At present, there is a conceptualization that there are a minority of people who are neurodivergent (ND), in contrast to a majority who are neurotypical (NT).
NT people exhibit normal behaviours, ND people do not.
This is a binary view - either you are NT, or you are ND. Within ND there appear to be many flavours (you can be “on a spectrum”, especially if your ND fits within what is known as Autism or Autistic Spectrum Disorder).
But… what if this wasn’t true? My hypothesis is that there is no one who is neurotypical - there is no person who has the complete set of behaviours that are called neurotypical. It is a fictional construct. However, there are quite a number of people who can conceal their identities and mask, so that they present as NT. Why would they do so? Because it’s beneficial to do so - in a world where people identified as ND are discriminated against, it is comforting to pretend that one is not. Sometimes the people who pretend the hardest are the ones who are most harsh in their contempt towards ND people.
Depending on how far our neuro-identity (to be precise, our current neuroidentity, because it evolves) is from the construct of neurotypicality, we may or may not be able to mask. This depends also on how supported we our by our relationships (if not, we are more easily overwhelmed, especially when we are fatigued).
In my view, “everyone is a little autistic” is not untrue - but I still would not use this term, because usually this is used to deny the lived hardship of those who are very far away from the fictional NT construct. All of us suffer from the expectation to conform to a fictional construct - but some of us suffer a lot more than others.
As for the actual labels used (e.g. ASD, ADHD, OCD), it is extremely troubling how they are “Disorders” - the terminology reinforces the idea that people who present this way are inferior or broken in some way (part of the pressure to mask to be NT). Even the process of identifying them is called “diagnosis” - which is about recognising a disease or disorder.
How can we reframe this?
- I am not “diagnosed” (nor self-diagnosed). I am simply exploring my neuroidentity - which is an ongoing process. We should also remember that formal diagnosis (*) will always be expensive, and will thus only be available for a (usually privileged) minority.
- I don’t identify as “neurodivergent” - because that cedes authority to the NT fiction. Instead I say “my neuro-identity is…”. A parallel to this is that we can simply say we are left-handed without implying it is wrong / broken / sick in any way (although in the past, it was apathologized)
- I don’t use mainstream labels on myself; but where it does help as a shortcut I say things like “my neuroidentity is similar to what is typically pathologized as ADHD”
(*) Access to accommodations should not be gated behind formal diagnoses (as far as practical - we may need a disabled badge to access disabled parking spaces, because we have low-trust societies where we cannot trust that only truly disabled people will use disabled parking spots). As an example, we don’t expect some one with celiac disease to show a medical certificate to be served gluten free food. We just accept if someone says they want gluten-free food. Likewise we don’t need someone to prove they are muslim to not be served Pork.