Grumpy Old Blogger

If you stood at the North Pole and headed for the South Pole, but your bearings were off by a mere 1°, you would never reach your destination. You would in fact spiral around the earth indefinitely never getting closer than 111 km's away from the South Pole.

I once had an acquaintance of my then partner tell her of me; "He's not as sick as he thinks he is". I'm not sure how 'sick' they thought I thought I was but, it follows a common theme, tell people about your fucked neurology and you will generally get one of two responses;

1. "We all do that!"
2. "Oh, but we're all on the spectrum really"

Yeah, but no... you don't, and you're not. And while you may think you're being supportive and inclusive in these moments the opposite is actually true. The message coming from you is that we're all the same. The message we're trying to send is "NO WE'RE FUCKING NOT!!!"

Now, while those differences caused by an atypical neurology may be very small, they are significant, and the effects accumulate over time. So even if my neurology is only off by "1°" the cumulative result is that I will never reach my desired place in life without intervention.

The symptoms of neuro-divergence can be as subtle as they can be obvious, and they're as varied as the people that have them. No two sets of symptoms are the same, and what I am calling symptoms here are personality characteristics that every-one has - to a degree... The differences are in how a neuro-divergent brain reacts under the same stimuli as a neuro-typical.

To a neuro-normal a noisy room full of people is just that, and most often associated with fun and pleasure. For a neuro-divergent like myself, a noisy room is akin to being beaten around the ears with no let up while having to navigate a minefield of social cues, illogical protocol's and a requirement to lie to make others feel better. Like it's my job to make them feel anything!

But we all do that...

Yeah right.

Think again. The way neuro-typical's experience the world and the people in it is very different to the neuro-divergent's experience.