sqbr:
I’m disappointed in a lot of the conversations about neuro-normativity in inter-personal interactions, mostly because of how absolutist they tend to be and how useless that is in most real life interactions.
A lot of conversations ignore that you can’t be sure you’re not talking to another non-neurotypical person but more to the point they also overlook the fact that ‘neurotypical’ people (which I sometimes think is more a society wide enforced ideal than an a human reality anyway) can be emotionally hurt, triggered, sensory-overloaded, extremely exhausted or emotionally fragile in some other way. Neurotypical people have meltdowns and panic and moments when they are so so fragile.
So when someone doesn’t respond well to your non-neurotypical behavior, maybe they’re a huge ableist asshole, or maybe their needs are incompatible with yours in that space, maybe your bouncing leg is pushing their sensory overload over the edge or your directness is something they are too emotionally vulnerable to deal with, or your uninterrupted talking is speeding up their panic attack, etc. Maybe their melt-down is as unavoidable as yours.
Like, maybe it’s just me, but a lot of my bad experiences seem to come from incompatible neuro-needs, like when my partner really needs to hear that one song to calm down and I really need to not hear it to calm down, when I really need clean uncluttered spaces to relax and a friend really needs company in their own home, which is a cluttered space. Our needs clash, and the language or neuro-normativity in the ‘you are ableist, I am not’ absolutes doesn’t cover our situations well. We can’t use the language of privilege vs. oppression to handle these moments. We need tools about neuro-diversity that work from a place of mutual understanding and assume that we are both vulnerable and we are both doing the best we can.
1) People can over-rely on the social model but this definitely feels like one of those situations where half the problem isn’t that ‘normal’ people don’t have access needs, it’s that those needs are considered normal and reasonable, while those of disabled/non-NT people are considered weird and unreasonable (the other half is that they’re usually much more pressing). So, like, “that music is giving me a headache” is a pretty universal experience, but the volume level you’re “allowed” to object to is dependent on ableist norms, and it’s disabled people for whom the consequences will be worst. But that doesn’t mean a NT person’s need isn’t real.
2) I can’t even approach this topic properly, but GOD the “dedicate yourself to 100% fulfilling disabled people’s needs or you’re trash” discourse is upsetting to me as the mentally ill(*) child of neuroatypical, mentally ill parents. And unlike some, my parents didn’t deliberately take advantage of the power dynamic, they were just too mired in their own personal hells to stop themselves from dragging me down with them. A model of how disabled people should be treated is worse than useless if it can’t take into account situations with multiple disabled people, competing access needs, disabled people with institutional power, disabled abusers, etc.
(*)The jury is currently still out on if I’m non-NT or just mentally ill. If I’m not, does that make me a Bad NT Person for not…urgh I can’t even finish this sentence.
QueerAnarchism 