makes me bury the best of me Makes me demand of myself-what does my felt sense or ND perception “mean” or even what is it “good for” and seeks to process my everyday beingness and the difference of it into a meme or hot take. Seeks to make my perception of Whole Time into a digestible article or post. And there’s value in that. But I want to point out, that neurotypical ppl do not have to explain their basic beingness, in a meme or social media post, or as a caveat or disclaimer to being in relationships, or to being heard, or at all. Because my Beingness is so different and folks don’t get it, I’m over here trying to write an article about it in neurotypical english. In hopes of connecting with or being helpful to other autistics and the cause of neurodivergence-awareness, In hopes of creating a crack in our cultures that might widen into a space for ppl like me but that crack keeps threatening to close back up again. Will it be wide enough for comfort ever? Someday but maybe not this lifetime? Much of the time I’m too tired. So would anyone be if they had to explain or rationalize their Baseline of Being for other ppl before they can meet you. My poetic entanglement with myself and the land (not separate) is much more satisfying. Yesterday, I just wanted to go to the forest and See. As soon as my bike rounded the crest of the hill and my vision filled up with oak trees and pale yellow grass, all my systems started to regulate. Then I was “normal” as far as the word can ever apply to someone like me. That was my “normal” for me. |
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