I would say as well that society as a whole is not built to accommodate or even accept people who are neurodivergent. It’s still made and run by psychopaths with no care for anyone else.
Exactly. I feel like most neurodivergent folk end up experiencing long term psychological harm, which, for many, could manifest as complex PTSD (cPTSD).
When I got my diagnoses (autism at age 14, ADHD at age 20), it was incredibly cathartic to realise that I’m not inherently broken, as I had been made to feel all my life, just incompatible with systems that are fundamentally not built for me. However, despite the freedom I felt from this realisation, it didn’t erase the harm of all those years being worn down, and even today, I frequently need to do work to avoid sliding down a spiral of internalised ableism.
Although I would note that most of the harm that we experience doesn’t come from individual assholes with power, but rather massive, complex systems. In some ways that’s better, because for many of the things that cause trouble, it’s not because someone maliciously decided that I didn’t matter, but rather an unpleasant side effect of a system that harms a heckton of people as it chugs along. In some ways, that’s worse though, because it makes it harder to push for accountability or change. There are a lot of well intentioned people who don’t question the harms caused by systems, because they don’t have the capacity to imagine a world where the systems could be built differently — sometimes they’re even being harmed by those same systems, but they believe that this is just the inherent nature of things.
Seeing how even neurotypical or able bodied people suffer due to the system being structurally ableist helps to bolster my resolve though. I think of it like how curb cuts ended up being useful for a heckton of other people beyond just wheelchair users. I feel like we’re sort of like canaries in the coal mine — resisting the systems that cause us harm is something that can benefit us, or other members of our community (present and future), but it also stands to benefit the people who are still able to mostly function whilst being crushed between the gears of the system.
I would say as well that society as a whole is not built to accommodate or even accept people who are neurodivergent. It’s still made and run by psychopaths with no care for anyone else.
Exactly. I feel like most neurodivergent folk end up experiencing long term psychological harm, which, for many, could manifest as complex PTSD (cPTSD).
When I got my diagnoses (autism at age 14, ADHD at age 20), it was incredibly cathartic to realise that I’m not inherently broken, as I had been made to feel all my life, just incompatible with systems that are fundamentally not built for me. However, despite the freedom I felt from this realisation, it didn’t erase the harm of all those years being worn down, and even today, I frequently need to do work to avoid sliding down a spiral of internalised ableism.
Although I would note that most of the harm that we experience doesn’t come from individual assholes with power, but rather massive, complex systems. In some ways that’s better, because for many of the things that cause trouble, it’s not because someone maliciously decided that I didn’t matter, but rather an unpleasant side effect of a system that harms a heckton of people as it chugs along. In some ways, that’s worse though, because it makes it harder to push for accountability or change. There are a lot of well intentioned people who don’t question the harms caused by systems, because they don’t have the capacity to imagine a world where the systems could be built differently — sometimes they’re even being harmed by those same systems, but they believe that this is just the inherent nature of things.
Seeing how even neurotypical or able bodied people suffer due to the system being structurally ableist helps to bolster my resolve though. I think of it like how curb cuts ended up being useful for a heckton of other people beyond just wheelchair users. I feel like we’re sort of like canaries in the coal mine — resisting the systems that cause us harm is something that can benefit us, or other members of our community (present and future), but it also stands to benefit the people who are still able to mostly function whilst being crushed between the gears of the system.