New Vocabulary

This entry is brought to you by a very thoughtless action on the part of someone I rubbed elbows with recently!  They don't know they inspired an hour long angry rant at my poor spouse, Chris, and they probably never will, but you all get to enjoy the beneficial results of that rant.  With the help of another friend, who is quite thoughtful in matters of semantics and societal justice, I discovered three new words, which I would like to share with you.

Some introduction / what is neurodiversity?

I am autistic, which means that I do not operate on the same mental and emotional wavelengths as most people.  My brain is literally wired differently, so I naturally think and act differently.  This has made my life difficult, and continues to do so, because most people expect others to think and act the way they themselves think and act.

This seems absurd, perhaps, to the casual reader.  After all, we have many differences, backgrounds, religions, cultural heritages, economic levels, etc.  And that's true, humans are a varied species.  But I'll also tell you that, at least in the United States, there are certain expectations that are shared across pretty much all those categories.

For instance, you look at someone when they're talking to you, but you don't stare, so you glance away every now and then.  The percentage is about 85% eye contact, 15% glancing down or to the side or at whatever you're talking about.  I know this percentage because I do not automatically want to look at a person when I'm talking to them.  Looking a person in the eye is uncomfortable, to the point where it can feel like getting hit in the head by a baseball bat.  Yet I am still expected to take that baseball bat to the head every time someone talks to me.  That's the rule, and it's one that everyone takes for granted: when someone's talking to you, you make eye contact without staring.

People on the autism spectrum, and people with other brain differences, are called neurodiverse, or neurodivergent.  The movement for acceptance of people like me is called neurodiversity.  In essence, it's basically calling for a "live and let live" mentality when it comes to people whose brains, and thus thoughts and actions, don't entirely match your own. 

A metaphor / the social contract

This movement is kind of like saying that people with iPhones and people with Android phones can live and work together, if we just put in the effort to accept each other.  We may not entirely "get" each other all the time, or even be able to do all of the same things on our phones, but our phones are still phones.  Apple's App Store has far fewer apps than the Google Play app store, but they tend to be less buggy and better put together.  However, Apple's iPhone won't let you play with most of its settings and really customize how the phone works, because Apple's motto of "it just works" doesn't work so well if everything isn't cookie-cutter.  Android, on the other hand, will let you stick your fingers into all the settings and customize practically everything, but if you break it, you're probably stuck trying to fix it yourself.  Some of the popular apps, like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, etc, are for both types of phones, but sometimes an app is only for one phone or the other.  Without that app, the two phones don't have matching functionality, even if the other phone finds a similar app. 

Get the idea?  Now imagine the whole world is iPhones and you're an Android phone.  Depending on how much time, patience, resources, and effort you've put in and others have put in, you may have some of the popular apps that others have.  People on the autism spectrum must often teach themselves or be taught social skills, and once those rules are learned, can then blend reasonably well into neurotypical (normal) society.

As an autistic person who focused very intently on learning social rules and expectations, and then literally studied psychology to learn them even better, I qualify as "better blended."  Unless you know better or are a very astute observer, you would likely think me perfectly normal if you passed me in the store or had a 5 minute conversation with me.  Because I had supportive parents, enough observational skills, and presumably an aptitude of some kind, I learned through hard work what most people know intuitively.  Some autistic people learn these things via therapy, or books, or by lots and lots of experience.  But we don't automatically know most of it, because it's not innate for us.

When I'm not at home alone, I spend most of my time "acting neurotypical."  Because neurotypical people tend to expect certain things, like eye contact, I have to make a lot of efforts to make sure I provide those things.  If I don't, I tend to get labeled "rude" or "weird" and avoided or called out.  So I'm constantly needing to keep details like eye contact, facial expressions, small talk, and rules of politeness in mind when I go out.  If this sounds exhausting, that's because it absolutely is. 

Essentially, I have a bargain with the world at large: I act the way your arbitrary social rules expect me to, and you treat me like a human being.  I like being treated like a human being, and unfortunately this is, thus far, the only (mostly) predictable method I have of being treated like a human being.

But sometimes, I slip up in my "neurotypical act" or am exhausted and can't hold that act together, or I think it's safe to be a little more myself, and it bites me in the butt.

Then someone ticked me off, again

Sadly, when I slip up in my pretending to be neurotypical, the reaction I get is usually poor.  Essentially, I get a politer version of "how dare you be different than me?!"  I get weird looks.  I don't get invited to events.  I stop being counted as human.  It becomes okay to be rude to me, or to ignore me.  I get belittling comments, or polite suggestions that I change the way I am so I don't upset people.  

The kinds of things that can trigger those reactions are anything from not looking at a person when they're talking, to my choice of relaxational activities at the end of the day, to expressing an dissimilar opinion about a subject under discussion. 

So recently, this happened sort of thing happened.  Again.  I'm not perfect, I can't be what I'm not all the time.  And there was politely veiled criticism conveyed to me regarding my actions.  And unfortunately, it's not a situation I can shrug off and expect to never have happen again. Also, it blindsided me because the person in question was so quiet and polite about it that I had no idea I was upsetting them.  

Usually, I just get frustrated for awhile about these sorts of things, then sigh, shrug, and try to do better next time.  But occasionally the unfairness of the situation gets to me, and I get angry.  I started out with calling them a "petty, small-minded, egotistical, thoughtless, neurotypical jerk," and continued in that vein for a bit before realizing that "neurotypical" is really the wrong descriptor for the kind of mentality.  

Neurotypical, you see, refers only to the brain structure and development of a person, not what they choose to do with it.  All neurotypical people are not petty, small-minded, egotistical, thoughtless jerks, even when it comes to neurodiversity or other innate traits, like skin color.  There is a great plethora of examples of good, thoughtful, supportive neurotypical people on this very blog: many of the authors of the books I've reviewed here, for example.

Therefore I needed new words.  I needed a word for a mentality that actively opposes neurodiversity, and a word for people that merely expect neurodiverse people to act "normal" in their presence.  Finally, I needed a word for discriminationatory acts based on those mentalities.  

Therefore, meet the words...

Neurorestrictive: the belief that everyone's brains, thoughts, and behaviors should meet your expectations of those things, and the expectation that if they aren't, the neurodiverse person will restrict themselves to acting that way while in their presence.  This sort of person would invite a neurodiverse person to a party, but be upset if they needed some quiet time in a separate room, or needed to leave early, or didn't want to socialize the whole time.

Neuroconfining: the belief that neurodiverse people should not exist (and should therefore be cured / "corrected until they act normal" / confined away from "normal" people / etc.) and actively oppose any form of neurodiversity.  This sort of person person wouldn't invite a neurodiverse person to a party, and likely believes neurodiverse people shouldn't be invited to parties at all. 

Neurodiscrimination: discrimination against a person or group of people based on differences in their brains, thoughts, actions, and behaviors.  The act of assuming a neurodiverse person should act "normal" at parties, or choosing not to invite a neurodiverse person to a party because they're neurodiverse. 

The person that inspired the hour rant and this several hour post, therefore, committed neurodiscrimination against me by assuming I would do everything their way and being hurt, angry, and passive-aggressive when I didn't.  

While they have not, in the past, shown signs of being neurorestrictive, this action has clearly indicated that they are, at least in some situations.  I must keep a better eye on them and my actions around them or they'll avoid me or dislike me more in the future. I don't think they're neuroconfining by nature, since they have, in the past, listened to me talk about my life without making judgements like this.

And perhaps I'll see if I can't ease them, gently, into being a bit more open-minded about autism and more adult about conflicts in the future.  Y'know, so I don't have to spend four hours of an already busy day trying to invent words to properly express why I'm so livid.