Doesn’t “neurodivergent” mean “socially awkward?”
It can, but not all neurodivergent people are socially impaired. Some of them are quite empathetic (sometimes protecting themselves from being sympathetic and feeling everyone’s feels can look socially awkward or aloof.) Some neurodivergent people are obsessed with how people work and have studied social behavior for a long time. Also, the therapeutic experience is very different from any other type of social experience. It is very intense and personal in a lopsided way. Your therapist will know more about you than you know about them. The purpose of this structure is so you can talk about things that are important to you without worrying how it will make your therapist feel. (Of course, some of this happens anyway, because it is impossible to not know anything about your therapist. Despite what the psychoanalysts thought, no one can be a blank slate. And non-verbal communication can say a lot without us deliberately wanting to share.)
The term, “neurodivergent” can get tangled up. Some people think it is a “nicer” way of saying Autistic. But it is like the classification difference between horses and animals. All Autistics are neurodivergent, but not all neurodivergent people are Autistic… Some are Gifted, some are ADHD, some interpret symbols in different ways (Dysgraphic, dyscalculic, etc). Many neurodivergent people have multiple neurodivergences. So at a basic classification level I am neurodivergent. But sometimes I hesitate to use the language because of confusion. For a deeper dive into the meanings of neurodiversity terms check out Dr. Nick Walker’s (She/her) essay here: https://www.autisticuk.org/neurodiversity
In being authentic, I reveal information about myself.
I think very carefully about what I reveal in sessions and why. I think carefully about what I say about myself in this blog. I try to balance being personable, relatable, and human with not revealing too much of my inner world. Except that sometimes the things I’m grappling with are important. Right now, I’m grappling with how much to identify myself as a neurodivergent therapist. To most people who know me, it is pretty obvious that I march to the beat of my own internal drum. I call myself “Quirky, Creative, & Curious” on the home page of my website. (Which if you have found this blog, you might know.) I identify as quirky because that seems cute, and a little easier to understand. It is easy for me to identify as creative, as being creative is very much like breathing for me, it just happens. I have been drawing, writing and making things for as long as I have known what those things are. And I identify as curious because I was a “why?” child.
Identifying as Gifted is more tricky. Part of it is the stigma around the “g-word.” Part of it is around how gifted and talented get identified. I was tested in 2nd grade and put into a gifted pull-out program in 3rd grade. In 5th grade I attended a different school district for the year. When I returned to the original school district, they said I had to be tested again to be in the gifted program, and I missed the cut off by a couple of points. (The reason I missed—my answers were TOO creative!) So by all these aspects I am most definitely neurodivergent, my thinking is not middle of the bell curve thinking.
There is no such thing as normal!?
Of course, everyone diverges from “normal” in some way, because normal is an abstract concept that talks about how a group of people is likely to behave. Any individual in that group will stray from that prediction in some ways. But the term neurodivergent has some different meanings to different people. It is not a clear descriptor because it basically describes what it is not. Neurodivergent is not neurotypical. (the inverse is also true.) Again, neurotypical is how a group of people is likely to think. Imagine a cone of light. That cone holds all the things that are most typical for this group of people. But then there are those of us out wandering in the infinite darkness outside this cone of light. Since there is no light it is very difficult to describe what it is like out here. And since most of the group is in the light, they keep telling us “Come into the light, it is very clear in here!” and we are all thinking, but there is beautiful stuff out here too. And the world needs both, because the world is dynamic, it needs to move, and the cone of light needs to adjust.
If you are neurotypical, how could working with someone like me help?
Maybe you have some more divergent bits of yourself that you have locked away because they didn’t fit the concept you were expected to fit into. Maybe finding those bits and letting them have some expression and knowing that they are okay too might allow you to feel more whole? Sometimes locking away bits of ourselves because they don’t fit can create great distress, which can lead to mental and physical problems. Sometimes those bits need to find the safe zones where they can come out. Like it is okay to throw paint at a color fun run, it is not okay to throw paint in a restaurant. But if that bit of you is allowed to throw paint at a color fun run, it might be willing to sit down in the restaurant. But if you don’t know that you have this need to throw paint, you might feel agitated in restaurants and never know why. You might have an impulsive thought about tossing your mashed potatoes at your neighbor and think that you are a bad person. (Or you might start up a restaurant business where throwing paint is okay!)
My goal is to help people unlock their inner colors and find out how they can best use them, for themselves, their close people, and the environment around them.