According to Wikipedia, Neurodiversity is about the acceptance of relative equality, acceptance and respect of diverse forms of neurological difference. As an egalitarian, at first glance, Neurodiversity looks like a very cuddly utopian concept and a humane and decent alternative to the over medicalization if not general demonisation of disabilities and their subsequent marginalisation if not mistreatment.

Whilst some people with autism (who prefer to drop the people/person part and be called simply ‘Autistics’) have hoisted this almost as their own personal flag or raison d’etre, the concept of Neurodiversity has been applied further to groups including Dyslexia, ADHD, dyspraxia, bipolar but also developmental speech disorders (Oral Dyspraxia, Aphasia, Verbal Agnosia, Selective Mutism), Schizophrenia and Parkinson’s. Given that the neurodiversity movement rejects the medical model, preferring to see neurological differences as primarily genetic, I presume it is content to see Bipolar, Schizophrenia and Parkinson’s merely as processing differences too.

And how far do we take neurodiversity? As far as Catatonia? And if Bipolar is sexy enough to be part of neurodiversity then what of depression? And whilst we might find ways to celebrate some of the creativity that comes with some people’s bipolar can we really celebrate depression the same way even if it extinguishes creativity for many who have it?

Proponents of neurodiversity reject terms like ‘condition, illness, disease’. They contend that neurodiverse people do not require cure and that treatment, if at all accepted, is something that should be purely in the control of the person with the condition. By this definition someone with Schizophrenia who is at risk of freezing to death or being hit by traffic or walking on train tracks in the midst of psychotic episodes should, by these criteria, be given the right to refuse treatment. Someone with Parkinson’s should accept their genetic condition, embrace it and stop hoping for cure for it would, as a neurodiverse person, then change WHO they are.

Personality Disorders within a neurodiverse framework would also no longer automatically require treatment unless the person with them felt ready and interested in being ‘less of who they are’. Fine for those with OCPD enjoying their fixations or believing they have super powers, are Indigo Children, X men or a new (Master) race, but can we really extend this carte blanche acceptance of other personality disorders such as Psychopathy? And if it were your parent or sibling with psychopathy who enjoyed torturing your or your pets, sexually abusing you, endangering you or driving you toward suicide or mental illness could you feel you had simply failed to appreciate their neurodiversity? For that matter pedophiles claim to be ‘born that way’ and merely ‘different’ not broken. So within neurodiversity should they also be free to have the right to refuse treatment, restraint, imprisonment on the basis they are simply part of human diversity? And alcoholics inherit their condition, and many wish for no treatment or cure, others desperately do.

Whilst Einstein and Van Gogh may be held up as examples of neurodiversity, was it then merely ‘self expression’ that Van Gogh blew his head off in suicide? Should we have had a right to stop him? Should we have had a right to suggest he may have been more than misunderstood and sensitive, that he may have also been mentally ill and requiring intervention? What of the neurodiversity of those like Hitler or Stalin, or Martin Bryant for that matter? Should we respect their neurodiversity and choice to refuse incarceration or treatment for personality disorders?

Maybe neurodiversity can be respected but equally still accommodate the DIVERSITY of experiences of it? This might include that there are those who suffer from some parts of their neurodiversity and not other parts. That there might be those who are happy to have some forms of their neurodiversity treated or cured but other parts they might feel work fine for them even if they do or don’t work for those they live with or work with. Can neurodiversity accommodate those individuals with MULTIPLE forms of neurodiversity? Or is it only ready to handle a sort of one label per person style of neurodiversity. And if so, what if that one person has several issues going on? Are they culturally disloyal or at risk of exclusion if they say, er, excuse me, but I’m not sure all of who I am is actually all and only because of my label?

Given that those in the autism population who have come to define themselves as THE neurodiverse to the extent some have deems all non-autistic people as neurotypical, I thought to explore my own neurodiversity and see how it stacks up for me in the culture, treatment, cure, selfhood stakes. Can I truly be both neurodiverse AND have parts of my neurodiversity that I’m fine to have cured, treated, to culturally indulge or just accept? Here goes:

CURE:
My primary immune deficiencies have been with me all my life. There’s an extremely high cancer rate on my mother’s side of my family with people dying in their 50s from lymphoma and on my father’s side he and his sister both died in their 50s from cancer of the pancreas, liver and bowel. Colitis and Coeliac run on different sides. My immune deficiencies involved significant reduction in the ability to digest certain foods, to detox as efficiently as others and involved autoimmune complications causing systemic inflammatory states and multiple food and chemical allergies. I lived large chunks of my life on recurrent antibiotics with lots of respiratory tract infections and bowel problems all through childhood and still requiring constant management. Unable to fight Candida or bugs I developed issues with fatigue including brain fog, have problems with undigested foods and infections crossing the blood brain barrier which means I’ve had imbalanced brain chemistry triggering mood, anxiety, compulsive disorders and also a neurotoxin response of producing Quinolinic Acid in my brain which destroys brain cells. I had 5 times the high level of an inflammatory cytokine called IL5 which can mean impaired cell death, cell repair and cell multiplication processes – yes, that means higher cancer risks. These issues effected my info processing, development etc… they make me more neurodiverse than I’d otherwise been. In the absence of cure I have a diet my body can make sense of: GF/CF, low salicylate, low sugar, take supplements to make up for my gut, immune, metabolic challenges, and take maintenance antibiotics to fight the otherwise potentially lethal simple bacteria my body is missing the ability to presently fight off. I have no doubt that if I had a cure for my immune dysfunction that I would still be DONNA with or without the differences they caused me or the lessons they taught me.

TREATMENT:
I’m happy to have had EARLIER treatment for the visual, verbal, body agnosias I was probably born with so my life was not so hard living with significant meaning deafness, meaning blindness and inability to process body messages.

CULTURE:
I’m happy to enjoy my sensory fascinations, enjoyment of nature, affinity with animals, abilities in arts. If I share these in common with other human beings, no matter what their neurology or label, then so be it. If that is a cultural experience for me, then I am able to embrace that though I’m solitary enough not to overly require it.

SELF:
I’m happy to have my personality traits which sometimes comes across more autistically than that of others might. I don’t need cures for my personality traits even if they made me solitary, idiosyncratic, vigilant, exuberant and hard to easily fit into the mainstream structures which provide most social and occupational opportunities in this world.

COULD ANYONE CURE MY AUTISM?
I don’t feel anyone can cure my autism because autism is a social construct and is the umbrella term for a range of things, some of which I’d be happy to see cured, some of which need treatment and adaptations, some of which are just fine as they are… so losing the over investment in the word autism would help us distinguish which parts of an ‘autism fruit salad’ we’re actually talking about. Once we know what’s under these umbrella terms, these adjectives, we can EACH advocate which parts we identify with and which we feel merely stuck with, which reduce or enhance our quality of life, which are integral to our individuality and which are just sexy transient cultural identifications in a particular fad in our recent online decade or two.

What is clear is that those with disabilities have a right to be treated with equality, respect, inclusion and those who are just different but not disabled have a right to expect the same. But perhaps best to have an exclusion clause: ‘provided their differences do no harm’.

NOTE: Whilst autism can run in families, identical twin studies to date have failed to show autism is a purely genetic condition and no definitive gene/s for autism have, to date, been found.

Donna Williams, BA Hons, Dip Ed.
Author, artist, singer-songwriter, screenwriter.
Autism consultant and public speaker.

http://www.myspace.com/nobodynowherethefilm
http://www.donnawilliams.net
http://www.aspinauts.com