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.
1 Comment
Jacqui
3/20/2022 06:28:17 am
I resonate with this a lot Amber. You put words to things that I have experienced my whole life but only in recent years had the lens of ND to think of it through (which is funny that as a student of child development and special education and then later as a special education teacher, it took me so long to see more these qualities in myself beyond the diagnosis’ of ADD, anxiety, and depression I have been given in the past.)
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
September 2022
Categories |