carbon_based

A de-pathologising and enabling explanation of typical neurodivergent perception and expression culture.

By Janae Elisabeth, a researcher-storyteller and neurodiversity advocate from western North Carolina.

The two rather concise blog articles are suitable for handing to people who may ask (or may not have asked) what this neurodiversity thing is actually about. And if you are divergent, you will probably recognise yourself.

In part 1, Janae lists the most defining differences in communication and culture, in the sibling form of "we".

Quote:

The dominant social group labels our way of being in the world as disordered because they don’t understand us. Even though they don’t understand, the dominant culture controls the narrative about our differences.

Society believes the experts who are not part of our culture, who see brokenness where there is order. We gradually start to believe the myths ourselves and lose all sense of self-esteem. We come to hate ourselves for being different.

How did we get here?
The pathology paradigm is a system of diagnostic labels designed by neurotypicals which categorizes our genetic differences and traumatic stress responses as illnesses, disorders, deficits, and deficiencies. [...]

Up until now, scientists have studied us like they study animals — not asking our opinion or considering that there may be a complex system of mind behind the behaviors that they do not understand. They theorize that we are less empathetic, less aware of others, less social. More like robots than people.

They have largely not tried to understand the biological mechanisms that create our experience of self. Instead they have tried every means possible to force us to act neurotypical.

(emphasis partly done by me -- yeah that's a long quote ...)

Headlines:

Processing differences cause us to speak different social languages / Emotions / Empathy / Nonverbal Communication and Body Cues / Words Mean Things / Social Rules / A Different Value System / Skills and Abilities / Reactions to Stress, Pain, and Overwhelm

Part 2:

Link: Lost in Translation: The Social Language Theory of Neurodivergence (part 2 of 2)

In part 2, Janae writes about the impact of the invalidation done by a pathologising clinical approach, the mistreatment following the misunderstanding, and ways in which neurodivergence can be supported, accepted, and embraced.

Quote:

The med/psych system is losing or failing most neurodivergent people. This is the most common theme I am hearing from patients, parents, teachers, and therapists alike. And it’s not just that we are “falling through the cracks” in the system or being neglected, though those are valid concerns. The bigger concern is that the med/psych system is actively harming many neurodivergent people by forcing cultural assimilation.
[...]
A study in 2019 found that psychiatric diagnosis is scientifically meaningless because there is too much subjectivity in diagnosis and not enough understanding of trauma. And when we look beyond simple accuracy and also consider impact, the failure of diagnostic labels becomes clear. Diagnostic labels as they are currently given are worse than useless, they are all too frequently harmful.

(emphasis by me)

Headlines:

While speaking different languages makes relationships difficult, invalidation makes relationships impossible / Self-image, depression, and shutdown / Social rejection, abuse, and PTSD / Mistreatment, re-traumatization, and forced treatment / The neurodiversity paradigm recognizes our different languages and seeks to understand miscommunications instead of pathologizing them. Here are 7 key ways that neurodivergence can be supported, accepted, and embraced

Further reading:

• The paper mentioned in the above quote is available for download as PDF when you search the internet for the title "Heterogeneity in psychiatric diagnostic classification" +PDF. It's interesting for understanding how non-scientific the standard psychiatric assessment actually is.
• In another entry, Janae talks about how the DSM-5 criteria fail. Direct link: A Neurodiversity Paradigm Breakdown of the DSM-5 Criteria for Autism
• ... or if you prefer an informed eye-roll done by Yo Samdy Sam on y-tube: Autism diagnosis criteria: explained (DSM-5).

So while scrolling Lemmy today, i came across this story of a recent excavation at the site of the buried ancient city of Pompeii. A painting on the wall in a house that had an adjacent bakery appears to depict what could be called an ancestor of a nowadays ubiquitous delicacy. Link to an article is below but i put the short story first so that i don't spoil it. ;-D
No idea if it is good storytelling or anything, but why not just put here this crafted-for-an-afternoon piece.

PRANDIVM VELOX PANECUM*

The baker boy had come to wake up Octavius Picus from his afternoon nap. The delegation from the market at Nuceria had already arrived. They were early. Three people, the boy said, an elderly man with bad eyesight and a young woman guiding him, and another man who was carrying some scrolls. They could be heared chatting with Octavius' wife Marcella in the atrium. -- No hurry. He sat up on the bedside and rubbed his eyes.

The landlords around Nuceria had recently founded a cooperative and had now come to bargain a new deal for their grain. He wouldn't really know what to make of it, especially since his plan of opening a taberna next to the bakery would certainly require him to buy more wheat and he also wanted to have their beer. Would all that make it more expensive or less? -- It was Marcella's idea after all, to offer quickly baked meals that would be affordable not only for the wealthy summer guests.
Anyway, the painter was already done with decorating the walls in the atrium, so why not just give them a taste of the novel idea.

Alright, let's serve them something, he told the boy. Make us five of the speciality quick plates, with sausage, eggs and sweet wine ... but not the most expensive one. And do not forget to put the basilicum and cheese sauce on the panem piccum!

Well, actually i know ... but i need some time to express it in words. 😄 I'll do it my way, which means that i will just keep editing this text as i get inspired.
I'll be happy about inspiration, questions, and feedback!
-- carbon based --

This place asks us for some "feeling into it". The pure mental approach, of reason-assembling a list of dos and don'ts will just not work here. It was an idea that came to me -- as in, "*the Universe is asking me to go for a divergent approach at the ways neurodiversity is commonly displayed in the spaces provided. It came while i was browsing other "autist" forums, when i sensed some certain dissatisfaction in me, with the things people were bringing on there. It was the usual "I am an autist and let me tell you how hard it is to constantly be misunderstood" and "we are different so let's celebrate the hardships by procreating self-ironic-but-deprecating meme cartoons" and "how do I get the right mental treatment", etc. -- the kind of pathology that results from a pathologising social paradigm.
I'm not saying that such is a completely wrong approach, because people need some place to vent their frustration or ask for advice upon all the trauma they endure. Yet for me, that remaining the only approach, looks very much reminescent of those same ill societal paradigms that we are made to suffer from, in the first place.

We are incapable because we were made incapacitated. That illness of a society, in the sense of a collective organism, is essentially a loss of connection to its finer sensory organs. Not all societies are like that; we dare to bet that in pre-historic as well as present-day indigenous cultures and also in some philosophies, neurodiversity is being given its natural function and its required place in order to enable it to do its task within that society as a whole.

Soooo ... much of what i see as my own work involves "seeing the essence" and "projecting the outcome", and then -- as It calls me up for a prophet's task -- help "preparing the space".

I have no idea how to do that. 😅

Here i first made a draft about the idea: Creating a neurodivergent playground and art collection

The how we do things is more important than what we do.

penguins fly underwater

What are your eccentric personal traits and in which way do you use them? -- You do not know what to do with them -- what to do with the way how you do?
You may be taking words by their literal meaning and therefore often take a while to process figure of speech and especially jokes, so how on earth would you make that benefitting?
Your mind may go in kind of fractal ways, and you've been told that's part of an "executive dysfunction", so how is that to give you value?
You like tinkering with simple things, so you find yourself "re-inventing the wheel", so who would actually buy such a thing? --

One answer i would have, is that it doesn't actually matter what you produce but it's about the way in which you do it. It may seem crude and naïve, but your speciality is not just that you put meticulos effort into something ... which at other places is being mass-produced -- but it's your mindfulness that gives it a special value. You may be attentive to detail, you may have a sense of disharmonies and imperfections, see similar patterns repeat in the essence of things, and you may be capable of intuitively foresee the future outcome of such things. Believe it or not, most people do not as naturally have such capabilities!

I am not the first one who believes that divergent people of now are to be pioneers in that which is going to be leading the new people. We will have to strenghten each other, see in which ways the essential patterns of the old paradigm are disabling us, and participate in mutual enabling.
[Note from the author: at this moment i feel like this is going to be a manifesto. ... Whatever. 😄 ]

-- carbon based --

NAQ (Never Asked Questions)

Q: Are there any rules in this community?
A: There are guidelines that i tried to outline in the sidebar note. Those do imply a lot, but i don't know how much of a rulemaker i want to be. Trolls will ignore them anyway. Plus, i expect this place to stay pretty niche, and attract a mannered folk, who should get by largely without much intervention. If explicit rules should ever be required, then i'd suggest it might be a subset of the rules from !autism@lemmy.world (asking for feedback on this).

Q: You say, no memes?
A: Yes. A meme (Wikipedia), as defined by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, is a way certain ideas populate our mindscape, and the basic building block in the mechanics of cultural evolution. They reproduce and have mutated offspring, just like physical genes have, and the ones that fit the environment of our simple minds the most will pervade our culture. In Dawkins' idea, the gene acts as the only reproductive thing, and all the complex organisms the genes create are just the means of genes reproducing.
Seeing it as such however, will inevitably lead to the question if certain memes are not in fact mental parasites that constantly steal our attention and make themselves attractive to our minds and egos (even though they want to suck!), so that we are willing to spend our time helping them proliferate. Irrespective of subscribing to Dawkins' ideas or not, he for sure did talk about ideas and cultural heritage rather than image-jokes. Mass-posting jokes leads to more fleshed-out stuff being pushed out of sight in places where memes are encouraged. If that happens, we should try to nicely tap such people to make them aware.
That said, i don't mean that people should not post cartoons etc. at all -- if that is the way they can best express their divergence, so be it. Surprise everyone!

Q: Is this place only for posting about my own divergent creativity, or can i also link to stuff that i find damn divergent?
A: Yes please, let's gather that stuff! It will be nice though, if you don't only just post a link but also comment with some of your own thought, if you can.

Q: So, only stuff i have produced and not just generally chatting about stuff?
A: Haha, chatting about stuff can be hilariously divergent and productive!

Q: Name checks out, huh! Did you create your account specifically for the domain name?
A: Yep! 😊 Appreciate the appreciation!
My main account is @DivergentHarmonics@sopuli.xyz

Q: Will you always be the only moderator?
A: No please not! I was the one catching the idea from the collective field, and i went to action. I will not constantly be around, and at some point i might be gone completely. We'll see how this develops, and if there is mod activity required then i will ask for people to raise hands. I'd expect most mod work here to be just nicely talking to people.

Q: I like sarcasm. Can i be sarcastic here? Or will i be forced to be "nice", like in other places?
A: While sarcasm is a bit of a condescending form of communication, if done well it is the more dark form of irony. And irony will be very much appreciated, i think. It will very much depend on your level of understanding, and being sarcastic at neurodivergents can easily get you burned. So watch your moral backing because ND people often have the better one.

https://sh.itjust.works/c/neurodivergent

tamarisk, linseed oil.

I think this spoon is a good example of what i do when i'm working in the flow. I made it in 2019, in about 15 hours of work. Tried to estimate how much it would cost if i would ask for a sincere per-hour price. Aahahaha! The love that went into it can of course not be sold. It's arguably my most beautiful one so far (the 6^th^ if i remember correctly).

The form is not only ornamental but it just works. 😄 (yes i am proud) -- it fits my hand pretty well, the way i hold it. I also like to make them fit the width of the mouth, and make them as thin as reasonably possible. That means frequently trying in the mouth while it' still rough. There was a big hole in the spoon which i had to close by fitting in a piece of wood -- and then sandpaper, sandpaper.

I have used it ever since, until a few months ago a mouse took a taste off the front. Did not yet get around to repairing that. 😉