Thread by @erikaheidewald

any condition that’s just a collection of observed symptoms is an arbitrary categorization of a divergent brain’s characteristics and stress/trauma responses, interpreted through a lens of NT bias. the lines have been drawn arbitrarily and in a way that obscures the truth

https://twitter.com/padmrey/status/1379569817305411591

i haven’t shared these opinions publicly much yet because it’s a tricky thing to talk about and i don’t want to hurt people who feel an attachment to their diagnoses. but. diagnoses are not real, they are very crappy efforts at describing and categorizing things that are real

this was my very lonely opinion for quite a while which is a reason I didn’t share it bc when I tried the reactions were pretty furious but there is actually research that shows diagnoses are so inconsistent and unreliable they are meaningless

sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/…

our current system of diagnosis is not only arbitrary, but it excludes important information. most allistic neurodivergent people and many autistic people don’t realize how much of who they are is bc they’re neurodivergent. NTs subsumed our positive qualities under the NT label

in a system that only attributes trauma and stress responses to neurodivergence, of course it will be seen as disorder, and many ND people think all the things they love about themselves are things NTs share when actually they’re ND qualities & the foundations of their neurotype

i do think the difficulties we face are real but instead of seeing divergence as conditions, i see it this way - your divergence is not what is hurting you. your divergence is what is hurting. it is you.

If a body is damaged, you break bones, you bleed, you bruise. If a divergent brain is damaged, you tic, you have intrusive thoughts, you get anxiety, you get depression, you develop obsessions and compulsions, you have emotional instability, your thoughts race, jumble, and cycle

i think that brains are very insistent on being what they are and working the way they were intended to. the more you try to force your brain to be neurotypical, the more pain it is in, and eventually it starts breaking down. your brain is in the vise that is neurotypical society

is it possible that my brain has autism, ADHD, bipolar, OCD, anxiety, and symptoms of schizophrenia (i hallucinate a lot), narcolepsy, some kind of tic disorder, giftedness, dyscalculia, dysgraphia, dyslexia,
prosopagnosic aphantasia, & a history of every single eating disorder?

is that possible? is that reasonable? i’m pretty sure medical professionals wouldn’t think so, they’d probably decide i’m a liar or hypochondriac so they could get back to one nice derogatory label to categorize me with. but i think i have an ND brain incompatible with NT society

all the things i experienced that those labels attempt to describe are real, but the idea that i have what would otherwise be an NT brain with 10-20 disorders on top of it is so completely ludicrous it’s like saying deep down i have the skeleton of an elephant.

i am not supposed to “function” the way an NT functions. my brain is not supposed to do the things an NT brain does. all strengths have corresponding weaknesses. in order to do the incredible things my brain does, it will also do some things that are not so incredible or pleasant

if after we accept the essential nature of our neurotypes we want to look at those less pleasant things our brains do and give them names and figure out how to make them easier on us, great. let’s do it for NTs,
too. their brains also have unpleasant downsides.

we have been told we must accept diagnosis as the only validation of our lived experience and our only path to accommodation. but i think we must reject it so we can truly see ourselves and create a universally accessible world where self-determination is a human right