Yes, we're all a little neurodivergent
Yes, we're all a little neurodivergent
VI. No one is biologically wired to thrive & conform under capitalism
Heads up: This newsletter is full of unpopular opinions that are also evidence-based, well-researched but will challenge your existing beliefs. So with an open mind- persist anyways and be willing to dive beyond reductive binaries & unlearn. We got this.
Join the club — The neurodiversity movement is for everybody
Table of contents
Gatekeeping mental health labels is bad — On policing of neurdivergence
Is anyone really “neurotypical”? — On reframing conformity under capitalism
Who gets to be “neurodivergent?” — On privilege & identity politics
“But I thought I was special” — On feeling “invalidated” by collectivism
Video content for paid subscribers:
—How gatekeeping hurts solidarity building- my response to this IG reel
—My 4 STAGES of growth around mental health & neurodiversity- I breakdown the “wrong” beliefs I previously held & how many of us fall into these traps
1. Gatekeeping mental health labels is bad
Maybe you’ve had to conform under capitalism and tried to “fit in” to survive but know deep within you that the stress of this brutal existence is hurting your well-being and breaking your body.
Maybe you’ve been afraid to describe your stress or divergent traits using words like “depressed” “anxious” “OCD” “ADHD”, etc because you’re not sure if those apply to you, haven’t had an “official clinical diagnosis” or are just afraid to “get it wrong”.
Here’s a sufficiently annoying IG reel that captures gatekeeping in mainstream wellness culture from a self-proclaimed “ADHD expert” psychiatrist who says:
“Words matter. If you are using psychiatric terms as ways to describe personality quirks you’re further pushing stigma and making it harder for people who really need help to get it. For people who know they have ADHD, hearing someone who clearly does not have it say “I’m so ADHD” after forgetting to do one thing is like nails on a chalkboard. It’s invalidating, it’s inappropriate.”
Okay, phew. This virtue signaling is just colonial capitalist psychiatry back at it again trying to pathologize & frame our logical responses to stress, systemic trauma/ oppression as biological defects or “clinical disorders” that only they have the right to diagnose us with. It asserts & reinforces power structures.
A theory side note: Under capitalism- the elite class avoids responsibility for the problems they cause (by exploiting you for profit) and frame it as inevitable, biological pain & suffering afflicting individuals who are then diagnosed as “mentally ill”. Flawed pseudoscientific studies are used to justify the DSM V which uses a list of traits that diverge from capitalist colonial social norms as “symptoms” to label people as “disordered” or “diseased” without any physiological quantified assessment. It’s all subjective and not evidence based.
I read a great analogy in a paper once:
“If capitalism is a con game, then the role of psychiatry is to ‘cool the losers’ of the system so they don’t squawk, expose the con, and take their revenge.”
Self reflection questions after watching that reel:
Who are people that are considered as “really needing help”? How do they know they need it or not? How do you know someone “clearly does not have” ADHD? Can you “know” the internal workings of someone’s mind by glancing at them? (No) If someone else shares a part of your experience, does it on its own invalidate you or prevent you from “getting help”?
If someone relates to a divergent trait, is that a personal affront or offense to you? Should our identity be defined by a diagnosis that makes us feel “special” (granted after a lifetime of feeling excluded) when our suffering is shared & collective under oppressive systems? Who has access to mental healthcare? Why does a diagnosis in a carceral system “validate” someone’s struggles? Doesn’t privilege dictate if someone is even aware of the word “neurodivergent” or uses “politically correct” lingo and jargon?
2. Is anyone really “neurotypical”?
How would your brain function without capitalism in a world where you truly had agency, freedom & safety?
The answer is nothing like it does today- nothing even remotely similar and the possibilities are endless. Humans are diverse, as are all living species. This is called natural biodiversity and we need it to thrive as a population. However, oppression adds selective pressure which forces homogenization because there are consequences to going against the rules established by people in power. Ultimately, these standards are set to turn complex, innovative, cooperative, creative humans into workers so they can be exploited to generate profit and luxury for a few elite.
Honestly, the neurotypical (NT) vs. neurodivergent (ND) binary itself is limiting, dangerous and fits right into “us vs. them” culture where we’re socialized to think of ourselves as “right” and “others” who may not align with us as “wrong” plus it is bioessentialist. I fell into this trap too.
It often leads to people using their neurodivergent identity to feed a superiority complex with reductive “born this way” thinking where complexities of our existence & suffering under systemic oppression across generations are reduced to “oh it is just how my brain is wired”. This ignores all social determinants of health and opposes scientific consensus around epigenetics- the fact that our environment shapes our health outcomes, genes & physiology.
Neurotypicals are framed as automatons who are “biologically wired” to conform and assimilate under capitalist social norms- this is dehumanizing. Often we refer to people who uphold oppressive systems & leverage their power to make people “fall in line” as NTs who are “wired” to behave this way which ignores how intergenerational trauma and cycles of violence work.
Except no one is biologically wired to thrive under capitalism and a lifetime of being socialized with oppressive norms harms everyone. Just because someone is able to conform, doesn’t mean they enjoy it or are “built” for it. Oppression harms everyone to varying levels.
What is “normal” is a standard set by the elite capitalist class while workers have no option but to conform to some extent to secure our survival. Get bread or get dead. Being “normal” isn’t really a choice in a society where you have no free will, time or agency- you have to work to earn the right to live. You have to “follow rules” to live and these rules hurt everyone and no one is “neurologically typical”. NT means nothing when “normal” is a social construct and there is no biological “normal” or “default”.
Conformity isn’t a choice. Some are able to conform better than others because they have more privilege or some HAVE to conform as much as possible because their severe marginalization leaves them no choice. Those who don’t conform are dehumanized, pathologized, criminalized, & exiled. Disability is defined by society because systems disable us by being oppressively inaccessible & produce trauma responses that incapacitate us.
3. Who gets to be “neurodivergent”?
Here are some situations in which a person might not identify as neurodivergent and should be able to use any terms to describe their experiences & struggles anyway:
Many people who are poor, lack traditional access to resources, living in the Global South from Black & Brown communities or who don’t use English as their primary language might not find the need to use ND labels or even be aware of mainstream ND movement that is dominated by “western” colonial cultures and people with far more privilege (hence the obsession with jargon and labels which can be inherently elitist).
People who do not want to reduce their suffering to a psychiatric diagnosis and are prefer to exist beyond any bioessentialist label. The mainstream ND culture has embraced self-diagnosis as acceptable and valid- which means there is no need to turn to psychiatry for validation. So why does anyone have the right to police the usage of mental health terms?
Prior to being aware of the neurodiversity movement, I myself described said I was “ a little ADHD”, “a little bipolar”, “depressed, anxious, crazy”, etc and I may have a diagnosis out of desperation for some and I have never been diagnosed with other conditions and don’t intend to pursue a diagnosis.
Many divergent traits are overlaps between conditions because they emerge in response to an environmental stressor and systemic trauma or baseline traits have more negative manifestations in oppressive social contexts. For example:
Emotional dysregulation, negative thought loops and obsessive compulsions are traits that are associated with OCD, C-PTSD, ADHD, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, etc because at baseline they are a trauma response to a brutal society where our survival, safety, and security are never guaranteed (under capitalism) which leads to a “death sentence” hanging over our head. Our brain responds to this by seeking some control, stability and reassurance which leads to intrusive thoughts, compulsions to engage in repetitive behaviors which provide a “security blanket” of sorts, generalized emotional distress, nervous system arousal which causes long-term chronic health issues like pain/ autoimmune diseases/ gastrointestinal issues, and this a cycle of hell.
The obsession with jargon and labels is a dominant part of “western” colonial culture. Many communities in the Global South do not subscribe to colonial definitions of “normal/ abnormal” & innately divest from binaries of “healthy/ sick”. There are cultures that consider many complexities of the human experience like spirituality and other traditions that transcend what we can quantify and understand using “western” science.
People who are severely oppressed and deprived of resources- so much so that they have no choice but to assimilate and conform under capitalism to secure their survival. On the surface- they may be categorized as “NT”.
People with childhood trauma who grew up in abusive households where their worth was reduced to their ability to secure capitalist trophies like well-paying jobs, accolades & awards, a cis-heteronormative relationship, & other arbitrary metrics of success. They grow up thinking that they will not receive love, care, validation and affection unless they “excel” at conforming. It takes years of unlearning, addressing your trauma and receiving community support to grow out of this “climb the ladder” mentality. You don’t know which growth phase of someones life you’re catching them.
4. But I thought I was special?!
While the intention behind bioessentialist narratives like “my brain is broken” or “I was born different” may be to reduce individual blame so it may normalize seeking help- but it opposes all origins of the neurodiversity movement & doesn’t enable collective liberation or real solutions. It causes more harm.
It is part of an age old tactic to reduce complex social issues to binaries like harm reduced to innate biological evil (i.e. the flawed idea that some people are “born evil”) which if true, means people can’t change, grow or evolve. In the “good/evil” binary, NTs are supposedly born wired for oppression while NDs are “biologically different” which exceptionalizes a group and sure, it can be validating to finally feel like you belong under an umbrella. It can feel good to have language to encapsulate your outlier traits that have been stigmatized, punished or demonized in society so that you don’t “fit in”.
Neoliberalism & capitalism center the individual, tell us that our worth in society depends on us being “exceptional” or “unique” and shape our identity with social constructs like a mental health diagnoses- so much so that a colloquial use of these terms can be subjectively deemed by anyone as a personal offense because deep down we feel that it risks the uniqueness or individuality of how “special” we are- even in the pain we experience.
So what does “neurotypical” really mean if there is no biological “normal” or “default”?
It is a set of capitalist colonial standards and social norms enforced by the state using coercion or punishment- and at baseline we are all forced to conform to these standards. These standards disable some of us more than others but are not good for anyone and actively brutalize everyone’s bodies and minds. Our logical human responses and suffering under these systems is pathologized as “illnesses”.
It is liberating to kow that our suffering is shared.
Because it means we are not alone and it a lead to real solutions because the efforts have to be collective. It is freeing to know that other people share a piece of my experience. So yes “everyone is a little bit ADHD/ autistic/ OCD/ neurodivergent” is true- people could say it with malicious intent but we’re talking about the political statement underneath it. All neurodivergent traits occur in various social contexts, overlap between multiple conditions and exist on a spectrum. Other people sharing your discontent with oppressive capitalist standards is a good thing!
No one is “neurotypical” in that no one is biologically built to enjoy oppression. We, as a species, are incredibly diverse and this is a foundation for solidarity building.
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